End of KL, Into Cameron Highlands

Leaving Batu Caves, we took the same line back into the city and cleverly realized we could get off a stop earlier than we had thought to take a shortcut back to the hostel, where we only stopped for a moment before hopping aboard one of KL's sweet free bus services to the "Bukit Bintang" shopping centre. It rained a bit on the way to the bus, but no big deal.


At Bukit Bintang we walked around trying to figure out what the deal was. Bukit Bintang is essentially a massive chunk of city, several blocks square, which houses lots of malls and shops and stuff. We wound our way around, navigating past huge construction areas and eventually sitting down at a chinese food restaurant for lunch. I decided to find out what the porridge was all about, since we'd seen it and heard of it. Rice porridge--turns out pretty straightforward, about exactly what you'd expect based on that name. I got it with chicken in it, and I'd say my impressions were...it tastes like you poured a packet of instant ramen flavoring into some watery oatmeal.

After catching the bus back, we later went to the nearby Central Market, which is a little mall near the hostel and we had a light dinner there. The Central Market is similar to many outdoor markets you find in touristy areas, where lines of stalls are packed together, selling clothes and bits and bobs. Except the Central Market is all indoors, like a mall. It had restaurants inside, and even a food court. It was interesting, like a hybrid of a market and modern mall.

We also swung by a pharmacy to get more bug spray, because the next morning we were leaving the city into rural Malaysia! (After some discussion about the state of our...bowels...and how well we could handle more adventure we decided to go for it, and trust in our drugs to save us).

Cameron Highlands

I'm trying to catch the blog up to real-time, because it is still several days behind. So to that end, we're jumping straight into the next big thing. We awoke, breakfasted, showered, all that jazz.

We were headed for a bus station a short walk north-east (probably) of the hostel. Conveniently close. It was quite confusing to find the ticket counter and get our tickets (we'd paid online and had to show a little receipt to get our tix). It was a bit less confusing to find where our buss departed, and then wait there for a while for the bus to arrive and board up. The bus was run by C.S. Tours, and it was very comfy. No bathroom in the back, but comfy chairs, AC, and even a movie playing at the front that I couldn't hear.

Arrived in Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. A strip of buildings along the road is basically all there is to this town, but it was nice. We stayed at the Orchid Lodge in a bunk, where we met a few other travelers, including the fellow managing the hostel, who was working there temporarily as he himself was travelling (that's not an uncommon arrangement, Christian mentioned witnessing it many times in his last jaunt through Europe).

Anyway, Cameron Highlands, we walked around Tanah Rata a bit and went into the shops, but didn't buy anything except food. The main thing we did was to go to Eco-cameron Tours office, which was in the same building as our hostel, to sign up for a half-day "Mossy Forest" tour the next day.

Then we went back to the hostel and watched X-Men Days of Future Past with other people there. I'd give the movie a 3/5.

Mossy Forest

At 8:45 we met our tour guide at the eco-cameron office. His name was Raju, and along with us was a german couple. We hopped in the old Land Rover Defender and set out to pick up the last of our tour group, a family of 4 Singaporeans. 

Raju proved to be a likeable guide as we drove out to our first destination: the road above a tea plantation, where we stopped and walked a bit to get photos. 

Then Raju taught us about tea. How it is picked, pruned, processed, etc. Cameron highlands produces a lot of tea, but it is all consumed in Malaysia and Singapore, not exported. The biggest brand is called BOH, which we'll get to later...

Moving on, we drove up the mountain to the highest road-accessible point, Gunung Brinchang. Here we had a nice view that got even better once we climbed up a rusty metal tower! Yay! The tower was so popular, it was full of people. They just kept on coming! Which was swell and I'm sure there was no danger of it collapsing under the weight. I mean, the hand rails were falling apart with rust, but the main structure was probably fine...

Here's the tower, but I forgot to upload anything of the view! It's ok, though, I've got another pic from even higher altitude.

Anyway, that went great. We got pix and got back into the Land Rover for a short drive downhill to the forest path. Here we set out on foot into the high jungle. Elsewhere, it is called Cloud Forest, a type of rainforest above the cloudline, but here they call it Mossy Forest.  The ground was spring peat, sometimes deep with mud from the morning rain. Roots crisscrossed everywhere. Moss clung to every rock and tree. Pitcher plants hung, enticing insects with their intoxicating nectar. Wild Orchids grew on logs. Bamboo...bamboo'd (at a rate of 4 centimeters per day, I think they said!). 

There were medicinal plants, cinnamon trees, trees for citronella oil, and more and more...Raju knew them all. He was quite smart at this stuff. He had at one time been in charge of a local volunteer conservation group (his son was pictured on a reforestation project billboard we passed later). 

At the top was a rocky outcrop we climbed up, and the barely discernible remains of some small structure that had been a lookout point during the cold war.

When we finally emerged from the jungle, our shoes were muddy, we'd been up to a rocky peak and back, and we were full of new knowledge that we took with us back into the Land Rover and down the hill. Our final stop was the tea plant and visitor center. Operated by BOH tea, here we got to watch the manufacturing process, read about the history of BOH, and then go buy tea. 

More tea?

We had a snack and a cup of tea, and eventually--back into the Land Rover and down to the butterfly farm, where we said goodvye to our tour friends, goodbye to Raju, and transfered to another car to take us home. At 5:30 we had a bus back to KL, so we prepped for that, ate some more, and sat around waiting a lot.

The bus ride back was all the same but backwards....not literally, but back down the windy hills and back off the highlands down to KL, back to the bus station...and back to the same Explorer's Guesthouse, checked in again. For reference this brings us to the evening of Sunday, June 14. 

That night we wandered through Chinatown, which our hostel was right next to, by then it was already 10pm--turns out KL stays up late though and there were still many people out and stalls selling stuff. It wasn't long though before we were in bed, resting up for the morning's adventure to the airport and Langkawi island!