Cup of tea sir?

Friday 10^th December 2010

MP3 track of the day: I would walk 500 miles – Proclaimers

Weather: A beautiful day (which was a little annoying as I had forgotten to bring my suncream with me) but with heavy rain in the evening.

Last night I chilled until around 11pm, chatting to this German girl (who is really nice, quite attractive and is traveling to Penang at the same time as me … bonus). After this I went to sleep, however it was still cold. Waking up in the morning I thought that I was coming down with a cold or something; I reckoned this was due to the coldness of the room and the fact that I had no sleeping bag. I have decided to move onto Penang tomorrow, just because I reckon if I stay here any longer I will get ill (and I know I've been hoping for cold, and I do like the cold, I just wish I had a sleeping bag that's all).

Both Mike and I got ready and headed out for another long walk. We both wanted to head to the tea plantation but we didn't want to do a tour, organized by our hostel, as the tour took in eight sites within five hours meaning that we wouldn't have that long at the tea plantation (who wants to see a butterfly farm anyway?). Last night we did hunt for a bus service to the plantation, but were unsuccessful. We therefore headed out on our 8km walk to the plantation.

The walk was pretty draining; luckily it was overcast as we walked to the plantation and so walking along the open highway wasn't a problem heat or sunburn wise, however it was all up hill with traffic passing us ever second (and I'm sure I inhaled more pollution than was good for me). The walk was pretty intense and it took us a few hours to get there. Once there the views were beautiful; I've never seen a tea plantation before and so, seeing the well trimmed tea leaf bushes, at the same height, all over this huge valley made the area look like a sea of light green.

We had to walk another 2km to the Tea Plantation information center where we read about the tea, saw it being harvested (which happens every three weeks, how lucrative is farming tea?), crushed, dried and ready for packing. After this we headed to the tea room where I sampled a cup of their tea (not as nice as PG tips) and a big slice of cake (which was yum).

We left around 2pm and started the long walk back to the hostel. The good news was the road was all down hill, the bad news was that the sun was fully out and we were both concerned of getting burnt (which I think the back of my neck might be). With a combination of shade hopping and the use of my umbrella , we took the long road back down the hill to our accommodation. We were both pretty tired when we arrived back at the hostel and so we chilled again for the evening before grabbing some dinner.

Tomorrow I head for Penang … at 6:50am in the morning! It's going to be a long day though I'll be traveling with a big group of others, including the German girl … nice!

Toodle Pip!

Rainforest trekking ... again

Thursday 9th December 2010

MP3 track of the day: All by my self - Eric Carmen

Weather: Throwing it down until 10:30am, then the rain stopped in the early afternoon.

Last night Mike and I were in the 'Jungle Bar', at the hostel, talking to some locals until midnight. I then retired to my dorm however I was pretty cold and, just like in the Taman Negara national park, I put on more clothes.

I initially woke up around 8:30am, however I was still tired and the rain was throwing it down outside. I therefore decided to go back to sleep until 9:30am and have a lazy start (and a lovely hot shower) until around 10:30ish. At that point the rain reduced to a drizzle; Mike and I went in search of food before searching for a map of the area (which you have to pay for) and then finally heading off on a trek. Our destination, the Robinson Waterfall followed by the Gunung Beremban lookout and finally heading to Parit Waterfall.

The map was pretty useless with it not pin-pointing important structures (like temples etc); trying to find the start of the trail was difficult with us walking up two dead end roads; finally we asked a local and found this red and green blocked path (that looked like a long snake). It's one of the first pieces of development, on a walking trail, that I've seen in Malaysia and I wish they hadn't bothered as it made the path very slippy indeed.

On our way to the Robinson Waterfall some local tried to charge us ten ringgit ... just because; we ignored him and followed the path down to the waterfall. The waterfall wasn't that great and so we left pretty quickly and headed to the start of the trail to the Gunung Beremban lookout point. It's fair to say that this trail wasn't very 'well worn' and involved both Mike and I having to scramble up jungle paths with the early rainwater flowing all around us ... it was a pretty demanding hike in which I got very sweaty and very hot.

The other worrying factor was that we had hiked for around an hour and we hadn't seen a sign; like I said earlier that the path wasn't well worn; I tried to put to the back of my mind comments within my guidebook stating that tourists have been lost in the highlands for days. An hour and a half had passed and we still hadn't seen a sign; we decided to press on to the top as it couldn't be that far away.

Mike and I chatted along the way, looking for footprints, rubbish ... any sign of previous life. Finally we found a sign; the good news was that we were on the right track, the bad news was that we still weren't at the lookout. At this point we were a little dubious of the distances printed on the signs we found; this walk was only supposed to be 8km however we had been going or hours.

