It is interesting to see how much easier it is to plan travel in advance these days, in fact it is almost required because things sell out ahead of time so many times. When I first started traveling internationally I had a plane ticket and a guide book. When I arrived somewhere I would find whatever housing was available (hostel or whatnot) and plan all my day tours last minute. There is so much FOMO now (fear of missing out) and international travel is popular (mostly due to influencers) that popular things get sold out. I don’t plan things months in advance unless I am traveling with someone with limited time but I do usually have a good idea how things are going to go before I arrive in a country.

Planning for Cameron Highlands coming up is throwing me for a loop. There is very little information available about booking things in advance online. I know all the major attractions, I just don’t know how I am going to get to them. I talk to a couple on a tour group a couple days ago that just visited the highlands and they told me they hired a motorbike (something I’ve never done before, mostly due to fear) and a day tour. I wish I would have asked them how they booked the tour because the only tours I find online are the day tours from kuala lumpor and nearby cities. Those will not work for me because I plan to stay a couple nights in the region. I have also read many people rent cars and drive there themselves but I am not signing up for a 4 hour car ride in a country I have never driven in before, especially for what I read are very curvy roads.

So I have my bus ticket and hotel booked at Cameron Highlands but I have no idea how I am getting around or even how I am leaving at this point. Should be a interesting adventure like the old days of traveling.

The next morning my grab driver drops me off where the long distance buses are. I am correct that is not the same place as I walked by last night but it is close by. I still don’t know which one is my bus because the buses have no signs posted to wear they are going but after going down the travel offices I finally find the waiting point for my bus.

It is over a four hour ride. I didn’t make time for breakfast before so I am pretty hungry. Luckily i have some dried mango and the orange I got the other night to get me through the ride. We stop to pick up other passengers in other towns but we really only make one official bathroom stop. I should have gotten snacks then.

I arrive in Tanah Rata, the town in the Cameron Highlands that I booked my guesthouse. It is a ten minute walk from the bus station so I grab my heavy bags and walk in the same direction as other backpackers. They are heading to hostels with shared rooms. If I was twenty or even maybe ten years younger I might be doing that too. But I need a private room now. Without privacy and good rest I am not a nice person while I travel. It really stinks though because I miss the camaraderie of shared housing. I will occasionally stay in a hostel if they have private rooms or I share with a friend, just to have a place to speak to others during my down time.

As I walk there is a misty drizzle and it is noticeably cooler than where I’ve come from. I am very pleased. I need the break from the heat. I question why I keep traveling in hot places when it is way out of my comfort zone.

My guesthouse has a charming garden. My room is simple but clean. There is no AC but I find I don’t need it, in fact at times it gets chilly for my taste. I wear long pants to bed instead shorts as normal. My only complaint is the shower. It is one of those bathrooms that when you take a shower the whole entire bathroom gets wet, and remains wet for hours. It is more of an annoyance than anything.

After check-in I grab tea and scones at a cute place called The Lord’s Cafe.

For dinner I just grab something simple and easy around the corner. I decide to have a margarita as well. As I am finishing my drink the entire town loses power. I saw this frequently in Cambodia but this is the first time I’ve seen this in Malaysia. It is still daylight when the power goes out but the outage ends up lasting over an hour so it grows dark, Some dogs rest behind me. I thinking about paying my tab in cash and walking back to my hotel but the power is out there too probably. I ask for a beer and wait it out. At some point I lose cell service too but luckily that does not last long. Not long after the power is restored I see fireworks over the hill a little ways away. Still celebrating the new year I see?

The next morning I have a tour booked. Not many attractions are in walking distance so you need to either rent a car or scooter or book group tours. I still haven’t decided if I am renting a motorbike for my second day but I pre-booked a tour for my first full day. I could only find one acceptable tour and it had a two person minimum. I ended up paying for two people just to make sure I could be on a tour. The total for two people is still only 30USD and I feel I got more than my money’s worth on the tour. If I knew better I would have discovered I could have just waited until I arrived in town to book my tour. Fortunately my choice was wonderful so not sure i could have chosen better. The only thing I wanted to see that is not covered by the tour is the Lavender farm. I read recent reviews and it doesn’t seem like it is worth the trouble to visit. I might just do a local hike instead.

The Cameron Highlands Tour

I get a WhatsApp message the night before telling me Mr. Ahmad will be picking me up in the morning. When he arrives I am a party of one but he doesn’t seem to care. I am the first pickup of about three stops. Soon we are on our way. Our first stop is to look at tea plantation. One of the large reasons this area is famous is for its tea production. The tea from this region is called BOH. I’ve seen that term for many days but had no idea what it meant; I thought it was an abbreviation of some dude’s name, probably British (side note: the region is actually named after a British dude William Cameron in the 1885. It was later surveyed and developed into farmlands and such and also a tourist area). As you know the old British had their hands in just about everywhere and Malaysia included since it had a great location in the spice trade route. What BOH stands for is Best of Highland. At some point it was realized that tea grows really well here so what you see today is large areas growing plants for teas. What I did not know before today is the actually plants grown are a type of camellia that is grown in a shrub form and harvested and pruned to stay a shrub (for taste and ease of harvesting). My tour guide is a wealth of knowledge from everything on how its produced here and elsewhere and the types of workers that work on the plantation. We are given beautiful views of the plants. We can see harvesters in the background.

