Since we did our homework yesterday, we could sleep in a bit. After a quick shower, repacking into our small backpacks for two days and another breakfast at KL's worst hotel we went to Pudu Sentral station. At the luggage storage a daughter of the owner was already waiting for us. Amazing how people here will wait for your business even if it's only for 8 ringitt. Since the road was supposed to be long we got some snacks to get us through the ride. Cameron Highlands seems strong on the backpacker trail and the bus was mostly white. Lots of French here for some reason as well as the traditional mixture of Dutch, Germans and an occasional Australian. The road to Tanah Ratah was uneventful, with a short pit stop to drain the lizard and before we knew it we were there. Took just a bit over three hours, as opposed to the four and a half to five hours advertised. Word of advice: never count on the schedules being right around the equator. Once again it's that polychronic approach to time. When you expect to travel for a whole day, you end up at your destination in a few hours. When you expect to be somewhere in an hour, you might end up there in six. From the station it was a short walk to our guesthouse selected by Kris. I had a look at the same one a couple months ago and it seemed like a good choice. We were struck at the sheer number of guesthouses in Tanah Rata. Next time here, or for anyone visiting: don't bother booking a room. There are so many accommodations available it's ripe for picking. Our room wasn't ready, but our landlady turned out to be an extremely competent lady who spoke flawless English and was ready with a limitless supply of good information. She booked us on a half day trip to tea and strawberry plantations, a jungle trek and a butterfly farm and suggested a good restaurant for lunch. Leaving Kris' heavier bag behind we went to fill up on South Indian fare at Sri Brinchang. Krysia specifically asked for a mild curry, but it wasn't to be. Her tongue burned, though heavens know why: her curry was actually very mild. Only enough to kill half of Polish population.
After lunch we checked in with our tour office next door and were picked up by Velu in his rather run down 4x4. Together with two traveling Yanks we went on a picture crazy bonanza at the tea plantation. The views are wonderful, but according to Velu, the tea is absolute shit. Instead of hand picking the leaves, they just trim them with machines together with the branches, stems and an occasional spider nest before roasting it all together. We purchased some to try at home. Whether it's true or not remains to be seen, but I have my doubts as to accuracy of the information given by our guide. Velu did not seem to be very fond of Chinese Malaysians or aboriginal Malays. This seems to be a trend here that even though population is quite mixed and seems to live in peace and harmony, they don't particularly like each other or speak fondly of each other. Chinese have snapped up a lot of the land and property and are the richest part of Malaysian population, Indians being the workhorses, and Malays just kind of keeping to themselves with their Islam and headscarves. Next came photo opportunities at a view tower on Mount Brinchang and the jungle trek. Well... a mini trek in reality. We were offered a choice of “hard” or “easy” trek and despite the majority opting for easy (Kris wanted the hard one, I said “whatever” and the Yanks were concerned about the state of their pants and wanted easy) Velu seemed to understand that we are to go on the hard trek. What it actually involved was about twenty minutes walking on top of 220 million year old pile of fossilized moss, tangled tree roots and top soil, which felt a little bit like walking on a hard mattress observing pitcher plants, smelling various tree leaves and bark, all of which can be found in an Indian curry dish, all while wearing silly hats made out of ferns and taking photos. Quite a lot of fun, but really, calling it hard would be a stretch in anyone's dictionary. Kris enjoyed it immensely and wanted to go on another trek tomorrow. The butterfly farm was next, which turned out to be a rather large hothouse willed with a variety of flora and thousands of colorful butterflies sitting, or sometimes even flying. Some nice exposition of snakes and a variety of bugs was also included. The final stop was a strawberry farm, which quite honestly sucked. The only interesting part about it is, since Cameron Highlands have a much cooler weather than the rest of Malaysia, organic strawberries are grown here. A very interesting farming system where bags of top soil are suspended above the ground on a wooded lattice with water irrigation system installed, and then strawberry bushes are planted directly inside. So what you're looking at is like something out of Space Odyssey 2001 film, strawberries growing in mid air. They are bloody expensive here, and quite honestly, without much flavor. 
When we got back to Tanah Rata we were presented with a dilemma. We had to leave tomorrow, because we've a flight to Bali on the 7th. There is too much risk to take the morning bus at 8:30, because if it does take the five hours as advertised, we're going to miss our flight. But while looking for a late afternoon bus, everyone told us something different. “1:45 last bus”, “2 last bus”, “5:30 last bus, but it goes through Ipoh and it takes 6 hours” (meaning we'd miss picking up our luggage at the bus station). What about the 4 pm bus we were counting on? “Canceled”, “No go”, “Maybe”, “I don't know”. We asked about it at the bus station and the company rep said “No bus, because no customers”. Normally that would be enough information to go on, but taught by experience, I went online to check the online reservation system and the bus already had 5 tickets sold. So we decided to hang about and eat some dinner at Kumar, an Indian place right next to Brinchang. Once again, food was delicious, if on a spicy side for my wife. Although to be honest, they could not get the chutney or the mint sauce right. After dinner we went back to the bus station with my laptop to show the sales rep (who was different this time), that there was a bus at 4 pm tomorrow, and lo and behold the answer was “Of course there is. I already sold seven tickets for it. You want go?” Oh the humanity of trying to get pertinent information from the locals. I said it once and I'll say it again: if it's in their best interest, they will give you the information, if it's not they will either give you disinformation (very common in the Philippines) or simply play stupid and not give you any info. Moral of the story, check, check, check and then check once again. 
Organic strawberry farming in Cameron Highlands.
On the way back to the guesthouse we picked up some more local fruit. I just want my hon to try everything Asia has to offer, and it has a lot of fruit to offer. Some starfruit, mangosteen and once again rambuttan (since she forgot how it tastes like) from a nice Chinese guy who actually washed and cut up the starfruit for us. We also found a place, a first place during our stay in Malaysia, with cheap beer. 5.50 RM for half a liter of Chang beer (my favorite brew from Thailand) was a steal, so picked up a couple of these as well as two half liter Camel beers. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??? 12% alcohol by volume in a can. This is not a joke. This beer was so strong, Kris couldn't drink it, saying it was too bitter. I actually enjoyed mine, but a can of this and a can of 6.5% Chang got me almost completely plastered by bed time.Malaysia so far has turned to be a culinary heaven and diet hell. We've been eating a lot, because the food is delicious, spicy (for me if I want it) and inexpensive. A mixture of Indian and Chinese mostly, as well as a great selection of fruits. It's a bit tricky with Malaysian food, since it's Ramadan at the moment, so their food is usually not available at all during the day. But once we're back in Warsaw, I'm pretty sure the missus will want me to incorporate a lot more Asian flavors in my daily cooking. I think she's finally getting sold on more exotic flavors, and it makes me very happy. If she could only learn to enjoy seafood and sushi...
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