Arriving in Cameron Highlands in the afternoon of the 11th Sept we step off the coach and an instantly appreciate the drop in temperature! It's only a few degrees but it feels so much cooler! Bob, from our guest house, gives us a quick introduction to Tanah Rata (the town) and advises us that they very rarely have a day without rain. Like being at home then!

Father's guest house is brilliant. It really is a home away from home. The bedrooms aren't much to shout about but the social areas are great. A pool table, movie room with many sofas and home made cake are the main perks!

Tanah Rata itself is a very small town with one street lined with shops and restaurants. We choose a little indian place where the food is served on banana leaves and not small leaves either. They take up your whole section of table and are full to overflowing with varying types of indian food.

Up early the next day for a morning trek into the jungle where our guide, bob, was once bitten by a snake. Unfortunately (or was it fortunately?) we didn't come across any. It was a good walk and not anywhere near as demanding as our previous treks. Some good views and interesting landscapes. After the walk, we caught a local bus to the entrance to the tea plantation. When i say entrance, i mean you have to walk at least 2km through the tea fields to find the factory!

It's the factory for 'Boh' tea - Malaysia's finest brand. A good place to visit to see snippets of the tea fermentation process and enjoy the freshly made produce!

We walk back to the main road and start heading back to Tanah Rata, hoping to catch a taxi or bus back. We must've walked half of the 8km back before a bus came past. Not a single taxi had passed us during this time. Unbelieveable!! We've been so use to being badgered for taxi's everywhere we've been so far. This was just not right!!!

Dinner tonight was a Hong Kong Steamboat. This consisted of two soups - chicken and tom yum - and about 6 platefulls of uncooked foods ranging from veg to chicken to eggs to seafood and not forgetting noodles! You boil the soup on your table and throw in what you fancy, wait 2 minutes, then serve up. A real novelty, great fun and, most importantly, really nice!

We decided to spend the next day in Tanah Rata doing very very little apart from watching films and eating! Only leaving our hostel once to do our laundry. This was bliss. It had been so long since we had done nothing! We have always been filling our days with activities or travelling from one place to the next so this was really welcome!

From Tanah Rata we leave Emma, who has to stay to sort out the trouble she's had accessing her funds, and get an 8 hour bus with Brett (an actor from new york we met in the Cameron Highlands) to the worlds oldest rainforest/jungle - Taman Negara.

Once dropped off, we walk down to the riverside to find accommodation and this is just about as basic as it gets. Probably on a par with our final hilltribe accommodation in Thailand. We take up three beds in a four bed dorm. No air-con (of course!) just a fan and mozzy nets. Well, what do you expect, we're in the jungle!! We meet a friendly Canadian couple and chat for a while to the local trekking guides about world politics (not our decision - we've come here to get away from all that!!!) then head for dinner on a floating restaurant.

In the morning, we are up and out by 8 and heading over the river to the national park trails. We obtain our permit - yes, we need to pay to bring our cameras into the park - then go onwards into the jungle. Fortunately the treks are fairly well signposted and we have a basic map.

We get to the canopy walk and climb the steps way up high into the trees for a very nervy walk on the canopy's from tree to tree. This was great as the views around - and down - were brilliant, but all the time you can't help but walking very cautiously!

From here we trek up a hill for more views. See some ants, some boars and a monitor lizard. For the really wild animals you have to go fa into the jungle on two or three day treks. We don't have that long, unfortunately! Sam breathes a sigh of relief!!

Back at the hostel by mid-day and off to a bat cave in the afternoon. This was a real adventure as we were crawling through shallow water, bat poo everywhere, on our hands and knees and emerging from crevices face to face with smelly bats! I enjoyed this, sam didn't so much but she's glad she did it. As always, no regrets!

It was time to move on after today as we had only 8 days to get to Singapore for our flight so we got a boat down the river to the bus station and then onwards to KL.

To be continued...