Tea plantations in the Cameron Highlands

BOH tea plantation

A visit to the Cameron Highlands is not complete without hiking to a tea plantation.

I found out that the first tea plantations have been started in Malaysia almost one hundred years ago by the Scottish. The plantations have been expanding ever since. Tea demand is soaring and expected to do so in the future. There is a shortage of manual labor to work on the plantations. Despite technical advances, lots of manual labor is still required to maintain the massive plantations on steep hillslopes.

Tea processing

The tea drying and packing process is automated in a factory. Bags of processed tea leaves are shipped to factories to Kuala Lumpur where they are flavored and packaged for mass distribution.

BOH tea plantation

The BOH tea plantation runs a restaurant where the various teas may be tasted. I tried the BOH Palas Supreme, one of their black teas.

Rafflesia, the world's largest flower

Rafflesia

Rafflesia, the world's largest flower is native to only 4 countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Botanically it's not really a flower as it is more closely related to mushrooms. But the bloom resembles a flower so it's often referred to as a flower. It's quite rare and delicate and not easy to find in the wild.

It took three hours of guide-led hiking through a muddy jungle to reach a place where we could see it. Here is the flower in its various stages of development:

Rafflesia shoot

Rafflesia, a few days to bloom

Rafflesia in full bloom

Rafflesia declining after blooming

For reference, this is how big the flower is:

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!