The alarm went off
at 6am and while I packed up, Kate went out and foraged for some food
– arriving back with some very nice pancakes filled with crushed
peanuts and sugar, a packet of Twisties and some orange juice. We
were then downstairs and waiting for our minivan to the Cameron
Highlands at our allocated 7.45am pick-up time, but there was no sign
of the van. When it got to 8am, Kate went into the hotel and called
the number on the ticket and was told that it could come as late as
8.30 – and sure enough, it came not long after that.
We were the first
in, and were soon joined by three English backpackers and a trio of
Swiss girls. We negotiated our way through the busy streets of George
Town and then the driver announced that we were travelling over one
of the very long bridges that connect Penang to the mainland – this
one is 14 kilometres long, while the one over to our right is a
slightly staggering 34 kilometres long. We soon hit the freeway,
where the driver really put his foot down, sending those of us in the
back seats flying into the air every time we hit a bump. After a
quick refreshment stop, we joined the road up into the highlands,
passing through thickly jungled hills along an increasingly windy
road, along which our driver recklessly sped.
Our next stop was a
hydroponic farm, where a sea of lettuces sprouted from long, white
rectangular tubes, and strawberry plants hung from the ceiling. The
Cameron Highlands is a major agricultural area, specialising in
strawberries, and when we set off again we began to pass more and
more areas where the jungle had been cleared and replaced with rows
of polytunnels. The highlands are also a popular retreat from the
heat of the coast and we passed a lot of construction – mostly
hideous apartment blocks. That popularity also manifests itself in
some pretty atrocious traffic and as we got closer to our ultimate
destination, our progress became progressively slower. Eventually,
however, we reached the little town of Tanah Rata, where we stopped
outside the bus office for some time while the others bought their
onward tickets. We then dropped them off at their hotels and swung
back around to just across the road from the bus office, where the
driver stopped and pointed out our hotel. So, we could have just
walked there before, then... We grabbed our bags and wandered over.
Climbing a narrow set of stairs, we reached the reception desk, where
we were met by a seemingly slightly wary Indian couple who didn't
appear to have our booking. After a while they sorted themselves out
and gave us our key and we let ourselves into a very basic room with
two double beds, a TV and a pretty skanky bathroom.
It was lunchtime by
now so we headed out in search of a place with the rather unlikely
name of Chapati Urban Restaurant, which was right near the top of the
TripAdisor ratings and which we discovered perched near the top of a
hill overlooking Tanah Rata. While we waited for our food to arrive
we were closely observed by a small, serious girl with a large bump
on her head. The food was pretty good, although we had been talked
into ordering too much of it by the woman who served us.
On the way into
town, we had noticed the familiar HSBC logo, so we headed down there
to refresh our cash reserves and then meandered about for a bit, to
get a feel for Tanah Rata. There wasn't much to see – it's very
much a tourist town, with a row of shops, restaurants and hotels
along the main road and not too much else. A bit off the main drag,
up near our hotel, was a cute, quirky little place called the
Barracks Café – it was set up inside a row of those semicircular
huts used as army barracks (as these once were, apparently). Cute,
but a bit too Western (read expensive), so we headed back to the
room, where I had a bit of a nap as it rained outside, heavily.
In the evening, Kate
and Zoe went out to scope the restaurant situation, eventually
settling on Orchard Food Corner, a very local place where we got some
pretty decent noodles and some nice turmeric chicken, all washed down
with some fresh orange juice (as about 60 per cent of Malaysia's
population is Muslim, we're increasingly finding ourselves in
restaurants that don't serve alcohol). After dinner, we walked around
the town some more. I found a wine shop with a pretty good selection,
including some classed growth Bordeaux from good vintages at
absolutely eye-watering prices. We bought the girls some chocolate
for dessert and I bought a pack of playing cards to replace our poor
overworked, poorly treated pack.
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