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The previous day I had spent 9 hours climbing to Tanah Rata and so for the next few days the bike would be staying in my hotel room as I toured around the Cameron Highlands.  My original plan had been to take a tour but over breakfast I had already seen 12 people being crammed into a jeep, so instead I decided to rent a motorbike.

When I went to hire a motorbike every place that I went to wanted to see an international drivers licence, which I do not have on me.  About the fourth place I went to the lady was from the Philippines and there was a sign on the desk which stated the documents that you needed to hire a bike and included an international drivers licence.  So instead of asking to hire a bike we instead chatted about places that I had been to in the Philippines.  She was a very interesting lady and it turned into a great chat rather than just a way of getting a motorbike.

After about 20 minutes I mentioned the motorbike and told her that I didn’t have a licence but I did have a photograph of my Vietnamese motorbike licence which I showed her:

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She just said no worries you seem nice enough and rented me the motorbike.  I think that this is the only place anywhere in the world that has asked to see a licence when I have rented a motorbike.DSCN1997

I was then all set for an adventure in the Cameron Highlands and headed off down the mountain to go checkout the tea plantations.

The main tea area to the south of Tanah Rata is in the Cameron Valley and the first place that you come across as the road winds its way down the valley is the aptly named Cameron Valley Tea House which is a cafe on the hillside that has a great view over the plantations and as the name suggests serves tea.

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The only problem was that I had to share my view with about 300 other people and pay to go into the tea plantation which, although only a couple of ringgits, I thought was a bit cheeky.  I checked the map and saw that there was a track about 500m further down the valley that I could take into the tea plantations, and so headed for this.  When I arrived at the track there was a security guard and a barrier across the entrance preventing all vehicles from accessing the road.  Not to be out foxed I headed back up the road towards Tanah Rata where I had seen a sign and track for a Chinese cemetery.  Although it was not on my map I knew that it was there and so took this road.

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It led me into the tea plantations and eventually to a village where the tea pickers lived.  There was nobody here except me and the tea pickers which was great so I parked the bike and went a wandering.

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There is something beautiful and slightly mesmerising about tea plantations that you do not seem to get from looking at other fields of crops.  Not sure if it is the colour or the pattern of paths that the pickers have cut through the tea bushes, but you can spend hours just looking at the fields of green.

The pickers were hard at work in the fields.  In the picture above the person is picking the leaves by hand, and below the picker is using a type of shears to cut the leaves which he then puts into the white bag.  I’m not sure whether one is sold as a more expensive type of tea or what as using the shears is obviously much faster.

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Once the bags were full a second person would collect the bag and take it to the track where he would compact it and leave it by the roadside for the tractor to collect and take it to the factory to be processed into tea.

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It was now around lunchtime and the pickers were coming in from the fields to get lunch and to get out of the midday sun.  I walked with them back to their village and we chatted along the way.

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The ‘village’ where they live is very basic but has running water and electricity so they seemed happy enough.

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I joined them for a drink and one of the lads got his guitar out and started strumming which was quite cool.

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Another one of the lads got out a pair of clippers and started cutting hair:

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If I hadn’t of had a trim in Alor Setar a few days before I would have gotten him to give me a trim too.

Once the heat of the day had gone I left my bike at the village and continued my exploration of the valley. It really was a great walk and the only people that I met along the way were a group of hikers on an organised trek.  There were around 15 of them with a guide at the front showing them the way.  They seemed in an awful hurry as I sat by a stream enjoying the view. (feeling slightly smug to boot)  I guess they had walked from Tanah Rata and were headed to the tea house that I had been to earlier.

The view really was beautiful:

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There is a building to the top right of the picture above and this is the where they dry and process the picked leaves.   As it was late afternoon by the time I got there they had already finished for the day.  The chart below shows you the process that the picked leaves go through in order to be turned into tea:

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Once dried it is sorted into different grades of tea and the packed.

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For those of you who like your tea made from tea bags then I am afraid that you are drinking the lowest grade of tea, not quite the sweepings from the floor but not too far away.  There are many different stories about how the tea bag was invented and the most popular seems to be credited to Thomas Sullivan who in 1908 decided to save money and instead of sending potential new customers samples of tea in tins he sent them in silk ‘purses’.  The customers thought this was how they should be used and brewed them as they were sent and the tea bag was invented.  I am not sure if this is true but either way it is a great story.

It was now getting fairly late, and I was hungry, so decided to call it a day and head back to Tanah Rata to get some food.

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I backtracked my way to the village to get my motorbike and headed back up the valley to town.  I had done nothing all day except sit in a tea plantation and I was really happy with life.  It had been a great day and I had avoided the mass of tourists that would catch up with me the following day.

