Quickly deciding that the area wasn't going to quite tick all the boxes we wanted it to, we booked a cheap flight to Borneo (Sam will fill you in on our time here, which was completely amazing) and got ourselves on a full day tour of the Cameron Highlands, to take in all of the local sights. The itinerary for our tour included a visit to a tea plantation, a small trek through the Mossy Forest, time at a Butterfly Garden, a stop at the central market, a visit to a strawberry farm, 'Time Tunnel' museum and Sam Poh Buddhist Temple. One might think that was a pretty jam-packed itinerary, but we managed to do this whistle-stop tour in just six hours.
Our group was picked up by a couple of Land Rovers at 9am and the first stop was the Boh tea plantation (Malaysia's largest tea producer). Unfortunately the tea factory was shut, so we didn't get to see how the tea leaves are processed. We did get a great tour guide though, who showed us the huge and very beautiful plantation and explained to us how tea is made (Did you know that green tea is made using the same leaf as regular black tea? Interesting stuff!)
Second stop: the Mossy Forest. Here our guide took us on a small trek through the very mossy (hence the name) jungle, stopping every now and then to point out various flora and fauna. Again, very interesting. Have you ever seen a Pitcher Plant? They're really cool carnivorous plants.
Third stop: The Butterfly Garden - which actually had many more insects, arachnids, reptiles and amphibians than just butterflies. There were hundreds of butterflies though, quite a scary amount, so many that it was difficult to walk around the place without worrying about stepping on one. There were also a lot of dead butterflies laying around, some in the bin in fact. Actually, the staff at this place seemed to be constantly throwing dead insects into the bins, which wasn't a great look for the place.
At this point those that had chosen to only do a half day tour (they must have been mad, surely they would want to stay on for the exciting afternoon schedule?!) left the group, leaving only Sam and I and a French couple. We were dropped off in the town to get ourselves some lunch, before being picked up again an hour later for the exciting afternoon activities.
Fourth stop: Central Market. At this point it was pouring with rain, so we just bought some strawberries and sheltered in a doorway to eat them. Nothing really that exciting to say about this local produce market, it was just like any old market.
Fifth stop: Strawberry Farm. Again, exactly how you would imagine a strawberry farm to be. We looked at the plants and then felt obliged to purchase one of the many strawberry products from the shop - a slice of slightly rubbish strawberry cake. Perhaps we should have opted for the strawberry juice...
Sixth stop: Time Tunnel Museum. Really not as rubbish as we thought this was going to be. It was a huge collection of one man's local memorabilia, including old photos of the area, information on Malaysia's colonial past, its liberation, old Malaysian advertising signs, toys, kitchen ware, phones, the lot. Spent quite a while here.
Seventh and final stop: Sam Poh Buddhist Temple. The fourth largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and not all that impressive, not after we had only recently seen the biggest one. It reminded us a bit of a school hall, but did have this incredible painting of a man with pleasingly long eyebrows.
All in all the Cameron Highlands were ok and a nice change from the beach, but didn't satisfy our adventurous urges. On to Kuching, Borneo!!! Before Sam tells you what we got up to here, I'll quickly fill you in on our journey to Kuala Lumpur, where we had to get our flight from. It was a pretty gut-wrenching three and a half hour mini van journey. Our driver got pulled over by the police for speeding (we didn't think he had actually been going that fast) and he took the whole thing really badly. He turned from a happy, smiling man, into a monstrous maniac. He pulled off from the ordeal huffing and puffing and purposely revved the vehicle as much as he could, speeding off in front of the police. He didn't take his foot off the accelerator for the rest of the journey and even undertook a police car at one point. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur 40 minutes earlier than expected and feeling massively nauseous. At least we got there in one piece - we had to play the categories game to keep our mind off of our apparently imminent deaths.
No comments:
Post a Comment