It was the first time since we arrived in the Cameron Highlands that we rose before 08:00 and made it to the dining room for breakfast. I wasn't feeling too terrific so only had a glass of milkshake which, sadly, left me feeling worse. The surrounding scenery was disguised by low cloud. Perhaps this was perfectly normal, we hadn't seen morning over the last two days!
We checked out of the cottages and left our luggage in the laundry room having settled our account. We would collect it later when we returned from our tour.
Since the climate of the highlands was so much like England I had donned three layers on my torso and had my raincoat with me too!
Our tour guide, Francis, met us at the junction of the main road at 09:00 and we bounced around in the back of his four wheel drive up the hill beyond Brinchang. Francis had a little nodding elephant on his dashboard that I desperately wanted for myself. We pledged to seek for one from this point onwards.
At the edge of the Boh Tea Estate we leaped out of the vehicle to photograph the beautiful green vista, predominantly tea trees. The trees were planted in 1929 when the estate was opened by a Scotsman. The trees that we saw today, planted as far as the eye could see, including those on the incredibly steep slopes, are the same trees that were planted 74 years ago but they are very short due to the constant clipping of the young shoots. If the trees were allowed to grow they would grow as tall as any other tree but for a tea estate the trees are much the same as other bonsai trees, forever small.
In the distance workers could be seen clipping young shoots from trees and putting them into large sacks which they carried on their backs. To clip the shoots the workers use a hand driven tool which is little more than a dustpan with scissor blades which clip and scoop in one action. Alternatively two workers can use a tool together which is cosmically the same as a combine harvester that requires two people to pull the awkward machine over the tops of the trees and to lift it over the walkways. After watching these in operation the hand clipping method looks far easier and relatively lighter work, despite the huge sacks they have to carry, although the machines achieve a greater yield.
At the summit of our climb, in the four wheel drive, we abandoned the vehicle and went for a walk in the forest at Gunung Brinchang. It was very windy and we were up in the clouds at 6,666 feet. However, none of us were prepared for what we found. To walk into the forest we passed by lots of people that seemed to have a real purpose for being in the area. We struggled on into the forest and almost immediately found ourselves struggling to find our way through the squelching mud and trampling through the centre of a film set!
The ground was very mucky and unstable underfoot and although it was good fun to get your clothes and boots caked in mud, slipping here and there, it seemed like a bit of a pointless effort as we didn't see anything that was unique to Gunung Brinchang and it was a very short walk in the forest, not to mention the extended effort required to find a safe footing! Still, it was good fun to get messy! Naturally, much akin to the quad biking in Taupo in New Zealand, I made more success of it than everyone else!
A little further up the road Francis found us a fairly tall lookout tower which he encouraged us to climb, with a warning to wear a waterproof jacket as it would be quite windy. Yes, it was quite windy. The strength of the wind tested the windstraps of my Tilley hat to their limits! The straps held but the wind threatened to push the hat into my head and forced the rim in all directions. But, the Tilley hat survived and the climb was worth it for the spectacular, if not clouded, view over the Cameron Highlands from the highest peak.
Our next stop was the factory at Boh Tea Estate. We were shown around the working factory and the processes were explained to us in brief form. It was interesting to see that the original machines from the 1930s were still being operated today. The aroma in the factory was superb, undoubtedly tea, like the smell you enjoy when you open a fresh foil wrapped bag of tea. We couldn't possibly leave the estate without a cuppa so we enjoyed a fresh brew with a slice of cake before leaving.
On the way back to Tanah Rata we stopped at a butterfly garden just outside of Brinchang. I immediately found the giant beetles, stick insects, bird eating spiders and green eyes geckos, leaf frogs, leaf mantis, scorpions, the long nose snake and the lizard, all in glass tanks. A few photographs shot I then progressed on to the butterfly garden itself. It was much as I expected, enclosed, but I was surprised by the size of one particular species of butterfly. It was black with a red head and a bright green top section of it's wings. Most of the butterflies were fo this species but there were plenty of others to capture the attention of my camera lens. I found a fantastic caterpillar too.
Marking the end of the tour, Francis dropped us off at Bala's Holiday Chalets where we took lunch in the garden, as it began to rain again. Once again, I received my lunch on a plastic plate in tradition with Bala's Holiday Chalets. I always seem to get a plastic plate whereas Ian gets a ceramic plate. Although today I did get my full half a dozen sandwiches! Hoorah! It was a pity my can of coke was over six months out of date and had spiders webs on the top end!
Once we had finished eating and collected our backpacks from laundry we got a lift into Tanah Rata and waited for our 15:00 bus to Kuala Lumpur. Our bus departed the bus station at Tanah Rata at 15:07, driven by the same driver that took us into the Cameron Highlands. I'm not yet sure if that's a good thing or not, he's been our only bus driver so far in Malaysia. The journey certainly felt a lot slower on the return to Kuala Lumpur and indeed we made more stops and for longer periods on the way. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur 5 hours later in an incredibly humid climate, one that we were no longer used to having spent just three days in the highlands.
We secured our bus travel to Kuala Terengganu for tomorrow morning with much ease then found Hotel Malaya welcoming us back to Chinatown for the night. Tired and not very hungry we rested in the chain coffee shop across the road for supper before retiring to the hotel room to cut Ian's hair and write our journals while listening to Norah Jones on the television...
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.