Climbing the Cameron Highlands (Malaysia)

The Cameron Highlands was one of the first places I added to my ‘visit’ list when I was planning my route through Malaysia.  I have always found it weird that once you live permanently in a hot country you will look forward to, and normally pay a premium, to go on holiday to somewhere cold.  The only thing that stood between me and the cold was 3700m of climbing.

I set out from Seri Iskandar after having breakfast with Lee who had been my ‘host’ for the night.

I had in front of me 30km of flat riding to reach the foothills at Simpang Pulai and then another 80km of climbing with two peaks to climb before arriving at Tanah Rata which is the town that most people base themselves in whilst exploring the Cameron Highlands.  At the 60km mark I had the option of cutting the ride short and staying at Kampung Raja, the town at the first peak, but the people that I had spoken to had not said anything nice about the town.  If I was still feeling fresh when I got here I would press on to Tanah Rata.

For the first few kilometers of the climb there were lots of trucks as the road takes you past a series of limestone and marble quarries.

Once past these there was no traffic apart from the occasional car and odd vegetable truck bringing produce out of the highlands.  The road is wide and there is a ‘motorbike’ lane the whole length of the road to Kampung Raja.

At the 11km mark the first real climb started and continued for about 3km.  At this point I was seriously concerned about getting to the top if the whole 80km would be this steep.  Thankfully though, after 3km the slope eased and was just a constant grind but nothing as steep as I had experienced in Perlis State Park when I crossed into Malaysia from Thailand.

Before beginning the climb I had stocked up on water as I knew from speaking to others that there were very limited places to buy water along the way and had stopped at a shop in Simpang Pulai – I had two 1.5 lt bottles of water and a 1.5 lt bottle of 100 plus, which is a sports drink like Gatorade.

At the 20km mark there was a ‘natural’ spring where the locals were filling up 20 litre containers.  I threw my nearly empty bottle to one of the guys who filled it up and gave it me back full.  He said that everybody who lived further up the mountain stopped on their way home to fill up.

Although there were no shops selling food and water along the road there were lots of places selling what I assumed was palm oil.  It actually turned out to be honey and the guy who ran one of the stalls said that this was how the locals supplemented their income.  They were not allowed to remove any trees from the forest or clear land for farming, instead they kept bees.

I cannot speak any Malay but I soon recognized signs that meant I would be in for a hard time:

and others which meant the pain would be soon over:

I still have no idea what ‘hadapan’ means, all I know is that the sign meant that I would soon be sweating buckets and working really hard.

I had planned to stop for lunch at around the 29km mark which was the halfway mark to Kampung Raja.

In anticipation I stopped at a spring to collect water as there was no way that I was going to be boiling any of the drinking water that I had cycled up the hill.

I was looking for a nice place with a view but the only real views at this point were when I cycled across bridges that spanned the many ravines but were not the safest place to stop and have lunch.

As I passed the halfway mark I hit a hadapan sign and not sure if it was just because I was hungry but this time the slope seemed to go on and on.  Once it had ended I found a disused bamboo hut and got the stove out and boiled some water.  Lunch was a pot noodle, a pot of porridge and a cup of tea.

At this point I really couldn’t have been happier as I was over halfway and had a full belly.

The temperature was noticeably cooler and my t-shirt, for the first time on this trip, was nearly dry rather than dripping wet as it normally is.  The forest in this part of the ride seemed to be ‘natural’ woodland – no rubber plantations or oil palm plantations, all aligned in neat little rows, as the vista all around me was natural unkempt forest – a beautiful site as far as I could see.

The road was still in excellent condition with a bike lane on either side.

The only traffic was the occasional truck that passed me:

There is another route up to the highlands from Tapah, which is shorter and hence steeper, and I think most of the produce trucks and buses from Kuala Lumpur must use this roade.  The route from Sungai Pulai that I was on was very quiet with hardly any traffic at all.

As I climbed higher I was now out of the forested areas and skirting the sides of the valleys rather than going over them. The views were spectacular with the road perched precariously on the mountain sides.

