A Very English Interlude

We were finally ready to see Malaysia outside of Kuala Lumpur. Catching the train from KL Central, we had a very comfortable ride up to a town called Ipoh. Everything we had witnessed so far in Malaysia had been on par with Western society. Facilities were modern and clean. Almost everyone spoke a little English. Perhaps we had gotten spoiled, because when we stepped off the train in Ipoh, we stepped into a different world. Something very much bordering on third world.

Our final destination was the Cameron Highlands, a tea-growing region, with hills green and lush. To get there we had to board a bus in Ipoh (and Ipoh is anything but green and lush). The bus station was dusty and dirty. It wasn't even a bus station as such, rather just some booths set up. We were the only Westerners, and no one was looking at us in a friendly way. Men slept on benches and women fanned flies away. Food vendors sold bulk items, scooping bagfulls of dried goodies out out with their bare hands. If there was a stomach bug to catch on our journey, it very well might have been here. But Chris and I avoided food and stuck to bottled water. I dared a trip to the bathroom, and found the expected hole in the ground with the usual bucket of water. It was obvious that Ipoh bus station was not set up for foreigners. But then again, why should it be? Most tourists go through travel agencies to get from one point to another in Asia. We had decided to do it on our own, so now we were traveling like the locals. As soon as I got used to the guys on the bench next to me, realizing they weren't there to steal my bag, I got more comfortable with the situation.

Our bus was a bit rickety and smelly, but not bad considering. There was one other Westerner on the bus with us, a young blonde girl, and her presence was somewhat comforting, as it implied that indeed we were heading to a tourist-orientated area.

As a side note, I have to point out that I was quite impressed with how many young girls we ran into who were traveling solo. It didn't matter if we were in Europe or Asia—we ran into these independent travelers.  I get a tinge of jealousy when I see them. I didn't have that kind of courage back when I was in my prime. I did do a fair bit of traveling when I was younger, but either I traveled with my sister or with a group. I guess I held the belief that the world was a scary place, a place where men were just looking to take advantage of a young girl. Even if I had displayed the courage, I can assure you that few in my circle would have supported such foolishness.  I missed out on that courage, and I still lack the courage to travel alone, even inside the U.S. The only trips I ever completed on my own were a trip out to California, and a drive around Wisconsin. Both times I fared just fine. But I was lonely. You see, I have a morbid fear of eating in a restaurant by myself, or of looking like a lost idiot with a map. I guess my fears have lessened over time. Anyway, bravo to those people who travel the world on their own. I wish I had their courage, or more like, I wish I had had their courage when I was younger. (End of side note).

The roads leading to the Cameron Highlands were brutal. Motion sickness threatened making an appearance with every sharp curve the bus took. We'd lean to right, then left, then right—there was hardly a break. I usually enjoy bus journeys for effortless sleep I can usually fall into. But there was no sleep on this leg. It took full body effort just to keep upright.

Bright lights appeared as we approached civilization.  Booths were set up alongside the road and people were out in masses. It was the night market in Brinchang. The blonde girl got off but we stayed put; Tanah Rata was our destination. A few miles down the road we came to a bright strip of restaurants and shops. The roadside wasn't as lively as the one in Brinchang, but it was civilization nonetheless. We stepped off the bus, and it was one of the rare times we were happy to be greeted by a hawker. This one was hawking accommodation, and we were grateful for any recommendation. The guy took us from one place to another, finding each place full. Finally we came to a guesthouse that we had seen recommended in Lonely Planet, The Twin Pines. It was a perfect fit for us; not only the price, but the atmostphere. It had a nice terrace to sit out on, and good cheap breakfasts. It was set back a bit from the main road, but not too far. The only drawback was the durien stand we had to walk past to get to town (duriens are the most foul-smelling of all fruits) and the bathrooms.

Here's another side note: bathrooms. I'm not going to whine about squat toilets or weak plumbing or any of that (that'll probably come at another time). This gripe of mine has to do with the moistness of Asian toilets. To get this clear—most Asians don't use toilet paper. Most of them use water to wash their bums, usually with a sprayer or a hose. This may actually be a better method, it's really not for me to judge. What I don't understand is why they have to spray the entire bathroom like it's a carwash. I've done the water-bum method before and I usually manage to spray just the general area I'm aiming for. This doesn't mean water dripping from the rafters. Squashing down on a wet toilet seat is no fun. Twin Pines was worse than most places, for each stall was equipped with a shower. Everything was wet and generally unpleasant. The Cameron Highlands, as one can probably tell from the name, is a region cooler than the rest of Malaysia, being located in the hills. The climate is rainy, just like in Britain. This means that nothing ever dries, and my discomfort grew with every trip to the loo. I griped to Chris about this, but he doesn't understand the bathroom thing. He must have peed in bedpans when he was a kid. I think Britain was still using those in the 70's.

Fancy a Cuppa?

The cafes in Tanah Rata advertized afternoon tea. One of the places we ate at was named Hill Station. It very much felt as if we were in colonial India. There was even an availablity of Indian food. Tea, scones, strawberry jam, curry, naan... it was that mix of Indian and British that felt slightly odd set in the hills of Malaysia. But we loved it. Especially Chris. Perhaps he was pining for the green rolling hills of England. Or maybe the cool climate was a sweet relief after hot fume-filled streets of Kuala Lumpur.