Finally, heroically we made it to the lookout ... and it was rubbish, seriously rubbish, it only focused on the town below. After a very short rest stop we started to decent down the mountain with me slipping over three times. As we were coming down a different path to the one we had taken up it was nice to see that this path had many signs directing us all the way back to the town (we abandoned the hike to the Parit Waterfall as distance wise we hadn't got a clue how long it would take; sun light was also running out). It didn't take long for us to get down the mountain and so we were in town hunting a sugary drink and some chocolate.

As our boots, socks and trousers were covered in mud and water, we retired back to the hostel to change and chill for the early evening before finding something to eat. Today has been a very cheap, but tiring, day; I've only spend about thirty ringgit (£6) and so I may do a tour of the tea plantations tomorrow (seems to be the thing to do here and lots of people at the hostel went today and they enjoyed it).

Until then Toodle Pip!

Cool Cameron Highlands

Wednesday 8th December 2010

MP3 track of the day: Baby it's cold outside – Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews

Weather: Hot, humid and horrible in Kuala Lumpur. Cool and nice in the Cameron Highlands

Last night I headed out to the Petronas Towers, one final time, to take a few photos of the towers at night; I then headed into the shopping center to have one of my best meals, so far, within Malaysia (then I found out that my meal was Japanese … figures). At first I was worried that me, with an SLR camera and tri-pod, might be a little bit of a target for nasty people … however the place was full of people with more expensive equipment than I. I got some wonderful photos of the towers and then headed back to my hostel for an early night.

Not leaving until 11am I leisurely got ready for my coach trip. I said thank you and goodbye to the hostel staff, and prepared myself for a hot trip to the bus station. The trip, apart from arriving pretty sweaty, went well. Once at the bus station I found out the platform my coach was going to be leaving from, the coach number and the coach livery … so I could identify the coach easily, it can't be that difficult I thought!

Oh yes it can. At platform two there were at least eight coaches, which were parallel parked. I had a quick look around but I couldn't find any coach numbers or any coaches that said they were going to the Cameron Highlands. Due to the heat, and the weight of my bags, I decided to stand on platform two, under a bit of shade, and hopefully help would arrive.

Help didn't arrive and so I eventually asked someone who pointed to a coach that couldn't have looked more different to the one the ticket sales man had pointed to. I inquired on the coach whether it was going to the Cameron Highlands … and it was. I put my stuff on board but, still not feeling quite happy, I had another quick look around for a coach that looked like the one I had been instructed to catch.

After looking around for a while I gave up and went back to the coach; my main worry was that the ticket I had purchased wasn't valid on this service. As I boarded I met two other British guys – who, as it turned out, were going to be staying at the same hostel, in the Cameron Highlands, as I - and we compared tickets … they were identical. Just before we departed a ticket bod came round and collected all tickets included mine ... all was good and we set off.

At first the scenery was very similar to my coach journey to Taman Negara two days ago. About five minutes in the coach driver turned on the DVD and I ended up watching 'The Fast and the Furious'. The TV was right next to me so avoiding watching was impossible; it seemed to be a new 'Fast and Furious' as I hadn't seen it before (I wondered if it was another dodgy DVD of a film not out on sale yet). I do like the 'Fast and the Furious' series of films; sure they are American rubbish with little plot however they do have fast cars, guns and beautiful babes … in my book a recipe for success.

Once the film had finished the TV went off and I concentrated on the view outside. It all became interesting when we started to ascend up to the highlands. Before this the usual palm oil plantations were in full view but now I had jungle terrain with sheer drops to one side. It was all very beautiful, especially with the low fog just above our position.

As we continued to climb I found out that this 'low fog' was indeed a huge rain cloud that threw rain down the side of the mountain. I could see out the window that the rain was gushing down the hillside and I wasn't looking forward to stepping out of the coach. Luckily when we arrived at Tanah Rata – the main town within the Cameron Highlands – the rain had stopped. Also a free shuttle to my hostel was awaiting for me. The other to Brits and I boarded the shuttle and we traveled the three minute trip to our hostel. On the way I saw new developments which I hoped we were going to turn into … we didn't, however the place I'm staying at is quite nice though I haven't checked the bathroom yet.

Being 5pm, and the fact I had only had a packed of crisps and a packet of biscuits for lunch, I headed into town to have a look around (town consists of one main road - with a Starbucks ironically - and so it didn't take me long to have a look around). Town seems to have all the necessaries I need and so I had something to eat and got some cash out (and hopefully this time my cash will last the rest of Malaysia).

Once back at the hostel I met Mikey from Melaka. It was nice to meet up again and, as we both arrived today, seems I might have a friend for my time here within the Cameron Highlands. So far I'm pleased with my decision to come here; I'm glad to have left Kuala Lumpur as I was starting to think that I would never leave. My dorm is only ten ringgit a night so I hope to save a little cash and there seems to be a good group of people here. However the best thing is that it is cool; it's not humid at all, its lovely and cool … think I'm going to like it here!

Toodle Pip!