Cameron Highlands

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MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2009

Up very early to get a 6am mini-van transfer direct to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. Was easier than getting a local bus and still only cost 35MYR - about A$15 or so. Bus got in at about 10:30am and it was a very short walk to my hostel where I was able to check in and have a bit of a power nap before heading out to explore the area.

The Cameron Highlands are Malaysia’s most extensive hill station at an altitude of more than 1300m. Basically the area is lots of tea plantations, hills and farms. They were named after William Cameron who was the surveyor who mapped the area in 1885. The temperatures here rarely drop below 10 degrees and rarely go above 21 degrees - which is the reason why there are some many vegetables, tea, and flowers cultivated here - unlike Australia and other countries they don’t have a ‘fruit season’ or anything like that. A lot of people come to the area to go hiking and there are hiking trails scattered all over the place. Most people, me included, stay in Tanah Rata as it has good transport links, budget accommodation and plenty of places to eat - even though it isn’t as central as other Highland towns.

First stop was to wander around town, which took all of about 15 minutes as there wasn’t a whole lot to see. Some markets and some shops, restaurants and cafes and a few parks and hotels. After grabbing something to eat I headed for one of the closer and shorter ‘jungle’ walking trails to Robinson Falls. It took me a little to find the entrance as it was down a street that looked like a quarry, and the trail actually started right next to someone’s house so that from a distance it looked like the ‘trail’ was their driveway.

Robinson Falls was only about a 15-20 minute walk. The falls themselves were nice enough although the trail was barely marked and was slippery and overgrown in parts. From then it had been my plan to continue on via trail 9A which would eventually lead out to Boh Road just near one of the tea estates and then I could follow the road back.

Anyway, about 15-20 minute walk after the falls, the trail started getting very narrow and quite over grown. There were lots of trees in the way and despite the fact that it was a clear walking trail, I couldn’t see any markers, and I hadn’t seen any people despite the close proximity to Tanah Rata. When I rounded a corner I had to step over some water on the path and it was about then I looked to my left and saw something in the water. I leaned in closer thinking it was a fish, to discover it was a long, but very skinny, brown snake. It slithered out of the water and gave me an absolute fright - as I suddenly realised that I didn’t know whether Malaysia had any poisonous snakes (turns out that this one was a non-poisonous one called a long nose whip snake). I continued on for about another 10 minutes until the path was practically underwater, then decided it would be best to turn around and head back the way I came.

After unsuccessfully completing that path, I decided the try my luck at the next trail which wasn’t too far away - trail 4. This one started next to a large hotel and was marked just as well (being sarcastic here!!) as trail 9. The trail led onto more waterfalls - Parit Falls. It wasn’t as nice as Robinson Falls - largely because I was watching the rubbish swirl around in the falls and in the surrounding water - although Robinson Falls had also had its share of rubbish. From there it had been my plan to go onto Parit Watchtower which was only about another half an hour walk away. Anyway, it was when I went around a corner that I came across a man in the bushes. At first I thought he was, shall we say, ‘relieving himself’ but when he started to talk to me (still exposed)… let’s just say I gave up on that hiking trail as well. Probably just as well too as it had started to very lightly rain.

By the time I got back to the hostel at around 3pm or so I was drenched and it was bucketing down. It didn’t stop raining for a good three hours or so - and most people by this stage had made their way back to the hostel. We all ended up watching DVDs for the rest of the afternoon - I actually watched my first Indiana Jones movie. When it stopped raining I ducked out to get some food and after another movie headed to bed.

TUESDAY 8 DECEMBER 2009

Early start this morning although not quite as early as yesterday. I had booked a half day ‘countryside’ tour that left at 8:45am from town. After grabbing a quick bite to eat I got on the mini bus and after picking up some other passengers, we headed to our first stop - a Rose Farm. Have to admit - looking at flowers isn’t really my ‘thing’ but it was quite pleasant to stroll around and they had some interesting flowers I hadn’t seen before (including one called a Ladys Shoe). Lots of roses too of course.

Our second stop was a strawberry farm where we saw strawberries. Yay! Like I said earlier - they don’t have a fruit season here in the highlands - so strawberries grow year-round. We tasted some jam and there was an opportunity to buy things like strawberries and cream or strawberry milkshakes, etc. More a sales pitch than anything - slightly overpriced too if you ask me!

