From east to west, malaysia style!

After we flag the bus down from Cherating to Kuantan, connect to a bus to Felda chiney, get dropped off in the village, barter with the locals at the cafe in broken english to get a lift, we finally arrive in Tasik chini. Tasik Chini is a group of 12 lakes that are fringed by jungle. We stayed at "Rajan Jones guest house" and were the only tourists there, this being the only guesthouse meant that we were the only tourists at the lake and surrounding village. The accomodation was very rustic and in the sticks so giving us a real sense of adventure, making our way to the toilet could have been a risky business with the amount of animals we could hear through out the night. The area and lake was lovely and the owner of the guest house made us very welcome providing lots of info and very yummy food, although a few to many eggs.

After a couple of days relaxing by the lake we decide to hit the road in search of people, we head for the capital, Kuala Lumpar (KL). First impressions as you drive towards and through KL is how much richer and western the city is with its massive sky scrapers and numerous shops including topshop, marks and sparks etc. We stayed in China Town which houses all the cheap accommodation and is alot more grimy and asian than the ultra shiny KLCC. We find an awesome eatery and use it as our fueling station for the next few days indulging on countless servings of Roti cani (flakey bread and dahl curry) which costs around 15p. We cruised around the city for two days using the underground and sky train systems, going up the petronas towers (the worlds highest twin towers); MASSIVE, visiting the thankfully, air conned plazas with their; shops, which i had to try and hide from zoe, indoor theme parks, cinemas, and ten pin bowling, wich we partook a game of and zoe nearly beat me, not my finest moment! we also walked to the mosks, and citys gardens. the city was very cool and shiny and we really enjoyed our three nights in the big smoke.

So we move on, up north a little to the Cameron Highlands, an old colonial British hill station with countless number of tea plantations dotted amongst its hills and mountains, very beautiful. We look into doing a tour of the tea plantations and highest peak "Gunung Brinchang", and after a look at the cost we decide to go it alone. We set off nice and early after our first decent cup of tea in south east asia, we needed that! We catch a bus to Brinchang and the foot of the 2031 m mountain, take a look up and set off through the jungle with the motivation of amazing views at the top! The trek/climb/scramble/crawl takes us 2 hours. thats two hours of hanging on to tree routes, crawling under fallen down trees walking up no less than a 30% gradient, and climbing over ledges. Pretty tired we reach the top and look out over....... nothing as the mist has rolled in just as we were nearing to the top, never mind the climb was worth it anyway. We decide to walk back the road way. The views on the way down were amazing, rolling hills covered in bright green tea plantations where you could just about make out "tiny" tea pickers doing there daily chores. We carry on down the path another 5 km to "Sungai Palas Boh tea plantation" and another well deserved tea refueling pit stop and to look out at some more fantastic views from there view centre/cafe. We are quite tired now we hitch a ride to a junction from some very nice Malaysians, who picked us up despite our sweaty and muddy exterior and carry on down the hill to Brinchang via some strawberry, flowers and vegetable farms that the Cameron Highlands have in a abundance.
The next evening we were leaving by night bus to the island of Tioman, so we decide to go for a slightly easier walk through the jungle to and beyond Robinson Waterfalls, another great walk with some fantastic scenery.