That evening I went out for a couple of beers and some food.  It is a bit strange going into a restaurant on your own, not because of a lack of company, but because in touristy areas I have found that when you walk into a place you are made to feel like a bit like a leper.   They greet you at the door with a big smile and kind of look around for others and then ask how many people and when you say one you can see their minds doing quick calculations – one person taking up a table for four at rush hour is bad business so lets see if we can put him somewhere out of the way.  At one place I went to they took me round the side of the restaurant and showed me a table where I’m sure the staff sat to have a cigarette.  The owner then said when it gets a little quieter he would give me a table inside…..  I decided not to eat there.

Having not been around westerners for the majority of this trip I have to say that I found my nights in Tanah Rata a little strange.  Everybody was essentially doing the same as me, only via different modes of transport and over a different timescale, and were great; I just found it a little dull and a bit like speed dating without the sex.  (I know what I mean in my head but not sure it translates properly into words).  Still it was a great place to hang out for a few days and I was guaranteed not to be short of company as the ‘ants’ marched into town.  (see earlier post if confused)

The following morning I headed up the valley towards Brinchang and to the Boh tea plantations.  Boh tea is the most famous brand of tea in Malaysia and the largest producer.  The company was founded by a Brit in 1929 and accounts for about 70% of the tea produced in the country ( yep – I did read the signs at the factory whilst enjoying a cup of boh).

The road to the plantation is in the town of Brinchang so if you are a cyclist stop here on your way to Tanah Rata otherwise you will have to cycle 5km back up the mountain to get photos (hence no photos of my bike in the tea plantations).

There is always a far easier way of getting to the Cameron Highlands than struggling up on a bike or in a bus, and that is just to fly. (This guy took off next to the path that I was walking down and was no more than 10m away from me when he started up the rotors).

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The tea plantation at Brinchang was much bigger than the one that I had visited the day before and seemed to be the preferred stop for domestic and foreign tourists.  I can see why they come here though as it really was a spectacular view:

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There is a factory at this plantation and the public can go around it to see the whole production line from the tea being picked in the fields to being dried, rolled and bagged.  The final stop being a shop where you can take home your own tea bags – not quite picked by you but close enough.  Once again I had spent so long sitting in the tea plantations enjoying life that the days production was already completed by the time I got round to visiting the factory.  Instead, I joined the others on the viewing deck and had a cup of boh.

It was such a nice view that I got my laptop out and sat updating my trip whilst enjoying the amazing view around me.  Before I knew it I was virtually the last person there, and the tables and chairs on the viewing deck were being packed up around me.  I took the hint and packed up my stuff and headed back to get my motorbike.

As I was winding my way back up through the plantation to the main road I passed the pickers getting a lift back on the tractor after the end of another day in the fields.  They all seemed to be pretty content and smiling which I kind of admired them for as not sure that I would be that happy after a day picking leaves.

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It was just getting dark and in the distance I could see the rain clouds rolling in and before long I felt the first raindrops on my hands.

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By the time I got back to the main road the heavens had opened and I was just wearing a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops.  This normally wouldn’t be an issue as warm rain is quite nice but in the mountains it is far from warm when the sun goes down.  Living in Vietnam, the locals tend to wear jackets and jumpers when the temperature drops below 25C and I’m sure that their bodies have adapted to the climate that they live in and they really do feel the cold more than westerners.

After 5 years living in Vietnam, I am not sure that my body had adjusted that much but by the time I had covered the 8km back to the hotel in Tanah Rata my teeth were chattering and my hands were blue; whether it was because my body was not used to the cold I’m not sure, all I knew was that by the time I reached the town I was bloody freezing.  Luckily, when I go out I put everything in dry bags so my laptop and phone were nice and dry, so in a way every dark cloud has a silver lining.

I dropped the motorbike off just before I got back to the hotel and had a quick shower to warm up (thank god the hotel had a warm shower) and headed out for food.  Even though I had only been in Tanah Rata for a couple of days it really is a small place and I was starting to recognise the faces of people that I had been seeing around town and in the tea plantations.  I’m sure that if you were backpacking from Thailand through to Indonesia that you would probably know half the people by the time you got to Bali.

This was the first time on this whole trip that I had spent 3 nights in one place and I had had a fantastic time in the Cameron Highlands. I had not done much except wander around a few tea plantations and visit a few villages.  I suppose though that this is what this trip is about for me – not to go out partying with westerners but to sit among the locals and watch how their lives are.  This is what I had done in a place with fresh air and great views and that is why the Cameron Highlands will be up there among the highlights of the Asia leg of my round the world cycle.

In the morning I would be heading back down the mountain as I continued my journey towards the east coast of Malaysia.  It was about 400km away and the road would be like a roller coaster ride for the next few days as I crossed the ‘dragons back’ of Malaysia.  En route, I planned to stop off at Taman Negara National Park to do a bit of tree hugging.

Hope you enjoyed sharing my visit to the Cameron Highlands.

Cheers

Stewart

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The Cameron Highlands (Malaysia)
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