Ipoh & Cameron Highlands.

We spent two days in Ipoh, a non-touristy normal city with some colonial history and amazing mountain views. The mountains were exactly like the ones in Guilin (Southern China), but covered in dense jungle and hence very green.

On the first day we visited a water park called Lost World of Tambun, located just at the base of those gorgeous mountains. First point of interest was the advocated swimwear. Non-Muslims were allowed normal swimsuits, but everyone seemed to wear a t-shirt on top of it, so that's what I did too. Muslims however had to wear full-length swimwear covering arms and legs, and for women it included a scarf made of swimwear material, and this was called the burkini.

The second point of interest was the water slides. For all of them you had to sit on a double tube, so for all of them you needed two people. The maximum weight for the riders was 200 kg, and being not-so-small non-Asians we were on the upper limits of it. We figured that it can't be that bad and went for the first one. It turned out to be a blackened out tunnel, so we could see nothing, and due to our heavy weight the ride was scarily fast and there was nothing we could do to slow it down! The first curves I screamed out of joy, then the next ones out of fear, and then we flipped over! After landing to the pool and checking that no damage was done, we went for the next ride! That one was half-open tube, and we realised that we might flip over the side if we got too fast... so I did all I could to slow us down. And there wasn't a third ride as we were brought a form to sign saying that we've been advised that we are not fit for these rides!

So rest of the day we floated down a long waveriver admiring the mountains, swam in the wave pool, went to see the tigers they had and sat in hot springs. It was very relaxing day all in all. In the evening we sampled local Chinese food - boiled chicken in soy sauce with some delicious Ipoh beansprouts.

The second day we spent touring the Old City with some impressive colonial buildings and Mosques, and I've never been so hot in my life! The sun was really intense, and we were no longer sticky with sweat, but slippery from the streams of it! We lunched on a small food court, and after we'd finished our nasi goreng and mee goreng, an older Malaysian man came to chat with us. He asked where we were from, and started telling about his life, job, salary, Malaysian school system (how it all used to be in English) and his opinions on news and politics. Very interesting, and shows how open the people here are. And how well people speak English! Just like the other night in Penang where Boyfriend went to ask an older lady which stall she'd bought her noodles from, and he got a detailed explanation in pristine English!

So after the very hot day we took a local bus to Tamah Rata in Cameron Highlands. The local buses here are great - I've never had as much leg space in any other bus. And on arrival to Cameron Highlands we were positively surprised - it was no longer hot but lovely and even cool 25C. We found a relaxed hostel, but it was full, so we got a discounted price for the hotel of the same chain. However we didn't want to let go of the hostel atmosphere, so we've been going to the hostel bar every night to sit by the campfire and meet people.

On our first full day here we went on a Mossy Forest tour. We toured the beautiful tea plantations and visited a tea factory, visited the highest point in Cameron Highlands (at 6666 ft, or bit over 2000 m) and had a very short and fairly muddy walk in the very mossy forest. After that we had a chance to visit the Butterfly Garden, and it was definitely worth the visit as I've never seen such large butterflies and all the interesting insects and reptiles too - we could've spend there hours. So the tour gave us a really good impression on the surroundings.

However, the tour didn't include any jungle trekking, and that is something that Boyfriend has been really wanting to do. So this morning we went trekking on one of the local trails which was meant to be relatively easy and level, but turned out that it went straight up to one of the taller mountains. The jungle was beautiful, the path up was steps formed of tree roots, and the view from the top was much better when we'd done the hard work getting up there! But I have to say we're exhausted now and need an early bed to catch a bus to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning...!