Chapter 2: titles are important

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Yesterday I took a morning bus from KL to Cameron Highlands. Somehow I managed to be caught unawares that the last 65km of our journey would be up a very winding road. Now had I thought about this it probably wouldn't have come as a giant surprise but since my brain is on vacation... It isnt called the Highlands for nothing.

The weather can best be characterized as 'English' or what you would imagine that to mean, except even more rain. It pretty much rains (based on the two days I have been here) in the early afternoon for at least a couple of hours. Today it has been raining from 2pm to now (8:30pm). And it is quite cool - in fact my sweater is not really enough but since I doubt I will need even a sweater the rest of my trip I will tough it out.

Today I went on a half day tour to see a bunch of places that are typical to this area. They included: a "butterfly farm", a strawberry farm, a "rose farm", a tea planation, a tea factory and some others. Why are butterfly farm and rose farm in quotes? Because the "Butterfly Farm" turned out to be mostly an exhibit of the local insects and snakes with a small area given over to the butterflies. None of which makes the whole thing any less fascinating. These are creatures that are typical to the forests and other nature areas of CH but we are unlikely to see them because they hide themselves so well. So it was really cool to be able to see them upclose. We had a really brave french girl in the group that held almost everything (even the scorpion). Wait till I post the pictures - some of the insects are really cool. Same thing with the "Rose Garden". It was mostly a flower farm, very few of the flowers were roses - still very pretty though, just find the naming interesting. and there was a giant show - like from the story about the old lady and the shoe. Not sure what it was doing there. But they seem to like giant, weird, plastic things because at the bee farm there were giant plastic bees everywhere. A bit unsettling really.

The strawberry farm was interesting. They don't grow them on the ground because that way they have to use a lot of fertilizer and chemicals. Instead they grow them on elevated platforms in the soils contained in plastic. That way they can grow it organic, it uses less water too. There is no growing season, the strawberries grow year round, just like all the other fruits/vegetables here in CH because the weather is always the same. I had some strawberries with cream - they were quite good.

We also stopped at the tea plantation and learned a bit about how they grow the tea as well as had opportunity to take some pictures. The hills full of tea bushes look exactly like the pictures, very green and if you look from far away seem to grow in a sort of a pattern. They are not really bushes, they are trees and can grow very tall but are kept short so that the workers can collect the leaves easily. These trees are original, planted sometime in the 30s by the Scottish family that as far as I understood still owns the plantation. Only the top, young leaves are cut with giant shears, and then packed into bags for delivery to the tree factory.

The tea factory is also original. IE - it uses pretty much the same machines it did when they started, sometime in the 30s. I guess it works for them. So you can go through and see 4 steps out of the 5 step process. (step #1 - the initial drying, is done overnight and cannot be seen). After the tea is processed at the factory it is sent to KL for 5-6 months for further ageing, then sent on. The company that owns this planation Boh is the largest tea brand name in Malaysia. And of course they have a large gift shop as well as tea shop right nearby. I very much enjoyed my tea with scones there.

Tomorrow I am off to the island of Penang to visit Georgetown.

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Photos

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Where's the old lady?

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It was supposed to be a rose garden after all

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Strawberries

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Tea plants

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Rain in Cameron Highlands