Cameron Highlands, Malaysia: Tea plantations and strawberries

To get to the Cameron Highlands you have to endure a six hour bus journey from Penang. The lack of sleep, and the news story from the week before about the tourist coach trip that went fatally wrong is really enough to put anyone off going there. The roads there are windy, steep and narrow and with the coach driver taking sharp corners at 60mph you spend most of the journey there with your eyes shut hoping to arrive in one piece. But once you get there you realise it was all worth it.

You are 4,940 feet above sea level and the air is refreshingly cool. You start to feel some normality come back to your head as sleeping is easier and the town has a familiar feel about it.

The trip to the tea plantations and strawberry fields is well and truly what made my trip to Malaysia. I have decided it is one of those natural wonders, a bit like the Grand Canyon, that you can see photos of a million times, but never truly appreciate or understand its beauty until you are there in person.

Every inch of the tea plantation was covered in tea plants. The plantation produces the equivalent of 820,000 cups of tea per day which is distributed internationally. It was so calming there and beautiful. We, of course, had the obligatory cup of tea and cake which was delicious, and then moved onto the strawberry farm.

The strawberry farm was very similar to a pick your own farm in England, but somehow the strawberries tasted nicer, and everything was much cheaper. Whilst we were there we had a punnet and a strawberry milkshake. If all this talk has got you in the mood for something strawberry, here is how you make a delicious strawberry milkshake:

Ingredients

• 8 – 10 fresh strawberries
• 2 small glasses of fresh cold milk
• A scoop of vanilla ice cream
• 4 ice cubes
• A spoonful of honey
• Mint leaves to garnish (optional)

How to make it

Step one: remove the green stem of the strawberries and wash them.

Step two: place all but one of the strawberries, milk, ice cream, ice cubes and spoon full of honey into a food blender and blend until all of the ingredients are mixed up.

Step three:  Serve into a glass and garnish with a mint leave or small slices of the remaining strawberry.

Enjoy!

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