It took around 5 hours to reach the Cameron Highlands, including 50km of the van continuously weaving left then right the left then right every 20m through the hills. It knocked you pretty sick and one girl actually threw up because of it. I'm glad I wasn't hungover!
We checked into our little hotel, it's ok. Everywhere is shared bathrooms in Malaysia (unless you spend a lot of money) and it's getting pretty annoying waiting around for people and the doing the whole 'what to wear on the way into the shower' thing. I've found showering less helps;)
We went to get some lunch after we arrived and finally ended up having banana leaf curry. They whack a big banana leaf in front of you and then dollop on a mound of rice, around 4 different blobs of curries, your choice of meat and supply you with poppadoms and dips. You dig in, literally, using your hands. It got messy and Ben got pretty animalistic! You had claw hand afterwards as well whilst you were waiting to wash your hand and you had to wash it well as your hand was yellow and smelly! It was really good though.
After eating we wanted to do one of the walks and we set off on trail 8 to a waterfall. It was quite a big waterfall and the walk was nice. It was a jungle as well, with lots of vines and impressive trees about but the path was brick. Our hotel man had said there were monkeys that would be high up but we didn't see any. The path started getting more interesting and wasn't concrete anymore; we had to step across little streams, but the thunder came and all of a sudden it bucketed it down. We turned around and headed home and got a thorough soaking as it took us a good 25 minutes or so. It's given me a cold. When we got back it was definitely time for a hot shower, the hottest I've had since China I think! I had a lovely afternoon nap after that and we headed out for more curry. We watched United (11pm ko) with a very nice Malaysian man just in the lounge of our hotel. Leather sofas and a big flat screen tv with a couple of cans and some crisps. It was amazing.
Yesterday we had a lie in after being up so late, had some stir fry as a nice change from curry for lunch and looked for another walk to do. We took route 4 but ended up doing some of route 7 as well. The waterfall we were heading for wasn't as impressive as the previous days but the walk itself was probably nicer. We climbed up a big hill but when we got to the top there was just a clearing surrounded by tall trees and no view! What a waste! Still no monkeys either. Last night we went for another curry...definitely going to turn into a round ball soon although now that Ramadan has ended we should be able to get hold of some Malaysian food.
Today we went on a half day 'countryside' trip. We started at a rose garden. I know that doesn't sound very exciting. There were a lot of steps to walk up for a decent view and lots of different, pretty flowers. Our next stop was the largest tea plantation in the Cameron Highlands with a cafe overhanging the tea fields. We had strawberry tarts for breakfast (everything is strawberry obsessed here as a lot of them are grown). I had strawberry and raspberry tea and Ben had a leafy tea that you had to strain. We bought some of Ben's tea and a strainer from their shop, I don't think I've ever seen him happier. After tea heaven we went to a bee farm but resisted buying honey and had a look around a market. I had a fresh strawberry ice pop which was really nice. Next was a butterfly farm. I can't get over some of these giant butterflies we've seen in Asia, they're bigger than both my hands put together. They also had lots of big insects, we were fascinated watching scorpions hunt for crickets in their tank. There were snakes, chipmunks and the biggest beetles ever as well. Our penultimate stop was a strawberry farm. I had strawberry cheesecake for my lunch and Ben had another tart. I felt a bit sick afterwards-strawberry overload! Our last stop was a temple which was nothing special compared to the million temples we've seen. Except we touched a massive fishes head. A carp I think it was. They love fish so much in Asia, I've never seen anything like it. There's always crowds around ponds with fish in, it makes you think it's going to be a shark or something but it's always the same fish.
We had a long nap when we got in and finished our stay with another curry, obviously!
Tomorrow we head to Taman Negara, the oldest jungle in the world apparently. There is a little village to stay in where you can do different treks from there, or trek to animal hides a few hours away where you can sleep. They're usually high up above a clearing which have salt licks there so hopefully they attract animals like deer. I don't think we'll see any tigers or elephants! There's lots more to see and do though so I'm really excited. It's a 3 hour bus and then a 3 hour boat through the jungle to the village. If it's busy we might end up camping. I might be offline for a while depending on the remoteness!