Simply stunning. The Cameron Highlands were such a beautiful retreat after KL. We stayed at a place called Fathers guesthouse which was a rather large place close to the main town of Tana rata. We spoilt ourselves the first night and got a nice room (there were only 2 or 3 rooms left and there was another couple on a mega bicycle trip so we thought it'd be better for them to have the room they wanted) and on the second night downgraded slightly. At this point in time we were hoping to meet up with Scottie and Tash from Singapore and Loz, Bec and Chantelle from Australia so we knew we didn't have a whole lot of time to do all the walks. Basically the Cameron highlands are some mountains in Malaysia where there are many tea plantations, strawberry and butterfly farms amongst other things. There are roughly 9 trails of varying length and difficulty that you can trek. As we arrived in the night time we had some dinner at an Indian restaurant/café after a short walk along the main strip. At that point the cold that I'd caught that Sammy had just recovered from had set in and I was ready to hit the hay so we retreated to the room for some much needed R and R.

In the morning we got up and met up with Michael, our German friend who'd travelled with us since Mersing, to trek about 4km up to the golf course for a game. On the way up there we came across some exercise equipment where the boys thought it'd be good to do some chin ups. Unfortunately Michael ended up pulling a muscle (again as he had done it previously) so was in a bit of pain after that. He did however manage to make it up to the golf course with us where we were rejected as we didn't have the right clothes on (or brought with us for that matter) so we gave up on that idea and Sammy and I headed back to town to rent a scooter whilst Michael went off and did his own thing.

The scooter we rented was a real donkey. It was a manual and didn't have much guts to it. We did get a good 4 hours or so in of sightseeing though so it was really beneficial considering our time frame. We zipped up to a tea plantation called 'Boh' Tea which was really awesome. We learnt a bit about tea making and sampled some tea and sweets. We then continued riding up this mountain to a lookout point (passing many walkers along the way who seemed a tad jealous of our wheels) which was either really foggy or up in the clouds. The bike barely made it and at one point I had to get off and run up the hill for 20 metres so Sammy could half push half ride it up the steep section. It started raining so we headed back and went to a strawberry farm where they wanted a ridiculous amount of money to pick strawberries so we didn't worry too much about that and headed back for some dinner and drinks. We ended up drinking some 10% Luxus beer at the guesthouse and woke up the next day with rotten headaches. We also had our first real skype experience with Scottie which was really cool to see a familiar face even if it was via the computer. I should mention that if anyone has skype they can add us. Our name is Samikki1. Would be great to talk to everyone back home.

On the last day we were feeling a little worse for wear after the beers so lazed around a fair bit until our 'VIP' bus picked us up headed for Penang.

The Cameron Highlands were definitely something different and a very enjoyable experience. Perhaps now we'll have a greater appreciation for tea! J