You could now see splits in the tarmac where the soil underneath had given way and the road had cracked and dropped a few inches in large sections.  On the sides of the valleys you could see where landslides had occurred and the road was in danger of slipping over the edge.  I was just glad I was not cycling here in full rainy season as this is when the majority of landslips occur but you could clearly see the ‘scars’ on the landscape where they had already happened:

Where sections of the hillside had completely given way you would cycle past teams of people who were planting trees to vegetate the slope to add stability to the soil.

There were ropes over the edge which I assumed would be tied to the workers planting the saplings but no they were only tied to the buckets lowering the trees down.

If the workers slipped they would not stop rolling for a few hundred meters where they would surely meet a certain death; life really does seem cheap when you travel through Asia.  At least they wore high vis jackets which would make finding the bodies easier !!!!!

After another hour I saw the sign which signaled that I had made it to the top of the first peak and Kampung Raja would be about 5km down the road.

The map showed that there was a shortcut path which would take me to the town and so I took it.  For the next few kilometers all I passed were thousands of poly tunnels that were being used to grow the vegetables and crops.  The tunnels covered whole hillsides like a little city and filled the valley in front of me.

The path that I was following brought me out in the center of Kampung Raja and I was more than a little disappointed by what I saw – nothing but shops selling the necessary supplies to feed the mountain of vegetables which were being grown on the hillsides all around.

The picture that I had in my head of the Cameron highlands was fresh air and tea plantations.  Kampung Raja had neither of these and so I decided that I would get some food and then move on another 20km to Tanah Rata rather than spend the night in this slightly depressing town.  (I am sure that it is actually nicer but after 8 hours of climbing I was expecting more)

The next climb I already knew would be the steepest and after a too brief downhill section the road once again headed upwards and would stay that way for another 10km until I reached the summit at Brinchang.

If you ever watch Chris Froome ride a bike you will notice that he just seems to stare at his handlebar stem rather than the road infront of him and that is what I did for the next 10km – stare at my handlebars and tried to forget about the hill in front of me.  It really is amazing where your mind wanders when you let it and you not so much zone out, as you still need to concentrate on the road, but more get into a place where every now and again you seem to snap back to reality and wonder where the last few kilometers have gone.  Either that or I was seriously delirious after 9 hours of climbing.  I will let you decide which.  Either way it got me to the top of the hill and to Brinchang.

Just before I reached the top at Brinchang I was joined by a Malaysian guy on a mountain bike who lived in the town.  We had a bit of a chat and he stayed with me as far as the top, before turning round and heading back down a kilometer or so to his house which I thought was lovely of him.

I still had another 5km to go to Tanah Rata but from here it was more down than up.  Thankfully, the only hairpin bend that I saw all day was in this section and I went down it rather than up it.

I had come over the top of Brinchang in daylight and within 15 minutes, by the time I reached Tanah Rata, it was pitch black.   The sun goes down fast in the mountains.

As normal, I had not booked anywhere to stay and just rode through town until I found somewhere that I liked the look of and checked in.  I was more than ready for a beer and once my bike was safely in my room I had a quick wash, as I slightly stank after over 9 hours and more than 3700m of climbing, and headed straight out to find a bar and some food.

Here is a video that I shot as I climbed up to the Cameron Highlands:

The main center of Tanah Rata consists of one street lined with bars and restaurants for a few hundred meters, and the choice of food in town was amazing and nearly every restaurant had vast menus that covered food from every corner of the globe – thali, pizza, steak, curry, dal, roti, satay, burgers, goat and more could be found at many of the  eateries.

Everybody I met seemed to be on a whirlwind tour of asia – four days in Thailand, 3 days in Malaysia and perhaps a week in Indonesia; many of them trying to fit in as much as possible before university started again.  Even at night buses were still arriving, and every 20 minutes or so I would see a steady stream of ‘ants’ with backpacks on trudging down the street as they disembarked from the buses and headed off to find a bed for the night.  If you were into people watching you could definitely while away a few hours sat on ‘main street’.

After a few beers and some food it was time to head to bed.  I was not sure how long I would stay in the highlands and would just decide each evening. All I knew was that I would not be leaving in the morning and planned to get a motorbike during my time here and leave the bike in the room until I left.

Cheers

Stewart

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