Getting High in Cameron...Highlands :)

Hi All,

No, Mom, I didn't really get high in Cameron Highlands. Or anywhere, for that matter. I was geographically high (Cameron is on top of a mountain) but not chemically high. Look, it's really late and I am tired and I couldn't come up with a good title, okay?

Anyway, like I said, I was none too sorry to leave Kuala Lumpur. We took the bus, which was of course late, and arrived in Cameron around 1pm. Upon arrival, we were informed by the lovely woman at the guesthouse desk that the tea plantations were closed that day due to (say it with me) Chinese New Year! Also, all of the buses out of Cameron back to Singapore the next day were also all booked up. At this point, even saintly-patient Lisa was a bit kerfluffled. So, we made it all the way here, but there's nothing to do and no way home? We begged, not very prettily, for some help. Fortunately, the woman working the desk was very kind and made several phone calls back to KL and managed to find us a bus. We would leave the next day at 1pm instead of 10am, and we'd have to switch buses in KL instead of going direct to Singapore, but we should be home by about midnight. It was an iffy proposition (especially since we could not reserve the ticket from KL-->Singapore until we made it to KL) but we went with it. The few hours we'd have in the morning allowed us to go see the tea plantation the following morning, when it would be open. So, not entirely what we'd sought, but it would do.

Cameron is very, very beautiful. It's quiet, relatively undeveloped (no McDonald's! Although there is a Starbucks) and delightfully cool. By cool I mean chilly. After baking in the Malaysia sun, it was a relief to don a sweater up in the mountains. It actually reminded me a lot of Chiriqui, the cloud forest I spent some time at in Panama. (Man, I have had a lucky life, no?) The big attraction in Cameron is the numerous tea planations. 70% of SE Asia's tea is grown there. There are also a number of big produce farms. We stayed at this AMAZING place, called Father's Guesthouse. I highly recommend it. A)it's gorgeous and B)the staff is amazingly helpful and kind. It's a former church which has been converted into a hostel. It was so pretty, with big lush gardens and everything. The only drawback was the epic non-railing-line staircase you had to traverse to reach it.

Pictured: top of epic staircase. The part with a railing. All notions of drinking were quashed when I realized we had to climb back up after dinner.

Not able to see the tea plantation until tomorrow (7am, no less) Lisa and I headed off to the Big Red Strawberry farm. The strawberry farms in the area are good for one thing: the cafes. There are tons of delicious strawberry things to be eaten after a quick tour of the fields. Luckily, just as we arrived, it started to rain, so Lisa and I had no compunction about going directly to the FOOD. I had fried strawberry ice cream, Lisa had a strawberry waffle, and we had two strawberry muffins to go for breakfast the next day. All in all, a successful jaunt. We were quite a ways out from Tana Rata (the main area where our hostel was), and we were worried about finding a bus back. We didn't. So we walked. 8km. It was long. But, we worked off our desserts, that's for sure :)

the glorious menu





Lisa so did not want to take this picture. I made her.

Back at the hostel, we met some fellow NUS students who were also German (like Lisa). We all went down to town for dinner to try Malaysian celup, or steamboat. It's like fondue, but with soup and meat. It's a big boiling pot of soup in which you toss raw meat, fish, veggies, noodles, etc, and then eat it. It was way too messy for me. I am a bit OCD about my food; I like to know what I'm eating. Just gnawing on bits of mystery meat is not my style. However, I did enjoy the company (although they frequently lapsed into German: Lisa did an excellent job of translating for me!) and the novelty of an authentic cultural experience. Everything about Cameron felt more real than the rest of Malaysia. I was enchanted.


steamboat: pre-eating. Note the mountains of food.

After dinner, we all retired back to the guesthouse (the gang was kind enough to wait as I attempted to use the one payphone in the village to call Tom) and had some beers out on the verandah. We discussed traveling and politics and it was just great. Everyone was respectful and smart and it was really the cat's meow. For some reason, everyone wanted to know about living in NYC and I was a temporary star. Strange to think I had something to offer the Europeans in the way of culture but I did :) I trundled off to bed, snuggling under the blankets, anxious for my 7am wakeup call (by Lisa).

When morning came, we walked down the stairs to the main bus station in town, looking for a ride out to Boh tea plantation. The local bus went there, but not back. We would have to figure it out once we got there. We hopped on the bus with all the locals headed to the golf course. Boh plantation was about 45 min away and I began to get a bit worried about making our bus back to KL at 1. However, the luscious scenery soon overtook my conscious mind. It. was. stunning. The rolling hills wrapped in mist, smelling faintly of tea, dotted with workers harvesting tea leaves, was about as idyllic as it gets. I almost wished the sun would never come all the way up so that we could remain ensconced in the cozy predawn fog forever. We arrived at the plantation (at the end of a 5km walk uphill) just as it opened. There was a factory tour starting, so we tagged along (we think it was a paid tour, but nobody asked us for money so we just went with it). I learned all about how tea is made, which was really cool. Plus the air was redolent with the aroma of tea. All this learning was making us thirsty, so we retired to the cafe for tea and scones. I felt so calm and carefree that I was almost giddy. Here I was, breakfasting with a great friend, amidst the splendor of a place many people don't even know where it is on a map! How great is my life! The tea (tarik, the local tea made with condensed milk-very sweet but sooo delicious) was splendid, the scone divine, and I nearly floated back down the mountain.

Well, until we realized that it was a long way down. And the sun was up now. When tea truck offered to give us a ride down, we hopped into the bed without a thought. (I know, I know, hitchhiking is dangerous. I went round and round about whether to even put this in. But, this blog is a record of my travels. And I did this. Everyone does it in Malaysia. And we were in a truck bed, together, in broad daylight. The road was very busy and there was no place to drive off and rape us. It's just one long path down the mountain.) Anyway, I will never hitchhike again, but my God, with the tea-scented wind whipping through my hair as I perched on a tea chest in the back of a pickup, I felt alive. I thought, someday I'll tell my kids this story and they won't believe their mom ever did anything so cool. But I did. I hitchhiked in Malaysia and I freakin loved it.

We did make our bus, on time. The bus wasn't on time, it was an hour late. And then we sat in traffic for three hours. We missed our KL connecting bus and sat in KL for two hours, paid double to get on the last bus out, and hit Singapore at 5:30am. I swear, I cannot get out of a SE Asian country without difficulty. Lisa keeps teasing me about Vietnam and how I should make sure to bring a long book since my flight will almost surely be delayed. But, despite all the mishaps and woes, it was a really great trip. I got to see "real" Asia, eat some delicious food, and spend some quality time with my homegirl/soul sister, Lisa!

In conclusion: here is a list of things one ought to take to Malaysia (that I did not)

1. toilet paper

2. a flashlight

3. a towel (something to use both as a towel and as a blanket-many hostels are fitted sheet and pillowcase only)

4. a good phrasebook (not everyone speaks English like they do in Singapore)

5. a sense of humor (see above)

6. an open heart and mind (because some really awesome things can happen if you're open to them!)

Well, that's all. I leave for Vietnam in the morning and I have not started to pack. I will not be updating for a week, but be prepared for some major-league awesome when I get back! Until then, this is Singapore Sue saying, sayonara suckers! Love you all.