Wednesday 06 - Sunday 10/02/2008 - MALAYSIA, Kuala Lumpur, Tanah Rata "The Cameron Highlands"

We caught a direct bus from Kuala Lumpur to Tanah Rata, the main town in the Cameron Highlands (5h, RM23). The last 2 hours of the trip were very painful, the bus went up the very windy road from Tapah to Tanah Rata, at a very low speed (20-30km/h)....but it was still too fast for our stomachs! On the other end this was the part of the trip when the landscapes were the nicest, much better than the boring highway crossing the oil palm plantations. In Tanah Rata bus station the minivans of a few guesthouses wait for the tourists and offer them a free ride to the guesthouse...hoping they will take a room! We picked Father's Guesthouse but we were not happy about their poor customer service and the rooms were not outstanding. So we got them to drop us to another place, which was nicer, but turned out to be too expensive as the prices went up (50 to 100%) for the Chinese New Year, a very important holiday time in Malaysia. Finally we took a dorm bed (RM10 per night per person) at Father's Guesthouse and even if the conditions were basic (we wished we would have sleeping bags as it was freezing at night), the customer service very poor, we had a very nice time as we met very nice people from all over the world: Canada, France, Poland, Switzerland and even China.

The Cameron Highlands were first explored by William Cameron in 1885 and were named after him. Located at more than 1500m above sea level, they offer a very different climate from the coast, much cooler, favorable to grow vegetables. The area is famous in Malaysia for its tea plantations and its vegetables/strawberries farms. As we arrived in Tanah Rata just at the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the town was very busy. We still had a great and relaxing time away from the hot and busy towns of the west coast. The temperatures dropped a lot at night and we had to wear our fleeces...that we thought we will never use in Asia! Tanah Rata and the other two towns in the Cameron Highlands are rather ugly with all their massive hotels for tourists. The highlight of our stay in the Cameron Highlands was definitely the visit of the tea plantations but we also liked the walks in the jungle, meeting very nice travellers, the cooler temperatures and the delicious strawberries!!!

Below are the walks and visits we have done during our stay: