After a 5hr journey yesterday we arrived in the Cameron Highlands. It constantly rains here and it is a lot cooler but there are some beautiful scenes.

In the evening yesterday, myself and some of the girls needed to do some emergency shopping for a rain coat...we managed to get a very stylish dark green extra large poncho.. Definitely a souvenir. We also had an amazing dinner..a piece of tandoori chicken on the bone, naan bread and rice for 7RM, and the chicken was lovely!...can't complain for £1.40.

Went on a jungle trek today it was amazing! We really prepared for it too, 2 sandwich bags at the ready...one for either foot to prevent wet socks and feet..courtesy of Beth, one of the girls in the group...quite a good little tip! We took a very uncomfortable, gas fumed drive in the back of a 4x4 Land Rover. The windy roads didn't help the travel sickness either. And en route passing through some villages, there was a distinct smell of maggots! A great start to the day!

We arrived firstly at an aboriginal village where the people showed us how to blow pipe hunt. We had a go but they wouldn't let us try to catch the chickens..ha, instead we had to hit a dart board style target.. And the best part was I was better than James!

We then went on a 3 hour trek through the magnificent forest. We were really bonding as a group, singing our way through the Disney films like Jungle Book and The Lion King... we thought it was rather appropriate for the current surroundings. Were even thinking about forming a band, we had some great harmonies going on..haha.

In the jungle, we were scrambling over and under trees and tree roots, crossing bamboo bridges and leaping over rivers (some of the plants and trees are beautiful). James and I were in our element..watch out Bear Grylls the Muses are about! Thankfully it wasn't raining and the temperature was great for trekking. But the rain from yesterday made it very boggy. But it was ok, if we got stuck we had our oversized ponchos for tents! We also saw a rafflesia flower, the worlds biggest flower. Burgundy red in colour with a huge yellow centre, where it catches and eats flies.

After, we had the chance to cool down in a waterfall. The sand had tiny gold stones that really made the water glisten. We clambered up the huge bouldering rocks to get up and over the crashing of the fresh crystal clear water. Absolutely brilliant fun!

We then re traced our steps back to the 4x4 and we moved on to the tea plantation. We had a 5 minute tour (although according to the board it should have been 30minutes long) around the factory by a very rude indian man (his name noted, Parthai, our nickname for him was Mr Padthai) that didn't even attempt to seem interested. He started the tour by saying that during his speeches at each stage we are not to take any pictures, there will be time to take pictures after his explanations. And if we took pictures during the talk, he will simply stop talking! During the last stage of his speech, some of us started to talk quietly and he stopped talking and shouted, 'can you not listen for another 2minutes!' haha. We felt like naughty kids on a school trip! He certainly didn't get that job for his sparkling personality and fab people skills. He was probably the only English speaking applicant. We then had tea and scones in the cafe.. Oh yes darlings, afternoon tea!

We then had a fly by visit to a butterfly garden and then a strawberry farm. The strawberry jam was really lovely.

Today is definitely one of the best, and we really enjoyed the exercise. Although walking down the steep muddy hills with sandwich bags did increase foot movement, thus crushing the toes! Our legs will probably be achy too tomorrow but it was so worth it!

Note to self- szechuan beef was for tea (not sure of the spelling)...need to remember this one...it was gorgeous!

Lauren x