Once we were settled in our giant armchairs in the bus, we got underway as our rickety old coach pulled out of the station. in the centre of KL.

We got out our Kindles and read as we drove through the city, soon entering the countryside outside KL. Our reading was hampered slightly by the fact the bus was critically ill and constantly shuddered even whilst moving at speed. I hoped that this constant vibration might have the same effect as one of those ab machines and result in a reduction of my beer belly, but I think it probably just succeeded in shaking a few internal organs loose.

We drove for a couple of hours through the flattish countryside flanked by palm trees and jungle, then stopped at a service station where we used the facilities and grabbed some curried veg and tofu with rice from the selection in the canteen area.

Back on the bus, we continued on our way and soon began climbing into the hills on our way to the Highlands. We'd expected the journey only to take about 3 hours but nearly 4 hours after leaving KL we began our steep ascent into some truly spectacular scenery. The bus wound back and forth along a road clinging to the side of steep hills covered in prehistoric-looking jungle scarred with landslides, with ever-changing views of misty valleys below.

we climbed and climbed and climbed for ages, round innumerable switchbacks through the awesome scenery until we reached the small town of Ringlet. From here we continued for a few more kilometres, still ascending, past tea plantations clinging to the surrounding hills, until we finally arrived in Tanah Rata, the small town which serves as the cetnre of tourism in the Highlands, nearly 3 hours later than we expected.

The bus drove down the main street, in fact the only real street in town, and dropped us at a new looking bus station at the far end. We were instantly assailed by touts with shiny leaflets trying to get us to come to their accommodation. We opted to hop in a free minibus to Father's Guest House after the driver offered us a no-obligation look around the place. He told us if we didn't like it he'd take us to any other accommodation we wanted.

We got in along with the couple we'd met at the bus station, Linde and Jeroen, and the chap drove us through town towards the guest house, pointing out useful sights along the main street on the way. Father's turend out to be a bit up a hill above the town, and we had a quick look around at the rooms but decided they were overpriced for what they were, which was very basic with thin walls, basically no window and a shared bathroom. One of the rooms was actually accessed off a huge 'dorm' which was in reality just beds arranged around the main hall of one of the buildings, not even a separate room.

We decided to take up the guy on his offer of transport to some other accommodation, at which point his pleasant and friendly facade began to slip. We started off in his little van and asked him to take us to Twin Pines, another guest house in town. He point blank refused to take us, without giving a reason, so Jeroen asked him to stop the van and let us out so we could walk. The guy refused and kept driving through town so Jeroen became more insitent, telling the guy to stop immediately or we'd consider it abduction. He said it in a fairly jokey way but the driver completely lost the plot, screaming about going to the police station and saying he couldn't stop in the middle of the bloody effing road. Thankfully though he pulled over on the main street and we piled out, grabbed our bags and made a run for it before the situtation got any worse.

We managed to find our way to Twin Pines, just off the main street, but although a bit cheaper than Father's it was equally as dingy for the price. We headed along the road from Twin Pines past a large abandoned structure which looked like the semi-completed concrete frame of a hotel, and up a little hill to the pleasant-looking Hill View Inn. As soon as we walked in the door of this place we could tell it was much nicer than the other guest houses. We enquired about prices and found it was a little more expensive than the other two guest houses but we checked out the rooms anyway. We were shown two huge rooms with a shared balcony and real walls rather than paper-thin partitions. Although they used a shared bathroom it was only going to be between the two rooms so between the four of us. We managed to haggle a price on the basis that we'd be taking both rooms, paid and dropped off our bags.

At the end of the hall was a sitting room area with a TV where we sat chatting for a bit before wandering down into town to get some dinner. From the bus Jeroen had spotted a sign for a German restaurant which we thought we'd try, but when we found it it was obviously long shut down. Instead we went to a nearby Indian place where, after an incredibly complicated session of deliberation and menu-explanation we ordered some food which was alright, and some local tea which was pretty decent.

After eating, and chatting in the restaurant for a bit, we grabbed some beers from the nearby convenience store and walked back to the hotel. We found a European clique had taken over our living room so repaired to our massive bedroom for a drink, before taking a shower and heading to bed.

We didn't get to sleep until quite late thanks to messing about on the intermittent wifi connection in our room, so the next day we had a late start and a very lazy day. We went down for some breakfast in the hotel, where I had some awesome porridge with bananas and honey, then chilled out in our room most of the day just reading, pottering around on the internet and updating the blog. After lunchtime it started pouring down with rain, but it was nice to relax in the room with the balcony door open watching it tip down outside.

