Cameron Highlands

The Cameron Highlands are in the centre of Malaysia and famous for tea plantations and strawberry farms. I met some people at the bus station who warned me it was cold but it was freezing! I guess probably England spring temperatures but coming from 30 degrees it was all a bit of a shock and I had 2 rather uncomfortable nights sleeping in all my clothes!

I finally finally met some nice (normal!) people on the bus journey and arranged to go on a tour with them to find the biggest flower in the world. This involved a 3 hour trek through some serious mud (anyone remember me and mud escapades in Uganda? I'm not a fan to put it mildly!) and a hair raising ride up a very steep hill in the back of a pick up truck, I thought I was going to fall out/over the edge on numerous occasions or at least knocked out by the branches we kept driving under. However the walk was quite fun, involving lots of clambering over and under tree roots clutching onto bamboo for support. The flower was a bit of a let down to be honest. It takes 15 years to grow and only flowers for 7 days. Yes it was big but it was just a flower and not even that pretty! After a quick refreshing dip in a waterfall we slipped and slid our way back down to look at some tea plantations (I was covered in mud by this point so looked a bit of a state. But I didn't fall over which is a first for me!) which were beautiful, rolling valleys covered in different shades of green; stocked up on strawberries and braved a butterfly farm full of insects and snakes (the cages all looked pretty dodgy though).

The next day I decided to go back to the tea plantation and negotiated buses to get there, meeting an Italian guy said 'incredible' a lot, I'm not sure if this was at the views or at the difficulty we were having communicating! I then rather stupidly hitchiked back, realised my mistake as soon as I got in the car but the guy was charming and chatted the whole way back. I guess sometimes you just have to trust your instincts..