February 10th - Day 4 - Cameron Highlands to Panang

I had intended to keep this posting brief as we have an early start tomorrow. We cross into Thailand and drive a total of 560kms, so we will be off by 7am, but as it's turned out I have posted more photos than ever!

Today's drive from Cameron Highlands was just over 300kms, with about half on expressway. We left the hotel at 8.30am and took a short detour to drive to the highest peak in the region, Gunong Brinchang, at 6,560ft

The car at the summit.

The drive to and from the top was through beautiful tea plantations, where workers were picking the leaves. It was fascinating to see how they cut the leaves and threw them over their shoulder into a basket on their back.



The tea bushes have gaps between them where the pickers walk. The lines make wonderful patterns on the hills, when looked at from far away.

As we drove down the mountain we passed this lady sorting out the picked tea leaves by the side of the road.



This part of Malaysia seems to be the home of every old Land Rover imaginable. Just one example of the number on the roads.



Our next port of call was to Kellie's Castle built by a Scottish rubber and tin trader, William Kellie-Smith about 90 years ago. The 'castle' is now a ruin but still very impressive, but with a hint of sadness about it, as he never completed the building, dying at the age of 56 from pneumonia.



The corridor where the ghost of Kellie-Smith is said to walk!

As we left the grounds we saw this large lizard standing quite still in the grass.



We had hoped to see the grounds of the royal estate of the Sultans of Perak at Kuala Kangsar, but as luck would have it a ceremony was being held when we arrived and the palace was closed to visitors.

The Jubilee Arch celebrating fifty years of rule: 1958 -2008



Our next port of call was to Orang Utan Island, a sanctuary for orang-utans. The Malaysians are taking wounded, sick and orphaned orang-utans from Borneo and Sarawak. They now have a successful breeding program. A boat takes you to the 'island', which in fact is a peninsular on a large lake. The compound where the orangs are kept is large and the animals are left to fend for themselves, as the intention is to return them to the wild.


We saw several babies that are kept away from the mature animals, so that the mothers will breed more frequently, as opposed to once every six/seven years in the wild.



The end of the day was a fast drive to the island of Penang where our hotel is located on the shore of the Andaman Sea. Shortly after we arrived we learnt that Ahmad Fakhr's Chevrolet had a failed automatic transmission. Jingers helped him get the car to a local Chevy dealer in the hope that it can be repaired. We will know more tomorrow.

We had a great bbq on the lawns of the hotel as the sun went down. Another very enjoyable day. Let's hope for many more like this one.

Finally I have had complaints from a particular member of my family that because he hasn't seen any photos of us, we might be making this whole blog up!! Well here to prove otherwise, is a pic of us, taken by fellow participant Alan Crisp, in the gardens of the Shangri La's Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa.