It's proper Boh I tell thee!!

For all you non Bo Selecta fans you wont have a clue what the title of this blog means, oh well.

Today we went on the tour, we had a cracking day out eating and drinking our way round the C/H. We were picked up about 9am in a little mini bus we then went around the local hotels picking up other tourists, most of them were Malaysian. Our first stop was to a Rose Garden! We weren't particularly excited by the prospect of trailing around some poncey roses but I think it's safe to say that we both enjoyed it. It wasn't just roses there were hundreds of different types of flowers and cacti. Anyway not much to tell other than we took lots of snaps (see Flickr)

After the rose garden we headed to the Strawberry Farm, this I was looking forward to as Strawbs are one of my favourite fruits so I couldn't wait to get my grotty hands on them. We were allowed to go inside one of the green houses but were advised not to "pluck" the strawberries.We never even got the chance as it seemed other tourists had beaten us to it, the plants were bereft of any fruit :o( Luckily there was a small row of shops selling souvenirs and all strawberry related products, these included (to name a few) fresh strawbs, milkshake, waffles, jam, ice cream, scones and jam. I was like a woman demented, wondering what to try first. We tasted some of the jam, it was sooooo sweet with a bitter twist to it, delicious. After that we opted for some fresh ones, these too were really sweet, although we were told that because they had had a lot of rain the last couple of weeks, that the strawbs weren't as sweet as they normally are because they hadn't had enough sun. Lack of sunshine aside they were still better than the English ones we get back home. We washed all that down with a milkshake which was more like a smoothie, absolutely spot on and well worth a visit.

We left the Strawberry Farm and went to see some butterflies amongst other things. Other thing's being a tarantula, lots of snakes and hundreds of insects. I'm sure you know me well enough by now to know that I didn't enjoy this part one bit, they should have left me with the strawberries. In the tank with the tarantula was a little mouse, obviously the spiders Sunday lunch. There was also a snake with a rat hidden away in the corner looking so unhappy, obviously aware of it's fate. I hate stuff like that and made a quick exit. I don't mind butterflies too much but there were hundreds of them all fluttering about so I never went in there either, although Matt did and he took some stunning pics. Again we were told not to touch the butterflies (as if I would!) but you know what tourists are like, they're not to be told and there were loads of dead butterflies on the floor where people had grabbed them for photo opportunities.

After the butterflies we headed for the tea plantations, it was great. We drove round the windy roads through the plantations, the scenery was amazing. It just looked like a sea of green velvet from a distance, and you would think that if you touched it it would feel the same way, but the leaves are actually quite brittle to touch with absolutely no trace of tea? We then had a tour of the tea factory where all the rolling and drying of leaves takes place. It was really interesting and the aroma was lovely, all you could smell was tea! The factory that we visited belonged to a company called "Boh" and is owned by a Scottish family who live in KL. Boh alone produce enough tea each day to make the equivalent of 5.5 MILLION cups!!! That is a lot of washing up!! The factory was really basic too using lots of old fashioned methods and machinery, none of this high tech state of the art stuff. There wasn't a computer operated piece of machinery in sight, hard to believe they produce so much tea using such methods.

After the tea factory we went to the Boh Cafe for a bit of tea tasting, we opted for a mug of Cameron Gold Blend. Now if there is one thing I hate it's a pissy cup of tea, but this stuff is strong enough to put hairs on your chest. It is orange in colour and no matter how much milk you dilute it with it stays the same colour. My kind of tea. We were told that they use the tea dust off the floor to make Tetley Tea which is why it's like piss. We also had a home made coconut pie, it was just like been at my Nana's house where we would ALWAYS have a cup of tea and a home made coconut bun, yummy.

After the tea factory we were taken to a honey farm, but we had eaten and drank that much by this time that we weren't particularly interested in seeing some bees and a pot of honey. We had a quick look round the local market, bought some lovely juicy sweetcorn for our lunch and hopped back on the bus back to Tanah Rata.

