Activity Summary
Thursday 13th October - Day 42
Travel from to Penang to Cameron Highlands
Walk around Tanah Rata
Friday 14th October - Day 43
BOH tea plantation
Mossy forest walk
Big red strawberry farm
Sam Poh Temple
Summary
The climate here is incredible and really made us remember how difficult that transition to such heat and humidity was in Thailand. Sadly it was only 2 days before hitting the immense warmth of the jungle in Taman Negara.
Tanah Rata, as a place to stay has very little going for it but the wider Cameron Highlands was great. The tour group was great fun and the tea plantation and mossy forest were very enjoyable. The rest of the day was fun purely because of the people we were with so it was really a good social place. With another day we would have done more of the local hikes but feel like we didn’t miss out on anything given we were going to the jungle afterwards.
Accommodation
Bricks backpacker hostel - 2 nights - £11/n/p
Quite expensive but the hostel was great. The small common area and pool table made it easy to socialise and the private room we had was perfect to escape it. The noise travelled quite a bit from running showers and the common room but not so much that it was detrimental once sparked out. Overall a very good choice.
Travel
TO
Penang hotel -> [Grab] -> Sungai Nibong bus terminal -> [coach] -> Tanah Rata -> [walk] -> Tanah Rata hostel
Diary
To get to the Cameron Highlands we had booked a bus ticket on busticket.com which had worked very well for us getting to Penang (minus the mcds pick up palava). This time it wasn’t quite so clear. Getting to the bus terminal was easy enough getting a grab taxi, but once at the bus terminal Luke was wholly confused about how it worked (Nicola was currently in no fit state to be running around with heavy bags). Eventually he found out we had to convert the tickets for a MYR2 fee in order to get on this bus once going up and down to the departure platforms. The whole thing seemed completely whacked out but we made it.
The coach itself felt like luxury for the first half of the journey. Big bags in the coach storage, big seats with a lot of space and not crammed with people like all the minivans we have been chartering. It got a bit less comfortable with all the locals jumping on at Ipoh and the cacophony of coughs and fits (along with Nicola) made Luke squirm the whole time but it seems at the time of writing this he got off scot free.
The Cameron highlands climate is sensational. After spending 6 weeks in 90%+ humidity and 30 degree heat, rolling off that bus and it being [historic] UK summer weather was glorious (aka 17 degrees, minimal humidity and grey). We actually had to put a layer on when walking around at times.
The hostel was a short walk from the bus terminal so it was easy enough to get to, drop our bags, book tour tickets for the next day and go for a walk around Tanah Rata. They love giant plastic fruit and veg it seems.
The food choices here were a bit more difficult. There is a large Indian community here and therefore the cuisine very much followed in that direction. Some of the local places looked awful so ended up getting Indian the first night. Quote from Nicola ‘this is the worst Biryani I’ve ever had’, whereas Luke’s was perfectly adequate.
Our tour for the Cameron Highlands started at 8am and was the ‘half day’ tour arranged with the hostel. The full day tour elements we planned to do ourselves once the official tour ended but can confirm these last elements are absolutely not worth the additional cost.
We were collected in pickup trucks that had two long benches in the back for the group to sit on. Nicola once again struggled a great deal with the exhaust fumes. Luke was fine with this but struggled with the height of the transport somewhat but nowhere near as much as the 6ft 7 Dutch guy on the tour called Stef. The others in our truck were another two Dutch sisters and Umiko, a Japanese traveller. They were a very fun group of people which made the day a lot of fun.
The first stop was the BOH (name of the company apparently) tea plantation and cafe. We had a quick walk around before sitting down with a mug of tea just chatting with Umiko and soaking in the views. Post this we were taken down the tea plantation ground level to have a walk around and have our tour guides give us a bit of information. Apparently one of the plants tightens uterine muscles post babies. Bit of a ropey explanation on that one.
There are numerous walks and hikes that can be done in the Cameron Highlands (if we had more time, routes 10 and 6 are apparently decent) but the most attractive is the mossy forest hike. This was a pretty easy walk and with a group exceeding 12 people it was quite slow. One of the guys from the other car had brand spanking new white converse and clearly didn’t get the ‘it’s gonna be muddy’ memo. Apparently he tried putting plastic bags on them before reaslising thats a fucking stupid idea and sacking off the walk but the ordeal made us laugh. The tour guides were very interesting, giving us information about various types of plants and trees such as the incredibly poisonous Ipoh tree that local communities use for poison darts. At the top of the forest, it is completely covered in green moss which gives the feeling you’re in the Lord of the Rings. The whole ground wobbled under your feet too! The only areas that aren't covered are where we wonderful tourists have been touching and destroying it. 30% of the moss has been lost because of this and once gone from this area no new routes will be opened. It really wasn't hard not to touch…
At the end of the tour everyone in our truck opted to get dropped off at Brinchang to see more of the ‘sights’. We all got lunch at a shopping mall area; Nicola and I opted for a local cafe which was underwhelming so then had to top up with a subway. We did try.
The first stop was a strawberry farm nearby that offered the option of picking them when in season but turns out there was barely any available so some of us settled for a strawberry ice cream.
The cactus farm looked terrible so we quickly walked past that and over to Sam Poh temple, a Chinese religious moment. We didn’t spend much time here as it wasn’t overly impressive nor really fitting in with our attempts to see Malay culture. There were absolutely no taxis available so we all walked back to Tanah Rata by the back roads which turned out to be quite an easy walk. Everyone talked down Luke’s suggestion of taking the jungle hike 3 route.
We bid farewell to the day crew, booked our transport to Taman Negara and completed the same song and dance over less than appealing food choices settling for a Japanese place.
Nicola wasn’t feeling 100% so went up to the hostel room and Luke ended up making friends with an army of Dutch people (including Stef) playing pool and drinking their beer in the hostel.
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