2008 Trip to Malaysia

Cameron Highlands

THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The next morning our cab driver, who was named Steven, collected us from the hotel and drove us north. It was six lane motorway for 60kms and then four lane motorway all the way to the border with Thailand. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The 194 kms of motorway before we exited cost RM8.10 (about $3.30). No wonder Mahathir used to get irritated with snooty Westerners looking down their noses at his country. Tapah is the name of the town on the motorway where we exit for the Cameron Highlands. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Once off the motorway, we headed into the Malaysian jungle. There were probably tigers living here not all that long ago. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 At our first stop, Steven points out some durian trees. Durian is the fruit, much prized by Malaysians, that is said to smell foul but taste like heaven.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We stop at Lata Iskandar our first stop of any significance. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The Lata Iskandar waterfall is the main attraction. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Lots of signs but nary a one that we can understand. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The waterfall varies greatly with day's rainfall.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 I climb the steps that lead to the top of the waterfall. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The top is interesting as are the trees that spread their roots everywhere. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 On the way back down, I meet Jenni coming up. She's found a durian tree and we're surprised to find that the durian fruit grows out of the trunk, not the branches. The Orang Asli ('original people') harvest the durian and sell the fruit in the many roadside stalls we pass. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Steven buys us a bunch of bananas. They have very thin skins and are extremely smooth and sweet without the bitterness of Australian bananas. I ate the lot over the next couple of days.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We then pass through Ringlet, the first of the highland towns. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 A couple of kms past Ringlet, we turn into our first tea plantation. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 These plants have recently been harvested. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 In the fertile valleys, market vegetable such as cabbage, spring onions, etc are grown.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 This was a prized trip for Steven. He can wait between 3-7 hours at the airport for a fare and he works about 14 hours a day, seven days a week. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Steven's taxi is a 7 month old Nissan. He's part of a premier service company. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Some of the market vegetables being grown in the valleys. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We leave that plantation and travel a few more kms to the 'famous' Boh plantation. Here we see teh (tea) being collected in bags.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 They use devices like hedge trimmers to harvest the leaves. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Then they dump the leaves on the roadside and sort them by hand. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 They then take the re-bagged leaves to the factory at the top of the hill for processing. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The road through the plantation is very narrow but scenic.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The plantation here is much more mature than the previous one we visited. The tea-harvesting people must be very fit to climb the steep hills. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 It looks very much like a carpet from eye level. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Jenni and Steven admiring the view. Steven was incredibly helpful and couldn't do enough for us. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The tea house with the factory at the top right.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Jenni found plenty to video. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 This is the view to the north from the Tea House parking lot. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 There is a track leading to a lookout at the top of the hill. I (foolishly) decide to climb it. The wood is fuel for the factory. They use it to provide heat as part of the withering (leaf-drying) process. Huge fans blow hot air across the leaves for 12-20 hours. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 After stopping four times on the way up to get my breath back, I'm rewarded with spectacular views. This is the view to the south.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 This is more of the view to the south. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 This spectacular view is the two previous pictures stitched together. The climb was worth it. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The factory with our cab visible in the parking lot. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 At the top of the hill was this cell tower. I thought the plants might have been real but it turned out that they were plastic, designed to discourage birds from nesting in the electronics maybe? Anyway, curious.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We then did a factory tour. We were surprised to learn that the leaves are harvested every 15 or more days. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The withering takes place upstairs. The dried leaves come here for rolling and then fermentation. Fermentation is where the leaves turn from green to brown and it takes 2-3 hours. The overwhelming memory I have of right here is the wonderful smell permeating the air as the green leaves were rolled. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The leaves are then dried for 10 minutes to stop fermentation and then go into this machine for sorting. Medium sized leaf is for stronger tea to be taken with milk and the finer sizes are for black tea. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Jenni bought lots of different teas at the shop. We decided these would be the perfect gifts for friends and family. And then it started to rain.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Rain falling in the Boh tea plantation. I loved it. What an image burned into my memory. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We left the Boh plantation and drove higher into the highlands. We stopped at this place, the Cameron Valley Tea House, to watch the rain. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 It was very heavy rain. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Another feature of the highlands was the constant landslides as the hills collapsed under the onslaught of continuous rains.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 I had my first and only Teh Tarik here. It's black tea coloured with condensed milk and then poured from glass to glass to aerate and fold the mixture. It's very nice. Susan, our lovely chemist at Mt Colah told us about it and she was right; it's great. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We park and wander around. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Then we entered Brinchang, the main town of the highlands. During the English administration of Malaya, the Brits would come to the highlands to escape the heat of the the lowlands. There are a few small reminders of their presence such as the English-styled hotel opposite. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Brinchang is a typical small Malaysian town but what is remarkable is that, even here, new dwelling construction continues at a frantic pace.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Here's an old man selling durian, probably collected from fruit fallen from local jungle trees. They're not cut from the tree, they fall to the ground when ripe where locals pick them up and sell them. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The cafe area. One owner was very insistent that I stop at his place for lunch. Shortly after we buy a map and discover that there's a lookout a few kms up the road called Gunung Brinchang. The elevation is 2000 metres at the lookout. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Steven agrees to take us to the Gunung Brinchang lookout. The map indicates that the lookout is 6km from the main road. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 What the map didn't say was that it was suitable for 4WD vehicles only. We got 4 km and decided that to continue would damage the car. Steven turned the car around and we headed back.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 It started raining again as we headed back through Brinchang to stop at the Smokehouse Inn, a leftover from colonial times. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The three of us had a very nice Devonshire tea there while the rain pelted down outside. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 It was a little piece of England transported to Malaysia complete in every detail even to the drizzly weather THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 On the way back down the hill to rejoin the motorway, we stopped at a garden nursery to admire the tropical plants.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 Jenni bought some Strawberry Jam here to take back with us. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 The colours of Malaysia. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 I'm not sure if we have these in Australia. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 On our return, clouds started to form in the valleys.
THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2008 We pass an Orang Asli village. These are the 'original people' or 'aboriginals' and they have their own languages and customs. Slave raids into Orang Asli settlements were common in the 18th and 19th centuries. These slave-raiders were mainly local Malays and Bataks, who considered the Orang Asli as 'kafirs', 'non-humans', 'savages' and 'jungle-beasts. Nowadays, they are protected by acts of parliament. Next: We tour KL in a HoHo Bus    
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