Cameron Highlands, so cold! - Tanah Rata, Malaysia
Tanah Rata, Malaysia
Georgetown to Cameron Highlands. Sunday: Today we leave and head up to the highlands. Breakfast and all packed up, just waiting for the mini bus now. So back on the road for us properly after some much needed time off, from travelling every few days and sight seeing all day long. The mini bus is pretty much on time and only 2 people so far, so we get some good seats. Soon it starts to fill up and not long after we're on our way. It's roughly 4-5 hours to the Highlands, hopefully it goes quick. This is the one thing I have not missed from spending a long amount of time in one place, is the bad driving and the feel of constantly being sat on the edge of your seat. Trains are fine, I have no problem with being sat on a train all day, but buses well you either get a good driver or ones you wonder where they found them from. I always thought that you can grow out of travel sickness, but can you grow back into it? Well I guess so. Since travelling from Laos this fear comes across me before I even get on the bus, maybe it's got something to do with missing being able to drive. So a couple of hours on the main highway and no problems at all, we pull over at the services and it looks so Western, maybe not to the point of having Burger King, McDonald's, Starbucks and all that, but it's just big and clean and for once really cheap. We took advantage of the cheap food an got some lunch, it was only some rice with veg and a curry sauce, we shared it as we didn't really need anything just a bit peckish. So I think the bus driver said 20minutes but it was soon nearer 40. No worries though, we weren't in a rush to get there and to get hiking. Time to start climbing the hills, so far so good with the driver, but as I sit concentrating on my phone and we start going around a lot of bends my stomach turns and down the phone goes. Just for safety, I'm not a fan of being sick or feeling it, but there's nothing worse then having to stop a bus and having a group of people watch you. Thankfully I'm not that bad and it soon passes. In some good time we get there and the sun is out, but the temperature has certainly dropped. We head up to our hotel, smack bang in the middle of a little town called Brinchang. With one main road connecting it to Tanah Rata the main tourist town for CH. We chose Brinchang to stay in as its closer to the better strawberry farms and Gunung Brinchang, a mountain here that we will be hiking up. It's not that small though, it has two fuel stations within 200 metres of each other and a KFC, they had other food options too. All checked in, and they upgraded us to a triple room. It never bothers us, the rooms we normally have, but a triple is great. That extra bed to lay your clothes out over, even if they do have some drawers for you. The place seemed great, we had our own little common room shared with 2 other rooms and ours. A sink, some bowls and mugs and a hot/cold water machine. A sofa, table and chairs and some books. It would of been loads better if they added a toaster and microwave for guests to use too, but we managed and the place just had a nice feel to it, with our room being a perfect size too. So it's Sunday, and so far we've spent quite a bit on enjoying a drink whilst we watch the practise races, now all we have to do with being in a new town, is find somewhere that will show the race. A quick bit of googling and a couple of English bar/pubs were found, just they seemed to be quite a walk in the wrong direction to them. We had a quick walk around by us, and we had no luck with finding anywhere that would show it. Ed even tried retuning the tv to get the right channel but we only had one sports channel. So we started walking out of town a bit, then we came across a sign for one of the pubs I had found on trip advisor. We thought we were in luck and headed towards it, with 2km to go. We arrived at this pub, and it looked like it had been picked up from the English countryside and dropped here. All we had to check was the food and drink prices and whether they showed the race. It was English prices, and that's nearly 10 times what you would pay anywhere else so decided we would carry on walking towards the next town, maybe another 5km. At this point I didn't know that though. We started walking, and it started raining. We didn't make it that far till it started getting heavier, we tried to wait for a taxi, bus or just some kind person to take us to the next town. We had to make a choice, being over 2km to our hotel and nearly 5 to the next were stuck. We thought we would give the English pub another chance, maybe even just for a drink. So we turned up again, looked at the same menu, which was thankfully outside and then decided we couldn't face spending that much so headed back for our second trip up the hill in the rain. It soon calmed down and were able to walk down to the next town. If somewhere was showing it, we would of made it, but we walked up and around