Last day in the Cameron Highlands....and more rain

Last night we had one of the worst night sleeps since leaving the UK. We were constantly woke up by dogs barking, car and motorbike engines and people shouting. We heard a few noises on our first night here, as there as several local neighbours to the guesthouse this is to be expected but nothing like last night. The dogs were the worst, constantly barking, it seemed like each one was trying to be louder than the last. Needless to say we slept in this morning as we were just so tired.

When we finally dragged ourselves out of the guesthouse we went for breakfast. We wanted to try something new so we had Thosia. This is a large rice flour pancake that comes with curried dips similar to a Roti. We enjoyed it, but we both agreed that we prefer Roti. Thankfully the restaurant had nice strong coffee which gave us a much needed boost.

After breakfast we decided to go on one of the many jungle treks that are scattered throughout the highlands. We chose to walk to Robinson Falls, a waterfall that was within an hours walk but was also supposed to be one of the best. The first fifteen minutes of the walk was spent finding the jungle path, which was located off a side street from the main road. We then had to cross a bridge and follow a cobbled path for the first 100 metres or so before we were on a proper jungle trail. We should mention that just ike yesterday it has been raining pretty much all day, so alot of the path was slippery. We carried on however, getting our money's worth out of our rain macs.

We could here the waterfall almost immediately, the first part you see are similar to rapids, where the river starts to quicken downhill towards the falls. We carried on walking along the trail through quite thick jungle, until we came to the the waterfall. It was loud but was not as big as we were expecting. At this point the trail split in two, to the left dense jungle and about a 90 minute walk to a Chinese temple, to the right a steep decline, following the water that eventually lead to a power station. Not bothered about a power station we chose to go left, but we were not willing to walk 90 minutes to the Chinese Temple either as that would have meant at least two and half hour walk back to the beginning of the trail we were on. We carried on for another twenty minutes or so to see if there was another view of the falls but the trail started to deteriorate quickly and once Liam slipped we knew it was time to turn around. Our jungle trek had lasted around two hours by the time we got back to the main road.

Two things are grown in abundance in the Cameron Highlands. tea and strawberries. That led us to think that scones and tea would be great. We set off knowing of a place that we had seen earlier that claims to make homemade scones and jam, unfortunately when we arrived they didn't have any scones and would not be making anymore until later. Fed up of walking around in the rain by this point, we went back to our guesthouse to dry off.

For our last meal in the Highlands we went for curry as were disappointed by the Chinese we had last night. Liam had tandoori with naan and dips, and Chelsea had a mutton curry with rice and naan. Both were excellent. Chelsea also met a new friend, an Indian man that worked at a rival Indian restaurant, he stood proudly wearing his Manchester United cap and was constatly staring at her, he talked to her everytime we walked past. It was still early once we had eaten to so we went to a cafe that we visited on our first night here and had a drink rather than go back and sit in the guesthouse we had seen too much of already.

We both have enjoyed the Cameron Highlands but are a little disappointed by Tanah Rata, the town we have stayed in. We love the scenery and enjoyed the trek in the jungle and our day yesterday in the tea plantation, but the town has been underwhelming compared to the rest of our trip so far. We do not like how commercialised the area is and the fact that it has been raining for almost three days has not helped. We have booked ourselves on a bus tomorrow morning at 9am that will take us straight to Georgetown, Penang where will spend Christmas. We are both looking forward to that.