Cameron Highlands - The Land of Beauty and Tragedy

Well, Chinese new year has really screwed up our plans! Instead of heading to Teman Negara, we were stuck in Singapore for two extra days—no complaining here. We then took an overnight bus (the long distance buses are magnificent btw) to Ipoh where we were planning to stay, go to church, etc., but the bus system was super hard to figure out and we couldn’t find anyone who spoke English! Ergo, we took the first, cheapest long distance bus out of there: Cameron Highlands. The cooler world of strawberry fields, tea plantations, and mossy forests.

The bus took THREE TIMES LONGER than it was supposed to because of all o the holiday traffic. Which we had no idea about. Nor did we think we would have to book beforehand since everywhere has a plethora of guest houses. Please just imagine going from door to door knocking, begging, pleading for somewhere to sleep for under $100! Because that is totally what we did.

A very sweet host lady took pity on us and called a bunch of places in our behalf, but no cigar. She then offered to let us sleep on the floor in the common area, at full price. WE WILL TAKE IT!

Cameron Highlands is very relaxed...usually. Because of Chinese New Year, the place was packed. The roads were packed, the restaurants, everything. We had a few tragedies while here:

1. Hiking a million miles in flip flops and never reaching our destination (see next post for details).
2. Walking 8 km only to find that the place was closed.

-Who would pay $20 a piece when you can walk?! Well, us. Duh. And we walked FOREVER. Finally, as we are almost there, we said a lil prayer and a darling Malaysian family picked us up! Peter, Peggy, Justin, Samuel, and Jessie! They spoke enough English for us to have a great time, and of course they wanted to take a picture with us. So sweet.

1. 3. Walking 8 km only to find that the place was full and we couldn’t enter.

-Dang that mossy forest. We will never be back, and we won’t have the chance for a do-over. Sigh.

4. Traveler’s stomachs...’nough said.

This area has lots of Dutch and British influence from the 1800's. Now they use it as the "style" of the area.

A strawberry tart! Not even that good and way to expensive, but this area is the only area in the area that grows strawberries, so we had to give it a go. :)

The lovely tea fields that they only allowed us to see from the road. Sigh. They have a whole factory and process you can see usually. Except on Mondays. So sad.

Our view of the gorgeousness.

Our new friends! We could have kissed them on the mouth. They saved us from an additional 9 km.

Our feet are lookin great these days.Yes, that is tan line AND dirt.And callouses.