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Published: February 7th 2011
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Today Geoffrey and I took a guided tour to see the world's largest flower which is found deep in the jungle. Sounds pretty cool right? Well, we both came away from the experience with mixed emotions. Here's why...
Our group of 16 travelers were picked up in 2 Land Rovers at about 9am this morning. Our 1st stop was at a village of a local tribe, the Orang Asi, who's main attraction is the blow dart. It turns out this "village" is actually a small construction site of numerous cookie cutter 3 bedroom brick homes that the government has kindly "given" to the tribe so that they can move out of their traditional rattan and bamboo huts. The government asked the tribe to come out of the jungle and into these new homes. Why? Well the government owns all the land and is in the practice of selling off plots of this land to farmers who then come in and clear cut the jungle and plant various crops ranging from strawberries to cabbage and just about everything in between. They flatten the jungle to erect row after row of plastic covered greenhouses to mass produce crops of vegetables. They also
dump farming waste and garbage down the slopes of these plots of land so everywhere you go you see piles of plastic and other crap. The slopes are also eroding away with the lack of stabilization from roots and trees. Not so nice.
As for the tribes people, they are nice enough and do a blow dart demonstration for the tourists in hopes that we will buy a mini replica to help subsidize the village. They also receive some money from the cost of each tour as they are the ones who go into the jungle and find the flowers to show us. There were grubby little kids and many dogs running around. It was quite sad to see the animals as they were obviously underfed and one poor dog had either a broken or dislocated back leg. Another sad attraction of the village was a pet macaw monkey...which was locked in cage. Our guide informed us that while it is still small it is a pet but once it gets bigger it will most likely become dinner. Needless to say Geoff and I opted out of walking around the village to take pictures and instead headed back to
the vehicle to wait for the others.
We then had to do some major 4x4ing to get closer to the trail into the jungle. As the monsoon season has just ended here the roads are deeply rutted and impassible in some areas. We found this to be rather fun although some of our European traveling companions did not. After a lot of bumping and bouncing around we got as far as we could and then started walking. The road was very muddy and slippery and our less than prepared friends in the group quickly were covered in red mud.
The trail that we followed through the jungle was some of the craziest trekking I have ever done. It's definitely not a well used path and we found our selves sweating and huffing and puffing in no time. I felt sorry for many of the travelers as, unlike us West Coasters who do this sort of stuff for fun, they were not quite used to this kind of hiking. One girl from Chicago was even wearing flip flops! Any way, after about an hour and a half of hard hiking through dense jungle we finally reached the rafflesia flower.
Not the prettiest thing I have ever seen but nonetheless it was big. The flowers only bloom for up to 7 days and then they die. If it has been raining a lot they only last 4 or 5 days. After about 5 minutes of picture taking it was time to turn around and head back! What? That's it? We trekked through hot bug infested dense jungle, crossed over rickety washed out bamboo bridges, slipped and slide up and down muddy slopes, risked life and limb for 5 freakin' minutes of picture taking with the world's largest flower which, in all honesty was probably the ugliest flower I have ever seen? Yep. Sure did. You betcha. But seriously, it was a once in a life time experience and I am glad we did it. But would I do it again? Not a chance in hell!
After another hour and a half of trekking we emerged form the jungle all hot and sweaty and piled back into the Land Rovers for another bumpy ride to the highway. It was on this ride back that Geoff and I came to really see the Cameron Highlands for what they are. We now
noticed the mass destruction of the jungle and local tribes, the eroding landscape, the copious amounts of diesel guzzling vehicles and the garbage and plastic everywhere. When we planned this trip we wanted to come to the Cameron Highlands to experience the beautiful green tea plantations nestled in the cool misty mountainsides, the lush tropical jungles and to get away form the overpopulated areas of S.E. Asia. And with our naive eyes I think that is what we first saw when we arrived but now not so much. We have both come to realize again just how lucky we are to live in Canada and although not perfect we greatly appreciate the attempts that the government and the people of BC make to respect and protect the beautiful environment that surrounds us. There seems to be no concern for the environment here and today I felt the pain and sorrow form the land and heard the cries of mother earth as she witnesses the devastation of her beauty. Maybe I am just an oversensitive tree hugging Canadian but witnessing the way that this land is being treated truly breaks my heart. I feel like screaming at these people to look
around at the beauty that surrounds them and to stop mistreating it. But alas, I am just an oversensitive tree hugging Canadian. But you can bet your ass that as soon as I get home the first thing I am going to do is hug a tree.
I don't totally blame the people of Malaysia. I realize that without government policy and proper education that the people won't respect what they have but it is still hard to see. And although I believe there are still beautiful things about the Cameron Highlands I am seriously reconsidering spreading Cam's ashes here as I know he would feel the same sadness as we do with the mistreatment of the environment. We are doing a tour of the mossy forest and the highest accessible mountain in the Cameron Highlands tomorrow and we will bring Cam with us and perhaps, if it feels right, we will leave him on that mountain top to watch over and protect what is left of this beautiful land.
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