Tea time

After the frenetic and traffic jam-packed streets of Georgetown, Celine and I arrived in the Cameron Highlands for a refreshing retreat. As anywhere else in Asia, the mountains (roughly 2,000 meters) provide an ideal climate for some types of products that cannot be grown in the lowlands due to high temperatures. In the case of the Cameron Highlands, tea is the production of choice. And like rice paddies in northern Vietnam, this agriculture completely shapes the landscape, providing travellers with fantastic scenery.

I realise I did not say this before, but it is currently the monsoon in Malaysia, and monsoon here is stronger than in other countries around. Whilst the west coast is globally OK, with heavy showers in the afternoon, there is no way to visit the eastern part of the country - the touristic islands of Pulau Perhentian are even "closed" (!!!). Anyway, as we are in the centre of the country, Celine and I had to undergo regular showers and mud whilst trekking, but this tends to make the rainforest even nicer.

The surroundings are extremely beautiful, and tea crops really look as if they were sculpted in the mountains. This reminds me of Sapa in Vietnam (remember the rice paddies...) and is somewhat even more enjoyable, as you do not have people around trying to sell you stuff. Celine and I have worked several hours in the jungle yesterday without seeing anybody. The trekking trails are sometimes challenging but very nice too - this is proper rainforest/jungle style, with plenty of photo opportunities and funny jungle noises. And there is nothing like attaining a tea factory after a long walk!

A few words on the tea business in Malaysia. Whilst tea plantations may sound like a local, small and family-run business, they're anything but. The factory we visited is owned by BOH, a dominant brand in this country, that sells the equivalent of an amazing 4.5 million cups of tea per day. It is owned by a dynasty of British origins, and the whole fields are harvested by Malay workers, who live and raise their child in houses and schools provided by BOH (see the "town"in the background of the picture with Celine, reminds the good old times of the French industrial revolution). Needless to say, BOH managers have nothing to learn in terms of marketing or PR: partnerships have been signed with several NGOs to protect Orang-Outangs and elephants, whilst their tea "brings the many different cultures of Malaysia together". Anyway, the visit is great even though their movie projection sounded more like a corporate coms/advertising movie...

Travellers' advice: Most of the trekking trails are very well marked (welcome to Malaysia!), and hence, you can do many things yourself without the assistance of a guide. You can access the trails using 0.20 Euros buses instead of expensive taxis. The city of Tanah Rata is the equivalent of Sapa in Vietnam: small and nice, not much to do but relaxing, and enjoying the surroundings!