There was also a stop at a Butterfly and Insect Farm where we saw lots of bugs, snakes and lizards. A few I had never seen of. Our guide for the day was pretty good - local from the highlands and seemed to know what he was talking about - they even let him just open up the cages and take out the bugs to show us. Of particular ‘interest’ was the rhino bug which actually did look a little like a rhino!! Also saw a green version of the snake I saw yesterday while on my first jungle walk. The butterfly section of the farm was quite small and there were quite a few dead butterflies - there seemed to be too many of them in the small area that they were housed in.

The Honey Bee farm was also a slight disappointment - to me anyway. While it was good to see the Malaysian version of each of these - strawberry farms, butterfly farms and bee farms look kind of the same worldwide!! Anyway the bee farm is a working farm and had quite pleasant gardens for a quick stroll around. Also got to taste some honey tea too.

Our guide also drove us up a rather large hill to get some great views over the tea plantations, This was probably the real reason I did one of these tours - not that I am a tea drinker - but the highlands are known for tea production. The tea fields - hundreds of acres of English tea (was originally imported from England) again grow year around. The first tea was planted in the highlands in 1929 by the guy who founded the Boh Tea Estate - JA Russell. On the drive up through the tea fields we saw a tea picker using cutters to cut and pick the baby tea leaves - which is what they use for tea production. A lot of the picking of tea leaves is now automated, but on steep inclines they use the traditional hand picking methods. When you pick a tea leaf fresh from the bush - it just smells like normal leaves. It isn’t until it starts to go through some of the production process that you can then smell the smell that we associate with tea. We saw some of this when we actually visited to Boh tea estate and had a very brief guided tour of the working factory and some time to look in the ‘museum’ of sorts that they have there.

The other stop on the morning tour was the Sam Poh Temple which was just near Brinchang. It is also apparently known as the temple of 10,000 Buddhas and is allegedly home to the fourth largest Buddha in Malaysia.

From there we dropped the other passengers off in Brinchang. I also decided to get off there and have a look around the surrounding area before walking back to Tanah Rata. The guide told me it was about four kilometres or so which was ok, and the sky didn’t look like it was going to rain anytime soon.

Grabbed some lunch in town and had a walk around. Like Tanah Rata, there wasn’t a whole lot to see - and I eventually started making my way back towards Tanah Rata. Ended up veering through a couple of towns on the way back and going around the golf course before ending up back in town late in the afternoon.

Grabbed some dinner and watched another movie in the common room before heading to bed.

WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER 2009

Was woken this morning but a group of people in my room who were essentially being stuffed around my either this hostel’s bus service to another town - or something. There was a lot of discussion at 7am and then again at 8am about whether or not they were lying and why they originally sold a bus ticket to something that didn’t exist in the first place. Honestly - I don’t care and I doubt anyone reading this cares either.

Ended up getting up at around 9am and grabbing some breakfast in town before trying to work out how I was going to get to KL tomorrow. This was more difficult than expected. My hostel had told me yesterday that there were mini bus services to KL all the time - but they couldn’t tell me yesterday if there would be one on the 10th. They told me there was one today at 7am but that was not helpful at all. After asking at the hostel, they told me that there was one of the 11th, which was also not very helpful as my flight to Singapore left KL on the 11th and I didn’t want to risk getting into KL too late that day to get the flight. Plus I figured one night and some time for shopping in KL would be good!

I asked at some of the other tour operator places in town and they also were not running mini buses, which meant I was going to have to go with a local bus. The problem was then that everyone kept telling me different times and different prices. Eventually, it turned out that there were two bus companies - but that one company, although slightly more expensive (by about A$3) used bigger and more comfortable buses. I bought a ticket.

I had also decided to book an afternoon tour that was to go up to the highest mountain in the highlands for that afternoon, so I spent the remainder of the morning just chilling, wandering some of the shops, washed out some clothes and did some reading for university.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat for lunch, I got the 1:45pm ‘rainforest’ tour which included a bit of a hike in the ‘mossy forest.’ I was actually the only one doing it (despite asking at the travel agency only a few hours before if they were running a tour that afternoon - the answer was yes). I then asked to be dropped off at the Brinchang Night Markets which had started to open. Wandered there for some time before walking back into Tanah Rata, grabbing some dinner and heading to bed.

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