After exhausting all our possible options in George Town, Yuki and I hopped on a bus and made our way to the Cameron Highlands, a hill station littered with small picturesque villages, tea plantations and strawberry fields. Thankfully, thanks to the altitude, the climate was cool and, what with the endless drizzle, we felt right at home.

Other than eating scones, we didn”t really do that much during our time in the highlands. The area is famous for trekking (all towns in Malaysia are famous for trekking, actually, wipe that, all towns in SE Asia are famous for trekking) but since we were heading to Taman Negara next, we saved our energy for that. We did however manage to haul ourselves out of bed and onto a minibus to go and check out the Boh Tea Plantation, a massive area of land full of… well, tea leaves. We got to check out the factory, watch the women tend the fields and drink some of the ”world famous” Boh tea (not for free). We also visited a bee farm and some gardens - but they were crap so I won”t bore you with the details. We did however go and see a butterfly farm which was fairly impressive, although some of the butterflies looked suspiciously moth-like to me.

Taman Nagara
We”d read and heard a lot about Taman Negara, Malaysia’’s ancient rainforest, and there was no way we were going to miss it. Put simply, Taman Negara is a massive area of jungle that has, with the exception of a giant canopy walkway, the construction of a few tourist resorts, numerous signposts and manmade trails, been left relatively untouched for a few million years. We were going to see dinosaurs for sure.

We arrived at the park entrance after a three hour boat ride and, after securing some crummy accommodation, booked ourselves on the infamous ”night safari” - although I wasn”t aware of it’’s infamousness prior to handing over my money. Don”t get me wrong, the trip was fun, but when someone says ‘’safari” to me, my mind conjures up images of numerous vicious animals all intent on separating me from my flesh. So what ferocious creatures did we encounter?

1 x Owl
2 x Grass Snake
1 x Slow Loris
1000000 x Ant

Seriously though, although we didn”t see anything that amazing, it was a good laugh and I”d recommend it to anyone who likes sitting in the back of a jeep being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

After a very itchy night - due to the mosquitoes as opposed to any underlying medical or hygiene issue - we arose the next morning determined to conquer the canopy walkway, a series of rope bridges suspended high up in the, err… canopy. Despite what we”d heard, the walkway wasn”t really that scary and, to compound our disappointment, half of it was shut. Bummer. Afterwards we decided to trek a bit further into the forest and climb a hill - because this is soooo what I”m into back home - before making our way back to HQ.

Overall I guess we weren”t that enthralled by Taman Negara, perhaps because our expectations were far too high when we arrived. We”d kind of imagined something like the Jungle King crossed with Jumanji which, in hindsight, sounds kinda dumb.

To be continued… (Kuala Lumpur / Borneo)

I might be a bit behind on the journel but we”re bang up to date on the Malaysia pictures. Check ”em out.

Categories: South East Asia
Tags: Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, Taman Negara