It was sad to say goodbye to my bestest bud, but unfortunately this was where we had to go our separate ways. Lizzie was off to Bali for her final two weeks, before returning back to the UK, whilst Chris, Beth, and I were catching a six hour minivan journey to the Cameron Highlands. We managed to fit in a quick curry from a street food stall bustling with locals, purchased a few essential snacks and water from a shop, and climbed into the minivan. The first couple of hours passed by with the delightful (not) singing from the driver. Just after midday we stopped for some lunch, an Indian buffet, whereby we all chose the same, chicken and vegetable curry. Not before long, we were hurried onto a different minivan, along with two other couples. One couple, an American Filipino guy and his French Canadian girlfriend, were very easy to chat to. In fact, between us all, we chatted for the remainder of the journey, making the time fly by. Before we knew it we had arrived in Tanah Rata, the biggest town situated in the Cameron Highlands.
The Cameron Highlands is one of Malaysia's most extensive hill stations. The size of Singapore, it occupies an area of 712 square kilometres (275 sq miles). It is a popular tourist destination due to the vast array of tea plantations, but also for its trekking through mossy forests, farmland, and variety of strawberry, bee, and butterfly farms.
The minivan driver dropped us outside 'Eight Mentigi guesthouse’, where we were approached by a very friendly and welcoming Malay man. We decided to see the rooms he had to offer, seeing a very nice family room, with two double beds, sharing a bathroom with just one other room. The social areas looked very inviting, and everything was clean and airy. We liked the look of it, but couldn’t help checking out ‘Fathers guesthouse’ just down the road, and recommended by Lizzie. We always tend to appreciate our decision more if we have looked at other accommodation. The room at Fathers guesthouse was also very nice, but Beth would be sleeping on a mattress on the floor, versus her own double bed at Eight Mentigi – it was a no brainer!
We checked in, and had some much needed ‘unsociable’ time as we call it, i.e. social media, emails and internet catching up. Then it was off out for a look around the town and to a recommended Indian restaurant for dinner.
The town was not as I imagined. Having been to several mountain villages and towns over the past six months, I expected something a little quieter, not so built up, and was especially shocked and disappointed to see a Starbucks and KFC!
We soon found the recommended Indian restaurants, and opted for the first and busiest one. Despite this being our third Indian of the day, we were all eager to order and tuck in (with our hands of course!). Chris ordered the banana leaf meal, whereby small portions of several curries and dips are placed on a banana leaf, served with a huge portion of rice, and a chicken curry alongside. The idea is to use your right hand to mix everything together, scoop up the dish with your fingers, and shove it in your mouth! It is fun getting your hands dirty, and it makes you eat more slowly. Beth and I were swayed by a chicken and cashew nut curry, which Beth had with rice, and I ate with a naan. The very friendly waiter seemed to take a liking to us, and loved that we were digging straight in with our hands. He even gave us some free samosa type thing to go with our meals. We were also obliged to try the tea, so I chose a strawberry green tea, Beth went for chai tea, and Chris for the iced lemon tea. All very nice and helped wash down our food.
We couldn’t help but stop by a minimart on our way back for a cheeky chocolate bar, before taking a shower and hitting the sack.

We decided not to set an alarm, but as usual we awoke reasonably early. We walked into town to find something for breakfast. For myself and Chris it was a roti with curry sauce, and for Beth, some noodles and hard-boiled egg. The temperature was much cooler in the Cameron Highlands, we even had to wear our hoodies. But as the sun began to peep through the clouds it felt somewhat like a British summer’s day.
We all needed to do some laundry, and with the facilities to do some hand washing out the back of our guesthouse, we took advantage of free washing detergent and a place to hang our clothes dry. We were probably out there for at least an hour, knelt over buckets of water, trying to scrub our clothes clean. It was a mission to try to remove all the detergent from our clothes, to the point that most of our clothes were left hanging out to dry with detergent still in.
Chores finished and having looked at options for tours vs hiring motorbikes, or taking a taxi, we chose the latter to take us as far as he could up to the tea plantations. Mainly as this was our cheapest option, but also it allowed us to have our own time to enjoy the scenery and explore, without the pressure of being on a time restraint with a tour group. Our taxi driver spoke excellent English and was very informative. He told us how much the Cameron Highlands has changed over the last 20 years, slowly seeing more and more jungle being bulldozed down and large concrete buildings appearing. He also mentioned the climate, saying how he had noticed a big change from when he was growing up, always having to wear warm clothes, to now it being a fairly consistent tropical climate.
