It's cold!

That may not seem like it deserves an exclamation mark, but after sweating our butts off since mid-September, the change is obvious. Cold is probably an exaggeration anyway; fresh might be better. Sort of like leaving Brisbane in the middle of Summer to arrive in a Toowoomba Spring.

So welcome to the Cameron Highlands: a mountainous region pretty much in the centre of peninsular Malaysia. I think the "Cameron" comes from a British explorer who decided he liked it here, and as a result you're probably picturing quaint little cottages set against rolling hills, maybe with some lambs frolicking in the lush pastures. Right? Nope.

That's essentially what I was imagining anyway. In hindsight, probably foolish to picture English countryside in the middle of Malaysia. I digress. It is more a mountainous jungle region with a series of crummy little touristy towns connected by one potholed road that snakes its way up the range. (See what I did there Sjane? Snaked. Sjane saw a tiny little snake whilst hiking up here and flipped out lol). Getting off topic again.

So why are we here? Well the climate for one. It's refreshing. We got rained on yesterday afternoon walking back from a tea plantation and were pretty stoken by how nice and cool it was.
That brings me to reason two: the tea plantations. There are a number of them up this way, the plants lined up like Eminem's toy soldiers and making for some great photo opportunities. When the sun hits the leaves, you get this fluorescent lime green colour interspersed with plantation lines. These same lines show you the natural contours of the land beneath and remind me of those psychadelic optical illusions of my childhood (you know the ones you have to look at crosseyed before a face appears? Yeah, them).
The third reason for a visit was the hiking. There are a dozen "Jungle Walks" surrounding the little town of Tanah Rata, some simple strolls along a riverside, others full mountain hikes. Typically, we opted for the latter (a slushy, muddy 2000m+ effort with a propensity for landslides). I must admit this area offered some of the best hiking conditions we've had worldwide. The cooler temps and lack of hiking popularity with domestic tourists resulted in some solid bushbashing for Sjane and I. Either the local spiders are persistent or the trails were rarely traversed: either way I couldn't believe how many spider webs I walked through. Sjane made friends with a butterfly atop Gunung (Mount) Brinchang. He had translucent wings with blue, black and red patterns. We named him Spotsidaisy (Spotty-D for short). Then we walked into that cobra and Sjane forgot all about her butterfly friend.

Surprisingly there was some really good food to be had here in Tanah Rata as well. Malaysia has a huge Indian population, and as a result a lot of the cuisine is either Indian or Indian-inspired. We need to thank Tamara and Tom for their Suitcase Of Dreams gift for a cooking class in India. We never ended up getting to India, so instead we've pigged out on chapatis, rotis, naans, curries, tandooris and lassis whilst here in Malaysia. We also took a cooking class in Penang and learnt how to cook an Ind(ones)ian Rendang. I hope that's good enough!