Malaysia (Part Four): The Cameron Highlands

Leaving the 99% humidity and sparse food in Taman Negara, Laura and I journeyed west in search of a much cooler climate and one more sensitive to the needs of our stomachs. Our last stop on our trip was a small town called Tanah Rata, situated in the Cameron highlands in the northwest region of Malaysia. At an altitude of 1300m to 1829m, the Cameron Highlands rarely experience temperatures higher than 21 degrees celsius, making it a veritable oasis amongst the dense and humid rainforests and palm tree plantations of Malaysia. In fact, the evenings were downright cold, and while I survived without a long-sleeved shirt or sweater, I would have gladly worn one.


The last couple of days of our trip in Cameron were fairly relaxed; a departure from the hectic pace of the past few days. Part of this was a result of our friend the weather once again plaguing our attempts to do all we'd hoped to do. The Cameron Highlands is a beautifully scenic area with a variety of trails to hike along - while it's not raining that is. Despite the setback, we did get to see a number of quality tourist "attractions" that gave us the sense, at least, that we had accomplished something while there. While we don't normally sign up for the package tours, we made an exception here due to the distance between one sight to the next, as well as the window of opportunity we figured we had before it started to rain again.

Cameron is one of the epicenters of agriculture in Malaysia, perhaps best known for its year-long strawberry season and enormous tea plantations that stretch across the rolling hills of the region. The tour promised to take us to a number of the area's top farms, all of which seemed to be owned by friends and/or family members of our tour guide. The tour tended to be a series of stops that ended up with us simply eating or drinking some local produce or product, which was fine by us - we'd spent enough time during the week fasting. I was also fascinated by the attempts by many of these farms to up the kitsch factor by planting enormous and tacky cartoon-like statues throughout the areas visited by tourists in a failed attempt to capture that "Fantasyland" type feel. I don't know why, but something about that kind of acid-induced landscaping makes me feel a tad nostalgic.






























Next: 2 Nights in KL