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Published: March 24th 2009
We arrived in Cameron Highlands after a painful (for Steve) fourteen hour journey, to a place called Thana Rata. Cameron Highlands is the largest hill resort in Malaysia and is 1524 m above sea level. Its famous for it's tea plantations, terraced flower gardens, orchards and strawberry and vegetable farms.
The cool climate, 10-20 degrees, makes Cameron Highlands perfect for cultivation, and for cooling down hot backpackers! A fantasy-like Mossy forest is also located at the peak of the highlands, at 2032 m above sea level.
I felt like the Cameron Highlands was a mixture of India, the alps with a old traditional British culture, and of course a bit of malay. The restaurants here are mostly Indian, serving south indian food on banana leafs and rotis with dahl for 20 pence. Many of the cafes and restaurants also serve afternoon tea with scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam, a tradition left behind by the British. Most old buildings were built by the chinese but modified by the British, the newer ones have an alp look about them, white with black beams. Malaysia is a very diverse country, to some extent due to the British.
During the British
rule, Malaysia went through hugh developments; ports, roads and railways were built, investments in tin mines, rubber plantations and trading companies were made and so new jobs were created. The British thought that malays were only good for farming and fishing so encouraged people from china and India to come and work in Malaysia. Same thing happened with the tea-plantations in the Cameron Highlands, Indians and Bangladeshi people were brought in (and still are) to harvest the tea from the plantations.
Some friends had recommended us to stay at Fathers Guesthouse, which turned out to be a great place: nice and clean rooms, sitting room with TV and cheap + good food, a typical backpacker place. The same friends also recommended that we do the mossy jungle walk, which turned out to be excellent.
The guide (Kali) picked us up at 8.45 in a landrover, we were the only people who had booked the trip, so we had a private guide for the day (hoooray). First on the agenda was a drive up the mountain with a pit stop to photograph the amazing views over the tea-plantations. The second stop was the top of the mountain, where we
started our trek through the mossy forrest.
As we walked along our guide was telling us about birds, plants, insects and trees, it was really interesting. He told us about plants that are used as medicine (even against cancer), antedotes and also about things that are poisenous.
He also told us about people who had got lost and died in the forrest and what to do if it happens to you, DON'T PANIC!! As we got deeper into the forrest, the guide stopped and pointed at some tracks in the mud, he told us it was fresh tracks of a very big femal black panther.
Panthers are rarely sited in this part of the forrest, so the guide got really excited (he even called his guide friends on his mobile). We started following the tracks, me and steve (not scared at all) followed closely behind, half running to keep up. The tracks stopped after a few meters and the guide decided that it was best that we "got the hell out of there", so we did.
On the way back down from the top of the mountain the guide caught a snake ( he was crazy
this guy). He asked me and Steve if we wanted to hold it, we declined. The third and last stop for the day was the tea factory where we got a guided tour around the factory and a chance to sample the local tea.
The day after we took the local bus to a neigbouring village to visit the butterfly garden, a strawberry farm and we also checked out the local market. In the afternoon a thunderstorm came over Thana rata, so we spent the rest of the day watching films and drinking local tea at Fathers Guesthouse.
We really enjoyed our brief stay in Malaysias "alpine" resort and at the moment we are in Kuala Lumpur sweating buckets and dreaming of the highlands!
The plan from here is to set off tomorrow to Melaka, a historic formerly portugese city, around an hour and a half away. We'll stay there for 3 nights then a 2 hour trip to Singapore for our first couch surfing adventure!
After that we're going Down under and cant wait!!!!
Bye for now, M&S x
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Mum
non-member comment
Hi from Shelf
WOW - some of the best photos yet. Malaysia looks fabulous and you two look great. Glad everythings ok. Thank you for the Moonpig card Stephen - it was a real surprise, especially as I'd already got one from you! Good luck with the travelling. Love Mum x