the town. Found one bar, with a tv and some English people in but the tv had Elton John on it, not what we wanted. We knew we had no luck, and now it was just a case of finding some food. We both wanted curry, as a lot of the cuisine is curry based here, well all over Malaysia. We had some great curries in Georgetown. We knew what we wanted, just had to find it and one restaurant was very busy so headed back. They didn't have curries like we wanted though, it was so tourist based and mainly sold the speciality meals. Banana wrapped rice, or a large plate with a few smaller dishes with a naan bread. Half of what we wanted, and we didn't really know it till after. We wanted a potato dish, and a chicken corma, rice, naan bread. Just like you'd get from the local take away. This isn't how they cook it here, and wasn't what our stomachs wanted so carried on the search. Eventually we gave up and got a taxi back to our town, after seeing a couple of Indian places, and knowing there was food next to the hotel we were getting very hungry and tired, soon we grabbed some good and called it a night. Monday: We never set an alarm, just thought we would have a decent sleep. So that we did, and then we put the tv on watched a film, showered, watched another film and before we knew it, it was way past 2pm. Just one of those needed duvet days. The hostel in Bangkok was great, but the tv and films were communal, the hostel in Georgetown just wasn't that great and this place was just perfect and homely. We knew we couldn't do this all day and had to leave the room at some point. So with plenty of lazy time, and some searching of what to do and where to go, we finally made it out to daylight. We weren't even trying to be funny when we got outside and acted like vampires, out eyes actually hurt. With a 15 minute walk, we were at our first strawberry farm. I had read that some charge you to enter but The Big Red Strawberry Farm did not. They also had a cactus farm, and to be honest the whole thing felt like you were at Cadbury Garden Centre. The prices for a tray of strawberries were high, and we knew we could get cheaper from the woman across the road of the hotel. The real reason was to go to the cafe and buy some tasty treats, as I got very excited to read that they sold scones with homemade strawberry jam and cream. Thankfully this was a great price, where as at home it would be very high prices, and it was really nice. They had a souvenir shop too, everything was strawberry, but it wasn't even their own. They had their own packaging but everything was made elsewhere. Not to mention the endless amounts of food, that was anything as long as it had the word strawberry in it, or was pink. They had supplies of strawberry body wash from The Body Shop. We walked around the place a little bit, but it was nothing like the ones at home, and all seemed a bit fake. We carried on walking up and came to a large car park, then as we started walking down the other side of the farm, a young couple stopped and asked us if we wanted a lift. It was very kind of them, and felt rude if we had of said no. Plus I think we would if managed to get lost, they dropped us back at our hotel. The roads as you enter each little town is filled with stalls selling strawberry souvenirs, like socks, magnets, key rings, cushions, and near enough each cars rear windscreen has a row of cuddly strawberries. So overall with a very adventurous day out, I think that was an end to it. We headed back to our place and relaxed some more before going out for food. This time we gave in and gave the Indian by us a go. Still not exactly what we wanted but we got the taste and even though it was a little cold, it was really nice. A drink, 2 good size main courses and a rotti each for £3 is great! Tuesday: After a couple of days of relaxing and travelling, it was time to get up and explore. With plenty if hiking to so in the area, with Cameron Highlands being a great place for views too. Our plan was to get up at a good time and walk up Gunung Brinchang, however our plan failed. The alarm went off, I switched it off and we both went back to sleep. We soon dragged ourselves out of bed and showered. We should never put the tv on, or start watching a film. We were going out walking, yet instead to make an excuse to watch the film I slowly started to do my make up and let my hair dry. Normally I just put it up and not do anything else. The big climb was out of question today, so looked at some smaller walks that would lead us into Tanah Rata. We headed to one that should be easy and take up some time. We walked off the main road, down a side road and headed to a temple. This was where we got stuck, the signs weren't clear and we started walking towards roads that looked like it would lead you somewhere. It didn't, so we went back to the sign and went up. The last place we thought, it didn't look like it was going to lead you onto a walk. We carried on and saw some more signs so knew we were now heading the right