Today is trekking day! Trekking four hours in the rainforest to get to this beauty!!! I'm actually quite scared though incase it bites my head! Better not get too close!
We got up at 8:00 and went to get toast to eat on the bus to the forest. The woman in the cafe wouldn't stop yabbering on as everyone does to us so we ended up almost missing the bus! Bella was banging on our room door for us to wake up! Ha!
We picked up the rest of the group and then it was an hour to get to the forest! As it had been raining the track was muddy so we had to walk an extra 40 minutes uphill before we even began the trek as the convoy was swapped for a minivan by the tours boss! Charming!
We started trekking and everyone was already sweating, tired, holding the group up and complaining! Darl! This is nothing compared to the trek we did in 90% humidity 40'c Thailand! Quit your moaning, and pick your feet up before I throw you over this cliff!
One woman was really cute though she was knackered and at the back of the group whilst her friends just left her! I stick with her to make sure she was okay, after all there are wild tigers and snakes in this rainforest! She was 53 years old and from Verona, Italy! She likes to think of herself as Juliette... She has no Romeo! I really wanna go Italy like now! I said the Roman Colosseum is on my must see list, she said its a crumbling pile of bricks!
When we caught up with the group we had to cross a river jumping from stone to rock to tree branch! And then swing from tree branches to get to the next! This trek was so much more fun as it was hands on, climbing under and over tree trunks! And seeing Annie screaming and suffering is something that brings me much joy! She puts her hand on the tiniest piece of moss and the whole jungle knows about it! She scares the bats away with her screams!
I am only joking though Sharron I do look out for her, I laugh, take a photo, upload it to Facebook and then I ask if she's okay ;)
We made it to the Raflesia! it looks beautiful the photos don't do it justice! I never realised it would be so big and brightly coloured! It's half flower but half mushroom (fungai) there is a scientific word but don't have time to google it, do it yourself I have 30 blogs to write!
Bella said it eats the flys and insects that stick to its inside wall but I don't know if that's true :/ flys do swarm around it though, sticking to the orange circular dots inside which is the pollen and then dropping this elsewhere thus pollinating the forest!
There was a baby one next to it as well which looks like a rotten, brown cabbage! They stay like this for 6-9 months depending on how wet the weather is until they open up which takes 9 hours, to look like this one and then they stay like this for only a week! Then there dead, pointless, gone!
The pregnant locals here tear off there three leaves and boil them in water overnight then drink the water! Supposed to be a herbal remedy that soothes the baby... I wouldn't go trying this at home!
Trekked back 30 minutes to a waterfall after here, stopping for one annoying woman with tummy problems! Haha! She was so annoying she would stand right in front of every one of our photos with her miserable face! So I'm glad she had to squat and poo in a stream in front of us! Pay back you dumb b****!
Listened to annie talk rubbish on the way back about wanting to get with a HIV ridden aboriginal bushtukker man from the forest just because they know how to shoot elephants with poison that kills them in ten minutes! She so has yellow fever, and not the kind that's treatable!
Walked to local village in the forest were aboriginals live! Most of the animals like elephants and monkeys from this forest have been hunted and killed over the years but the locals still refuse to leave, they're too shy apparently! So they had a few concrete houses and a school made 6 years ago by government which we went to see! They had a baby monkey in cage which would be bread and raised to adulthood and then comes out the BBQ! It's sad I just wanted to set it free knowing it was going to be skewered in a few months but then it tried to steal my iPhone so I wanted to set fire to the rabbid little rat myself!
We learned how to shoot darts soaked with poison at a target! The locals do it from 200 metres away! We stood 10 metres away and only just hit the target!
The poison could kill an elephant in ten minutes!!
We then took the minivan at the end of the local village back to Cameron Highlands and lunch at an Indian! Annie got vegetarian curry, with chicken! The guy tried saying it was a vegetable, It practically still had feathers!
Then went to a tea plantation! The frostless fields of the valley make it perfect for producing leaves of fullness and flavour apparently! We tried a special local tea, it was no PG Tips pyramid bag! Walked around all of the machinery that cuts and shakes and sorts the leaves but as its not in season the factory wasn't even in production! So just looking at some old robots and not being able to swag a few leaves wasn't exactly what I hoped for! :(
There's an airplane that constantly circles the fields and the factory, spreading droppings as it goes! It's either insecticide or fertiliser for the leaves I guess, it was like a hailstone shower every 15 minutes!
The last stop was the strawberry farm where they have a shop selling fresh chocolates and buns with their home grown strawberries! We did go to a butterfly farm on the way but we did that already in KL so me and annie stayed in the van whilst the rest of the group looked around! Good job, as it started pouring it down with rain whilst they were walking around!
At the strawberry farm we had to run from the van to keep dry! The guide stayed in the van however so we all started picking strawberries and eating the big fat juicy ones whole! They taste so good, but we then found out your not allowed to eat them as there sprayed with insecticide! Great! I'm about to vom! 3 whole shots of bleach practically pumping through my veins! What more could I want! So I diluted it with a warn fresh strawberry muffin! Cute!
Then we went back to the guesthouse! Such a long tiring day, we went to eat with Bella. She wanted fast food so she took us to Cameron Highlands version of KFC! It really doesn't compare! After a long day though, anything would suffice!
Got back and slept like a baby! First time for everything!