After a lazy morning, we headed to the long distance bus station to get on a bus to Ipoh. We wanted to go onto to Tanah Rata. Tanah Rata is the main town inside the Cameron Highlands - a cool jungle retreat high up in the hills.
Unfortunately, the 12pm bus to Ipoh was full, so we had to catch the 1:30pm bus. We were misled as to the duration of this journey, so we arrived at Ipoh too late to miss the last bus to Tanah Ratah. Thankfully, we had clocked a western couple for most of the day, who we assumed had the same goal as us. We managed a taxi share with Mariah and her boyfriend with the un-pronounceable name. It cost about £8 each.
It had started to rain quite heavily... it felt like England! Driving through Malaysia, we could see that it was an apparently more wealthy and more advanced & developed nation than Thailand and Combodia. I have read that the economy really boomed for many years. Malaysians also drive on the left and have UK plug sockets - surely a positive sign?!
Our hotel was called KRS Pines and was very cheap (£7 each!) for a clean but basic room. The common room had a very old electric piano. There are some very bizzarre insects in the highlands, and I saw one in the downstairs lounge. In the picture, the insect shown is not sitting on a finger.... it's a sofa!Tanah Rata is not a very pretty town - very touristy and fully of ugly hotels - but it's what is outside the town that we are here for! We ate out at Restaurant Kumar which does a range of Asian cuisine. Cathy had an Indian platter including Tandoori Chicken, and I had a Chinese clay pot dish, a bit like risotto - it was SO nice! Cathy eyed up some hot chocolate... so we went for some... in Starbucks!!! Arrrgggghhhhhhhhhh nooooooo!
