So the Public bus ride for 5 hours from Penang to Cameron Highlands was awful, Sophie the tour leader had the air con dripping liquid onto her head for five hours with only tissues and eventually the coach curtain to protect her from getting soaked! It was cram packed with local Malay's and other tourists so some had only their backpacks which wouldn't fit undernerath the coach in the baggage compartment as seats! The Bus driver thought that the ride would be more comfortable for us all and certainly quicker if he took racing lines at 50mph round the blind mountainous hairpin corners. I wont forget it though.

Anyway 5 hours later we got to the mountainous refreshing cool air of The Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. It was incredibly green and scenic, beautiful to look at and very nice change from the clammy, hot and polluted City of Penang.

For the first time on my trip so far, I had no longer got my own double room to myself, DOH! It was cool though because the room was still nice and big and the person I was sharing with was Dave from Germany whom I got on with very well.

The next day,we all had the option of a cheap half day tour with a minibus tour guide or a more expensive tour which would last all day. The only reason I gave in to the full day tour was because It involved waterfall swimmimg which was all I was really interested in. I was with Dave, Alex, Marianne and David n Doreen who really recommended the whole day tour to us because "You only live once and dont want to miss anything while you get the chance". They were so right. The local Malaysian tour Guide picked the 5 of us up in an awesome old school 4x4 Land Rover. We first saw all the hundreds of acres of Tea plantation, only available in Malaysia never exported! Great pics (eventually wen i get chance), we learnt how it was all cut by workers manning specialised machines. Then taken round the factory to see how green tea leaves are turned into tea bags as we know them. We next saw an incredible Butterfly farm with all sorts of insects and scary animals such as snakes, spiders and I even held a scorpion by its stinger! We then tasted some delicious locally grown strawberrys. Then swiftly into the jungle for a 2 hour trek and education on all the wild plants and creatures grown out there. The best bit tho was the Waterfall and river jumping/swimming. It was freezing and I only had my boxers to swim in but it was soo cool, I could have stayed there for hours messing around in the water having fun. Then on to something far more important and educational on the tour. We were taken to where all the aboriginal Malaysians still lived in their Hut filled aboriginal Village. It was a real eye opener. They were living in what I would only have described as poverty! Young kids running round everywhere with barely an adult aged person to be seen. They children were given some biscuits by the tour leader as he treated them everytime he came round and led a tour. But what was unexpected was just how happy they all were. The was a very nice concrete building at the top the village which was the school. They apparently were very well educated and speak- Manadarin, Cantonese, Malaysian, Indian and English almost all fluently. There was also another concrete building next to an old battered hut with huge holes in the side of it. I thought that was great because there was at least one house with electricity, solid walls, hot and cold running water for them to live in, but the shock came when the tour leader tells us that the council built it for them years ago and the family refused to live in it, they weren't used to it and preffered their own fallin down hut to raise their children in. I realised at that point that they were not living in poverty, but that they chose to live this aboriginal and organic livelyhood.

That was the incredible Cameron Highlands tour, there was more to the Cameron Highlands stop than just that tour, including some Bar stories and hours of Uno card playing, but it just isn't important like the tour was, so I will leave the Highlands Blog�at that!

The big K.L. coming soon!