(written by Dave)

We played tourists in Cameron Highland today, that is after a very leisurely morning with brekkie at an Indian restaurant then morning tea immediately thereafter at Starbucks. Eventually we got motivated to take a tour through one of the organised groups called C.S Travel & Tours. The tour included the following laundry list of CH sights:

Gunung Brinchang – 6666 ft mountain top
Trek in the Mossy Forest
Tea plantation
Butterfly farm

I was excited to visit the mountain top. But I should have figured that the road would be very windy. By the time we reached the top, I was queasy and Nancy was in search of a bag. All that and the mountain was completely fogged in… Oh well, an experience we’ll always remember.

Next up was the mossy forest walk. Here we saw lots of moss (being from Oregon, we kind of know about moss). Our guide was quite familiar with the forest and able to point out a bunch of flowers that we would not have seen – quite small and delicate. There were lots of pitcher flowers – once we knew what to look for, we saw them everywhere.

Next up was the Boh tea plantation – here we had a small tour, looked through the museum and had a tea in the cafe. Best part of this stop was the plantation itself. The plantation was started over 80 years ago by a Brit and the plants covered the hillsides. It was very hard to not take a thousand photos. It had rained off and on during the day and with the wet and the mist the green colours of the leaves were very photogenic. The harvest is a bit lower this time of year but they still pick the newly grown leaves every day. Our guide told us that they cover the same plants every 3 weeks or so. Eventually we left the tea plantation and hit the butterfly farm. Here we saw some pretty cool insects, a horned beetle, a leaf insect and a bunch of snakes. Plus of course butterflies.

We were both completely ready to be out of the mini-van by the time we returned to town. I’m glad that Nancy talked me into the ½ day trip, and not the full day one. We had dinner at a cafe just outside – where the owner was Malay but learned to cook in Holland. He spoke Dutch and had all sorts of Holland sports memorabilia.

We are planning a couple more days off here to relax and explore. Tomorrow we plan to do one of the walks in the area and of course a bit more relaxing…

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