After departing the busy island of Pulau Penang via ferry, I boarded a bus to the Cameron Highlands. The scenery changed from a congested concrete jungle to lush green mountains after a few hours on the rickety old bus. I arrived in the pouring rain at Tata Ratah - the main hub of the Cameron Highlands. I walked to the western edge of town and up a long flight of stone steps leading to Father's Guesthouse where I checked into a twelve bed dormitory. During my first night, I was surrounded exclusively by British travelers and became known as the snoring American girl.
After several weeks on sunny shores, I retired my swimsuit and put my rain jacket to the test. Let's just say I am in the market for some gortex. The temperature in the highlands dropped drastically at night and I managed to score a few extra blankets and make use of my wool socks for the first time in Asia. My following days in the Cameron Highlands were rather leisurely as the rain never seemed to let up - but the accommodations remained cheap and the company cheerful.
After reading rave reviews about a specific tour guide, (like a good tourist) I signed up for the Discovery Tour of the Cameron Highlands. My tour guide, Kumar, was a native of the Cameron Highlands. He immediately insisted that everyone on the tour was his friend and he loved his job because it did not seem like work to him. The other tourists represented New Zealand, France, England, the Netherlands and Germany - I was again the solo American. After about an hour into the tour, Kumar came over to me and told me how much he loved meeting people from all over the world. Everyone is so nice he said. Except people that come from your place. They have such big egos - they don't even say thank you. Maybe that was when I should have asked for a refund...
We observed the sprawling green tea plantations where workers from Indonesia came to pick the tea leaves by hand before the factory process. Kumar's brother led the tour group on a muddy hike in the Mossy Forest - showing us medicinal plants and foreign bugs. The Mossy Forest was incredible similar to the woods behind my childhood home in the Pacific Northwest - though my French friend had never seen a fern before so he was very impressed.
During the second half of our tour, we visited the Orang Asli Village where we had tea and yuca root with the Chief of the aboriginal tribe. We chatted with the village children, learned how to play the bamboo nose flute and shoot the blow pipe (an ancient hunting weapon). The Orang Asli Village consisted of about 10 basic bamboo huts built on stilts situated around a muddy river. The village reminded me immediately of my days as a volunteer in rural Bolivia.
My last day in the Cameron Highlands, I bought a bus ticket to Kuala Lumpur, ate Indian food and I hiked one of the trails with my (African born) French friend, Camille. We hiked along the river to Parit Falls but unfortunately there was a great deal of garbage in the water - taking away from the picturesque landscape.
The next morning Camille and I boarded a bus to Kuala Lumpur in hopes of drier weather.