He dropped us off at a junction, one way leading to the tea plantation view point, and the other up to the ‘Mossy forest’. We decided to take the hour trek uphill to the forest first. The track led us through rolling hills coated by luscious green tea plantations. Although we had seen our first tea plantations on our motorbike trip around northern Thailand a few weeks ago, these were on another level. The scale, the intense green colour, the formation of the landscape was just breath-taking. As we climbed higher, the view became even more unbelievable.
After a good half an hours climb, the temperature was slowly becoming cooler, the air thinner, and the clouds were creeping in. Just at the right time, needing a pit stop, we stumbled upon a strawberry farm. Welcomed in by some very cute goats, we approached the strawberry farm with our mouths watering at the idea of biting into some freshly picked juicy strawberries. However, it seemed the only option for freshly picked strawberries was to pick your own, and we couldn’t be bothered to faff around with that. Strawberry picking isn’t such a novelty since it was a regular activity when we were younger. So, after being enticed by a worker to take some creepy strawberry pictures, we moved swiftly on.
It was another half an hour to fourty-five minutes of up hill walking, before we really were in the clouds and reached the Mossy forest. Not quite prepared for the temperature drop, we were all covered in goose bumps, despite our hearts racing from the uphill climb. The Mossy forest had a wooden walkway to help lead us through, which we followed around, having to clamber under and over a few felled trees.
Not anticipating the extent and length of this walk, our tummies were rumbling away, so it was time to head back down. Unfortunately, luck was not on our side today and down came the rain. It started off just spitting, but it didn’t take long before it was pounding down. We tried to take cover under the trees, but it was pointless, we had to accept that we were going to get very wet! Even with a fast pace on, we had a fair distance before we even reached the strawberry farm again. Optimistic the rain would pass, it was an excuse to take cover and tuck into a strawberry shake and strawberry sundae – which were both demolished, despite us all being cold and soaked from head to toe. A hot chocolate would have been more appropriate, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
We waited, hopeful, but not blind sighted by the fact that there was absolutely no blue sky to be seen. So our only choice was to get on with it!
We squelched, moaned, and laughed our way back down to the junction. At this point, if we had not been drenched and to the point we could literally wring our clothes, we would have taken the other path up to the tea plantation viewpoints. However, with lack of visibility and wanting to find some form of transport to take us back to the main town to change out of our sopping wet clothes, we kept on going. The road had turned into a river, the laughing had stopped, and we marched on with purpose.
Finally, we approached the main road, and looking like drowned rats we asked at the Butterfly farm for some help with getting back. He took one look at us and said straight away that a taxi will not take us, so our only option was the bus. We waited for at least twenty minutes, before the cold and uncomfortableness of wet clothes became too much, and we decided to try to hitchhike with a pickup truck. To our luck however, just at the right moment, a taxi pulled over, and after some discussion about price, he sensibly decided he would take us back to the town since he was going that way anyway, for a very good rate of 10 ringgit (£1.70). He was another friendly Malay taxi driver, speaking very good English, and keen to tell us about his life growing up around the area. His mum was a maid for an English family, and his dad used to work at the golf course, so he spent some time playing golf when he was younger.
Plodding back to the guesthouse, we were grateful for a shower and change of warm dry clothes. Of course, what had also been on our minds whilst the rain was pouring down, was all the washing we did early on and left to hang out to dry. Reluctantly we went to collect it, and thankfully someone had kindly brought it in, so it wasn’t too wet. But now we had to find somewhere to dry our clean and dirty wet clothes, as we were moving on tomorrow morning. Luckily there was a laundrette in the town, so we placed our clothes in the tumble dryer, and pretty much power walked to the Indian restaurant from last night. It was now gone 6pm and having been walking all day with no food, we were definitely ready to tuck into some delicious, warm, tasty Indian food.
Beth and I both chose the banana leaf meal with chicken curry, and Chris went for the tandoori naan meal. The friendly waiter recognised us again and bought us over some more samosas. Still cold, we also ordered a glass of hot milo for myself and Beth, and a ginger tea for Chris. The conversation came to an end as we all dived straight in as soon as our food arrived. Not surprisingly it was heavenly and went down particularly well.
Still feeling cold and set on the idea of a hot milo, some chocolate, and a snuggly night back on the sofas at the guesthouse, we made this reality.

Throwing our sodden wet trainers and underwear into a big plastic bag, we made our way to the bus stop to embark on a four hour bus journey to Kuala Lumpur…