The Long Way To Tea Country

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There are days when travelling that it seems that everything goes wrong. This is one of those days. Actually, it started last night after we left Brunei.

We left for the Brunei airport at 2pm. The flight is only 2 hours and 20 minutes long and it left at 4pm, but we didn't get into our hotel room in Kuala Lumpur until 10:15pm. Seem like a long transit time? Yeah, it was. It started with Elysia's genius idea to take the train instead of the bus from the Low Cost Carriers terminal (where Air Asia flys into) to the Kuala Lumpur city centre. Both supposedly take about the same time (they claim the train is 10 minutes shorter- just under an hour), but the train is double the price (train=25 ringgits for 2, or 4 bucks a ticket). We really love trains and Elysia likes to see the countryside so we decided to take the train this time. Taking the train turned out to be a really convoluted way to get to the city, however, that definitely ended up taking more like 2 hours. First you need to take a shuttle bus from the airport to the train station (if you're going to wait for the shuttle bus, why not just wait for the coach- pretty much the same thing). The bus takes about 20 minutes just to get to the train station. Then you have to wait for the train at the train station, as they're not coordinated. After waiting 20 minutes to get on, the train took approximately a half hour to forty minutes. We would have probably been in our hotel room already had we taken the bus. The super annoying thing is that by this time, the sun had already set so it was pitch black outside so we couldn't see the countryside anyways. Major fail. I want to start calling these "stupid tourist fail".

Then it got worse. Once we finally got to the train station in KL, we thought it might be wise to get some food because by that time it was already 8:30 and by the time we would get to the hotel, we may not find any food there. Best decision we made; we bought some take out food from the train station, including some bubble tea that we didn't open till we got to the hotel (can't drink on the train).

I want to preface this next part by saying that we could have stayed in the same hotel that we had stayed in the week before, but since our bus to the Cameron Highlands was leaving early in the morning, we thought we would find a hotel that was much more conveniently situated so that we could just walk to the bus station and could maximize our sleeping time. We tried anyways...

So the plan was to take the subway to our hotel, which included switching trains once. The first train was delayed, of course. However, at least we only had to wait for 10 minutes until the delay had been cleared. On the second train we met an expat from LA and started talking to him about life in KL. It's actually interesting because he's a chiropractor teaching at a medical school in KL. Apparently there's more money in KL for him. He's been here for 6 months and has a 2 year contract. With a house in Phuket, it works out well for him to be closer. Anyways, we got to talking to this guy and finally our stop came and we got off. Only it wasn't our stop. We had gone one stop past and gotten off at a station called Chan Sow Lin (names here are important). So we waited for the next train in the other direction and got off at the station we should have, Pudu Station.

The next step was to walk to the hotel from the station. I can't tell you why us two geniuses didn't think to take a cab. It probably would have cost us $3 CAD. But we were cheap and decided to walk, or at least tried to. The area wasn't the best of areas. I'm sure it was perfectly safe but in Canada, we'd probably think it was a sketchy area. It wasn't really, just seemed dirtier than other areas in the city. We walked and walked and walked until we realized that in order to get to the hotel, we'd have to cross a highway (Mike was navigating by the way). So we tried to flag down a cab to get us there. No one seemed to know where the hotel was. We let a few cabs go by because we didn't like their price (15 ringgits, or $5 instead of 10 ringgits, or just over $3). Other drivers couldn't take us because they didn't know where the hotel was (nor did we). Mike had to use the maps on his phone to show drivers where the hotel was, but some drivers just didn't understand. It was getting low on battery and finally when Mike was showing someone the map, it died. Elysia's was already dead. Wonderful. Luckily we found a taxi driver who did know where it was, because we were getting so frustrated, tired, and very, very hungry. It's good we didn't continue to walk because although he didn't need to actually get on the highway, the hotel was very far from where we were.

When we got to the hotel and were checking in, Elysia noticed something interesting on the screens in the lobby. Apparently the hotel is in direct access to Chan Sow Lin station, the one we had mistakenly gotten off at almost an hour previously!!!! Ugh!! So we had come in a full circle. We're not sure why the hotel didn't stress this on their website in the first place. We were exhausted and finally got into our room at 10:15pm and had to eat our cold dinner and drink our watery bubble teas that we had gotten earlier. The cherry on top for this annoying day was that there were dried anchovies in both of our dinners and we both were (and are) utterly disgusted by that. Elysia was desperate enough to pick them out and eat the rest but Mike only ate part of his food.

In the end, this "conveniently placed hotel" (the Ibis Styles Hotel), was actually much further from the bus station than our previous hotel was, so we really should have just gone back to the old one. It would have saved us a lot of time and frustration. Stupid tourists!

Anyways, we were hoping our luck was going to change today as we headed to the Cameron Highlands, but it didn't. We got up early for our 8:30am bus. We got to the station at 7:40 and they couldn't find our reservation and the bus was full. Wonderful. We had booked our tickets through the cameronhighlandsinfo website and received confirmation, but somehow somebody messed up. Fortunately they were really receptive when Mike called them to figure it out. They at first wanted to put us on a 1pm bus, but we weren't happy about that because it didn't give us much time there (we had to come back the next day). As it was we didn't think we had much time. They ended up giving us a 9:30 bus with another company, with a sketchy paper ticket but at least we were able to get there eventually. However, it meant waiting in the sketchy KL bus depot, with people that looked like scalpers constantly trying to sell bus tickets around us. Very shady-seeming.