way. We got to a few more points and started questioning how easy this walk was, or was it us being lazy. We climbed up a hill, clambered over some branches and stopped. Another point that looked like we were being lead into someone's garden. This wasn't so easy, and before it was too late, thought we should head back and start at a new trail. So we got back to the main road, and turned off by the golf course which sat in the middle of the two towns. Some times the trails don't seem clear, and just look like your walking down the road, but as it said turn off by the army camp. We did and soon after we were on a track that looked right. This was only a short walk and would lead us into the centre of Tanah Rata, also it passed a water fall so that made the walk a bit more interesting and have something to look at. The waterfall was pretty small, never mind. We had reached the town and was defiantly feeling some lunch, we had read some great reviews about a little cafe so thought we would try and find that. With out barely looking, we came across it and with some great prices we headed straight up. It didn't really have anything in terms of lunch, except a chicken pie or some sandwiches so we both opted for a scone. Ed had a strawberry scone with some cream and a freshly squeezed apple juice. I had just a plain scone, which I thought was better, with the usual cream and jam. I could eat cream scones all day long. Just to add to the strawberries, I had a strawberry tea made at a local tea farm. Ed still had his craving for a naan bread, so as we headed up the town we passed the busy Indian restaurant, which had the large clay pot to make fresh naan bread. As we waited, we thought it would be great if they bought us a bowl of curry sauce over to dip our bread in. We were in luck, they gave us 3 small but perfect amounts of different sauce for us to have with our bread. We both felt pretty full after all of that, but had planned on seeing some other places. So we carried on looking around the area and made plans to go back later for a proper meal. Only problem is that we have to stay in town, we can't go back to our hotel to chill out and freshen up before dinner. So we walked around the shops, and started heading towards another waterfall. Then we came across an Australian guy, walking a couple of dogs, and he asked if we knew where we were heading. At this point we just answered that we were wondering around, he told us about a waterfall, but that one we had seen already. He then told us about another, to which we replied we had intentions of going there now. He said he was walking that way, so would show us the route. Very nice of him to help us, but we both thought he was a little crazy after he opened his mouth. We got a very detailed life story, not his whole life thankfully, just some lovely stories including one about him having a sweat rash of 4 different types all at once. We were also very lucky to find out where these rashes were! Thankfully he was on a bit of a mission and I couldn't keep up with him and Ed so I stayed back and walked with Bish, one of the dogs, and only had to catch little bits of his stories. After what seemed a very long walk we made it to the start of the trail, at this point he had left us and walked on to a different route. We carried on walking to the not so impressive waterfall, the trails we had been on so far, including the waterfalls were just covered with rubbish and people's clothes. The only interesting thing that came out of the Australian who is allergic to heats mouth, was that he showed us a leaf that if you touch it, it withers up and some leaves in the forest that are green but as you pass then they change colour to a turquoise colour. After that adventure, we walked back into town before it got dark, meaning to get food but we are too much at once and were still full up from our late lunch. A long day anyway, so thought we would grab a taxi back to the hotel and get food by us later on if we got hungry. So a few hours pass, and starting to get hungry. Only really wanting a rice dish or noodles, we headed to a place just a few doors up from us. As we walked to a busy place, and started looking in like we wanted to look at the menu, we agreed to sit and have a steamboat. We hadn't had one of these yet as we just weren't in the mood, but we really do love this. We sat on a big round table, with hot coals and water in a dish places on top. We let the water boil, and started to add the plates that had been bought to our table, well we added all of them after we knew what meat we had on the table. So one large plate of veg and leaves, another with tofu, egg, veg balls, fish balls and meat balls. Basically it looks like processed food in a ball. Also had crab sticks on it, so the fish balls are kind of like that and also taste like it. We didn't eat the meat ones though. The other plate had cuttlefish, white fish meat and chicken on it, and finally we had a plate of noodles and two pots of sauce. You cook it