The Story of the Cameron Highlands, Part 2

                For our next adventure in the Cameron Highlands, we wanted to do something a little more organized than our haphazard journey through the jungle. We booked a half-day tour of the Highlands with a local company. At 8:00 am in the morning, our guide pulled up to our hotel in a dark green jeep. We picked up seven more people from various hostels in Tanah Rata before heading up the winding roads in the Boh Tea Plantation.

                This tea plantation wasn’t as open and expansive as the one we saw before, but we did get to see many more workers out among the rows clipping the leaves with sheers and loading them into gigantic white canvas bags. Our guide was also able to tell us about the history of the Highlands and its tea plantations. Before British colonialism, the land was all jungle. The local people wouldn’t occupy the higher elevations due to temperature, disease, and hostile wildlife. So when British surveyors decided to use the land for plantations, they had to employ the local’s traditional slash-and-burn tactics to clear the jungle and then go to India for both the tea plants and the workers. The colonists promised many South Indian workers a fortune if they sold everything they had and moved to Malaysia. When the workers arrived, they found harsh conditions the locals had known about all along. They worked in constant fear of tiger attacks, though many more died of malaria. Meanwhile, the tea plantation owners became rich and the colonial officers used the Highlands as a vacation retreat from the coast’s heat.

                Today, the 90-year-old tea plants still grow on the hills, but the Indian Malaysian citizens have moved on to better paying jobs, often in the service and tourism industry, like our guide. Now Bangladeshi and Indonesian workers come to Malaysia to pick tea on three to five-year contracts. They get paid 1 ringgit (about 25 cents) per kilogram of leaves, or about 40 ringgit (less than 10 USD) a day. The same Scottish family since the beginning still owns the plantation, and the granddaughter of the founder is the CEO.

                Like with my trip to Green Island, I struggle to reconcile the beauty of the Highlands and the enjoyments I experience there as a tourist with the trauma of its history and the reality of its present. I don’t have a sensical solution for this disparity. The economy of the Cameron Highlands relies on both domestic and international tourism, and it’s not as if the tea industry has more problems than coffee or really any global business. But maybe the solution begins somewhere with being conscious of and discussing these issues while one visits a new place.

                After the tea plantation, we drove to the Mossy Forest. As the name suggests, all the trees in the forest are covered with a thick layer of moss. We walked along the paved road for a few meters while our guide pointed out various plants. He highlighted one often called the “Monkey’s Cup” which can trap and digest insects in its cupped leaves. These specimens are few and far between, he said, because poachers collect them to sell on the black market. He mentioned that he used to be one of those poachers, then moved on without offering any more explanation.

                The real fun began when the guide led us off road into the forest. The ground was wet and slippery with a thick layer of peat (not dirt, peat consists of decaying plant matter). We stepped on tree roots whenever possible, or else our shoes would sink into the peat and threaten not to come back up. Between the mist, the mossy trees, and the sinking floor, we felt like we had wandered into the setting of some otherworldly sci-fi movie. Our guide told us that this was one of the oldest rainforests in the world, having formed over 10 million years ago.

                We returned to the tea plantation to tour the processing plant and drink some tea to end our day. As much as I enjoyed Carl and I’s previous thrilling jungle trek and tea plantation wandering, it was nice to have the direction and information of a guided tour. Knowing more about the history of the place made our visit even more meaningful. This was the last day of our vacation, and I’m really glad we made the point to visit the Cameron Highlands while we were in Malaysia.

The Story of the Cameron Highlands, Part 1

After Penang, we decided to go someplace in Malaysia we hadn’t been before. So we took the bus to Tanah Rata. Tanah Rata is a small town in the Cameron Highlands, a mountainous region inland on the Malaysian peninsula. The cool, elevated climate of the Highlands was a welcome change from the hot humidity of Penang, especially as we set out on a jungle hike our first morning in Tanah Rata.

                The beginning of the trail was difficult to find because the printout map our hotel gave us only showed that Trail No. 10 began somewhere behind a specific apartment building and there was a lot of construction around where we were supposed to be looking. But thanks to a helpful construction worker and some tin signs of red arrows nailed to trees, we found the entrance to the jungle.

                The trail ran up through the jungle to the peak of one of the mountains for which the Cameron Highlands are famous. The green foliage of the jungle was dense, but not so thick as to block out the morning sun. The orangish-brown dirt floor was flat for a while, before beginning to climb steeply upward with intersecting tree roots as footholds. After about an hour of climbing through slippery dirt, fallen branches, and snaking roots, we exited the jungle to the mountain’s peak.

                From up there, we could see miles and miles of jungle stretching over the Highlands. Down in the valley, we could see the hotel where we were staying, along with the many other red and white colonial-style resorts in Tanah Rata. To the south, we spotted the Cameron Valley Tea Plantation’s rows and rows of tea plants. This was our next destination and, according to our map, we could take another trail down from the peak to the plantation.

                Except we couldn’t find the beginning of the trail. We had to wait for some other hikers to come along and point the way, before it became apparent why we couldn’t find it in the first place. Ferns, bushes, and shrubs covered the dirt path, so that one had to wade waist-deep into the leaves and the branches in order to descend the mountain. Aside from a few twigs that scratched at my legs and some burs that clung to my arms, our careful, slow walk down went smoothly. That excludes the time that I couldn’t see the edge of the path and took a step forward into thin air. My left foot went down, and my right calf and knee slammed into the dirt. I screamed and scared the living daylights out of Carl, but ultimately I was fine except for a scrape on my knee.