The bus trip was about 4 hours long, but would have felt like a lifetime if you were someone who gets motion sickness. Probably 3 of those hours on the road were spent winding back and forth through the mountains of Malaysia. Makes even the strongest stomach a little bit woozy. On both there and the way back, there were a few lucky people who got to re-experience their breakfast multiple times. I hope that they at least had something good for breakfast! We weren't included in that group, thankfully. Mike did have to take gravol for the way back but Elysia wasn't really bothered by it. The view from the bus was absolutely beautiful and made the ride worthwhile. Every switchback provided a beautiful view of the valley and luscious green fields and mountains. We passed through tea fields, jungles and other vegetable fields on our way up to the first main town of the Cameron Highlands, Tanah Rata. This is where we were going to stay the night. We got there at 2pm so we only had a bit of the afternoon to venture around.

The Cameron highlands were discovered by the British in the late 1800s. Because of its cooler climate, gentle slopes and plateau areas, they believed it would be a good place to set up a resort area and for farming. It was developed around the 1920s as a hill station where tea, fruits and vegetables could be grown. Today, it is where 90% of the tea in Malaysia is produced. Because the British had such an influence on this area (and because it was once a British colony), we had expected there to be more evidence of the British influence throughout the highlands. Aside from a few tea houses, some places offering high tea and some Tudor-style buildings, we were surprised to see that just about everything had a large Chinese influence and some Malay. I guess it makes sense, we're in Asia not Britain. Since we were so high up in the mountains, the temperature had dropped quite a bit. Elysia was actually feeling a bit cold, but Mike enjoyed the temperature. It was around 25 Celsius during the day and dipped quite a bit lower at night.

We stayed at the Century Pines Hotel in Tanah Rata. It was very nice and because its Ramadan, we got a great price on it (seems like everything is discounted during Ramadan because people don't travel as much). We were told its a Muslim hotel, but other than the fact that they don't have wine at the hotel and you can clearly hear the call to prayer at 4am, you would never know.

After we were settled in the hotel, we went out to explore. We would have liked to hike the trails around the highlands, but unfortunately we didn't have time because we were only staying for the night. Instead we hired a cab and got him to drive us to a few key places.

Our first stop was to the Big Red Strawberry Farm. This is a big deal in Asia- people come from far and wide for a chance to see these "exotic" strawberries. I guess they're more rare in Asia. In fact, the highlands are clustered with souvenir shops selling strawberry backpacks, key chains, posters, any souvenir you can think of. We were thinking about bringing back "I love Strawberries" t-shirts for you all. Hahaha.

We went to the strawberry farm to pick strawberries, but it was closer to 5pm by the time we got there so we were told that they had already been picked out by the hordes of tourists. This is actually the problem with Cameron Highlands- the masses of tourists and tour buses. It's unlike any place I've ever seen. Everything is so busy and it takes away a bit from the experience of being in such a beautiful place. We were told by our cab driver that this isn't even that bad- because it's Ramadan the local Malay tourists are staying away so after Ramadan it gets even crazier. I can't imagine!

Anyways since we couldn't pick the hydroponically-grown strawberries, we instead went to the cafe they have there and ate some of their strawberry foods, such as strawberry tea, strawberry hot chocolate, strawberry pancake and strawberry sundae. Yum! We even took a small carton of strawberries back for the hotel room. The strawberries were good, but they're honestly not a whole lot different than what we get at home (so don't be too jealous).

After the strawberry farm we got the driver to drive us up to Gunung Brinchang (elevation at the peak is 6,666 feet), which is the highest peak you can drive up to in Malaysia. We would have liked to hike it but it was too late in the day and that would take 2 hours one way. Next time.

The way up was a crazy narrow and steep road through a jungle. It took about 30 minutes to drive up to the top. The road really was only 1 lane wide. We had to back up several times to let another car pass in the opposite direction. Pretty scary considering how steep it is. There weren't too many cars going up it, fortunately, because I can't imagine during the busy non-Ramadan times how crazy it would get with all the cars! From the top of the mountain there is a small look out tower that you have to climb a few ladders (not quite ladders but close) to get to the top. Getting to the top gives you unparalleled 360 degree views of the surrounding Malaysian countryside. Of course we climbed to the top! We never had expected Malaysia to be so mountainous, but it certainly is!

After this we headed back into town for the evening. The taxi only cost us 100 ringgits (30 bucks).

So in the end we had a good day in the Cameron Highlands. It was very nice to escape the pollution of the cities and to get out and see other parts of Malaysia. Elysia's eye in KL was starting to hurt again from all the pollution, but once we got to the highlands, the clear air felt good on it! Unfortunately the beauty of the area is a little overshadowed by the crowds of tourists there. But it was nonetheless a nice place to go for a few days.

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Photos

Mike and our Driver trying to make off with the goods...
It's tough to make a quick get away, so we decided we would just buy some from the shop after it had been dried out.