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.