Cameron Highlands

Day 1 – Cream Tea for two

We headed out in the morning in our quest to find the elusive Malaysia travel book only to return an hour later empty handed. Grabbing a quick breakfast before heading out onto the street to flag down a taxi to take us to the coach station.

During our short journey to the coach station we found that we had the most chatty taxi driver on the planet, who regaled us with all the local politics explaining why Indonesia will never develop,  to his favourite guitarists past and present.

Twenty minutes later and we arrived at the coach station, which is one of the most modern and cleanest I have ever seen, with numerous restaurant’s one of which we grabbed a coffee in.  We then grabbed a few snacks for the trip before heading to board the coach.

The coach was extremely comfortable and we were soon relaxing watching the countryside go by only stopping for a quick comfort break.  After a journey of four hours we arrived in the lush green Cameron Highlands and the town of Tanah Rata where our accommodation was.

It was immediately clear when departing the coach that the temperature was a lot cooler, which was a relief after Kuala Lumpur.  We quickly found our hotel and checked in, the room wasn’t that great but it would do.  The only problem was we were back in mosquito-ville and spent the first 15 minutes hunting them down and lighting a mosquito coil in our room.

Once we had our fill of killing we went to the front of the hotel and ordered some tea (as it is Malaysia’s tea region) and believe it or not a cream tea!!  The scones and jam were very nice and even the dubious looking clotted cream wasn’t bad!

Tea & Scones finished we headed out to check out this small town, firstly stopping at a couple of tourist office in order to sort out our exit route to get to our next destination, Penang.

As per usual we then went and had a couple of beers whilst discussing our options, we opted to get a coach to Penang where we were going to spend a couple of days, then booked a flight from Penang to Langkawi as prices were similar to the ferry.

To celebrate having a plan for the next few days we thought we would splash out on a bottle of red (something we had been missing in Asia) and it turned out to be quite a nice drop.  Unfortunately this bottle should had cost around £10, but I was overcharged because I had not got to grips with the new currency/exchange rate.  Once I had realised I challenged the owner/waiter and he denied that he had charged me the money I had been asked for, therefore we ended up paying £30 for the bottle as it seemed pointless arguing with him.  First time I have so obviously been ripped off whilst travelling…..Doh!!! (I’m supposed to be an accountant!!)

Deciding we would not continue to drink at this establishment we walked a short distance and found some busy Indian restaurants with outside tables so we sat there to have some beers.  Liking what we saw coming out of the kitchen we decided to stay there for the evening and have our dinner there, a Tandoori Set (Shell) and a Chicken Jalfrezi (Glenn) both of which were really good.

We ended up chatting to a Canadian couple for a while and later in the evening Shell and I were the only people left there and the staff were busy cleaning up and packing up the chairs, it was only 10.30 so we thought we should leave.  With no other options in town we went back to our room for the night.

Day 2 – More Tea Vicar!!

We had checked out a number of day trips around the area which didn’t look that exciting and possibly a bit blue rinse for our liking so decided to rent a scooter and make up our own tour.  There were also a number of hiking options but we were feeling a bit lazy.

For breakfast we just had a coffee whilst we waited for our scooter to turn up, when it did I had a bit of problem starting it but after a short while of messing around kick starting it eventually started.

On the coach journey up we had noticed quite an impressive waterfall along the way so we thought we would first go and try and find this.

The ride was down through the tea valleys along a windy very potholed road, but the scenery was stunning,  a mix of Tea Plantations and Jungle. 

The waterfalls were further than we thought and after around 30km thinking they would be just around the bend we eventually found them.

Lata Iskander waterfalls were not on any of the tour itineraries that we looked at so we were quite pleased to find it.  The fall’s themselves were very pretty and we spent 20 minutes walking around them before finding a little café at the bottom where we had a soft drink before heading off.

Heading back the way we came we took more time to appreciate the scenery and take a few photos of the vista’s and local life along the way.

Next stop on our improvised tour was a bee farm (which was on the official trip) so we dropped into there to find out what happens at the bee farm.  You can imagine how interesting this attraction was and 10 minutes later we were back on the saddle again!

Riding along another windy road following directions through tea plantations on either side of us we took lots of picture before getting to our destination which was a tea factory.  Again this was a stop on the official tour but when we walked around we discovered that the factory itself was temporarily closed whilst it was being cleaned, deciding not to have a brew here we jumped back on the bike again.

We had noticed what looked like a nice tea cafe back towards town so we headed back up the hill until we found it.  Ordering a pot of local tea for two we found a nice table that overlooked a valley that was wall to wall tea plantations and made for some nice photos.

It was now 2pm and our tummies were rumbling so we drove back into town and parked up in front of the Indian restaurant from the night before.  We stopped here to get some late lunch and shared some delicious food and a beer, whilst deciding whether we could cope with the excitement of visiting a strawberry farm!! (It’s famous for its strawberries in this region).

As it was getting a bit overcast we agreed we would just go for a ride in the opposite direction from the morning, but after a short drive up the road it appeared that the rain was closing in so we turned tail and went back to our hotel to relax for a while.

In the evening we returned to the Indian Restaurant (Again this region is famous for its Indian food) for a few beers and some more gorgeous food, including a mutton curry clay pot dish before going home for an early night as we had to get up early the next morning to move onto  Penang.