Day 9 - Kuala Lumpur to The Cameron Highlands

Day 9 already - can't believe how quickly this holiday is going, please SLOW DOWN!!!!!

Another leisurely start this morning.  In the end we became rather fond of our Hellhole From Home and realise now that we have done it a disservice by referring to it as such, and were actually a little sad to be saying goodbye to its wonky charms.  But say goodbye we had to do, as the hire car was delivered early at 9.45am and The Cameron Highlands beckoned.  Before that however I had a mission - to re-visit my old neighbourhood Ukay Heights, to show the kids where Mum grew up (whether they liked it or not, but actually I think they were quite interested to see it).

It was a short drive away, and the route still vaguely familiar despite the 6 lane super highways and flyovers and skyscrapers.  En route we passed Hock Choons, our local supermarket, it turned out that we were staying right round the corner from it and I made Kent promise that we would go back to visit before we left KL for good.  We managed to find Ukay Heights without too much bother but I kind of wish we hadn't, as I made the sad discovery that the flats we used to live in had been replaced by new, fabbier versions, and worse still my beloved 3 Ukay Heights has fallen into rack and ruin and was quite derelict.  Even the gates (which I'm pretty sure are the same ones we had when we lived there 40 years ago) were all buckled and sad.  I must confess I had a bit of a boo-hoo at that moment, but took a strange sort of comfort from the fact that, unlike most parts of KL where concrete is rapidly replacing the green places, the reverse is actually happening to my old house as it is seems to be returning to jungle again.  Not for much longer I'll wager, as the real estate prices around there must be pretty high judging by the mansions with Lambourghinis and Ferraris that now surround it.

Upper lip by now stiffened, I successfully navigated us back to Hock Choons where I did some light shopping for curry powder and ikan billis (these will be heading down to my parents on our return to Blighty) and espied one of the Hock Choon sisters who used to be there all those years ago.  Catherine the florist also stilli situ though we didn't stop to say hello this time.

Turned the car around again (forgot to mention it's a rather swanky, spacious Toyota Camry) and headed north out of the city on the North / South Highway, following the signs to Ipoh.  The roads in Malaysia are very good now, traffic flows fast and freely, apart from when their are tolls to stop at.  Kent had a moan about "shit boxes" and requested that I mention these in the blog - something to do with little cars that stick resolutely to the middle lane or something.  Despite the "shit boxes" we were in Tapah in an hour and a half, and after a quick pitstop at the service station we elected to take the "scenic" route up to the highlands.   I did warn the kids that this might lead to travel sickness (memories of chucking up in the back of my dad's Volvo on the exact same vertiginous and circuitous route still fresh in my mind today) and typically three-quarters of the way up the mountain George announced he wasn't feeling too well.  Lily lent him her Finnair sickbag whilst I scouted around nervously for a place to stop the car.  We found somewhere, and with a breath of fresh air in his lungs and a swap of seats with me so that he could sit in the front seat, George was able to complete the journey and return the sick bag to Lily unused, thank god.

We checked into the "Hotel De La Ferns" just gone 3.30 - very comfortable it is here too, lovely jungly mountain views, all very tranquil apart from the noisy road at the back but you can't have everything I suppose.  After a brief freshen up we went off in search of the butterfly farm where we encountered all manner of strange and beautiful insects, reptiles and other creepy crawlies (and a couple of cute furry bunnies).  Then on to the Smoke House, a beautiful old colonial hotel styled like a Tudor house with a very English garden where we sometimes used to stay when I was a young girl.  We had the Devon cream tea in the garden, and blinking delicious it was too - freshly made scones, lighter than air, and the most gloriously fruity homemade (and home grown) strawberry jam, washed down with Best Of Highlands (BOH) tea - the kids were really most impressed.

As if that wasn't enough, it was dinner time not two hours later so, after a brief sojurn back at the hotel where we changed out of shorts and t-shirts into trousers and jumpers (it really does get rather chilly here in the evenings) we went out in search of more food.  We went into Tanah Rata and dined outside on the pavement outside Kumar's Indian restaurant where, once again, we stuffed our faces with delicious food (mine was served on a banana leaf and yes, chicken wass involved yet again!) for not not very much money -£12 for the 4 of us in fact.  A quick visit to the local mini mart for ice creams and that was as much as our waistbands could bear.  Off back to the hotel to get this written up and for a relatively early night.  Lots to do tomorrow!

Maria