Cameron Highlands

Cameron Highlands

On the morning of the 26th, Scott and I found our way to a bus station that had buses to the Cameron Highlands. We checked one outfit and they only had buses that left in the afternoon and were pretty expensive. The next place had a bus that would be leaving in 15 minutes, and was pretty inexpensive, so we booked it. Little did we know, we'd booked a trip on the worst bus ever in the history of the world. It got us there eventually, but I had my doubts at a few points. We stopped at two points for maintenance, once for having a window repaired, which seemed pre-scheduled, and once for some emergency work on some part of the drivetrain or exhaust systems. Each stop added a half hour to the trip. When we got above about 40 kph, The bus started vibrating more than a massage chair set to puree, so that made it rather uncomfortable. The front of the bus was hazy, probably due to the exhaust system being routed through the cabin first. When you tried to adjust the air vents, they would drop soot on you and leave your fingertips black. The bus chugged slowly up the hills and bounced around down the twisty roads. Then it started raining really hard. The seals on the windows were so poor that water would drip down on you inside. I had to put on my jacket and move to a different seat. We arrived after about 5 hours on the road, when we had expected about 3.5 hours. Dear lord was I glad to get off that bus.

The Cameron Highlands were gorgeous. A lot cooler than KL, and green everywhere. We found a nice place to stay in Tanah Rata called Father's Guesthouse, had a nice dinner of Indian food (which is extremely common in Malaysia), and went for a hike along a terribly litter-strewn river near town. We booked a tour for the next day, and went to bed. The tour started at 8:45 on the 27th of May. It wound up being a very full, very memorable day.

More to come later.