Cameron Highlands

After a long, windy and steep bus ride I arrived at my next destination - The Cameron Highlands, famous for its tea plantations, Jungle and love of all things strawberry (pillows, baby grows, slippers) I was excited for a change of scenery and intrigued as to what my time spent there would entail.

Upon arriving it seemed we had left South East Asia and entered the tropical version of the lake district (without the lakes but with the hills .. if you catch my drift?) with rolling farmland, green mountains and much colder weather (still 20 degrees or so). Although there were only 3 hostels in the whole town they weren't fully booked and therefore easily moved into by me and Kim.After checking in we booked our trip for the following day - the whole point of us going to this area was to trek, I wanted to see some jungle and get a bit dirty and try out my new trek shoes.I went to sleep that first evening really excited and I had every right to be, the following day I woke early and got dressed into an outfit I believed was appropriate for the day ahead (I mainly went for khaki believing that Camouflage was obviously appropriate and therefore I would totally blend in with my surroundings … no one else wore khaki L

I was waiting outside of the hostel for my ride to arrive when I saw what appeared to be a tank rolling down the street and heading for me, No really - it turns out that was my ride, a weird black half jeep half tank like vehicle with a large set of horns under the windscreen and a lovely driver who basically threw us into the back and sped off into the distance. After our apparent abduction, we quickly rendezvoused with a sister vehicle carrying another group of people trekking with us that day and after a 50 min drive we turned off the road onto a dirt track.It quickly became clear that we would be off roading up the side of a mountain to a point where we could enter the jungle on foot.The road - I say road it was a stretch of mud, bright orange - was slippery from the overnight rainfall and our experienced driver seemed to be going full belt up it without a care in the world! I was holding on for dear life the whole way up yet oddly after looking and seeing the shaking, white knuckle people around me I got a weird sadistic buzz from the near death cliff hanging ride and actually really enjoyed it! That's right I will admit I took pleasure in other peoples nerves and at the end of the day the devil in me had fun, Id love to go off roading again.

The trek through the jungle was brilliant, it was challenging in places as there was no real path just the route that our local guide was creating in front of us, happily chopping away at chunk of jungle with his machete.Along the way he pointed out huge spiders and told us to watch our step as he could see there were a few larger snakes in the area, we got to see wild plants that I take for granted at home, things like ginger, eucalyptus and tiger balm.The trees in the jungle are absolutely incredible, hundreds of years old and towering above my head like a slightly menacing protective tent, letting beams of light through like spotlights for us to focus our eyes on and see if it held any weird jungle goodies.At some points I didn't know where to look there was so much going on beneath my feet above my head and all across my eye line - but we had a mission and we had to crack on, we were on the hunt for the worlds 3rd largest species of flower, the Rafflesia.Rare to see in bloom as they only flower for a few days (which reminded me of the flower from the film of denis the menace) and difficult to find as they plant themselves randomly and never in the same place twice but our guide had seen a group of 3 only a few days before and was hopeful that one of them may still be alive and possibly in bloom. To get to these flowers we had to cross a river - again because of the monsoon rainfall the night before the river had been affected and was flowing seriously fast but as we were in the jungle of course there was no bridge so instead the guide went first and held a piece of bamboo across for us all to hold onto as a balance aid, crossing the river I could feel the water attempting to push my legs out from under me and a pressure that at one point I did consider what would happen if it did? But quickly and as safely as possible we managed to cross and before we knew, soaking up to the waste but all still smiling, we turned a corner and saw the flowers.They are the ugliest "flower" I have ever seen but I will admit they are massive, like a plant from an alien planet, something off of men in black or day of the Triffids they were covered in boils and a weird red colour I was a bit worried about getting too close in case it gobbled me up.

"And headlines today, an English traveler was today swallowed whole by a giant flower, thats right the world's 3rd largest flower known for its taste of blondes lured her in with its boily skin and as she turned to make a stupid grin for the camera it quite simply scooped her up.Experts say it serves her right for running around the jungle dressed in khaki pretending to be Rambo and yelling like tarzan, the flower just had to swallow her to save her from making any more of an arse of herself than she already had" and there was me wondering why everyone kept looking at me strangely??!

Anyway it was cool to see something that few others do and many attempt for years to find, but to be honest it wasn't exactly the high light of the trek - it was more the experience its self, I loved it, climbing through trees on all fours, sliding down slopes, grabbing rocks and trees, getting sweaty, mudding, wet - It was right up my alley and just a fab experience.I am certainly going to trek more but next time stay overnight, maybe do a couple of days and really experience the jungle properly.

After our trek we went onto see the locals do blow pipe shooting and had a go ourselves and then the day was over and I was exhausted.The Cameron highlands were great because they were something completely different, it wasn't about culture or the people, it was about the ruff experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it.