Our second destination in Malaysia was Tanah Rata in Cameron Highlands. It took quite a while to get to our destination from Kuala Lumpur: it was like a 6- or 7-hour bus ride, and the slowest part was the last 15 km. We didn't know that, but apparently there was a National Holiday in Malaysia, so many people were coming to Cameron Highlands for a long-weekend trip which made the traffic horrible. Also, the roads there are exclusively winding roads and bus drivers have to honk constantly before engaging in a turn so nobody from the opposite side is coming their way. I don't know how the drivers are so good at avoiding collisions, to me it seemed like we were in the perfect environment to get in 10 car accidents within a 2-km distance. Since we arrived pretty late that day, we didn't do much except explore the area around our hostel and have dinner.
The next day, on Monday, we had a guided tour early in the morning. We paid 45 RM for it and we've been told that someone will come pick us up around 8:30 am and we would visit 4 places and we would be back at 2:00 pm. We chose the "nature" tour so we had on our list the Butterfly Farm, the Mossy Forest, the Tea Plantation, and the Strawberry Farm. At 8:30 sharp there's a man coming inside our hostel asking for 4 people who reserved the tour, that was us! :D To my big surprise, there was no bus waiting outside for us but some kind of a van. There were no actual car seats for the passengers, just 2 parallel benches supposed to fit 8 people in, oh and no seat belts of course! Here's a video of what it looked like form the inside and pay attention to how small but crowded the roads are:
First place on the list, the Butterfly Farm! It was short and sweet :) The entrance fee was 7 RM and we had ~30 minutes to walk around the place. It was like a big garden with lots of colourful flowers and maaaany butterflies. It was pretty spectacular.
Also, they had a mini zoo in there so I got to see some snakes, lizards, insects etc.
Real scorpions! :D
And a very cute guinea pig:
After the Butterfly Farm we went to the Mossy Forest and we stopped on our way to take some pictures in the tea plantation lands. The scenery was breathtaking!
The driver told me that this is the best place to watch the sunrise, too bad we got there during the day.
It honestly was surreal!
And here is the Mossy Forest, probably the highest point of Cameron Highlands?! It was very humid so we couldn't really see anything from up there, the sky was white, quite a feeling :D
Then we went to another tea plantation land where we could actually have a taste of the local tea products. The views were not disappointing at all. Would recommend 10/10 :)
I got the Palas Afternoon Tea (3.60 RM only).
The tea was hot so I had to take the sweater off :D
And finally, the last place we visited was the Strawberry Farm. The strawberries were indeed good! You can even take a basket and pick up as many strawberries as you want and then you pay for each basket at the exit.
It took us a really long time to get back in town, I remember that the Polish couple doing the same tour with us were late for their bus leaving at 3 pm but in the end they didn't miss it because the bus couldn't leave the station because of the traffic. Here is a video of our very skillful driver that made us feel safe in a pretty dangerous setting haha. The traffic was so bad that at some point he was just driving outside the lane until he saw the police. Not to mention that he left us in the truck 2 times while in the middle of the road because 1) he was hungry and went to get something to eat form the market and 2) he needed to go pee. Luckily he made it back in time before the other cars started moving :D
And our journey to Cameron Highlands finished with a nice supper in a local restaurant and a walk through the rain. God bless Malaysia, its beautiful nature and cheap food <3
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