Time to leave beautiful, amazing tasting Penang. The deal we've made with the car hire co is that we'll call them from our hotel around 10:30 and they'll bring the car promptly at 11 to allow us to get away.  We'll drop the car in Kuala Lumpur in 3 days time.

We call them at 10:30, I can tell from the pause that all is not as it should be.  It reminds me of the pause I used to get on the odd occassion from my project teams at work .......

"So, all our warranty and liscensing documentation is complete and we're ready for the program files audit?"

The pause says...

"What audit?" or in this case.....

"What car?"

As  I said we're ready to receive the car promptly at 11am, proptly at 11:45 we get a call.

"A taxi will pick you up by 12:00 and take you to Penang airport"

"We don't want to go to the f*cking airport"

"We have an office there and that's where your car will be"

10 minutes later another phone call!!

"You'll have to pay the taxi driver"

Well, we get to Penang airport, there's no bugger at their rental desk, our friend Prakash, in George town sounds distinctly nervous......"I'll get someone there"

"Yes, you will"

Eventually someone shows up and we go into moan mode which ends ok as we get a free additional days rental and an agreement that rather than go to Kuala Lumpur airport to drop off the car, they'll collect it from the hotel of our choice.  It's a nice car, we go around it with the mobile taking snaps of any little dings and the fuel guage, we put our rucksacks in the boot, our travelling day bag in the back seat, water bottle is in the door panel, phoine to sat nav connecxted to he dash charger, travel mints are between us in the seat well........

"Did they tell you about the toll card arrangements?"

"The whatnow?"

"Oh Malaysia now has cash free toll arrangements, you need a touch and go card like this......" He holds up a little credit card jobby.

"Hmmm and where might we avail ourselves of such a card" we ask with our hands slowly tightening around his throat.

"Oh any garage will have them, you pay 10 ringgitts for the card  the charge it with as much as you think you might need" he squawks...

"And so how f*cking much might that be?"

"Maybe 50 ringgitts"

OK so we're at a garage.

"We need a toll card"

"Ok how much do you want on it?"

"50 ringgitts please"

"Ok, where's your card?"

"We don't have one, we want to buy one"

"Oh.....No have, we don't stock them anymore"

"How do we get one then"

"Don't know, try tesco or watsons supermarkets"

Sweet jesus!!.  We eventually find a supermarket, it's impossible to park, Kim has to stay with the car while I go in.

"Have toll cards?"

"Have"

"I'll take one" and profer my credit card....

"Cash only"

"Oh F*ck!" I've only got a 50 ringgitt note + about 10 in change.

The girl behind the counter moves with all the speed of a strinking slug as I profer the 50 note....

"That will be 18 ringgitts"

"Christ I thought they were 10?"

"Not anymore"

She takes my 50, hands me the card, gives me change for 20!!

"How much do you want to put on the card" she asks.

By the time I get her to understand she has short changed me there's quite a crowd gathering wondering why the Englishman has gone such a strange colour.  I use every last groat to charge the card and at last we can leave Penang.....promptly at 2PM

Well, we've had a good old look at the map, and seeing as how we have the car it would seem rude not to get ourselves up to a couple of hill stations.  Like the good old Colonial Brits who built the places we feel we could use a break from the heat. We can't recall many days when the temp hasn't hit the mid to high 30s since we arrived here in March.  Most nights the temp doesn't sink below the mid to high 20s or even low 30s so a break will be nice.

First up we head toward the Cameron Highlands. Up at a reasonable time, chicken curry with a shrimp sambal for breakfast, set the st nav to stun and we're off! 

We came here in 2008 and I have really fond memories of a trek through the jungle with a guide and making our way to a vast tea plantation. The sense of peace and seclusion is something that has stuck with me...however.....This week the country is still in the grip of "Hari Raya" and it's a big public holiday and surprise surprise we're not the only ones trying to get away from the heat of the cities.

The drive up is beautiful, very thick jungle and huge swathes of a giant fern variety tumble down the cliffsides festooned with wild orchids. Eventually we get to the areas given over to strawberry plantations.  The fields go on forever, then give way to tea and coffee.

