Where's my jacket?

Hiking trail near Tanah Rata

I’ve been looking to go somewhere cooler after sweating in the heat of southeast Asia for the past two and a half months. I found just the place, Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands on peninsular Malaysia. I actually wear a jacket here which is not so simple because I had to empty the entire contents of my backpack to find my fleece jacket buried somewhere underneath all my stuff. It seems ages since I last used my jacket or anything with long sleeves.

Tanah Rata is somewhat like an Alpine village, except there’s no snow so it doesn’t transform into a ski resort in the winter. But it basically caters to tourists, so it’s full of hotels and guesthouses, restaurants and tourist attractions. Most of the tourists are from Malaysia who come here for their holiday retreats. They are quite chatty and when they approach me the conversation inevitably goes like this:

“Where are you from?”

“Slovenia.”

“Ah, yes, I know. Bratislava?”

“That’s Slovakia. I’m from Slovenia.”

“Czechoslovakia?”

“No, Yugoslavia.”

“Ah, yes, I know. Yugoslovenia.”

The conversation then steers in the direction where I ask them where they are from and they tell me all about their sister or uncle or cousin who runs a guesthouse in the town where they are from which I should visit.

A poinsettia bush in front of the golf course

I also noticed there are many Japanese tourists who come here to play tennis and golf. I met a few on hiking trails and I greeted them “Hello” and they answered “Konnichiwa”. I thought that was cute, I’ve never had anyone speak Japanese to me before.

Strawberries above and parsley below

The tourist attractions, other than hiking, are visits to strawberry farms, cactus nurseries and tea plantations. I started by hiking to a strawberry farm. They grow strawberries hydroponically, as well as vegetables and grapes. There is a restaurant that offers dozens of strawberry dishes, such as strawberry ice cream, strawberry muffins, strawberry milkshakes, chocolate fondue with strawberries, waffles with strawberry jam and so on.

Lettuce and strawberry shake

I had a big bowl of lettuce which is also grown on the farm and available in the restaurant. Oh, I missed lettuce so much!