(30 November)

Today we did a tour of a lot of the attractions of the highlands which was really good!

We started at 8.45 and were driven for about an hour on our way to trek to see the "world's biggest flower" - the rafflesia I think it was called. We thought it would take about an hour, but it was 2 hours there an another 2 back! The jungle was pretty cool, but it was a hard enough walk, especially when I'm so unfit! We saw some massive spiders and got completely covered in mud haha, but I managed to get through it without falling! Haha. I was glad I had proper hiking shoes, poor Scott was in plimsoles and sliding all over the show! The flower itself was a bit of an anticlimax...I imagined a huge thing haha and it was fairly small...and then when the guide was telling us about it he said it was actually a mushroom not a flower...false advertising much? Haha. After that we went to an aboriginal village and they did a demonstration of their blowpipes that they use to hunt, which was pretty cool. They had a monkey in a cage though that they were going to eat for dinner, which freaked me out a little bit...especially when one girl said she had heard that somewhere they cut open monkey's heads while they are still alive and eat their brains!! Gross.

By this stage we were starving and had a fairly disappointing lunch at an Indian, then headed to see a tea plantation. It was pretty cool, we saw all the plants and the production line and they had a tea museum, and a cafe - I didn't bother trying the tea lol, but had an amazing slice of lemon cake! We met a few other people on their own which was cool: a slightly weird German guy, a Dutch girl and an English guy.

Next we went to a "butterfly farm". It had loads of animals you could hold like scorpions and huge beetles etc...gross lol. But they were cool when they weren't out of the cages. Didn't get the impression they were treated very well though. The butterfly bit just freaked me out a bit, there was dead ones everywhere and the live ones were very obviously trying to make a break for it! Overall I didn't get a great impression from the place!

Finally we went to a strawberry farm, which I reckon is amazing to Malaysians but for us who have seen strawberry plants before it was a little underwhelming haha. Had some strawberries though which were really good! And finally bought some cheap sunglasses after mine broke in Phi Phi!

We got back around 6 and there were no buses going to KL the next day from the hostel so we went to find somewhere to book a bus! The English guy Stuart from the tour came with us. Afterwards we went back to shower etc and then went with the German guy and Dutch girl for dinner, to the Indian beside the one from the night before (so many Indians!!). I tried keema naan which was amazing! So good.

We had a few beers in the hostel bar after dinner and played pool for a bit...it amazes me how rubbish I am at it these days! Good wee night overall!