Cameron Highlands

We had a pretty easy transfer to the Cameron Highlands after the eventful and not so eventful journeys which preceded it, a 3 or so hour ride in a minibus, most of which was spent actually getting around the massive Taman Negara park. The Cameron Higlands is, for the main part, a product and a relic of British colonialism, a cluster of tea plantations, farms growing non tropical crops (ie one you find in the UK - cabbages,strwberries, peas etc), bizarre looking English manor houses and all in a climate which is pretty wet and cool. It's touted as a 'hillstation' which is what it was originally when Jonty had had enough of the spear chucking natives and wanted a decent cuppa and some scoes in a cool climate while looking out of his Tudor windows onto the rolling hills of tea being picked by imported Indian women. You (probably dont) get the picture, however cynical. Today though, the Cameron Highlands is made up of a smattering of towns which are fairly built up and thousands of farms spread around thevarious hills and valleys which cover the area. Apparently it's one of the richest soil areas in South East Asia, it also has the most Land Rovers per person in South East Asia, but thats just one ofthose made up facts because you're never going to go around with a clipboard calcutating Land Rovers per capita.

Jen with her super fly kicks

We stayed in a place called 'Father's' and were initially wary because it got reccomended highly in Lonely Planet whichusually means the owners raise their prices, sack the cleaners and wait for the saps to roll in off the buses. This place was ok though, it felt like we were on a year six school trip, staying in corrugated nissan huts with bunkbeds and a common area that smelt like the Isle of Wight and Gameboys. Anyway to cut to the chase we booked two tours through our guesthouse and did one on each day we were there. So.

Mossy "Gnome" forest

On the first day we drove to the highest peak in the Cameron Higlands which was pretty much a cloud meaning you couldn't see much apart from, well cloud but occasianlly we caught glimpses of the carpet of jungle in the valleys. Our guide fella had taken Jen earlier to buy some shoes because we were going ona bit of a hike through a place called the 'Mossy Forest', it's pretty wet and Jen A.K.A Miss Ray Mears, only had flip flops. The shoes she bought were about 70p and were one of the best things about a great day, they looked like what plimpsoles would resemble if they were made by Michelin from recycled car tyres. So we went into theforest and unsurprisingly it was mossy and very wet, the shoes kicked into mud mode and quickly earned their 70p. The forest was unlike any I'd seen, none of the plants were very big and the whole place resembled some sort of gnome forest, as vaguedescriptions go, that's pretty good but the whole time I was walking around that's what I kept thinking; all of the aptheswere very narrow andthere were strange looking plants everywhere such as the pitcher plant or the jungle condom as our guides pointed out with a rather needless explanaiton.

Boh Plantation

Next we drove along a windy path to the 'Boh' tea plantation a little lower in the hills. The plantaion is spread out over thousands of acres and the hundreds of scattered hills throughout it are blanketed by the short tea bushes which give it the effect of looking like something out ofthe Teletubbies, a surreal landscape but beautiful at the same time and again, a unique place. We stopped to look around the factory (meh) and then drink some of the tea which was actually quite nice, meaning I could slightly taste the difference from 'normal' tea, as in the stuff that's grown in Tesco's wing of the Kew Garden Centre. Our bus dropped us of about 3 miles of townand we started to walk back, stopping in a Butterfly farm  and a strawberry farm and finally jumpinginthe back of a pick up truck and hitching the way home.

Rolling hills

Onthesecondday we went on a long drive to visit an 'Orang Asli' village, Orang Asli meaning 'Original People' and that implying that they are a minority tribe, which they are.The journey was along a part built road which wound around mountainds and was really just a collection of holes and puddles than a road, an hour later though, we were there. The village was picturesque; a collection of bamboo huts on a hillside next to a river with women and kids all running around. After a little walk around we had a go on a blowpipe they still use for hunting everyday, our prey was a flip flop against a wall, it duely got what it was asking for all along, a poison dart in it's heart. We had luchin thechief's hut and he showed us all the little things around his hut that they use like the marriage mats the women weave and the nose flutes the men play. As we left, the attention seeking section of kids went a bit mad and stripped off and proceeded to do flips into the river and handstands and the like as we encouraged tham by taking photos and presumably worsened their punishment from their mums when they came home soaking and covered in mud. On theway home I bough a blow pipe, it was pretty fun, now to find some poison...

Enjoying a brew

Biig beetle

Cameron cabs

Village kids

Monkeyhunter

The nose flute

Posing with the kids

Kids going mad