Malaysia, Cameron Highlands: Too Cold For Comfort

Our first change to our trip's itinerary included a stopover in Cameron Highlands, on the way to Penang. We shaved a day off our Kuala Lumpur (KL) trip in order to visit a very mountainous and very (unexpected) chilly part of Malaysia which is home to the majority of Malaysia's tea plantations as well as strawberry and other fruit and vegetable farms. There is a heavy Indian population in the Cameron Highlands due to the fact that they settled in the highlands looking for cooler climates, and they brought tea with them as it was a staple part of their daily routine. With such a large Indian population in the Cameron Highlands, good food is easy to find, and we were very pleased with the tastes we experienced. The views around the highlands were stunning and there was a peaceful, calm feeling in the air in the quiet mountain villages we visited.

The journey to the highlands was scary. We left KL on a 4-hour bus journey, during which our driver nearly hit a few vehicles along the way. We are pretty used to the bad driving over here now, but when the bus was going extremely fast around the mountainous, curvy roads with hairpin turns, there were a few moments where our lives flashed before our eyes. We both shared a look of terror with our neighbouring bus passengers when the bus grazed the side of the mountain and took off several branches of an overhanging tree! Once the bus driver stopped the bus to ensure that the truck which passed us (and almost hit us) did not go over the edge of the mountain, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and tried to let out a nervous laugh. Before we knew it we were back on the road for more twists and turns.

The scones were served with cream and fresh strawberry jam from one of the many strawberry farms in the area

Along the mountain roads, we passed several bamboo huts clinging to the side of the cliffs on stilts, and we were able to see several people around these homes, carrying out their daily chores. There were several Malaysian tribal people walking along the roadside carrying their goods to be sold, or just travelling from one place to the next. We were definitely out of the city by this time, as the people we saw were wearing next to nothing, or nothing in the case of one woman and several children.

After arriving in one piece in the small town called Tanah Rata in Cameron Highlands, we were immediately hit with the coolness of the area. We were surprised at how British-looking some of the architecture was, and we later learned that there was a good deal of British influence on the area, with the tea plantations. It was around 1:00pm when we arrived and therefore the morning's and previous night's chills had already burned away, leaving a pleasant afternoon behind. It felt like the first day of spring - we were very happy after the heat in KL. However, later that night we would come to loath the coolness of the area...

We stayed in a very cheap guesthouse in the Cameron Highlands called Twin Pines. The place was okay, and while it was not the most luxurious place it was not a dump. Travelling on a budget, you come to appreciate much less than you ever previously appreciate, and a couple of clean beds with clean linens more than makes up for a bit of a messy exterior on a place.

As Tanah Rata is a very small town, the location of our guesthouse was great, since the location of everything is pretty much in one place. The town, despite its small size, was bustling and full of life throughout the day and evening. After a quick look around the town, we went for lunch in one of the many Indian restaurants and were provided with an excellent meal consisting of roti canai (pronounced "chuh-nye") and thosai (pronounced "toh-sye") pancakes with curry and dahl sauces to dip them in. We accompanied our meals with fresh fruit juices, which we are now getting very spoiled on, as we have been having fresh fruit juices more than once a day.

Full on delicious Indian meals, we decided to walk it off by going on a trek through the jungle. We should really say forest as the cooler and higher altitude does not warrant the thick, dense jungle which we have seen in the rest of peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. We trekked to the top of Gunung (means "mountain" in Malaysian) Jasar for amazing views of the valleys and tea plantations in Cameron Highlands. It was a shame that there were heavy clouds in the distance blocking the further-distanced views. At the start of the walk, we met a special guide on the path we chose to take, whom we named "One-Eyed Willy".

One-Eyed Willy took us along the right paths, at least for the first half of the journey, and then he ran off in front of us to take a side path not on the trail we wanted to follow. Despite whistling and calling for him, we lost him after that and had to continue on our own. You know, it is very difficult to let a dog know that he went the wrong way, and that we (humans) want to go on a different path. Yes, you read that right, a dog - this cute little white and beige dog (Willy) was hanging around the start of the trail we took, and when we started walking up the path, he bounded in front of us and every few feet would stop, look at us, and motion with his head for us to follow him. It was really funny because he seriously looked like he knew what he was doing! He even took us on side paths to get good views of the valley (so we could take photographs) and then led us back to the main path, waiting patiently for us the entire time. At least this was until the path forked and he didn't know which one we had decided on following.

