Malaysia: Cameron Highlands

Spontaneous trips are always full of excitement! Not knowing much of what to expect, every twists and turns are full of surprises. It was the the start of a long weekend, three of us sat at Carl's Junior nibbling on some fries, thinking of what we can do with that extra day of freedom, and decided that we'll head up to Cameron Highlands to enjoy a cool breeze! Because we arrived Cameron on a Sunday evening of a long weekend, decent accommodations were pretty much packed so we had to stay at a spacious but slightly run down place. They had a beautiful garden in the front yard though. The sunflowers made up for everything, ok well maybe not everything, but it did brighten my day :) 

We walked around Tanah Rata and booked a tour for the next day since none of us had a car and it was impossible to walk anywhere. Trust me; we thought we'd walk to the nearest night market after having steamboat for dinner since one of the locals told us that it was only about 30mins away, but after walking for what seemed like forever, the market was still nowhere in sight. We asked another worker in a shop and she starred at us oddly and told us it's about 30mins away from here. We eventually gave up on our after dinner "stroll," bought snacks and a pack of playing cards, before returning to our accommodation. 

A jeep came by to pick us up the next morning and soon enough, we were on our way towards the tea plantation! I loved driving by the plantation; seeing workers hard at work picking tea leaves, their wives putting out laundry and leaving shoes to dry off on the roofs, their children running after each other, couples lazing around the plantation... I do love people watching; it's a bliss seeing the liveliness and joy in people.

Besides visiting the tea plantation, the more interesting part of the tour which I was looking forward to, was the Mossy Forest! We went to the peak for a good view of the highland before heading to the forest. It was a nice trek, though I wish we had more time to explore the beaten paths. My shoes were soaked with mud by the time we got out.

We then headed to the butterfly farm, which had some interesting insects, but didn't really enjoy it as they seemed not very well taken cared of. Strawberry farm was next, but the strawberries were all picked by the time we got there so we had amazing fresh strawberry smoothies and ice-cream instead. We had some time to explore a nearby market before heading back to town. We had lunch (strawberry naan and all that) and walked around a little while longer before boarding the bus back to KL. We had a crazy bus driver who drove like crazy, obviously, but whom also drove in the opposite direction for an hour just to pick up some guy before driving back again. Sighs. Thankfully, I can sleep for hours while on the road.