It rains this morning so we have breakfast in the room instead of outdoors. No natural lights in the room make it a bit gloomy, but we’re all ready to go.

After check out we get a taxi to take us to Puduraya bus station. That’s the main bus station in KL and from where we’ll catch the bus this morning. It’s somewhat more organized than we feared, but then again we didn’t have all that high hopes. We show the picture from the online booking at the counter, get our tickets and information on departure bay. We sit and wait in a humid and rather heavy aired waiting lounge until it was time to go down to the bay. The bus is now here near full and the seats are enormous. There’s only three seats pr row and the can be tilted to make for better sleep. Brilliant.

We have the seats right behind the driver and have prima view on his driving skills. He do OK. It’s a couple if close calls, but no incidents. Then we pull off the highway and start moving into the highlands. The road is narrow and filled with all kinds of transportation means. We pass a truck that didn’t make the turn and had flipped over on its side, but other than that it was mostly just small mudslides and out fallen trees that blocked part of the road. Pretty ordinary stuff around here, really. The tour take about three hours and then we exit the bus in Tanah Rata.

The first thing we do is get lunch at the first restaurant we see. It’s Indian with the buffet style where you make your own plate. It was very good and we breath a little easier.

There’s a short walk up to the hotel that looks like something out of The sound of music. “Tyroler” houses seems to be the thing around here. White large houses with brown our black bindings. We did not expect to find that here. The hotel is large but old. It’s ok for a few nights, but man so I hate carpets in hotel rooms. It’s just gross.

After relaxing a little and Katja making a small video for Marthe her godchild who is having her confirmation today, we go back down to town for a walk and dinner. We met an energetic young man who’s started up something called “The barracks”. He’s gotten his hands on authentic British military barracks and uses them for a restaurant. He takes us inside and show us photos of Tanah Rata in the British colonial time, old postcards sent from soldiers and artifacts from the period. We agree to come beck and have dinner after our walk.

We stroll slowly to the end of town and back. That doesn’t take all that long, really. There’s a Starbucks here that stands out in freshness and we get a coffee while enjoying WiFi. After a while we walk back to the barracks and have dinner. The place was cooler than the food was good. It was mediocre, but it’s close to our hotel and we’re hungry.

Back up in our hotel we just relax and watch a little tv before it’s lights out. I’ve been having as little runny nose and a sore throat for a couple of days new. The nasal spray I bought at the pharmacy is way stronger than anything home and drilled a hole through my nostrils and sinuses. They’re open like a highway tunnel. Looking forward to seeing if it’ll stay that way until tomorrow.

 

“Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, ‘Jesus! This cup is expensive!’