                Eventually, the brush cleared way to a two-track road that wound through a guava farm. This led into an actual road, which we began to walk along, assuming it would lead us to the plantation. But before we knew it, we ended up in an Orang Asli (the indigenous peoples of Malaysia) village. I felt bad to disturb the village’s residents while they were going about their work, especially since some backpackers treat these villages as tourist attractions rather than people’s communities. But we were truly lost and our map was once again no help. We passed a man walking on the road who asked if he could help us. When we said we were trying to get to the tea plantation, he pointed up the road we were already walking on.

                “Keep going this way but watch out for the mean dog. He’ll come out and bite you.”

                “But can we go that way? Is it safe?”

                “Yes, but watch out for the dog.”

                Thankfully, we never ran into any dog, but we did lose the road as we walked farther into the village. Eventually, an elderly lady came up to us and led us wordlessly to the path into the tea fields.

                But the walk through the plantation was worth the trouble. Compared to the shaded, deep green of the jungle, the tea plants were a green as bright as the blue sky above them. The leaves form oval-shaped bushes that cluster together in wavy rows that blanket the hills. White letters spell out “Cameron Valley Tea” like the Hollywood sign. At a little orange tea house sitting on a hill, we sipped tea and ate scones while overlooking the valley. Exhausted from the hike, we were grateful to take a brake with the cool weather and incredible view. It was bizarre to think that we had started the morning off in the jungle and were now enjoying tea plucked from the plantation we had just walked through. It was not an easy journey, as the scrapes on my legs proved. But looking back on the entire day, one can see why the Cameron Highlands are such a beloved destination in Malaysia.

The Story of Penang

Chinese New Year is this Tuesday, February 5, so happy Year of the Pig, everybody! 新年快樂! This also means that I have three weeks off of school for our end of semester break. After a brief stop in Taipei for Fulbright Taiwan’s Midyear Conference, my boyfriend, Carl, joined me in Taiwan for the first time. We spent a day in Hualien so that he could see my school, visit Taroko National Park (Hualien’s most famous natural wonder), and eat hot pot with me and my coteacher. I was so happy to be able to show him all the places I’ve been talking about for the past six months.

                But our vacation really began when we flew to Penang, Malaysia. Penang is an island off the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula. Its largest city, George Town, is known for its remnants of British colonialism as well as its diverse population of Indian, Chinese, and Malay cultural groups. Carl and I both studied abroad in Penang in Spring 2016, so this trip was a kind of nostalgia tour of all the places we frequented the last time we were on the island.

                For example, our hostel was less than a five-minute walk from the bar where we used to hangout on Saturday nights. Use the term ‘bar’ loosely, because it’s really an open storefront where one buys the only cheap, tax-free drinks in the city and then enjoys them with other patrons while sitting on plastic stools in the alley. One of our fondest memories from that place was the owner’s old blind shih tzu that would often wonder in front of the cars and motorbikes that whipped through alley, only to be saved at the last minute by being grabbed by some tipsy patron. Three years later, that dog had been replaced by another, equally old shih tzu that hobbled in and out of the storefront. The bar had increased in popularity, with more plastic stools in the alley, but was still its cheap grimy self.

                Much of Penang was as we remembered it, and whereas before, we were often bogged down with classes and homework, we were able to see a lot of the city in just three days. On the first day, we visited the Clan Jetties and Kek Lok Si. The Clan Jetties are docks with houses on either side propped up on stilts, built into the harbor by extended families of Chinese immigrants decades ago. Kek Lok Si is a massive Buddhist temple known for its stunning white pagoda and giant Goddess of Mercy statue. We walked through the prayer halls, cloudy with burning incense. Red and yellow lanterns hung overhead in preparation for Chinese New Year. At the base of the temple, we paused for a moment to watch the colony of turtles float through the ponds there.

                The next day, we took a tram up to the top of Penang Hill, a hill which overlooks the island. The air was hazy and full of bleached light, but I could still make out the many red-roofed, white-washed buildings common to George Town. Jungle-covered hills rose out of the sprawling urban development. The ocean boarded the city, with Penang Bridge stretching across the water to the mainland. The base of the hill began in the Penang Botanical Gardens, where we went on our last full day in Penang. There, we enjoyed the native plants of Penang, while avoiding the native macaque monkeys that bully tourists for food.

                But, of course, what I really came back to Penang for was the food. Penang calls itself the cuisine capitol of Asia, which is a bold claim, but it might just be true. We made a point of going twice to our favorite vegetarian Indian restaurant, Woodlands, for veggie biryani, paneer butter masala, and naan. At the hawker stands, we ordered Hokkien char, a mixture of different noodles with a gravy-like sauce and chicken and shrimp. We ate cendol, an iced desert with coconut milk and green rice flour jellies, to stave off the midday heat. On our last night in Penang, we stopped at China House café for the best tiramisu I’ve ever had.

                Food is best shared with others, however, and we were lucky enough to meet up with our friends from when we studied abroad. Like us, they have all either graduated or are near graduation, and are moving on to exciting jobs and master’s programs, but they still made time to catch up with us over chicken tandoori. Every study abroad program talks about facilitating cultural exchange and building lasting relationships, and one wonders how genuine those claims are. But three years after studying in Penang, I loved being back on the island, enjoying all the same places I used to. I’m happy to see my friends again and share the food that I loved. Penang is a beautiful, diverse, historic city and I’m so lucky I got to return to it on my vacation.