Ok so i know i only did a pretty long blog yesterday but today has been pretty eventful so thought i would keep you all entertained before I forget the gory details!

It was a day of optional activities and I chose to go on a trekking activity with Moises, Petr and Helga. We set off at 8:45 in a clapped out old landrover that has done over 280,000km! ouch. As i was feeling particularly adventerous this morning i sat in the back where the seats face each other and you travel sideways if you get what I mean. The first place we headed for was the BOH tea plantation, one of the 3 in the cameron highlands. Again the roads were crazy and as seatbelts are unheard of around here I did see my life flash before my eyes when we were overtaking trucks on blind bends again. Having reached the plantation safely however it was well worth it as the view was stunning. Huge rolling hills just covered in the bush type plant as far as the eye could see. Some of the hills were very steep and we saw some of the workers using the machinery to harvest the tea. It looked like very difficult work as they walk on each side of the hedge holding this machine over the bush so that it can chop the small top leaves off. Most of the workers are from Nepal, India and the Phillipines and work on a 3 year contract. They live in long huts in a small valley and are grouped together by race, therefore creating a small community. There is a health centre, a school and a football pitch although one of the goals is hand made from sticks and is about half the size of the other one! No wonder the tea team beat the cabbage and strawberry teams every year! We also got shown around the factory and I had tea and scones! How British i hear you say! Well, yes, the whole plantation is actually owned by a british woman who is the 3rd generation of the family to own it. The colonial side of Malaysia is still pretty obvious; tea and scones are local favourites and the owners house is built right up on a hill so that it overlooks all the workers! In response to your FB comment bro i did try some tea but even tasting the best tea the cameron highlands has to offer i still dont get it! Its just hot water with milk... There was also a local school there at the same time and they all wanted their photograph with me and moises! I felt like a celebrity! They all spoke half decent English and we managed to work out that they ALL supported Manchester Utd. All i had to say was Rooney and they all got very excited! I wish I had bought some SFC stuff, may be able to start a new Cameron Highlands SFC supporters club!

After the tea we drove for 40km bouncing around in the land rover towards Penang (the same direction we are heading tomorrow) It was soooo much hotter down there, about 36 degrees whereas at 1500m (thats 5000ft above sea level) as I am now it is a comfortable 22. When we reached the place we would be trekking the guide got out and spoke to this young man, about 23 yrs old and he jumped into the back of the landrover with us. We didnt really know who he was at this point or what was happening and the first thing we noticed was the massive machette attached to his waist! Kinda freaky at them time but he was our local guide who would be taking us on the trek. As i said earlier the land rover was pretty clapped out and i thought we had been bouncing around on the road but we then starting going off road into the tropical rainforest as the trek started about 3km in. Massive gouges in the mud showed us where landrovers had been before and well it was absolutely crazy. At some points we were going up hill and about a 60 degree angle and then lunging down with one side of the land rover about 2m above the other! And all of this in the back without seatbelts! Great fun though...

After this we all jumped out and started walking. It is a proper tropical rainforest here in Thailand and so wild boar, tigers, monkeys, wild cats, tarantulas and lots of snakes are not uncommon so we were all on the look out! The sounds and smells were amazing as we delved deeper and the foliage started to get thicker and thicker. It was only about a 45 minute walk but with the heat it was really hard going. The end of the trail meant we had reached the world largest flower which at the moment is only about 60cm across but in 2 weeks or so it will have reached ver 1 meter in diameter! These can only be found in SE Asia so are pretty special. There is also a nice waterfall there and some people went swimming but I didnt really fancy it. Nearly fell in, camera and all, never the less! A spot of lunch and drinks break later and we started heading back. Our local guide cut us some bamboo shoots and we had a taste of the milky water inside which is actually quite good, not sure how hygenic it is though so didnt have the whole shoot! Again we were thrown around like rag dolls on the way back down and parked up at the end of the trail to visit an aboriginie (?) village.

There are 5 different tribes in Malaysia and this particular one used to live deep in the jungle until 3 years ago when a new road was built and so they moved closer to this so that they could sell items by the side of the road. The village itself is really basic, corrugated tin rooves cover one or sometimes two rooms where everything happens. There were lots of young kids running around and we gave them some chocolate so that we could take their photos and stuff. I've got some pretty good shots of the local people :) We also had a go at blow hunting (i think it was called) which is how they still catch their food in the jungle! The apparatus consists of a long hollow tube about 3m in length and a small dart. Its pretty simple, dart goes in tube, blow in one and and dart fires out of the other! They can apparently hit targets 40m away and often poison the end of their darts using snake bile, some of which is deadly to humans (the darts we were firing were poisioned!)

When we left the village we headed back up to the highlands so visit a strawberry farm which was kinda pointless but had some AMAZING belgian waffles with the freshest strawberry jam it is possible to have. After this we visited a butterfly and insect farm which would have been really good had we not been showed round by the freakiest (and probably high) bloke. He explained to us that some of the orchids that grow can also be smoked and proceeded to give us a demonstration! Its a long way from England over here I can tell you that! We saw some cool butterflys and held another snake, a king grasshopper and a rhino beetle but passed on the scorpion. Vicious little b*****!

I'm now back in the highlands, its yet to rain really hard as apparently it does EVERY SINGLE DAY ALL DAY in february (monsoon season) but we have had a few smaller showers. The other thing that made today so good was finding vanilla coke in the shops! I was so happy! The packets of crisps here are also cool because we are such an altitude that the bag is really big due to the air pressure!

Anyways as you can see its been an eventful day so i'm going to go find some dinner. Until next time, peace out xxx