We stop to try the teas at the tasting room. I try a local favorite on ice BOH Teh Tarik, the national drink of Malaysia. It is made from pulling the drink during preparation and adding a sweet milk like condensed milk. I also tried a local strawberry tart and tried for the first time half-boiled eggs. I thought I would be disgusted by it but I was surprisingly not. The only fear now if it I get a food borne illness from undercooked eggs. My toast also came with a topping to make kaya toast but I saved the container for later . Hopefully I’ll remember to bring it up again but it ended up being pandan flavored….still one of my favs from south East Asia.

After tea we head to the mossy forest. We have gotten lucky. The forest has been closed for almost a year dude to dangerous road conditions and destruction due to overtourism. It had just reopened a couple weeks prior. Long story short but because all this mountain region had at one time existed under the sea there is the right conditions for moss to thrive here. So what you see is a romantic moss all over the place. There is a boardwalk to help protect the area somewhat but not sure it’s enough. What I saw today is one of the oldest forests in existence. At one time Malaysia contemplating getting UNESCO status on the area. It decide to forgo that quest when the government realized how much environmental damage has happened to the region already, without all the publicity. Making it a designated area will draw unnecessary attention. I am glad I got to visit and I will tell my friends to visit but I feel bad contributing to the environmental decline of the area. It is beautiful though.

Our driver gives us more history and even some science lessons. He has us walk down the hill where he will pick us up. A family of dogs happily follow us down, maybe thinking we have some treats.

We next head to the butterfly farm, everything at this point starts to feel rushed because one guy on the tour has a bus leaving town at 2:30 that we have to get back for. I feel for him but it is a shame we can’t take our time because of his planning. I’m not too upset about rushing the butterfly farm though. The butterfly portion is cool but the rest of the attraction is a zoo like facility. I am not a fan of animals that are confined in small cages for paid entertainment. This might be a rehab facility which I am ok with but I would not knowingly visit a zoo in this format.

Strawberry farm

We visit a strawberry farm. Strawberries are not native to the region. I cannot recall how or why but strawberries were brought to the region. They are grown differently here with white overhangs protecting them from the UV rays and elements. Drip irrigation is used to water the crops. The introduction of strawberry farming is changing the climate of the region due to the way they reflect the UV rays. I walk along some crops but I do no harvesting on my own. I do buy my own supply to snack on later.

We head back to town. The tour is money well spent.

For dinner I try the highly recommended Indian restaurant since it was closed last night. I have been craving paneer and it seems to be popular on the menu. I order butter paneer, mango lassi and some naan. Service is very slow and the wait for a table gets long if you don’t arrive early. I wouldn’t say it was a life changing meal but it is satisfying.

The hike that wasn’t

Woke up at 7 am this morning and it is wonderful. I want to do a hike this morning but the cool temps in the region means I don’t have to schedule that hike at the crack of dawn. I am getting myself a hardy breakfast – something I haven’t had in a while.

I head out to the hike which is supposed to start 15 minutes from my hotel but when I get to where the trailhead is there is a monstrosity of a construction site in its place. I stand there for a few minutes then walk up a very steep hill thinking there is another way around. I am about to give up and go get tea when a nice gentlemen tells me that yes in fact the entrance is closed but sometimes the construction workers will let you pass through or I can try through some carnation named place. I stand around looking stupid for a minute or two and then I see a worker waving. I walk over to him and he shows me on a map where to catch the trail, 2 km away. So I head toward the new trail head. I do my good deed and warn a couple walking my way like I wish the couple I saw earlier would have done for me (I caught them later). This is already taking longer to start than anticipated so I stop to get a snack for the hike because I already feel hunger coming on. I walk by a pretty nice residential area. The houses seem large and newer and right across the street from an apartment complex where the trailhead exists behind. I follow along the edge of the brush and there is no visible area to start the trail. The only thing I see is what looks like a private garden like area. After about three people instruct me I hop over a gutter and shimmy behind a fence post and follow a trail that looks worn along the edge of the garden. I eventually get to some stairs and then what looks like some makeshift steep stairs that go up. I see the couple from earlier. They tell me there are two ways to start the trail: the steep stairs and a not so stable road. They aren’t a fan of either option and are probably calling it quits. I came here to do a hike so darn-gone-it I am going to do a hike … except two steps into my ascent I feel a sharp pain in my right calf. NOT ANOTHER NEW PROBLEM! Last time I tried to do a double hike in Sedona it was my knee giving me issues, another new injury. This time my calf is angry in pain. I try a couple more steps without success of being pain free. I decide to sit down and stretch and see if a little rest will help. Nothing helps. I feel defeated and take the 20 minute walk back to town. I get some afternoon tea and now I am sitting in bed hoping this is a temporary setback. Getting old sucks.

I am partly to blame for this injury since I have not done my stretches in two days because the floor is hard and cold. But to be fair I’ve never had this kind of injury before so I didn’t know to expect it.

I spend the rest of the afternoon and evening resting my calf and doing trip planning. Have to make good use of the down time. Dinner is unremarkable. There are steamboat restaurants everywhere but they are a minimum of two people and I have not made any friends in this part of my trip.

Tomorrow I leave for Melaka.