We're going to stay near to where we stayed last time close to Brinchan and Tana Rata.  The area is famous for the unsolved disapearance of Jim Thompson.  Jim was a spy in WW2 and made a fortune in the silk business in Thailand. In the 60s he disappeared without trace into the jungle in Tana Rata and was declared dead in 74.  It's one of those mystereies that keeps giving as some remains found near Brinchan reasonably recently await analysis so the theories such as assasination, kidnap, or voluntary disapearance to serve in the viet conflict can be tested.  A funny link here..... if you read about our mums' love of the king and I film....... Guess whose company made the silks used in the film??

The Camerons, crowded as they are, have lost none of their charm.  We found the guesthouse we stayed in last time and the Indian owners are so pleased we looked them up they buy us coffee out on their lawn. The little village we stayed in has grown to a town, the single bar is now joined by many others and a high street, packed with shops and coffee houses has replaced a line of dusty market stalls......progress? We actually think so.  Kim likes it more than last time, after a very nicely made slice of cake and a cup of fresh ground local coffee I may be inclined to agree. Sure it lacks the frontier town vibe I enjoyed so much last time around but it was very, very, nice cake!

As the crow flies it's a matter of 60 kilometers to Frasers Hill from where we are in the Camerons........journey time?.........

...........Just shy of 4 hours.

We take the route down the opposite side of the highlands, driving through the villages and tea plantations to the sunken forest, inundated by the waters of the Sultan Abu Bakar Dam. When first opened a village was destroyed and 3 killed, the replacement housing (hut camps) are still here.  The views from the snaking road as we make our way down from the five and a half thousand feet above sea level table lands are just stunning.

Frasers hill is around 1500 metres above sea level, the road is single track, overgrown and over hung by huge bamboo, often blocked by landslide and haunted by troops of monkeys of varying sizes and temper!

Located in the beautifully named Titisawanga range of mountains Fraser found this place in the 1890s. At the top is a genuine rainforest, moss draped trees, bamboo and fern almost constantly in the cloud layer.  In typically Brit fashion Fraser employed a chinese workforce to excavate tin that he found here then established a gambling and opium market to take back all their wages....Not surprisingly he dissapeared without trace!

The place is known for over 300 species of wild bird and one of the last haunts of the Malaysian Tiger!

The drive up is truly amazing, as it winds back and forth across the face of the mountain you get great views across the roof of the jungle and you can see the clouds picking their way down through the trees, filling valleys.

When you eventually get to the top youre welcomed by a sign which says Welcome to Little England!  It looks like a village picked up lock, stock and 10 hole golf course from an English shire.  Checked in and parked up we stroll to the village green, full of wild orchid with beautiful birds of all sizes, plonk ourselves onto a park bench and enjoy the wonderful afternoon sunshine.  If I can get decent beer here I may sell up in the UK and move permanently.

About a half hour walk away is Ye Olde Smokehouse Inn and restaurant. Setting off to walk to it through the village we're stopped in our tracks by the evening call to prayer.  We've just passed the golf clubhouse in the middle of what looks like Rowlands Castle and this most Muslim of sounds echoes from the mosque, hits the mountains opposite and echoes all around us. Otherworldly in this setting it is remarkably beautiful as it drops away into a silence broken only by birdsong.

It's half an hour but all up hill...and I mean hill!! and it's getting hotter....A storm feels as if it's on the way and like it seems to do here the temp starts to steeple and sweat starts running down foreheads and backs....

Ye Olde Smokehouse Inn looks as if it has been picked up from the lake district and dropped into the jungle.  Sitting in the garden we're "buzzed" by long tailed laughing thrushes, and hundreds of swifts and swallows. To complete the lake district fantasy a couple of Indian families are tucking into cream teas......We may have one

"Can we see a menu please"

"They have London Pride!!"

"Kim, they've got london pride, oh f*ck me they've only got london bloody pride....or it's on the menu....doesn't mean they actually have it.......Do you have London Pride?"

"Have"

"They have London Pride!!!"

Kim has checked the food menu.

They have chicken and mushroom and steak and mushroom pies, we're going absolutely nowhere for the next 3-4 hours......

The pies will take 40 minutes, as the waiter takes our order we ask if the storm is likely to amount to anything, cloud is closing in at eye level in front of us and tumbling down the mountain behind us, cresting over the Inn roof. A dog which has been snoozing in the shade of a nearby tree wakes, stretches, sits, scratches, stretches again and pads into the bar.......