We took a break from our strenuous activity in the late afternoon to have some local tea and scones down in the hotel restaurant area. Then we resumed our relaxation until around 7pm, when we met up with Jeroen and Linde and went out for some dinner. We went to a place serving some western food and had a decent enough meal, spoiled only slightly by a family behind us who kept turning round in their chairs just to stare at us, with absolutely no shame.

After dinner we wandered back to the hotel and sat in the 'living room' for a while before heading to bed. We agreed to meet at 9am the following morning to go out and see some of the countryside. I inadvertantly stayed up until 4am as I was reaching the end of Stieg Larsson's 'Millenium' trilogy and couldn't put the book down until I had finished.

After too short a sleep we got up and had another tasty breakfast in the hotel, before heading out to find a taxi to take us to some of the nearby sights. It was a dry morning and we found it refreshing to be in the cool mountain air with the hills all around us. The previous day had been a bit too cold since we only had shorts and t-shirts with us but that day was just right.

We found a taxi driver parked outside the tourist information place in town, and arranged a price with him to take us out to one of the tea plantations and maybe to a butterfly farm. There seemed to be a lot of butterfly farms around town. I'm not sure what they farm them for, as I've never eaten or felt the need to purchase a butterfly.

We set off out of the far end of Tanah Rata and along the windy, narrow roads through the hills for about 10km, until we were in one of the BOH tea plantations. The scenery here was stunningly beautiful, with the densely crowded tea plants completely covering hillsides below and opposite us like a thick green shag carpet as we drove through a valley.

We stopped a couple of times on the way to the tea factory and visitor centre to get some photos, and just have a look at the plantations. The low, dense, trimmed tea plants covered all the hillsides undulating around us, and irregular paths snaked in between the vibrant green bushes in interesting patterns.

We soon came, along the narrow one-lane road, to the small tea factory and a modern cafe/visitor center built on stilts out over a hillside overlooking the plantation and the bright blue worker's houses below. We had a look around the tea factory although they had just had a power cut so none of the machinery was working. It was still interesting to read the signs and get an idea of the tea production process, between the green bushes all around us and the stuff we drink so much of at home.

After that we went to the cafe and had a pot of delicious Cameronian Gold Blend tea with some cake as we enjoyed our surroundings. We stopped in the shop to pick up some tea to take home, then had another look around the factory to see the machinery in operation rolling, drying and sorting the tea.

Back in our taxi, our driver drove us out of the tea plantation, stopping for a panoramic photo opportunity of the valley below us just before it started bucketing with rain. We drove back towards town, but along the way stopped at a stall to pick up some local strawberries, just beside the butterfly farm. We almost didn't have a choice in buying the strawberries as we had been completely inundated with advertising, both overt and subliminal, since the moment we had left Tanah Rata. There were signs showing strawberries, shops selling toys and souvenirs in the shape of strawberries, huge concrete strawberries, you name it. It obviously worked though as we were compelled to pick up a couple of punnets.

The butterfly farm turned out to be a ropey sort of zoo contained within a net and strung out along a hillside behind the construction site of yet another big hotel. The one thing spoiling the area (apart from psychotic shuttle bus drivers) was the presence of these towering, characterless boxes of hotels which were a real blight on the landscape.

We walked along the paths of the butterfly farm, between pretty but wilted tropical flowering plants, and saw lots of huge and colourful butterflies. Sadly, many of these seemed to be lying dead on the paths or had torn and damaged wings. The 'farm' also had dirty cages housing ducks, chickens, guinea pigs, hamsters and some other insects like leaf insects and stick insects, which were quite interesting. There was also a 'museum' at the end of a path behind the building site with preserved bugs of all shapes and sizes.Overall though the whole place was a bit grotty and we felt sorry for the poor critters locked up there.

We left and our driver took us back to town and dropped us at the hotel, where we had a lunch of soup and sandwiches just as another well-timed downpour began. After lunch we went up to our room and, with the rain in the background napped for a few hours to catch up on our sleep. After waking we took it very easy before once again heading out to get some dinner.

This time we went to another Indian place, Kumar's, that had some good reviews online. We had some really tasty tandoori chicken, naan, roti and some aloo ghobi as well as mango lassi and masalah tea. Totally stuffed, we walked back to the hotel and relaxed with a beer before heading to bed for a nice long sleep.

After a long lie we got up, showered and packed then went downstairs for some food and to kill time before our bus pickup in the afternoon. Just after 2pm our driver turned up in a nice, modern minibus, wearing a beanie hat and blasting Shaggy from the stereo. We piled our bags and ourselves in and we were soon on our way to Georgetown.