Tea & Scones

I should have checked with my Asian friends before getting too excited about New Year's Eve. As it turns out the lead-up was more spectacular than the actual event. Similar to our Christmas and U.S. Thanksgiving, the holiday is more about family getting together than going out partying on the town. Many places closed down early so that their employees could join their families and although there were still some fireworks, it turned out to be the quietest night of the week. We splurged on a bottle of wine and some nice cheese so that we could have our own celebration in our hostel. On New Year's Day we went to the Malaysian Chinese cultural centre where they had an open house and hosted several thousand people for lunch giving us a better insight on their special day.

We also had two nice walks through two beautiful inner-city parks (Lake Gardens and KL City Centre Park), including the large outdoor Bird Park with an amazing variety of species and also found time to do a geocache. We really enjoyed our time in Kuala Lumpur........it was a wonderful city to spend time in.

Our initial plan was to head over to the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia where several friends had recommended special places to check out, Tioman and Perhentian Islands in particular. However, in talking with other travellers and confirmed by the Malysian Tourist office, there is still one month to go in the east coast monsoon season and as a result the majority of hotels and hostels on the islands are closed until March, and the boat trip over there can be rather unpleasant due to the rough seas. So we altered our plan and headed instead for the Cameron Highlands in the centre of Malysia. We are currently in Tanah Rata which is a small town stiuated close to 2,000 metres above sea level. The temperature is a consistent 20C during the day (and down to 10C in the evening) so it is a perfect temperature to do some exploring outside which we have been doing. On our first day we walked to a nearby village where they had numerous strawberry farms. Unfortunately, the holiday week had cleared out their fresh supply and it will be few more days before fully ripe berries will be available. Today we took a tour with a small group to a large tea plantation and learned all about the tea making process as well as sampling several different types of tea and some scones. The trip also included a short jungle walk in a mossy forest (very damp but amazing tropical life including Pitcher plants) and a visit to an Insect / Butterfly park where our knowledgable guide took many of the insects (but not the tarantulas) out of their cages for pictures and touchy-feely sessions (picture of the large Rhino beetle attached).

Tomorrow we are taking two buses and a ferry to Pangkor Island on the west coast where we will be back to a sunny and hot climate but this time we will be spending some quality time on the beach to relax for a few days...........not that we are very stressed out, but just to slow things down a little.......we have less than 3 months to go!