After a hetic morning finishing off our tourist spots in Kuala Lumpur, we grab our lives fling them onto our backs and set off to our new adventure Tanah Rata,Cameron Highlands.

Our choice was based on some easy relaxing time in a little village set in the highlands of Malaysia surrounded by green forests and fields. It will be a cooler climate so we can recharge and reflect our days in Australia. Being back on the road was different for us, this time we are a trio leading Shereen on her first true experience of backpacking. We do the extra 15min walk just to catch the direct sky train to our bus stop but unfortunately we are just warming up and make a silly mistake of jumping firstly not quite on the right train but that was easily rectified but when we jump of at the wrong stop we spend some time lost, with wet weather setting in carry far too much weight, this was wasting time. Luckily a nice guard turns us back on the train and to the right bus stop, our problems do not end here.... We arrive hoping for a busy bus station all hounding us to jump on their bus to our destination but to our horror we have missed the last bus. Determined not to stay longer and waste our days in a city we contniue by jumping on another bus with the hope we may catch a bus from their stop to Cameron Highlands.

We are a little rusty and alarm bells should of gone off when no one else offered us this, but we were determind. It was not a long trip and the bus was nice and after our 6 hours we arrived to find we had been conned and their was no bus and we were now stuck somewhere we really didn't want to be. We weighed up the options and we didn't want to waste time in a place we didn't want to be in so we paid the over priced taxi fare to travel the 2 hour windy and at times dangerours trip up the mountains. Hana took on the front seat role and spent the time desperately talking to our taxi driving in some great broken English.

We had been silly thinking that arriving at nearly 10pm we would be expecting to find accomadtion when we already knew the only hostel there was fully booked. Although we finally and I think thankfully for our driver found somewhere that took pity on us and took us in, giving us a few extras and a nice room to share. After a busy stressful night we headed out for some grub before a much needed sleep.

Walking the one major street of Tanah Rata was instantly relaxing, there was the stress of what to eat but not the major hussel and bussel of a city. We leisurely looked at all the menus before being drawn to an Indian style resturant that was cooking it's food outside using an urn type pot. We were a little adventurous even though we all had the same, but wow it was awesome tandorri chicken that had been slow cooked with a delisous nan bread with some random spicy dips. We were having a great start to our Cameron Highlands adventure.

After a good rest and a long sleep, we finally got out of bed and although the intension was to move to the cheap hostel straight away we just lounged around where we were until we finally thought we had out done our time. Hana & I thought we would upgrade to a private room, however this wasnt quite as fancy as we had imagined two single mattress thrown on the floor of a little cornered off area in the attic but it served it's purpose. We enjoyed a lazy day of doing nothig but checkin out our quiet little village, Shereen & Hana took it to the next level with a relaxing massage to finish off the day.

Today's the day we doing our extended tour of our surroundings. We have a fun packed day full of sightseeing what Cameron Highlands is famous for ..... Tea. So obviously being very British and fond of our tea it was a must. We jumped into the ricketty 4x4 land rover that even at 20yrs old was apprently a newbie and we were to have faith that it would chugg us everywhere. We head straight to the tea plantation to see where are tea comes from and were shown the acres apon acres of tea leaves. We learnt about the workers who farm the whole area in 1 week and then start again. They only take the new fresh leaves from the top, allowing the bush to continue being used time and time again. All the workers live on the land, they get free accomodation, food and obviously tea. They have to work very hard but they do earn a good wage if they pick enough leaves a day. Sometimes they team up and rent a machine so they can collect more but it is expensive so they must find the right buddy. We took some pictures but being Sunday it is their only day off so we don't get to see them in action. We continue on up to the highest point in Cameron Gunung Brinchang a massive 2600ft, which I can say is nothing compared to heights we have been to before. The view from up high is stunning luck is on our side and weather is sunny and clear so we can look over the forest areas as far as the eye can see. After a little trekk through the mossy forest, a forest covered in moss fom the weather climate we are informed about all the different plants and animals that live there. We continue are decent back down having a quick stop at the strawberry farm. We are allowed to pick some strawberries which the naughty two ate rather than pay for like the good girl I am. We had some interesting picures taken before havin a cool strawberry ice pole. Then it was off again to spend an hour chilling out in the tea workers village drinking their famous BOH tea. With the weather heating up though I settle for an ice tea rather than have a hot drink. This nearly concluded the half tour option but we had one more stop before lunch but we weren't interested in paying the £1 extra to see some butterflies so I couldn't tell you much about that. After a relaxing lunch back in our village we set off for the second half a little suprised it was only us three, it did allow us to spread out to get the most leg room. We are off to see the Orang Asli village the locals that live in the forest, we are headin further down into the base of the highlands so the cool air is being left behind. We arrive at a few shacks along the road side and are suprised to find we are here. It wasn't what we expected and I think we may have been being a little fouled but an old very short hobbit sized man appeared with his weathered skin with an attemped outift popped over to show us how to blow a blow pipe. This was the main reason we had choosen to do the extra and I think we were all very excited when we were given the bamboo pipe and real dart to try our luck at shooting at the monkey target. Not being too big headed but I hit the monkey first time and in the stomach, I like to think it was a killer shoot. Hana did a great job of giving the monkey an ear piercing and Shereen was well Shereen but did hit the target. After a few goes our little hobit friend took us away from safety and into the jungle to see their famous waterfall. It was a short trekk with our guide who didn't speak any English nor did he fancy waiting when it got a difficult. We made it though and it was impressive but not quite like the broucher which said we could swim in it so we settled for some silly pictures before heading back. Now back at the road side village we thought it would be back into the van and back home but the locals had another plan for us. They wanted us to show us one of their huts, however the locals weren't so tradditional and they were very drunk and high (positively on local forest plants) so they insisted on us sitting down with them in their hut and play music by hitting a large hollow bamboo with bamboo sticks. It wasn't quite what I would call music but they wouldn't let us stop and then the others tried to sing and dance to our continuous banging to ensure we didn't stop. We started off laughing but soon we were bored and want to stop but they didn't like it, so our guide gave them some money so they would let us go. So finally we were back in the van returning home, the ending wasn't quite as we expected but it was a laugh.

Wondering back to our resturant we had dinner at the previous night we ran into a friend we had meet in KL!! It was very exciting, so we all sat down for dinner and enjoyed a few drinks while laughing and getting to know our new German friend-our first German friend actually.

The next day we were again super lazy doing very little other than drinking some coffee organising our return trip home and just doing nothing. We had planned to meet up with Nadine again to check out the night Market but it was unfortunately closed during the week so we headed straight back to our favourite resturant for dinner and drinks. We weren't ready to call it a night just yet, especially as we were set to go our seperate ways so we decided to head back to our hostel private room and got very excited by watching Lip Service a British TV series that Nadine was shocked we had never seen. We became so addicted we ended up stay up till about 3am giggling over our new show. We anted to keep watching but we really did need some sleep before our return trip to KL which had to be more successful than our adventure here.