The journey down from Gunung Jasar was much better than the journey up. It was a steep climb at a high altitude but worth the climb, as we were rewarded at the top with beautiful views of the surrounding valleys and countryside. When we made it back down to the base, who was waiting there but One-Eyed Willy! He gave us a friendly bark, acknowledging that he knew we had safely made it back and then went on his way, probably looking for the next tourists to lead through the forest.

Even though we had filled up on Indian food before the hike, we had built up quite an appetite with the steep climbing we did. Back in town, we were met by a night market which was just starting up for the evening. We tried a couple of the local treats there and our favourite was definitely a delicious crispy, folded crepe filled with butter, sugar, crushed peanuts and sweetcorn inside! We walked around the small town again, stocked up on stuff at a small store (e.g. new toothbrushes, water) and then we went back to Twin Pines to work through the rest of our Malaysian trip, and to discuss what we were planning on doing in Thailand for a month after we finish in Malaysia. We decided to remove the Perhentian Islands (Malaysia) from our trip because it would be the end of the rainy season and there would be a slight chance for bad weather and rough seas. It also would be Chinese New Year during the time we were going and the accommodation prices were much too expensive for our budget. Instead, we have planned to go to Phuket (Thailand) a week earlier, and are adding the destination Koh Chang (Elephant Island) in Thailand, as we want to ride some elephants and bathe with them, and this is a good place to do that.

We went for dinner late in the evening and most of the restaurants had already closed. However, we found a nice open-air bistro on the main street of Tanah Rata which was still serving food. Kyle had teriyaki steak and mashed potatoes, and Dan had fish and chips, Malaysian style. The food was great and we even had scones for dessert, as these are common for dessert in the Cameron Highlands. The scones were served with cream and fresh strawberry jam from one of the many strawberry farms in the area, and we thought we would experience some of the English influence which is present in the highlands. The only drawback to this bistro was the "open-air" aspect, as the temperature had started dropping considerably (the temperature dropped down to about 40 degrees F, or just below 10 degrees C) and we had only long-sleeve t-shirts to wear. Walking back to Twin Pines was a nightmare as it seemed to have gotten really, really cold outside and the weather felt cooler to us since we had very full bellies from our meal. Sleeping that night was not the best as there was no insulation in the room where we stayed, and with paper-thin sheets on our beds, we could feel the cold biting into us. We think Kyle was the most-affected as he currently has a really bad cold which had stuck with him for a few days recently.

The next morning, we had booked ourselves on a tour around Cameron Highlands, and had our own personal driver and van to tour the area. The woman driving us around was Indian and took us to a number of attractions including a butterfly farm, strawberry farm, rose and cactus garden, the Boh tea plantation, a honey bee farm, farmers' market and a large Chinese Buddhist temple. We highly recommend doing a 4-hour organised tour here as it is the best way to see everything in a short period of time. Also, it worked out pretty cheap, which is always good!

At the Butterfly and Insect Farm, Dan held a massive scorpion and many other creepy-crawlies. Kyle didn't get a chance to as he was designated photographer for the day... and a little scared. When we visited the Strawberry Farm, we had a milkshake made with fresh strawberries which was very tasty. In the Rose and Cactus Garden there were many interesting varieties of flowers and cacti, and next door there was a watercress farm. We were told that watercress to the Chinese people is like peanuts to the Malays so we expect to see many more of these when we make it to China in May.

Our first view of a tea plantation was at the Boh Tea Plantation. Unfortunately the day we took our tour was a school holiday, so the plantation was closed. This meant that we could see the fields and tea plants but we could not see the actual process of fermenting tea. Our driver, being helpful as mentioned above, explained to us the process of fully fermenting the tea leaves (for black tea), semi-fermenting the tea leaves (for green teas) or not fermenting the tea leaves at all (for Chinese-style teas).

The Honey Bee Farm and Farmers' Market was our next stop and luckily we did not get stung by any of the bees there. At the market we tried some interesting fruits including honey mandarins, Cameron Highlands apples which tasted like melon, and other strange fruits for which we cannot remember the names. Our final stop on the tour was at the large and beautiful Chinese and Buddhist Temple which contains the 4th largest Buddha statue in Malaysia.

After the tour, we decided we had enough of Cameron Highlands and the cold, so we changed our bus ticket to leave a day early for Penang to get back to the warmth. We were able to do so after a lot of haggling and we were also able to get a refund on our accommodation, so we hopped onto a bus for a 4-1/2 hour journey that changed into a 6+ hour journey...