The Cameron Highlands

Wednesday 18 July

The scenery is breathtaking on the train journey from Butterworth, near Penang, to Ipoh, the gateway to the Cameron Highlands; lush green jungle, grassy valleys, and huge mountains towering into the skyline. We're travelling first class on this rusty little train, though it would be difficult to recognise this fact. There's plenty of room for our entourage of luggage at one end of the carriage, which is always a relief. The seats, though reclining slightly and extremely comfortable, are worn, and the whole appearance of the inside of the train carriage is one of having seen better days. There are 2 toilets opposite each other at one end of the carriage – labelled “Squat Toilet” and “Sit-on Toilet”. Air-conditioning makes it really chilly inside the carriage.

You do get given a free bottle of drinking water and a piece of cake. The cake is hard to describe; it looks like a slice of ginger cake, but tastes only mildly spicy.

The train guard is helpful and friendly; some people in Malaysia seem to have an affinity with the British, perhaps because of the colonial heritage, I don't know.

When we arrive at Ipoh, surprisingly only a few minutes late, the car hire man, called Leong, is waiting for us, with another man. Completing the paperwork for the car hire is surprisingly quick; Leong takes a glance at Reg's driving licence, and Reg puts his passport number on the form, and that's it. Leong doesn't even want to know our address in the Cameron Highlands, nor does he want a deposit for the car. The comprehensive car insurance has a £200 excess – Reg has separately arranged extra insurance cover for this. Leon makes sure we have his telephone number in case of any difficulty, and we arrange to meet him at the station on Monday, when the train we've just got off, will take us all the way to Singapore.

The hire car isn't brand new, but it's not old either, and has air-conditioning. It's a bigger model than we expected, at no extra cost. Considering the amount of luggage we have this is an added bonus. Reg asks for directions out of Ipoh towards the Cameron Highlands; Leon kindly tells us to follow him, and takes us to the appropriate junction, where there's a petrol station. We fill up, but oddly the petrol gauge, which showed half-full, has now gone down slightly. This is a concern, but we know we have a full tank, so off we go.

Bringchang in the Cameron Highlands, where we are staying, is about 100 kilometres away. The road is well-surfaced but is slow and winding, and we have to travel patiently at intervals behind trundling lorries before Reg is able to overtake. As we progress into the highlands, we pass strawberry farms and tea plantations. The journey takes 2 hours.

There have been mixed reviews on Trip Advisor on the place where we're staying, so we aren't expecting too much. Our room is pleasant, carpeted and clean, with a view, through red dahlia bushes, out over the Cameron Highlands. The air is clean and cool and we don't need air-conditioning here!

After a rest we take a short walk into Bringchang in search of food. I have sweet and sour prawns, and Reg chooses a slightly spicy dish with prawns in a bean sauce, both with rice; our meals are delicious. We explore a shop which sells everything from food to hardware to stationery to underwear! I can't resist buying a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate – will I still have lost weight by the time we get home?

We have to go to the hotel vestibule for wifi access, so I spend a bit of time there posting yesterday's blog, and a couple of emails, which I wrote in Open Office on the train to Ipoh, and in our room earlier.

There's no breakfast provided at our hotel; the reception staff tell us that you can only buy “local” Asian breakfast, not English breakfast, in the restaurants and cafes in Bringchang. The internet says differently, so in the morning, we'll see who's right.