Travelling through Malaysia, how could we miss this place? High up in the hills, the Cameron Highlands play host to the country's renowned tea plantations and it's been a long time since we had a decent cuppa so a ticket here had our names all over it!

Our minivan arrived on time (15 minutes late is practically on time by Asian standards), and we were on the road in the so-called air-conditioned 12-seater by 8.30am. Luckily there were only five of us on board, as the seats were clearly designed for teeny Asian people.

After a few hours of driving, we arrived into the hills. The air was fresh and clear, and the scenery stunning. There were also lots of hairy bends which we darted round at dizzying speeds. It wasn't long before Nat was green and keeping everything crossed that our planned arrival time of 1pm was actually going to be 1pm, and not a few hours late - as is standard in Asia. Somehow though, the driver got us to our guest house in the main tourist part of the region, Tanah Rata at 12.30pm - four hours quicker than the bus had claimed to take, which says a lot about how fast we were going.

Once Nat had regained a healthy colour we chatted to the hostel receptionist about going on a trek in the afternoon. She claimed it was too dangerous to go trekking in the region on our own, insisting that even the tea plantations should be visited on their expensive guided tour because most of the paths were overgrown and not maintained by the forest office. But, after a quick email to Adrian and Asma back home (who've been here before), we were assured it was safe enough to go it alone! We spent the afternoon following a track in to a lovely little waterfall and then on to a British pub. This place was so lovely - and wouldn't be out of place in the British countryside. They sold a lovely afternoon tea which was perfect, and we used our very kind Christmas donation from Jo and Steve to gobble up local tea and jam scones. A couple of hours later, we wondered if we were back in the UK on one of those (very rare) hot summer's days!

On the way back, things got a little more hairy when we seemed to take the wrong turning and ended up on a very overgrown track. Perhaps we should have taken a guide afterall…

Luckily, we made it back in good time though and had a lovely evening updating the blog out on the terrace next to our guest house as the sun set.

This morning, we followed Adrian and Asma's advice and caught the local bus to the tea plantations. We've caught some pretty stinky buses and trains since we've been travelling, but this had to be the worst. It was a rickety old local bus that took us about 20 minutes up the road - but it was 20 minutes too far when it smelt like a dead rat was on board with us too… (Finally, something that smells worse than us!) Together with another couple of tourists we were literally gagging at the stench. It was so bad, our eyes were watering.

It was a pleasant relief when we finally got off and started the long walk through the hills to the Boh tea plantation centre. Adrian said it would take 45 minutes to walk it, so we felt pretty smug when it took us only 30 J

While the plantations themselves were beautiful, they didn't really compare to Munnar, in India, where they were so vast. Yet it certainly had one up on Munnar when it came to the working factory which was free to explore. It was great to see the tea being processed through the various stages including pressing, drying and sorting. We also watched the big boss carry out his regular test for quality - he clearly wasn't happy when he slammed one mug down and the staff hurried it away.

We obviously tried some of the Boh tea ourselves at a gorgeous little café on the hill top - overlooking the rolling hills covered in tea plantations.

The walk back to the bus stop was a little tougher, but we still beat Adrian and Asma! And, back in Tanah Rata we had some gorgeous food at a local café and booked a bus to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

We're hoping we can take some of the cool Cameron Highlands climate with us to the country's capital, but something tells us it's going to be pretty sweaty down there!