BRAVING LEECHES IN THE CAMERON HIGHLANDS

The rains came down as our slightly less deluxe bus came to a halt at the bus station of Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands making us feel instantly at home. It's probably a little mean of us to say but we really miss the rain sometimes. We were quite excited as we pulled our hoodies from our bags and took to the streets to brave the weather. Les for one was pretty delighted to find a number of South Indian restaurants on the main street. I'll have the masala dosa thanks!



Not quite ready for the adventure trek on our first morning, we decided to ease ourselves into the activities with the 'country-side tour'. We rose at dawn and applied insect repellent galore, then tucked our trousers into our socks and donned long sleeves in preparation for the leeches of the Malaysian rainforests. Of course we realised that none of the above was necessary as we had enrolled for a family style tour suitable for kids and pensioners alike and which certainly didn't involve leech infested jungles. We did, however, take in a pretty rose garden, a strawberry farm, a honeybee farm, a butterfly farm which was actually really impressive and contained really huge bird-like butterflies, scary beetles, scorpions, stick insects and even a few friendly turtles. On then to the Boh Tea Plantation with the promise of a cup of Boh tea and some much needed lunch. The Boh cafe looks out over stunningly beautiful tea covered hills and serves, quite possibly, the best egg-salad sandwich in the whole wide world. We even went back the next day just to be sure we hadn't imagined it.





Right then! We were ready for something a little more adventurous. Up at dawn once more and prepared again to come face to face with the leeches, only to learn later on that yet again our fine precautionary measures would go to waste as there weren't really any leeches about at all. We did trek into the rainforests this time though and went on the hunt for Rafflesia, the world's largest flower. Rafflesia blooms for just three days and then quickly dies off. We found one having trekked for about an hour and I can confirm that it was indeed very large, and rather smelly too. Leading the tour was a young man from a local tribe who gave us bamboo water, drank from freshly cut bamboo, to quench our thirst and offered us some extremely bitter fruit, also freshly picked, to snack on. We weren't at all embarrassed about our leech repelling efforts as we followed our bare-foot guide through the jungle paths.







Back in town later we hooked up with some of our new friends for some dinner and far too many drinks considering our imminent bus trip the following morning. Had great fun though, big hi to Aoife, Michael, Katja and Natasa. Aoife and Michael we really hope to catch up again soon to arrange our Paddy's day parade in Yangon. Katja and Natasa I hope Borneo was all you had hoped and that settling back to reality didn't prove too difficult. If you're ever in Dublin....