The waiter looks around with the air of a local expert, sniffs the air......

"No, it won't rain"

We're half way through the most delicious and the most expensive beer I have probably ever had when a cannonade of deafening thunder echoes off the mountains so it seems as if it's coming from every direction at once and it-simply-pisses-down, I mean it rains like it only can in a monsoonal country.......in a rain forest.  It rains so hard it hits the ground bounces back up and falls again.

"I hope you're a better bloody waiter than you are a weather forecaster" I aim at a skulking and somewhat shamefaced server.

We have the pies (not proper I'm sorry to say, more stew with one of those stupid puff pastry lids) with a bottle of red wine and such is the evocation of home we even have a brandy by the fire place.  This Inn was originally a retreat for high ranking Red Cross officers and has every reminder of the motherland.

It thunders, with lightning and torrential rain, constantly. Being the hospitable bunch they are, while we wait for the bill the Ye Old Smokehouse staff phone our digs who send a people carrier for us.  

When they bring the bill I'm convinced I actually now own the Volkswagon 10 seater which comes for us!  Back at our hotel we sit on our balcony and watch the storm light up the jungle and mountain tops all around us.

We're woken by the Adhan, the early call to prayer 04:45!

It's actually very very beautiful as it echoes around the hill tops. About 8 bars in the Muezzin is joined by every dog in the village. They howl along with him until he, and they tail away into silence, the final echoes die, leaving only a long reverberation which fades until enveloped by the noises of the jungle, cicadas, awakening birds, in the distance monkeys start to howl and whoop.

Looking out, the hillside opposite, covered in jungle, is enveloped in cloud, the sun starts to glance off the cloud tops then lances down, shafts of light pierce, then burn thin the cloud, turning it to fog, then translucent mist blown on the morning breeze, then gossammer which leaves the forest trees, hanging mosses, ferns and wildflowers glistening and dripping with dew, and lifting, leaves a haze which becomes so thin the sun appears to make the air itself golden. 

Getting a Wifi signal up here is virtually impossible.  Last time we air bnb'd a vital purchase was Marmite. I mention these things together as we can only get a signal in the reception areas, and......

We have a long drive.

It's gonna be hot.

Humidity high.

If the air con's to work we'll need to keep the windows closed.

A "chicken curry with dried sardine and shrimp sambal (Hot sauce) topped with hard boiled egg and sun dried anchovies with boiled rice topped with peanuts washed down with fresh ground black coffee and fresh coconut juice" breakfast is pretty much outlawed!!

I take my marmite, on the way to the toaster warn the waiter...

"You touch, you die"

We spread our map on the brekky table and spread marmitey toast crumbs from Frasers Hill to Kuala Lumpur city centre on our Nat Geo map, trying to decide the general route and plan of attack, our table, a solitary island of Englishness amongst our Malay, Indian and Chinese brothers and sisters as they chow down on their curries and congees. Then into reception where we can actually use wifi to check out what hotel we can get for 2-3 days while we sort an air bnb for the next 2 weeks and plot our sat nav.

Hotel successfully agoda'd, we (now expertly) pack our ruck sacks, dump everything into the car and start the long descent from Frasers Hill to "The Gap". 

Development on Frasers Hill has been illegal since the turn of the century, a decision prompted by the over exploitation of the Cameron Highlands, and it shows in the roads in either direction.  At places little more than track, until we hit the flat lands the views across the jungle from the road are never anything less than stunning and wild and we're kept company by the odd troop of monkeys all the way down.  We eventually pick up roads which pass through Kampungs, local villages, each based around a local crop, or form of farm produce, then we hit the Oil Palm plantations.

Huge and unvarying, the plantations seem to have killed everything else around them, no one seems to live here. We speculate as to how the crop gets harvested, is it (the harvest and care of the crop) enough work to sustain the local villages? It appears to have displaced every other visible form of employment or means of maintaining families and communities.  We pass through one plantation which lines the road on both sides as far as the eye can see, carpetting every contour, hill and vale for just a shade under 30 kilometers.  You can fill your gas tank here for just under the equivalent of 20 pounds sterling but the real price? I'm not sure anyone will know for a generation or two.