I can now see why Jim Thompson came all the way down from Bangkok for a holiday in the Cameron Highlands, even if he did get eaten by a tiger or kidnapped by the Chinese or whatever happened to him here, this place is awesome! I was expecting similar weather conditions to what we had in Mount Kinabalu, Borneo - cool nights with hot, sweaty days, but it was actually perfect - cool nights, cool days, about 75 degrees all the time. It was actually kind of cold for us, being used to 95 degrees and humid. Anyways, we weren't just here for the refreshing weather, though that is reason enough to come here. No, we had lots of hiking, exploring, tea tasting, and farm visiting to do. The hiking we never quite got around to, as it was replaced by eating. Our Malaysian friend Lydia, who we know from Queenstown, is from the city of Ipoh, which is sort of between KL and the Cameron Highlands, and she happened to be here for the day when we first arrived. I can't tell you how nice it is to know a local - they can show you things to do, give you advice, and more importantly tell you what to eat. And this is where the hiking got sabotaged. One of the foods that we feel is under-appreciated in the States is Indian food. I don't think I had ever actually had Indian food before first going to New Zealand. All I knew is it had curry in it. Well, if you haven't figured it out already, Indian food is awesome. It's also big in Malaysia, so Lydia took us to an Indian restaurant and was able to explain what everything was. We spent the rest of our 4 days in the Cameron Highlands eating at least 1, often 2, meals per day at the Indian restaurant. You could get a huge piece of naan, along with some dhal (veggie curry) dipping sauce, which was a meal in itself, for less than a dollar. The real diamond in the rough that Lydia showed us was Roti Tisu, a huge cone-shaped crispy bread sprinkled with sugar and sweetened condensed milk. We immediately started brainstorming selling these things at festivals, carnivals, and sporting events back home right next to the funnel cakes and cotton candy. They rock.
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| banana leaf meal - you are supposed to eat it only with your right hand. I used a fork |
All told I think we spent 3 days in Cameron Highlands, and for the life of me I have no idea what we did. All I remember is our very nice hostel, Gerard's Place, and eating. One thing I know we did was the "Countryside Tour." For a mere 35 ringgit each - about $12, we got a half-day tour in a nice air-conditioned van with about 6 different stops and an English-speaking guide. Can't beat that. First stop was a nice Chinese temple, though nothing we haven't seen before.
I'd bet Steph's favorite stop was the Rose Center - a huge garden full of roses and tons of other flowers with a sprinkling of random painted concrete statues of Disney characters.
The tea plantation was the most anticipated stop on the trip and I must say, it was better than I expected. The tea-making process is about as simple as it gets, and the plant was actually shut down for the day we went because of a power outage, but the plants themselves are what was interesting. The neat rows of tea plants blanketing the countryside was beautiful. We were also surprised to hear that the plants keep producing for a very long time - the ones here are still the original plants from when the plantation was started over 80 years ago! If you want a taste of Malaysia, make yourself some
Teh Tarik (Pulled Tea). It's basically hot tea sweetened with condensed milk and "pulled" - poured back and forth between two cups to form a froth. If you're not crazy about tea, like me, you could try Kopi Tarik, the same thing but with coffee instead.
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| Enjoying a nice cup of Kopi Tarik |
We also visited a strawberry farm, but unfortunately because of the power outage we couldn't try one of their famous strawberry milkshakes. Luckily the ice cream was still frozen and we could have that.
My favorite stop was undoubtedly the butterfly garden. Now, before you call me a Mary, it wasn't
just butterflies. They had lots of snakes, turtles, frogs, fish, spiders, and some really cool bugs.
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| biggest beetle in the world |
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| the coolest praying mantis ever, imitates an orchid |
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| yes, that is actually a bug |
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| plus, butterflies are so pretty |
The final stop on the tour was a bee farm. Steph hates bees because she associates them with yellow jackets, and she once was attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets that eventually led her to be sitting in a creek in her underwear, in front of my mom, on one of their first meetings. I find that story hilarious, so by the same association I like bees, so while she hung out in the gift shop I went to look at the bees making honey. Turns out it's not all that exciting - just a bunch of bees packed into a hive. We did get to try fresh honeycomb, which was fantastic. If you ever get the chance to try fresh honeycomb, do it. You don't eat the honeycomb - it's basically wax, but you chew on it and suck out all the delicious honey.
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| this gives Steph nightmares |
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| this makes my mouth water. can you buy this anywhere? |
I'm sure we did other interesting stuff in the Cameron Highlands, but since there is no photographic evidence of it to jog my memory, I don't remember it. Still, it was one of our favorite places that we visited in Malaysia. One of the things we had still not done in SE Asia was get some quality beach time, so our next destination was the Perhentian Islands, off the north-east coast of peninsular Malaysia.
