Malaysia Day 7, Cameron Highlands

Up early for breakfast at the hotel, we went into the Rainforest Café to enjoy the buffet they had there. No rice, they had only vegetarian meats and some western food, which we wouldn’t touch. Instead, we had some roti and steamed dumplings filled with red bean, and some orange and mango juice. We were in the lobby at 8:45am on the dot for our tour. We went to the front desk to confirm it, but there was so little English spoken amongst them that we couldn’t get out of them if the tour had started or what. 9am came and went, then 9:30 and Kelly went up to the desk demanding to know what was going on, when they dropped a bomb. They explained that the tour would begin at 1:45pm. "WHAT?? But we've been sitting here for 45 minutes. You KNEW that! No, we want our tour NOW!" and demanded they get our travel agent Kat on the phone. While they were dialing her, two indian drivers walked in and started speaking quickly with the receptionists. He then explained that he had only just been advised about us, and that we were to go with him after paying him. We explained that we wouldn’t pay one cent, since our entire break was paid for in KL. More debate with reception and it was apparently sorted out, and we got into the broken down truck with the nonexistent seatbelts and headed off onto our tour.
In the village the main driver, who had spoken to us, left the car, leaving the little Mini-me guy to drive us. He took us to some god forsaken place on the edge of a valley, which was beside a "Rose Centre" which was apparently part of the tour. However, they explained again that we had to pay. We called Kat from our cellphone and were compelled to sit in the van looking at some stray cats sleeping on a large pile of garbage while she called around to sort it out. About 10 minutes later a group of tourists exited the rose centre and joined us in the van. We all headed off to the strawberry farm, and it was there, while we were sampling strawberry jelly and a strawberry shake, that Kat sorted everything out with our driver. They would take us on the rest of the tour, then take us on our own to the two centers we have already missed due to the mess up. Kelly explained how annoyed we were by this since we had plans for this afternoon, but suddenly at that point Kat ceased to know English.
The Strawberry Farm was anti-climatic. We were primarily in a shop, as the you couldn’t really walk amongst the strawberries and there were so few of them near us anyway, due to a recent harvesting. Hence, 30 minutes was too long, and we left there and headed to the Butterfly farm, which was outstanding. We were given 30 minutes there as well, which wasn’t nearly enough. We started out looking at their vast exotic insect collection. Kelly actually held a giant horned beetle (4 inches), several mantis's, 2 scorpians, a swamp frog, several lizards, and a 40 year old tortoise, not to mention various leaf insects. We had 3 British gap year students with us, all 19 who had been touring the world for the last 5 months, and they were a lot of fun. Absolutely fascinated and yet horrified by the bugs we were looking at, however, Kelly insisted on holding every one. However, she screamed several times while the scorpians were placed on her arm.
The bugs were so amazing that it left us only 6 minutes to walk amongst the butterflies in their enclosure. They were lovely and the smell of the flowers was so beautiful.
Next was the best part, that we were all looking forward to. We drove up to the Boh Tea Plantation. As we manuevered up the winding drive through the lush green valley filled with acres of tea plants, the driver explained that the plantation was owned by a Scotsman, and that an experienced tea harvester working a typical 9 hour day would make about 44 ringgit daily. Of course, our first thought was that even this difficult, laborous job is fewer hours than we work.
We were given only 40 minutes here, which was cruel and hateful since it wasn’t nearly enough. The first part involved a tour through the small factory. Upon entry, you are overcome by the overwhelmingly magnificent scent of freshly crushed tealeaves. Fewer smells in the world compare to this, and unfortunately, you cannot bottle it. Before us was a large processor that crushed the leaves, which were then passed by belt into the next room where they were further processed and shoveled by hand onto another belt, where they were taken into another room, and further refinement. Fermentation and the level of processing dictates the quality and flavor of the tea, which is only of the black variety at this plantation.
After that, we were led through the tea shop, where we didn’t buy anything because my current tea collection is already too vast, and then into the café, which had a dining area that overlooked the entire plantation. We ordered a pot of Palas Supreme (their highest quality produced) and a piece of chocolate cake for just over 1 pound. The only way to drink it is sans milk or sugar, and it was actually a very pale, light type of black tea. We were sitting, chatting with the 3 British teenagers when we saw the van was ready to go, and we all had to drag ourselves back. It just wasn’t nearly enough time!
After that, we went to a honeybee farm, which was about as interesting as the strawberry farm, since all the honeybees were busy in their hives. They didn’t have anything groovy like a cross section hive so you can actually see the bees, or find the queen for that matter. Hence, staring at some boxes in a garden just didn’t do anything for us. We couldn’t even buy any royal jelly, since it has to be refridgerated, so we bought a small jar of farmed honey for 10 ringgit.
They drove us back to the rose centre, where we said our farewells to our fellow tourists, as they were taken back to their hotels. We went in on our own, and were advised that they would send another car for us in an hour. We told them to make it 35 minutes, because we didn’t need to go in to know we didn’t need a full hour in what is only an expensive garden center. The Rose Centre was actually quite nice, protected from the direct sun and rain by huge sheets spread overhead, making it an enormous greenhouse. Even 35 minutes was too long, and we just sat waiting for our ride. When it did come, we were given glaring looks by the workers for not buying any of the low quality tourist rubbish they were trying to peddle.
Our driver was a young Indian woman, who took us to our final destination, a Chinese Buddhist temple. She was playing lively Indian music on the radio, and was surprised when we asked her to leave it on.
We were the only patrons to enter the Buddhist temple, which was far more garrish in décor than we have seen in the past. We removed our shoes when necessary, and made a donation before leaving. We were there only 15 minutes and it was more than enough time, since nothing was really happening. What we really wanted was to see a Hindu or Muslim place of worship, as we have seen many Buddhist temples, but that wasn’t on the cards this trip.
Our driver than returned us to the village at the foot of the hill of our hotel, where we went back for some more Indian from that guy. We then returned to the hotel to rest. We have been waking up early every morning and perhaps it has something to do with being almost 5000 feet above sea level, but it takes it out of you. Luckily, Star Wars Revenge of the Sith was on cable. We also wrote out our first postcards of the trip at this point as well. We prepared some hot water in the electric kettle and made some honeywater to help us relax.
Shortly thereafter we received a call from Yes Optical letting us know our glasses were ready, and we went to pick them up. We each received a free gift; a cheap blue backback which would be ideal for carrying around little tidbits as our luggage was already starting to feel overstuffed.
Deciding against dinner, we just picked up a little coffee chocolate icecream and called it a night.