After a long travel day we crossed the border into Malaysia. Our first stop was Georgetown on Penang island. Malaysia is obviously a wealthier country than the first 6 countries we have visited. The roads are wonderful and you can find modern service stations and supermarkets. To get to the island of Penang we took a 13 km bridge from the main land. Georgetown is a newly recognized UNESCO world heritage city. After walking around we realized why. The city has a very eclectic array of old Chinese, Muslim and Indian buildings and history. They all live together peacefully in the same area as they did a hundred years ago. Our time in Georgetown consisted of a hot and sweaty heritage walk, a trip to the botanical gardens and yes another movie where the air conditioning was a marvelous reprieve.

After Georgetown we headed inland to the gorgeous and cooler Cameron Highlands and the town of Tanah Rata. The drive into the Highlands was very nauseating due to the curves but the views made up for the upset. In the highlands there is a odd mix of natural native vegetation and greenhouse covered vegetable and fruit farms. In places there are full valleys that are white from the greenhouses. Strawberry's are the Cameron Highlands claim to fame.

We had the chance to check out a local village where we were given a blowpipe demonstration. We then took ancient LandRovers through the muddy jungle and then hiked the rest of the way to see the largest flower in the world called the Raffelasia. We also went to a bug place where Dave held scorpions and other creepy crawlies. We checked out a tea plantation and had a marvelous strawberry milkshake and cheesecake at a strawberry farm.

The Cameron Highlands is a beautiful place to see.

Our next stop is the big city of Kuala Lumpur and back to the heat and humidity.