Cameron Highlands

After three hours of sleep, I was up, my stomach churning, but ready for a five hour minibus. Unfortunately I chose the wrong seat and though the little Asian women next to me had plenty of space to stretch their little legs, I dared not ask to switch... even though my knees were firmly pressed under my chin, as the seat in front was broken, permanently in the reclined position.

Luckily I just missed the rain. The weather had been a major issue in deciding whether to come here and on to Taman Negara, but I had decided that the Eastern Monsoon wasn't going to stop me doing anything I wanted to do. I checked into a hostel where the only bed available was in a dorm in the attic of this chalet, though very clean and well kept, it was unfortunately at the top of the stairs and so quite noisy. I attempted to sleep for an hour before my tour, the rain somewhat soothingly hammering down inches from my face on the roof...unfortunately, the voices of the other guests weren't so soothing.

My afternoon blitzed through everything that a tourist would want to see in the Cameron Highlands (but nothing that the trekker might want to see). We started with the Boh Tea Plantations which were the highlight of the tour. The (tourist) factory sits in a valley surrounded by rolling hills of a labyrinth of bright green tea plants that don't grow taller than three feet and are separated only by a few inches. It's worth coming to the Cameron Highlands just for this view.

The rest of the tour involved a quick visit to a Butterfly Farm (most were dead, I imagine because it's the winter, so a bit of a morbid site), a strawberry plantation (actually just a shop with strawberry ice cream, waffles, etc...and a small plantation where you can pay an extortionate amount to pick your own), a Chinese temple and a rose garden (which we skipped).

If I could have stayed longer, I would have to do some of the long walking treks available in the area. Unfortunately, time was limited.

After all this, I was back in bed to rest up for the next day.