Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Yoo hooooo!

Time for another update from our travels! Quick one before I ramble on- one of my lovely friends Abby (who taught me many of my cooking skills but that's another story) is currently in hospital with complications with her pregnancy so please everyone pray she and bump get out soon and well! Thinking of you Abbs.

So at the moment we are in a quiet little mountain town called Tanah Rata in an area of Malaysia called the Cameron Highlands. Beautiful does not even come close! We arrived here Saturday evening on a bus from Penang. The bus took about 6 hours but really only took so long because of the extremely windy mountain roads! We drove for about 4 hours on the highway which was boring really but the last two hours through the mountains were just incredible! Just mountains and jungle as far as the eye can see- definitely comes in my top ten of spectacular views I have seen so far. We were pretty tired so headed out for food and got some shut eye. The next day we had a little mooch around the small town and booked our onward transport to Kuala Lumpur. The town is so very surreal. There are Indian, chinese, Japanese and pizza restaurants on the main street but as you turn to face away there are chalet type wooden houses and pine trees making you feel like you're in some European alpine resort! Very odd feeling - Asian alpine! But then this mix of cultures is Malaysia down to a tee. There was a guy at our hostel who said he walks the dogs daily and we could go if we liked. As most of the activities in Cameron highlands require you to have a guide and we hadn't booked anything yet we went along. He was a rather funny guy who was a chef in Adelaide although originally from Manchester - what an odd accent! He was very friendly though and took us with another couple and an Austrian girl on a good walk up through some foresty jungle area. As I said most of the activities and things to see here require a guide so when we got back we booked onto a couple of tours (tour hatred but had to be done).

So yesterdays tour was quite good actually. We went to see rafflesia which is the species of plant that produces the worlds largest flower. It supposedly smells of rotting meat but we couldn't smell anything. We walked just under two hours there and back and the walk through the jungle was nice. Similar to the walking we did around Chiang Mai. Our guide showed us how we can get water from the middle of bamboo so if we ever get stranded in the jungle we should be ok for water at least! They then showed us how to use blow darts. I didn't have a go as didn't want to take someones eye out! There are lots of tea plantations and strawberry farms in the Cameron Highlands as the climate is much cooler , quite similar to the UK. This also means that there are cafes that do cream teas! In Asia! I couldn't believe it. I was a little sceptical and expecting them to be rubbish. We went to a small cafe called 'Lords cafe' run by some Christians. We sort of didn't realise until we got inside and there was a lot of prayers on the walls. But the scones were incredible! Its a bold statement but I would go as far to say that it was even comparable to a Cornish cream tea! I also sampled their lemon cheesecake too . Thought that while I had access to good cake I would make the most of it!

Today's tour was not as good. Although for £5 you can't complain too much and better than walking up these millions of mountains. We went to a rose farm as well as a strawberry farm. Then we visited the Boh tea plantations. This was pretty cool especially as I am such a lover of tea. The plantations were so picturesque and today was quite misty making it even more mystical. They showed us how they grind and dry tea before it gets sent to KL to be packaged. The Boh tea estate has been owned by a Scottish family for the past couple of centuries and produces enough tea for 5.5 million cups per day. That's a lot of tea. We then went home via a temple and butterfly garden where unfortunately the butterflies looked rather sickly :(

Tomorrow we have to move to another hotel for our last night and they have scrabble so I'm rather excited to play that (home comforts). We will also go for a walk in the forest too I think, oh and we might be able to squeeze In another cream tea before we leave ;) Thursday we head to Kuala Lumpur. It is Ramadan at the moment and Thursday marks the end of Ramadan and therefore is the celebration of Eid. Malaysia is apparently very busy at this time with many travelling to see family and also the start of school holidays. We are hoping we can see some Eid celebrations in Kuala Lumpur. Also today I have been away eight whole weeks/ 57 days! Can't believe how quickly it is going. We have four weeks left, another week in Malaysia and then three weeks in Bali/Lombok/gili islands. Although having an amazing time still I am missing everyone lots so looking forward to seeing some friendly faces when I'm home and also being able to cook some yummy foods, I have started a list already!

Hope you are all well back home, and for those who aren't so well wishing you a speedy recovery and get well soon :-) lots and lots of love and waves from Malaysia! Xxx