Tomorrow we will leave here unfortunately back to the humidity and lowlands of Malaysia. We will head to Butterworth and then possibly across to Penanag for a quick overnight stop. We want to get to Thailand now as we hope to spend about 3 weeks on the beach, before we head further North to Chang Mai, where we hope to take a Thai cookery course. We will then make our way back down to Bangkok and into Cambodia for a week or so. We were going to do Vietnam but there simply isn't enough time to do the place justice.

Maybe next time...

Tea and sympathy

Hi All, we're now in the Cameron Highlands enjoying the cooler temperatures and lack of humidity. It is about 20c here so compared with the mid 30 temps we've being experiencing it is really pleasant. We will stay here for 3 night's before we head to Butterworth for a night just as a stop over ready for our border crossing into Thailand, whoopee!!

All the time we were planning our trip Thailand was THE one place that I was really looking forward to, and now almost a year later we're nearly there. It is rainy season in most of Asia at the moment so it's not glorious sunshine every day as you might be expecting. We have had our fair share of rain this week but it soon clears up once it stops. We have experienced all elements the last 7 months so rain to us is like water off a ducks back ;o)

The couple of days we spent in KL were a bit hectic. It is an extremely busy and noisy place with lots of built up areas and sky scrapers, it is also a filthy, smelly place too. The drains are just full of rotting food and stagnant water, and in the kind of heat they experience you can imagine the effects. All that aside though it is a really exciting place to spend a couple of days although I don't think I could manage any more than that. It is also extremely humid here and even just ambling around the place was hard work. We did get a great deal on a hotel room though, 10GBP for an A/C room with our own bathroom and T.V. Where in London could you get that kind of deal?!

The bus station in KL was very similar to those in Sth America, you are pounced upon as soon as you walk in and everybody wants to know where you're going and to sell you a ticket. We were ushered to one of the many ticket desks and told how much it would be, what time the bus leaves etc. Anyway Matt being the worldly wise traveller that he is now decided to try his hand at a bit of bartering, and told the guy that is was too expensive (4GBP each!!!!) and that we would try another operator. We went to the next desk only to find that it was exactly the same price there too. We paid our money and scuttled off embarrassed that we had tried to get one over on the locals. It's all part of the fun though!!

The drive to CH was pretty spectacular once we got off the main highway, the road was one of those full of hair pin bends and right at the edge of a massive drop (if you dared to look!) It was just like driving through the jungle as all we could see for miles and miles was trees and forestry, with a few indigenous communities scattered along the way.

CH is a busy little place, with emphasis on the little. It is full of tea shops (surprise surprise) and curry restaurants. Needless to say we have no complaints, it's like we have died and gone to heaven. Tomorrow we will go and visit the tea plantations and go find out what it's all about (Alfie) There are also lots of strawberry fields, and cactus farms so we will be taking in some of those and sampling anything that is going, although I don't think the cactus is necessarily for eating, I'm sure it's more common for it's healing properties? No doubt I will find out just what you can do with a cactus tomorrow.

We're in an internet cafe at the moment and again they are just like the South American ones, full of young kids who would be better placed in a classroom, but instead playing beat me up games aimed at 18+'s. They can't play these games quietly either, they screech at the tops of their voices while they pound away at the key board. So I'm now sat with a pair of Mickey Mouse earphones on listening to some "banging choones" on Facebook (AC/DC Whole lotta Rosie) and as noisy as this song is it still can't block the little blighters out.

We have both really missed listening to decent music while we've been away. We decided that we wouldn't bring our ipods as it was just one more thing to keep our eye on in addition to money, camera, passports etc. But I think it's safe to say that next time we travel our ipods will be high up on our list of things to bring. Matt has already been chatting to Ben about going to a music festival at Benicassim in July next year. It's like "a posh version of Reading" apparently. Anyway hopefully there are two tickets with our names on, posh Reading or not we need a fix of loud music. If it is like Reading I'll be "Dancing with tears in my eyes" (Only old people will know that song)

Gary we're looking forward to a noisy weekend at your place when we get back too ;o)

Have a nice weekend all!