Cameron Highlands

I left Kota Bharu after a couple of days exploring the marketplaces and a couple of museums. Don't have many photos of that. What I found interesting was that the Japanese and British forces were given equal room in the war museum. The Malays were taken over by both I guess, and it's not trying to hide anything. I just hadn't seen that much info on the Japanese side before.

These are some of the things I saw on the way to the Cameron Highlands:

On the way to Gua Musang

Gua Musang. I stayed the night there in an expensive hotel ($30AU...)  but didn't do much else.

Hills with all the trees gone.

Big curved bridge over the village huts. With a motorbike in the way.

More of the highway, now it's 4 lanes, and at about 1300m. Much nicer weather up here now!

I'm staying in the Hillview Inn. The tourist info places weren't that helpful here, one was closed (permanently?) the other didn't have any maps left. I could see the Hillview Inn from the main road, decided to give it a go. It looks clean. But it's costing me $27AU a night. Luckily I found a can of 14% alcohol beer for $2AU.

The view from the Hotel.

Today I went up to the highest road in Peninsula Malaysia, Jalan Gunung Brinchan. The record on my GPS was 1600m before this and I think it that was near Cubramurra. So here is what it says now:

I have to beat this! To Nepal!

This road isn't on the highest mountain, there is a peak next to it with a hiking trail which is higher. And the tallest on the peninsula is in Taman Negara. But the tallest in Malaysia is in sabah, and more than twice as high as this.

Here are some pics from the top:

The view from the top.

The clouds coming in, on the right is part of the taller peak.

It's only 3km, but it's a 700m rise or so. I saw some people coming up this trail with very muddy shoes.

This is from a 10m tower on top to see over the trees, when I got to the top the clouds were coming in and  this is the best that I got up there. I headed back down after waiting 20 minutes or so.

Cloudage.

The road goes through a tea plantation. It's a single lane width, and people constantly beep their horns to let people know they're coming, but they don't slow down of course. I took it verrrry slowly.

Part of the road near the top, this is the mossy forest.
 

Tea!

More tea!

Closeup of tea.

More tea, this time with the better camera

In your face tea!

Tea, etc.

Looking down the valley.

Tomorrows plan is to visit a tea plantation and try the local produce. And scones. Somewhere here you can get pork products too, haven't found out where yet though. In the meantime there's this: