Mossy Forest and High Tea in Cameron Highlands

We left the tropical, humid jungle climate of Taman Negara National Park in favour of the cool, rainy mountains of the Cameron Highlands, on the west coast of Malaysia.

We travelled west across the country taking rusty local bus after rusty local bus until we reached the town on Tanah Rata, just seven hours and four rickety old buses later. One bus was full of Indian men on their way to work at a hydropower plant, they filled that bus with so many different varieties of body odour that it made my eyes burn.

At 1,400m above sea level, the Cameron Highlands have a climate similar to that of Manchester, and I felt quite at home in the cold rain. We found a great hotel that had a big cosy living room with comfortable couches and a HDMI lead that meant we could plug in our laptop and snuggle down to watch all the films we wanted while the grey world carried on without us.

The town itself is small and uninteresting with one main street and a row of Malay-style Indian restaurants that serve huge portions of bland Indian food.

Fortunately we had one day of good weather during our three day stay and it happened to be the day we went hiking.

Steep climb over exposed tree roots.

We set off with three Dutch guys that were also staying at our hotel: Arnould, Timmy and Tom. The five of us climbed to the top of Gunung Brinchang, 2000m asl. I gave up keeping pace with the four boys and let them go ahead as I scrambled up through the mossy forest, admiring the dense damp vegetation as the clouds swirled in around us. It was a steep 90 minute climb to the top, crawling up over tree roots, scrambling up muddy banks and ducking under fallen logs.

Mossy and misty in the damp forest.

From the top we enjoyed the panorama of the surrounding hills before descending down the other side. After a few kilometres walking down the now paved road, we got our first sighting of the region’s most famous landscape: the rolling hills of tea plantations as far as the eye can see.

At the top.

We walked through the vivid green tea bushes to the BOH Tea Plantation and stopped at the site’s popular restaurant for a spot of English refreshment: tea and scones! A tasty remnant from the days of British imperialism.

Tea plantations.

High tea at the BOH plantation.

Down at the main road we hitched a lift back to Tanah Rata in the back of a flat bed truck. Just as we settled in for the ride, the heavens opened, soaking us all to the skin as we sped around the mountain bends.

If it weren’t for all our damp smelly clothes moulding in the corner of our room unable to dry we might have stayed longer in the Cameron Highlands, it was certainly a nice place. However, after the hot and wet jungle followed by the cold and wet highlands we were in serious need of some sunshine, and so we left for Penang.

How To Get To…

The hike: We took a 10ringit taxi from Tanah Rata to the start of “trail #1”, on the far side of Brinchang. From there the path is signed and is easy to follow, no real need for a map although we did have one, available free from tourist information. 

We Stayed At...

Dew Drop Inn: home away from home, 55ringit (£11) for a double room en suite. 

Taman Negara

Kuala Tahan is a horrible little town. The accommodation is poor and expensive and the five floating restaurants on the bank of the river must surely be competing to see who can produce the most revolting food. It's one redeeming feature is it's location on the edge of Taman Negara National Park: home to the oldest rain forest in the world.

View of Kuala Tahan and the horrible floating restaurants.

While we didn't like the town, which was a shame after such a long journey to reach it, we absolutely loved trekking in the rain forest. Around 40% of flora and fauna in the world can be found in Taman Negara, as well as more than 25% of insect species. The sheer size and density of the plant life was incredible.

This tree is MASSIVE.

We shunned the offer of an [expensive] guided tour and set off alone to explore one of the more accessible treks up to a jungle canopy walkway and down a mountain past some nasty leeches.

The walk along the canopy was not for the faint hearted, it was high, narrow and wobbly. As we shuffled from tree to tree, grasping at the thin ropes, we occasionally got brave enough to look down at the dense undergrowth, or up at the towering emergent trees.

From the canopy we continued up to the top of a small mountain (800m) and then started our descent down the other side. While the way up was a popular tourist path with a man-made walkway, the way down was much more natural and saw us climbing over felled trees, slipping in muddy bogs and being attacked by leeches. 

Descent into the jungle.

Leeches are horrible things that look like very fast, agile slugs. They stick to your legs and suck your blood and are really difficult to remove. Ric found six around his ankles while I only managed four. 

In addition to leeches we saw some fantastic wildlife in the jungle. This tapir was snoozing just a meter away from our path:

Tapir

I've never seen a tapir before, let alone a wild one, so it was a fantastic spot. It looks like a pig crossed with an elephant and coloured like a panda, such a weird looking beast. 

Also a short distance from our path was this poisonous viper which we would have walked straight past had a local guide not pointed it out to us. After seeing him we were much more wary of where we put our feet:

We saw monkeys jumping from tree to tree above us and a monitor lizard run straight across the path in front of us. I thought we would have had to go much further into the jungle to see so much wildlife but we were really lucky.

The trek took about four hours in total and was very easy, even in the intense humidity. 

We Stayed At...
Tahan Guest House: one of the cheapest places in town at 40ringit (£8) and also one of the nicest, set back away from the town in a quiet garden, rooms have balconies and en suite bathrooms. 
How To Get To...
Taman Negara: We travelled from Melaka to Kuala Lumpur (3hrs, 13ringit) and then changed onto a bus heading to Jerantut (4hrs, 18ringit), where we spent the night. The next day we took a local minibus to Tembeling Jetty (20 mins, 5ringit) and from there we took a boat upriver to Kuala Tahan (2.5hrs, 35ringit).