Hi All
We’re back from a really enjoyable visit to the Cameron Highlands. I already miss the 70 degree weather even with its rain.
Here’s the story, part 1.
Ru
DoraMac
Tanah Rata and The Cameron Highlands April 19th – April 21, 2010 Our mostly good time!
The Rose Center where we raced up to the highest garden for photos and then raced down before it stormed!
A favorite photo from the Rose Center.
The Boh Tea Plantation
It really was this beautiful .
The Story
Our cruising friends Claude and Danielle went off to the Cameron Highlands and came back with reports of cool weather and beautiful scenery. They recommended a local George Town tour company that offered transport to the highlands and a half-day tour, and a popular guest house in Tanah Rata where they had stayed. Well, we certainly agree that the weather was wonderfully cool and the scenery beautiful; but we opted for the regular bus to come home and switched accommodations for our second night.
The George Town tour company told us we’d be picked up at 6 am, the trip up to Tanah Rata would be about 4 and a half hours, and we would make a stop mid way for coffee. In reality, the van was 20 minutes late and already full so Randal had to sit in the far back seat and hold his backpack. I sat mid-van with my pack stuffed at my feet. We held our packs because the cargo area was already full with luggage belonging to the eight other passengers. About 30 minutes we stopped for gas and a pit stop for the driver. That was our only stop. The trip took 2 hours and 55 minutes because the driver drove like a maniac. He drove too fast, too close, and passed traffic going around curves with double solid white lines. No one complained; we just held on. Twenty minutes before we arrived at our guest house I thought I would be sick. Randal had felt sick much of the way and was still sick when we stopped. Apparently this insane driving is fairly common and our friends Patrick and Elizabeth theorize that the van drivers normally drive motorcycles. Motorcycles have no rules and most of them speed. Actually women do drive motorcycles sensibly so they should be hired as the van drivers!
I though the Fathers Guest House was sort of charming, but Randal was instantly put off by the fact that you have to take off your shoes to enter the office or small lounge. Removing shoes isn’t uncommon in many places, but here it was a bit unexpected. I guess too many hikers with muddy shoes had made too many messes in the past. He asked to see the room. I thought it very basic, but good enough. We would have our own bathroom and shower. We were shown the “demo” room on the front of the building, but were told we’d be in back. It passed the, “no second choice test” so I took off my shoes and went in to register for one night. We planned to stay in Tanah Rata for two nights but Randal had hopes of finding someplace else. Along with needing to see our passports, she asked for our ages and email. When I asked why our ages were needed, the staff person told me the government asked for it. Seemed to me a reasonable statistic needed for tourism. Our email was needed in case we left something behind. When I signed the register I did notice that we were 20 to 30 years older than most of the other guests. It was that kind of place where young Europeans or Aussies stayed while they traveled around SE Asia on tight budgets. It was $30 US which sounds like very little but usually gets you more. In Ubud on Bali we’d paid the same amount for a truly wonderful guest compound. Since our room wasn’t ready, we left our packs and headed to town for brunch. Breakfast had been at 5 am back on the boat. We found a “German – Swiss” restaurant with pictures of Geneva on the wall and a menu that included schnitzel and cheese so we ate lots of cheese, chunks or ham, and salad. I asked for some bread and we were given warm strawberry bread and butter. The man who lead us up to the second floor restaurant , unlocked the door, and did the cooking seemed very far removed from anything even remotely European. But he was very accommodating and it was all good. During our tour of the small town center of Tanah Rata we found two other possible places to stay.
We returned to the guest house and found that we had to stay in the demo room because other guests decided to stay longer so rooms in the back area weren’t available. The “demo room” had a few issues such as a pane of clear glass in the bathroom window facing the walkway and no curtain and a fitted sheet that fit a smaller bed. I finally took the “I Love NB” pin from my hat and pinned my corner of the sheet to the mattress. By morning, the rest had come undone and most of it was in the center of the bed. But the room was cool and quiet and we both slept well under two wool blankets. The guesthouse café served wonderful western eggs and toast with bacon and beans or fruit and yogurt all for a very reasonable price.
The large guest building. Ours is the middle door just behind Randal.
It was a lovely setting on the hill behind the town.
Our room was the 3rd set of doors and though the walls were thin, we heard no noise at all during the night. The couple next to us had a small boy and another couple had two children, but most guests were young backpackers in flip flops.
The back path down the hill to town. It was just a 10 minute walk
http://fathers.cameronhighlands.com/ is the website. I sort of liked it. If we had stayed a second night I would have asked them for better sheets and something to block the missing privacy pane on the bathroom window. It was clean and all of the other young guests were very pleasant and friendly. Dare I say we’re too used to our space and comfort to live like backpackers? When we travel, we don’t stay in fancy places by any means. We just don’t like to have to put our stuff on the floor because there’s no place to set anything down. And I guess we need to feel that there’s more between us and the world than glass French doors. But to be fair, it was clean, quiet and you felt your belongings were safe while you were away from the room. If I were 20 something, I’d want to stay there and meet the other travelers.
Next email our half-day tour of the Rose Center, Tea Plantation, Strawberry Farm and a few other stops too.