Today I experienced the Cameron Highlands in greater depth, both the wonderful and the not so wonderful. The less appealing aspect is that this is an extremely touristy area, largely catering to Malaysian visitors. The confluence of Chinese New Year and the start of Ramadan meant enormous crowds. We were repeatedly snarled in traffic jams, often coming to a complete standstill. It felt like driving at Thanksgiving.
But let’s start at the beginning.
I woke to the lovely sound of birdsong. The air was fresh and clean, but I was chilled, not from air conditioning, but because the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up overnight. After Kuala Lumpur’s heat and humidity, the cool mountain air felt almost alpine. I had to dig a sweater out from the bottom of my suitcase.
After breakfast, we set out for the largest tea plantation in the area, the Boh plantation. Getting there was part of the experience. After leaving the main road, the road narrows dramatically, mostly a single lane hugging the contours of steep hills. Passing another vehicle required patience and cooperation. The higher we climbed, the more the tropical greenery gave way to sculpted green waves of tea bushes.
BOH is the largest tea producer in Malaysia, operating several estates in the Cameron Highlands and managing thousands of acres of plantation land. The estate I visited stretches across hillsides as far as the eye can travel. It is hard to convey the scale unless you’ve stood there, looking out over what feels like a living tapestry.
The bushes are pruned low, forming flat, waist-high hedges. Only the top leaves, the youngest and most tender, are harvested. In the past, all tea was plucked by hand, and I saw a few workers moving methodically along the rows with baskets strapped to their backs, much as I have seen in other countries. Today, most of the harvesting is done with mechanical shears that allow workers to cut evenly across the tops of the bushes.
Thomas told me that the majority of plantation workers are migrant laborers from Bangladesh, who make up a significant portion of Malaysia’s agricultural workforce. It is demanding work on steep slopes under unpredictable mountain weather, mist one moment, torrential rain or bright sun the next.
I took a brief tour of the “factory,” which appears to be a smaller processing and demonstration facility for visitors. It was so compact that it couldn’t possibly handle the full volume of tea grown on the surrounding hills. I was surprised that the entire process, from freshly picked leaves to final packaging, is mechanized.
If the road to the plantation was busy when we arrived, it was nearly insane when we left. With loads of cars arriving and departing and only a narrow, single lane, it was both a game of chicken and a test of patience. I wondered why they don’t widen the road. I’ll never know.
My first visit in town was to the Butterfly Garden. It contains loads of gorgeous butterflies, many native to Malaysia, though not necessarily all indigenous to the Cameron Highlands. Throughout the garden the foliage was lush, with familiar plants in unfamiliar colors.
But the name “butterfly garden” hardly prepared me for what else I encountered inside. This is less a single themed garden and more a collection of curiosities. Children clustered around a fenced area where alpacas stood patiently. The alpacas’ long lashes and bemused expressions made them irresistible to small kids feeding them blades of grass. Nearby, rabbits nibbled at pellets offered by delighted toddlers. There were guinea pigs, chickens and more.
Long tables and tiered shelves displayed hundreds of varieties of cacti, tiny spherical ones no larger than marbles, tall columns, spirals, starbursts, and shapes that looked sculpted rather than grown. They seemed almost surreal; a desert collection perched in the misty mountains.
Behind glass, a Malayan pit viper rested in a tight coil, perfectly camouflaged on a branch. There were beetles the size of small toys and stick insects so convincingly disguised they appeared to be twigs. The Butterfly Garden is eclectic, slightly eccentric, and entirely memorable.
The final stop was at what can only be described as a massive tourist market, the Cameron Highlands Agro Market. The place was jammed with families, tour buses, selfie sticks, and everyone munching on something. I got out of the car while Thomas went to park. The area was so crowded I’d walked through a good portion of the market before he met up with me.
Because this is one of Malaysia’s primary strawberry growing regions, strawberries appeared in every conceivable form. Fresh berries, both red and white, were stacked in almost every stall. Others were freeze-dried into crunchy snacks. There was strawberry ice cream, strawberry milk, strawberry jam, strawberry mochi, strawberries dipped in chocolate, strawberries glazed in sugar and skewered like shish kebabs. If it could be infused, dusted, wrapped, or flavored with strawberry, it was.
Beyond the fruit were vegetables from the surrounding farms, some familiar, some new to me. There was lots of cooked food to snack on, including roasted sweet potatoes, smoky from metal drums turned into makeshift ovens. Nearby, skewers of grilled corn were brushed with butter and sprinkled with salt or chili powder. There were trays of fried mushrooms, cups of freshly cut fruit, and lots of ice cream vendors.
It was impossible to walk through without sampling something. I had tempura battered watercress, strawberry ice cream dotted with chunks of fresh strawberries, and I bought a container of strawberries to eat later.
And there were more alpacas. I still do not understand the connection, but they stood patiently in small enclosures, children lining up to feed them as though this were somehow the most natural pairing in a Malaysian mountain market.
It was crowded, chaotic, and oddly entertaining, a sharp contrast to the serene tea plantation earlier in the day.
Back at the hotel, I was happy to escape the density of the crowds. I sat on the terrace, read a book, munched on sweet strawberries, and enjoyed the view.