After almost 6 weeks away from home, we decided to head to the nearest
thing to old blightey, a place high in the hills of Perak called
The Cameron Highlands.
For those of you that are jealous of our travels, you'll be pleased to
know that it's not all fun in the sun as the heat can get rather
annoying at times (we know, poor us), therefore the cooler temperatures of the Camerons came as a welcome relief. Within a hour of our
arrival, after plonking our bags in our wonderfully different hostel, we
walked into the nearby town of Tanah Rata to indulge in our first cuppa Boh tea, accompanied by a scone, cream and jam, it was yyyuuummmmyyyy.
Father's Guesthouse is where we stayed, in nissen huts that were built
and used during the british occupiation during WWII, although it doesn't
sound it, it was a lovely place to stay, and for only two pound pp per
night! We also got the chance to meet a few people that were making the
same journey around Malaysia as we were planning to, more about them
later...
After one too many cups of tea (Dan could have still drank more) we
decided to go on a organised daytrip, to the Boh tea plantation,
strawberry farm, rose centre, butterfly farm, bee farm, and the buddist temple. It was a very nice day out, and also quite informative.
Cameron is famed for its walking treks through the jungle, around the mountain etc and offers a dozen or so from Tanah Rata, so we put on our trainers (Converse/Tigers, not nike kids here) and decided to see how unfit we'd become (Dan is sure she was never fit from the start, fit looking that is!!), after taking almost an hour to find the start
of the easiest trek (they've decided to build a new hosipital since our
lonely planet was written). It started off easy but managed to get a
bit precarious, but we both managed to get to the end with our lives and
trainers intact, although our camera and James' neck took a bit of a
bashing. After catching our breath, we hitch-hiked back to 'base camp' with a local chap listening to some good old sounds of the fiftys, classics (James knew most of the tracks!)
I also found out about a local golf course, so decided it was a must see for Malaysia! and even persuaded Dan to tag along. The course itself was in very good condition, my golf wasn't. We joined a local pair who played 3 times a week, both handicap of 14, enough said. Was a good experience and has given me the idea of maybe trying golf in each of the countries we visit....
After 4 days and lovely cool nights we decided to pack up and head to
the Perhentian Islands, via the jungle train.....
