The Cameron Highlands are a bit like the Malaysian version of the Peak District. After months in the heat, arriving in the Highlands, where it's much cooler was a welcome change. I even got to dig out my hoody and jeans from the bottom of my bag!
On our first night we didn't do much other than get dinner at the renowned 'Kumars', seriously every backpacker we've met who has been here told us to go there. You get an absolutely massive meal for under £2 and the guy working there is really friendly so its popularity is understandable. Although I feel a bit bad for the Indian next door with basically the same menu but no customers...
Our first full day saw us learn how to hitchhike. We'd been told that it was really common here as the public transport isn't great, so we stood at the side of the road with thumbs out, waiting for someone to stop. After only a couple of minutes we got a lift up to the next village and then walked to one of the main tea plantations. Tea plants cover every inch of ground here, and there are factories that you can visit dotted all around. The factory that we went to was a bit rubbish, it felt like we were intruding on a working factory, just peering through the glass panels. The cafe, as with most touristy places, was really overpriced but I still got tea and scones, just 'cause. There was a pretty spectacular view up there though. After our tea break we got a lift back to the main road and then walked over to a strawberry farm. The Cameron Highlands are very pround of the fact that they grow strawberries. Strawberry themed tack filled all the roadside stalls. So if you ever want a strawberry pillow, big blow up strawberry or strawberry shaped lamp, you know where to go! Strawberry picking there wasn't as fun as back home, it was in a really small place and there were a couple of men stood watching us making sure that we didn't eat any!
We hitched a ride down to one of the villages and intended on doing one of the jungle treks to take us back nearer to where we were staying. However, we got to the start and almost immediately had to choose between two paths, but neither was very clear and just seemed to lead into a dark jungle. It was 4pm and we didn't fancy getting lost in the jungle, in the dark so turned back and just got a lift back to our hostel. When the truck stopped to let us jump in, four other backpackers jumped in aswell, this wouldn't be a bad thing except that they turned out to be really rude and irritating. Back at the hostel we sat, playing cards with a group of british backpackers. We played Ring of Fire, the rules a mixture of british and dutch- a dutch couple had joined us- and ended up at a 24 hour restaurant at 3am to watch the Champions League final!
The next day we did a jungle trek. It was a 15 minute walk through the village to the start and there was a nice paved path for a while which took us past a nice waterfall. Then it got a lot more jungle-y. We were climbing over and crawling under trees, jumping on rocks to avoid stepping in little streams and carefully stepping on ledges so as to not slip down the vertical drop. We made it though and it was a lot of fun, we timed it just right as it started to rain 10 minutes after we got out of the jungle which was pretty lucky and hitched a ride back to the hostel. The rest of the time was spent chilling out watching films and napping before moving onto Kuala Lumpor this afternoon.