nearly up to date now!!!

After Pangkor we headed in land to the Cameron highlands. After a 5 hour coach journey we arrived at Daniels lodge. As they didnt have any rooms left we opted for the dorm. The dorm was situated in the loft of the hostel and was the funniest loft conversion we had ever seen! The floor was just standard floor boards with off cuts of carpet and the ceiling was simply tarpauling! The only thing seperating us from the elements and the outside was this blue plastic sheeting! Now the cameron highlands is the highest point in Malaysia as it is way up in the mountains so it was freezing!!! Well if that was the temp at home we would be planning a beach day as it was in fact between 16 and 20 degrees, but due to the fact we had experienced weather that was never cooler than 35, this was bloody cold!! That first night we hardly slept at all. We had a cold breeze on us the whole time and even wearing trousers tucked into reeces thick socks, tops, jackets and then hoodies did not keep us warm! (sorry i know it really is blooody cold at home right now so were not going to get any sympathy are we?!).

The next morning a room became available so we packed up our stuff and made our selves at home in our new room. It was tiny with the same ceiling but this time with mdf walls covered in visit malaysia posters and just a simple matress on the floor but we loved it! It was kind of like being in a slightly more luxury tent! Since Pangkor the illness problem got worse. Not only did kays chest get quite bad but reece got an awful cold so we both felt in the dumps. The cameron highlands and daniels lodge was the most perfect place we could have been in to recover! They had a tv room with comfy sofas and a collection of well over 1000 dvds new and old. We therefore spent the majority of our time in the Cameron Highlands in front of the tv with our blankets. Next to the hostel they also had their own bar with a huge fire pit in the garden. It was really nice and kept us toasty warm while we chatted to the other people staying in the dorm. we met a couple from denmark who we chatted to most night and after asking us everynight what we had got up to during the day they quickly knew us as the 'lazy english couple'! (we were ill!!!) We also met a really nice english couple called Charlotte and Dave who told us about a good place in Kuala Lumpur to stay as they knew we were going there next. They also said that they would be there for christmas so they mentioned that we should meet up. So anyway this was the usual routine during our time in the cameron highlands, watching dvds and sitting by the open fire at night chatting. By the fifth day however we started to feel a little better and so booked one of the hostel's tours around the town.

The first stop on the tour was the tea plantation. The Cameron highlands is famous for two things tea and strawberrys. most of the town is made up of these huge plantations which are really impressive as they stretch for miles! Us being English though, looking at tea did not keep our concentration for too long! We then headed to the tea factory which happened to be closed so the next stop was the rose gardens. Now as girls like flowers you would think that this would be a good excursion for at least one of us, but we must say we felt like we were 8 again being dragged around the garden centre by our parents!!!! We did however find a number of things in the garden to entertain ourselves....Kiddies rides (the ones where you put in a penny) and a kiddies slide which was actually quite long and fast! What can we say other than yes we will never grow up! Next on the route was the bee factory. we were both looking forward to this as neither of us had ever been to one before however we saw about three bees! The most bees we saw were big plastic models that resembled a bee, but we did find the bee keepers hats so this provided the entertainment there! Next was the strawberry farm which had no strawberrys they had all been recently picked so it was kind of like looking at a weed infested garden! The only thing to see was the shops selling all types of strawberry goods, kay being a strawberry fan opted for the strawberry tart and Reece being an awkward sod asked for the strawberry and chocolate ice cream with no strawberrys or strawberry sauce!! it was lovely. The last stop before heading back was the butterfly farm. Now kay wasnt looking forward to this too much due to the stupid fear of flying things but due to a recent liking of taking pictures of butterflies was feeling a little more brave. So we arrived at the farm and it turned out to be a butterfly and insect farm. There was just about every little creature you could think of.....Rhino beetles, snakes, turantulas, scorpians, insects that look like leaves....seriously everything!!! Whilst looking at the scorpians one of the handelers came over and asked if we would like to touch or hold them. the boys looked slightly interested so agreed to maybe hold one. With this the man picked up two and simply chucked them onto the chest of casper a danish guy we were with!!!! He didnt take them off either when he was shouting arrgh they are going towards my neck!!! So yep we opted out of holding them!!!!Then looking at the snakes was abit eventful! just as we had turned up a rat had been thrown in the cage with a load of pythons and other snakes! The poor thing was running round really dosile with a snake on its tail the whole time ready to pounce! Kay waited with the camera and all reece could say was "your sick you are, why do you want to watch that!". we didnt wait to find out what happened but i think we can all work that one out for ourselves! After gawping at insects for ages we headed to the butterfly enclosure!!!!!!!! The butterflies were beautiful. Some of the were huge with a wing span the size of your hand! Kay of course clung on to reeces top the majority of the time and only stoped to take pictures when the air was free of any flyers! Reece thinking he was funny wanted to get apicture with kay standing with her hand hovering below one of the larger butterflies (trying to get a brave looking pic for mum!) The only thing is he was filming the whole time with kay making a complete fuss squirming telling him to hurry up! It is a funny video though! The best thing in the butterfly inclosure was when casper was taking a photo and a butterfly came and landed on his shoulder. It stayed there for ages closed and was camoflauged as a leaf, it really did just look like a leaf... until it opened its wings and it was stunning (the pic)! It refused to move for ages and stayed there the whole time we looked round.

Even though we didnt actually get to see that much on the trip it was great fun and we spent the whole day giggling like school kids, so in all it was well worth the time and money!!

That night we went to check out the local food night market. It was so great, we walked up and down for hours trying all sorts of local food from lovely curry omlette things to peanut and sweetcorn flavoured pancake crispy things! It was so good that we went the next day and took our danish friends along to try. It was really nice and entertained us for the majority of the evening!

Other than the trip, the fire and the slobbing we didnt really do too much in the cameron highlands. It was good for recovery time, hot showers, the best mushroom soup in the world and meeting nice people so although not too eventful it was a place that we once again really enjoyed.

xxxxx