how you want it, and ends up being a big noodle soup. Really nice, and is a perfect eat up in the highlands where it's that bit colder. I say that bit, we both went out in the evening with jeans and hoody on. We cooked as ate for about an hour, and even though it wasn't what we had intended having, it was really good. Wednesday: Gunung Brinchang, today is the day we are actually going to get up and do this hike. It was rated tough, but also said it is moderate for healthy people. So I wouldn't class us as really healthy, but since being away we have walked a lot!! So figured we should be fine, plus it was only 3.5km from the beginning of the trail to the top. We hadn't come away prepared for hiking. So just had to make the most with the clothes and shoes we had. It was a nice day out, and after we had breakfast and got sorted we went for it. Being about 15minute walk from ours till the trail started was great, and all started off on a road so even better. As soon as we got off the road, we had to stop as came across a very strange bug, quite large and striped. We passed a large water tank, bit strange to have in the middle of no where. Then we spotted our little wooden ladder to start us off properly. There were tours doing this mountain along with stopping off at butterfly farms and so on, but they drive you up to the top by road which was a lot further away from us as it was the other side of the mountain. We wanted to do the walk so decided on doing it alone. It was a well known route, which was signed the whole way. So as we carried on, it was fine. Called a jungle trek but to be honest felt like a walk in the woods, only steeper. We walked and walked and walked, It had taken about an hour when we reached a sign saying 1.08km left. Well on track and not long left at all, we walked more and more and some more. As we started to climb up and over trees I joke about the 1.08km being straight, not including the roller coaster we were currently doing. Another sign, and the joke became reality. It soon started to get muddier, and we ended up walking through clouds. We soon started to question the way we had come to look up and see the red arrow to lead us. The branches became routes of trees, but as we still needed to go up the hill it got harder. We got muddier. We could hear thunder, and needed to get out quick. It got darker and still got harder, we kept going up and seemed to be no ending. Despite the bits that got tough, we were so glad to do it that way and not by driving up. We walked through clouds with the enchanted forest feel around us. Even though clear sky would of been amazing for views, we got such a surreal feeling from it. After a tough little scramble to the top, we finally made and walked around to a clear area with some benches. We couldn't see anything, there was just thick cloud around us, so we stopped for a bit of lunch. Overall it took about 3 hours to do the walk, and half of that was just to do that last 1.08km. There was also a viewing tower at the top, which is accessible by road and most of the tours are taken there. We looked at going up it an made it to the first flight of stairs, however we soon turned back after looking at the structure and seeing that it didn't look safe. After all that, it was time to start walking back. We had no idea at how far away out hotel was . After about 5 minutes walking we came across "mossy forest" another attraction in the area. Reading that the best time to go was first thing in the morning, we knew we were never going to make that. Also what we had just walked through was pretty incredible that we were satisfied with only taking a short trip into the forest. Soon after it started to rain and we headed down to cover. We sat and waited, hoping it would soon die off or that someone would offer us a lift. Then realised being sat down under cover, no one would know we were in need, so got our jackets on and started walking. The roads were quite slippery from the rain, it had died down a bit but not enough. Then we seen a snake in the road, was about a foot long, and green. We heard a car coming and this snake was still there so waved him down to get him to stop, he did stop but he didn't know what for. He thought we were asking for a lift and showed us he had a full car. Luckily that stopped him and the snake got away. Not long after another car stopped, with two French guys in and offered us a lift. Possibly the best thing to happen to us. We said we would be great full to just the bottom of the hill, and after asking where we were staying, they said they were going that way and dropped us off at our hotel. The road seemed to go on forever and it was 9km just down to the main road, then a further 3 or so back to the hotel. So that lift was greatly appreciated. Back in for a hot shower as warm clothes on and then we were off out to enjoy the lovely steamboat once again. So this time we knew what meat we were getting, we just chucked it all in and ate for an hour again. Thursday: As we