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.