The hills are alive with the sound of tea

We had a quick breakfast of toast and jam in the lovely hostel before going to wait for a minibus that would take us to our big bus. This was at half 7 in the morning so quite an early start. When on our big bus it was a four and a half hour journey to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The drive through the highlands was lovely with beautiful green hills and lots of strawberry farms on the road sides. Getting off the bus we both got a shock as it was cold! The temperature was probably about 20 degrees Celsius but to us that is pretty cold. We hadn't booked anywhere to stay but decided to stop for lunch before searching for accommodation. We chose a street stall just across the road from where the bus dropped us off but were a little unsure as to what we were getting. It turned out to be really good homemade food on a big silver dish with compartments, like a school dinner plate. There was rice with a dhal sauce (this one tasted really good) and fried chicken and green veg! All of this came to a pound each so it just made it taste even better. 

Just round the corner and out of the rain (it had started to rain again) we found a hostel that had beds available for a very reasonable price so we left our bags and went off to explore a tea plantation that the guy at the hostel had told us about. The hostel guy had said it was easy to hitch hike there (we were a little sceptical) but started walking (it was over 3 kilometres away) and about 10 minutes in a minibus offered us a lift. We had to pay about 50p each but it was still raining so we happily paid. 

At the tea plantation, even with the rain, the views over the tea bushes were beautiful and could be admired from the cafe. Therefore, we bought a tea each and a slice of mango cheesecake to share (it wasn't the cheapest). The cheesecake wasn't the most flavoursome and our teas (I had honey peach and Matt had passion fruit) were far too sweet. We wished we'd tried the normal standard tea instead. The weather stopped us from walking through the plantation and so we headed back into town. This meant walking in the rain. We attempted to get a lift but all cars seemed to be full so we tried running it. It was up hill which wasn't bad but Matt's legs are at least double the length of mine so he ended up being ahead by a long way, making the whole thing less enjoyable. It did however mean that we were back in Tanah Rata in no time and were able to walk about the town (it was quite small), checking out some of the shops. This didn't take us long so we decided to have an early tea, choosing a nice curry place. We ordered an onion roti with a couple of different curry sauces, tandoori chicken, rice and some little mini chicken curries that accompanied the rice. It was all rather tasty but Malaysian food still hasn't reached the standard of the curries we had in Thailand. 

We ended up back at the hostel quite early and so decided to sit in the lounge and plan some more of our travels. We feel rather organised for once.