Cameron Highlands Day 90 17/12/2014

The minivan picked us up at our guest house just before 8am to head south east to Cameron Highlands.  We left Penang via the 13.5km road bridge - one of the longest bridges in the world.  Penang's rapid development has led to the construction of a second bridge linking the southwest tip of the island to the mainland.  Accordingly to Lonely Planet it was expected to be completed by mid 2012 but still remains unopen.  The journey south took us up and over a lovely pass before dropping down to Ipoh and then heading south west to Cameron Highlands.   The ironic image of jungle clad peaks and tea plantations was a bit lacking with the area clearly suffering badly from landslides and floods.  Unfortunately prevention measures have certainly taken their toll on the landscape along with agricultural development which has resulted in vast areas of plastic sheeting covering the hillsides, mainly to protect the abundant crops of strawberries. The Highlands stretch from Brinchang to Ringlet and we were staying in the middle in the main town of Tanah Rata.  The minivan service was door to door and after dropping off our fellow passengers we stopped opposite our accommodation for the next three nights, the Orchard Lodge.  The name conjures up images of a small residence set in an idyllic garden.  The image dispersed as soon as the van stopped outside a three story shopping complex and as we carried our bags up three flights of stairs we realised our imaginations had run away with us!  We entered the accommodation to find no one there and after waiting for about 20 minutes rang the owner.  He was actually on holiday and got the receptionist from one of his other hostels to come round to check us in.  One of the reasons we had chosen the place was the free cooking classes that apparently took place in the evening.  Realising that this wasn't going to happen and in fact we were the only people booked into the hostel we decided to move and went to see the other hostel, the CH Traveller.  It's nothing to write home about but there are other people here so we decided to stay.  After dropping off our bags we headed to find out how to get to Singapore.  We found one bus company who do direct journeys only to find the bus is full on Saturday when we planned to travel.  Not keen on the option of bus to Kuala Lumpar and then train to Singapore, or knowing whether we could get tickets and/or do the journey in the day (amd the memory of the very expensive flight we had to pay from Bangkok) we decided to leave a day earlier and head south on Friday.  After lunch we headed back to the hostel to extend the booking for our hotel in Singapore and then planned to do one of the short walks around Tanah Rata.  There are over a dozen walking trails in the hills around the town.  After reaching three dead ends we gave up!  Luckily we've booked a guided tour for tomorrow so hopefully we'll be a bit more successful, especially as it's planned for us to climb to the highest peak in Malaysia.  In the evening we went to go to a restaurant recommended in Trip Advisor only to find it empty so opted for a busy curry house on the main street.  Diane's veggie curry certainly had a few more vegetables than the previous one.  And there was the added benefit that it sold beer, which is lacking in these devout muslim establishments!  Thailand are playing Malaysia at football in the Asian super cup tonight so all eyes (well most) were on the TV which for the first time since leaving home we're now watching in our room with the sound of the torrential rain pouring down outside. (Thailand have just won the first leg 2-0 so all set up for the second leg on Saturday - Simon has plans to find a bar in Singapore to watch it!!)

Tanah Rata main street... before the rain