Tanah Rata, the Cameron Highlands and ring of fire…

We arrived here in Tanah Rata in the super luxury bus feeling very relaxed, in fact I slipped off to sleep and fell out of my armchair like seat and into the aisle at one point… But regardless of that the weather had taken a turn for the better and the winding roads leading here were made all the more spectacular dripping with sunshine and framed by clear blue skies.

The bus dropped us off at a tourist info centre in the middle of the small town and we were greeted by a few pretty laid back touts, when Georgie asked one what the view was like from their guest house the reply that followed was, “well what do you want to see, we’re in the rainforest!” we instantly took a shine to this ballsy fellow and hopped eagerly into his minibus. We ended up taking a room at Daniel’s Lodge, we have a small but clean, if not a little stark, room but the guest house has great common areas and is buzzing with other travellers chilling out.

Excited about being in a new place we headed off into town to get a feel for the place. It’s a small but busy town that’s clearly geared up for tourism international and domestic, due to its many local tea plantations there are many places offering tea and scones… We couldn’t resist a bit of that! Slightly bizarre but none the less delicious.

The town itself somehow fell a little  short of what we were expecting, maybe it was all the pictures of sprawling tea covered hills we’ve seen, but we thought that maybe that’s what the views would be like but it turns out that Tanah Rata is just a hub for all the nearby highland attractions. It’s still dripping with that Malaysian flair, culturally diverse and amazing places to eat offering food from every corner of the world.

We went back to our guest house and got chatting to some other bums about what’s good to do and decided to go for a little jungle stroll, this turned out a little disappointing too, the watchtower we were trying to get to turned out to be closed and the path there somewhat neglected but undeterred we saw the whole exercise as a good way of working up a mammoth appetite… Then promptly quashed that hunger with another amazing curry… A banana leaf Tali to be exact!

Again gut busted and aching we went back to our guest house to let things settle. I was still feeling tired from my sporadic sleeping of late so once the evening rolled in I necked some sleeping tablets in the hope of normalising it… But this was all in vain as the other travellers (a lovely bunch of coconuts) had all pitched in for some cheap booze and asked if we were up for it, as you know this was an offer that we always have trouble refusing and before long we were getting messy with a game of ring of fire… For those who don’t know what ring of fire is, it’s a game that has no winners and always ends up (far too quickly) in everyone being absolutely sh*tfaced!

At some unearthly hour when all the booze was long gone we staggered off to bed and finally I was out like a light… Not Georgie though, bless her, she was up at 6am having a good old chat down the big white telephone…