Strolling through the Cameron Highlands

With the interesting travel delays and disruptions due to Ramadan and Hari Raya, the group that I've met up with convinced me to head over to the Cameron Highlands with them. Actually, this was my only option, because the company would only take us on their holiday because there were enough of us to fill a minivan and make it a worthwhile trip for them moneywise, to haul all 8 of us to the highlands. It was actually kindof nice...like we had our own public transportation. So we said good-bye to our tropical paradise and headed out, by boat first, to the mainland and loaded up the minivan.

Well, because of the traffic on the roads from the holiday and the rain that was pouring down, our trip took longer than anticipated. We rolled into Tanah Rata (one of the towns among the Cameron Highlands) and were taken straight to the Daniel Lodge, which only had dorm rooms available. I haven't done the dorm thing yet, because I like knowing my valuables are locked up in a room, but since this was our only option, I had to say go for it. So, there was a row of like 10 beds and we all just picked one and called it home for the next 2 nights. Even though I was indoors, I felt as though I was camping, given the mattress was thinner than my thermarest I use when sleeping in a tent, and above us was a large blue and white plastic tarp to catch any rain that came through the cracks in the wooden roof. Plus, the guy that checked us in said to be sure and throw away any food we had because the mice would be sure to come and get it if we left it in our bags. Haha! This was quite the switch from my princess days at Railay Beach with Lani.

Basically, when you come to the Cameron Highlands, it's green and hilly and people are interested in seeing the tea plantations, strawberry farms and doing some mountain hikes. It's a cooler climate and it was beautiful! We spent the next day on quite the adventure. We decided to take a public bus up the road near the strawberry farm and tea plantation. Well, we thought we were on the 11:30 bus, but we just sat, and sat, and sat some more. At about 12:30, all of a sudden another bus pulled up and we had to switch over. Well, it was already overcrowded, and we didn't get seats, so we were stuck standing in the back as we weaved through the traffic up the road. And actually, the traffic jam was horrendous! Again, the craziness of everywhere we were traveling to was all a result of the holiday. The people were traveling to and from to visit family, friends, and have a few days off of work. Our bus driver would not tolerate waiting in line, so he was pulling off road and into the other lane with oncoming traffic to pass it all up. It was a crazy experience. Had anything like this happened in the States, quite literally risking each of the passengers lives, his license would've been yanked in a second! Only in SE Asia I tell you!

Anyway, we ended up hopping off the bus and doing a hike into the Boh Tea Plantation. The green terraced hills were lovely and once we got to the tea shop, we all sipped on some tea as well. It was a little bit like Starbucks, the line was out the door, but it was still a tasty little treat to enjoy, harvested right off the lands surrounding us. To the right is part of the crew, Fletch, Ed, Jeroen, Lonneca, Randy and myself.

After tea, we tried to take a shortcut to the road and got lost. We had to turn around and hike back out the way we'd come. When we finally reached the main road, it was beginning to get dark, but the area is famous for strawberries as well and I had to see the strawberry farm. Luckily, it was right off the main road. We wandered around briefly and then to make the trip complete, I purchased a 100% strawberry ice lolly (that's what the English call a popsicle). Quite delish! And rather than catching the crazy bus back into town, we opted to walk. However, somewhere along the way it started to pour down rain, and we were still 6 km from town. We flagged a cab and the 6 of us piled in (see below). The cabby really didn't have a problem with an overcrowded taxi, just as long as we all payed our way. It was quite a crazy day of transportation issues and wandering through the tea trees.