Large mug of tea please!

Heading for the hills after the heat and humidity of KL was an easy choice, so we booked a bus from KL to Tanaha Rata, in the centre of the Cameron Highlands. This area is where much of Malaysian tea comes from, and its mild climate also lends itself to other plantations, including flowers and strawberries.

We strayed at the excellent Fathers Guest House, which served excellent breakfasts ranging from fruit salads up to full on cooked english, as well as huge mugs of tea, something we hadnt found anywhere else previously. The guest house also had a great chilled out vibe, with travellers from a wide range of countries staying.

The town also had a plethora of tasty budget food available, the pick of which for us were the curry houses serving spicy food on large banana leaves for less than 15RM each, including drinks (about £3).

We walked on our own into the jungle near to the town, and were immediately slithering around in the mud on the path as the rainy season is well underway. The walk went past the Robinson Falls, but the jungle itself was the best part.

Dead Snake - I bravely poked it with a long stick to make sure

Robinson Falls - Tanaha Rata

Foot long millipede in jungle

The next day we booked on a Rafflesia guided tour day. The main aim of the day was to visit the Rafflesia “flower”. Little did we know quite what was going to be entailed getting to the flower. After a bumpy 45mins on the road cramped into the back of a Landrover, the off roading started. The rainy season had made the track more of a river than road, with deep red mud everywhere. The track soon became impassable, so we all hiked to the flower, most of the time in ankle deep red mud, and often crossing streams and rivers by jumping from rock to rock or via rickety bamboo bridges. Overall the round trip took over three hours of walking, and the reward was - you’ve guessed it - a single large red flower....

Land rover getting sketchy on the way up the hill - fuzzy photo taken through glass of vehicle in front

Ursh concentrating on a very wobbly bridge

The flower is actually quite interesting. The Rafflesia, named after Sir Stamford Raffles of Singapore governership fame, is actually a very rare, large parasitic fungi, that feeds off tree roots. After a very long development period (several months) it “blooms” for a period of about 1 week only, at the end of which it decomposes to what the locals refer to as elephant poo... The flower we saw was about 80cm wide, but some examples in Borneo get to over 1m.

Rafflesia Fungi

The rest of the tour consisted of a trip to a butterfly, insect and snake zoo, and then on to the “Boh” tea plantations, where we drank several more large mugs of strong tea, and had a brief tour of the old school tea production machinery. A quick visit to a strawberry farm followed (strawberry shakes, cakes, ice creams and more all consumed), before a tired and muddy return to the guest house.

I was told to stay very still - I obeyed........

Boh Tea Plantation