The CLIMB!!!

Early in the morning, I woke up and quietly went for a run in the mountains. It felt so good, as it was as if I was running in the air-con with such perfect scenery. I went easy on myself so as to NOT hurt my already fragile knee. Ah Boo was already up when I was back. I changed and went swimming. Wanted to swim the day before, too bad the whole pool was filled with screaming kids. This morning, it was a different story. I was the only one in the pool. More like the only fool in the pool. The water was freezing and I had to keep on swimming from end to end to keep myself from getting hypothermia.

By the time I showered and get back to the hotel room, Ah Boo was almost ready to get going for breakfast. We chose to eat at the balcony, enjoying the cool breeze on our face. I insisted that we do the jungle walk this morning as Ah Boo had already completed her itenery yesterday. At the day-tour counter, the person told us there is a group departing for the jungle walk. We rushed upstairs to grab our stuff and came down.

After a short bus-ride, we arrived at the highest point of Cameron Highlands, 6,666m above sea-level. We climbed up a tower and had to quickly take some pictures and come down. There was a whole bunch of people waiting to climb up and down the tower. With rowdy teenagers and rude people, we were forced to cut short our time spent at the top of the tower. Then it was the BOH tea plantation again. This time, we skipped the factory and went straight into the shopping area. We bought post-cards and wrote on each other's card. Keeping the content secret, we said we would post it at the hotel lobby after the half-day tour.

Along the way out, the tour guide stopped and let us take photo. The Caucasian couple certainly took plenty. They were a long way from home. As for me, I always wanted to pluck tea leaves. So I pretended to be one. Alas! Was too fat. Probably won't qualify unless I shed some fats!! I became the unofficial photographer for the group. Suddenly I was boosting that I was a art director. Hahaha! And this prompted one of the tour-mates to ask Ah Boo about my job. Guess the photo I took for them were impressive!! Now, I should seriously consider buying a higher-end camera. We were on the bus for less than three minutes before the guide made another stop.

Apparently, we had reached the path that will take us into the jungle. And this is the jungle walk that I walked to take. With the rain coming down like almost daily every afternoon, the ground was soggy in the jungle and we had to literally climbed our way in. Ah Boo said we just became monkeys. Our shoes were covered with mud. I had to fold up my jeans some more and I realised wearing boot cut was a huge mistake here. Our trip inside the jungle was cut short due to the soggy grounds.

Then we requested the driver to drop us at a place (hahaha...I can't remember the name of the place) where it sold a lot of farming stuff, souvenirs. I bought three pots and three turtles for the cacti I bought yesterday. Well, if they don't survive under my care, at least I have the turtles to look at after that. With plenty of time to burn, and with the rain coming down on us, we spend about two hours walking around the place. As the rain became lighter, we decided to walk back to our hotel. One of the salesgirl there told us it will take about 30minutes for us to walk back to the hotel. Why not? Good exercise.

Forgetting that we are walking up the slopes, along the highway, we embarked on our journey back to the hotel. Along the way, the rain started to pour. Finding another farm, we ran towards shelter and I bought food. Good thing I was wearing red today. As we walked up along the way, we found traffic slowing down for us since we were afterall, walking on the highway. The people running a durian stall by the roadside must be thinking, "Are these two girls crazy?"

Seeing all the traffic, Ah Boo dared not walk in front and it make sense that I, wearing RED, walked in front. Along the way, she kept screaming, "There is BUS!" To which, I responded with, "YES, I KNOW!!" Slowly but surely, we walked up and were totally exhausted when we finally reached our hotel room. And I got to shower first, being the one who hated wet bathrooms. When I came out of the bathroom, fog had came in. Thank God we arrived back in time. Wouldn't want to be caught walking in the fog. The magnitude of the danger only hit me at this time.

We stayed in the hotel room, waiting for the fog to life. In the meantime, we started packing our luggage. Can't believe we are actually going home tomorrow morning. After the fog has finally cleared, we took a cab down to the main town in Cameron for dinner. Ah Boo was still searching for organic steamboat restaurant she read in U-Weekly. Walking behind some back alleys, we finally found the restaurant. Since we already had steamboat last night, we chose to eat the Tze Char there. Which turned out to be superb and cheap!!