passed the views we wanted to see, the previous day in the car in the rain. We planned on going back to get some photos. BOH tea plantations. We drove down the hill from Gunung Brinchang and passed hills lined with tea plants, basically that picture perfect views we wanted the day before from the hill. So we started our 2.5km walk up to Kea Farm, which was no problem. It's all up hill and not a lot to look at on the way, just several strawberry farms and the typical shops they have. As we reached Kea Farm, there's a bee farm at the bottom of the road. We didn't go in to the actual bee farm but just into the shop to see what type of honey foods they sold, not a great deal. They had a few pots of honey, and some honey sticks but seemed to have more strawberry goods, so we carried on and started our next 3.5km walk up the the tea farm. Slightly up hill again and no problem, this was a bit nicer. You actually had nice views to look out over at. Whilst we saved our money and walked it, a few 4x4s passed us doing tours. Each time they would pass us, then we passed them, and so on. The guy in the back found it fun, and waved frantically at us each time they passed. As we photographed the landscape, and walked down to the entrance which then had a further god knows how many km to the actually tea factory. We decided against going into the farm to get lunch. We had seen the views and not far up was a strawberry farm, where another scone was calling us. We headed up to the farm, it was only a 1.5km walk. That soon began to go up a steep hill, it took us quite a while but finally came to the entrance where a few goats sat and watched the world go by. We walked down into the cafe, and started to get a bad feeling about it as soon as we seen the guys working there, trying to call us in. Normally we would ignore people like that and walk to the next place, but there really isn't much else about, we were hungry and planned to go here. So we walked on in, and were disappointed... No strawberry scones, no jam. Only strawberry ice cream and milkshakes, so as we were here we got some ice cream to share. Which made it better as it was some really good ice cream, so our moods changed. Yet this turned soon after. We sat to chill out for a while, and a guy who worked there came over to what we thought was to clear the table, he offered to take our photo so we said yes. Then he said come here ill take a nice photo, so we got up and followed him, he took some quirky photos to show we were at the strawberry farm. We laughed, felt slightly awkward, and then that got worse. He continued to photograph us holding strawberries whilst the other guys who worked there watched. Thankfully after a long 5minutes my battery died, and we decided to not tell him I had a spare. He then gave us the sob story, one of the main reasons why we hate people taking photos, they expect money afterwards. Annoyed by this, and him showing off saying I get paid this much and I send it back to my family, I take photos for tourist they tip me this much and this helps my family. Just another way of begging, so we felt forced into giving him money, angry at this we gave him 2rm which is worth about 40p and told him we needed the rest to get a taxi home an left swiftly after. As we started walking back, the grey clouds started heading our way, along with the thunder, and only light rain. The road from the strawberry farm to the main road had very few cars driving up and down it, and the only taxis are ones with people already in them. So we just walked quicker and soon enough we managed to get away from the rain, have several cars pass us and make it to the main road. Hoping to get a taxi straight away, we didn't see one so just carried on walking till we had seen one. We walked some more and then by that point there really is no reason to get a taxi and might as well just deal with the long walk. We got to a market with a large car park, and there was a medium size black dog which got pretty excited to see us. I said hello to him, and he got more excitable but then we started walking and he started to follow. To be sure he was going to stop and go back, we tried stopping and telling him to go. ( Maybe he only understood Malay) we carried on and so did he. The dog looked too healthy to be wild, but as we walked down this main road he knew what he was doing. We got further away from the car park where we met him and he didn't look like he was going back there. For about 1.5km he followed us, then we got to another fruit market, and he stopped following us. Maybe he was going there all along, we're not sure, but he clearly just wanted some people to walk with. The only time we had a free taxi drive past us, was when the dog was with us and I couldn't part with him till I knew he was safe, and not far after was our stop. Very glad to be back at our hotel, having walked about 15km to go take some photos a good dinner was in need. First it was back to pack out bags and shower, then off to have another Indian.