We signed up for a tour. Mainly we wanted to visit to a tea plantation. We had tried to find one ourselves one morning, following the main road north out of Tanah Rata. With lorries rumbling past and snakes in the grass along the shoulder, it seemed silly to carry on.  We found it easier just to book a tour with an agency. This proved to be rewarding, as exploring the region on our own would be nearly impossible without our own transport.  It seemed a good deal, especially since we got our own guide. Well, that was only because the couple that was supposed to come along with us had food poisoning. Too bad for them, but good for us. We had Gavin all to ourselves.

Driving out of Tanah Rata and back towards Brinchang, we turned off onto a side road. A narrow, bumpy road led up upward into the hills. It as a fun ride, bumping along, leaning forward to understand Gavin as he did his whole guide thing. The road was incredibly narrow, but this didn't stop the flow of traffic. When an uncoming car approached, it was always up for speculation who should give way. A lot of horn tooting. All this was very amusing, but the locals seem to have this system down. Gavin explained how they have their own car language, by the way they sound their horn. Brits may flash their lights, Americans may use hand gestures, but Malays use their horns to communicate, and it's not considered rude.

It's to be noted that the Cameron Highlands are the bread basket of Malaysia. Not only tea is grown in the region, but for just about every kind of fruit and vegetable you can imagine. Unemployment is low. The locals seem to enjoy their lot in life; we saw a lot of them alongside the road. Gavin said that they were decendants of those workers that came before them. They lived in this region, accepting their role in the farming industry. It was good to see the abundance in the area, but still upsetting to witness the huge divide between the rich and the poor. There was still a class system in place, probably thanks to the British.

Gavin brought us to Boh Plantation. First he stopped and let us wander out into the hills. We were up high, and we could see the hills as rolled on and on and on. Gavin told us all that we could see belonged to a Scottish family by the name of Russell who founded the plantation. It was hard to imagine that all this land was all owned by one single family (still owned today by one of the decendants), but I suppose this is the nature of colonization. Westerners came and grabbed up what they could wherever they could get it. Meanwhile the locals were hired for backbreaking work. They had to gather so many kilos of tea leaves in a day to make a meagre living, slaving from sun up to sun down, six or seven days a week. Russell housed them on his plantation, in tiny shacks. It reminded me Boone Plantation, or any of the other cotton plantations in the American south, where you can find old slave quarters. On Boh Plantation, the workers still live in these shacks. Fortunately though, technology has played a hand in lessening their work over the years. Now machines are used to pick the tiny leaves. The locals are still hired to manufacture the tea, and we saw them at work in the tea factory.

The smell of the plantation was incredible. I go gaga over loose leaf tea, just by sticking my nose into a canister of the stuff. In the factory, we watched the workers grind up the leaves and package them into bags. These bags were huge, several kilos or so, ready to be shipped to London or other cities. I would have given anything to bury my nose in one of those bags. Tea (especially good tea) is heaven on earth. No wonder the Brits are practically religious about it.

We were left to ourselves for a half hour or so. I had never heard of Boh tea before, which was hard to believe considering we were surrounded by endless acres of the stuff. Chris and I sat down at the cafe near the factory and ordered ourselves a cup of Boh tea and a strawberry tart. It was perfect. Fresh tea—it couldn't get any better. Sitting out on the terrace overlooking the hills, it was one of the more pleasant experiences of my life. I felt just a tinge of pride in my British heritage. Plus it brought back my love of all things English. Nothing beats a good cup of tea. It really does make everything right in the world.

Pandora

After the tea plantation, Gavin continued to drive us futher up into the hills. We came to a tower, the Viewpoint, which looked out over the whole area. Chris and I climbed the tower, but unfortunately a fog had washed over the far hills so we couldn't see much. Gavin then took us for a little hike. He kept saying the name of where we were but it wasn't registering. Something Forest. As we crept into the foilage it finally dawned on me what he was actually saying. The Mossy Forest. We were in the Mossy Forest. It's a funny name, it being the official name, but nobody can say it isn't fitting.

It was a weird hike, so I thought at first. Gavin was encouraging us to touch the moss and make the most out of it. I coudln't understand the appeal of moss. What was so great about it anyway? In the American south, Spanish moss is everywhere, dripping off giant oak treees and killing them. Moss was dripping everywhere as well in this forest. It looked like it had overtaken everything. Gavin touched the moss as if it were a precious resource. “Anticeptic” he told us. “Very good for wounds.” He then pointed out various flowers in the trees and told us their health benefits. I was beginning to realize that Gavin was showing us around a living forest, an ecosystem not much different than a rainforest.

Gavin explained the difference between rainforests and jungles and forests. It mainly had to do with the canopy and how much light was allowed into the undergrowth. Malaysia has all three types of ecosystems. We were in a forest. Down below, near Brinchang, was a rainforest. The Mossy Forest was highly unique. Gavin explained why. First of all, the Mossy Forest is about 200 million years old. It's an incredibly ancient ecosystem, unchanged through the millenia. This area of the globe stayed temperate during global unheavals, unaffected by volcanic activity and temperature shifts. The forests of Malaysia are among the oldest in the world.

I was impressed already, thinking about being surrounded by this primeval forest. What kind of creatures lived here once upon a time? To add to my imagination, Gavin told us to feel the spongy ground. What we thought was ground wasn't actually ground. Below us were trees. The trees had built ontop of one another, canopy growing up out of canopy. The ground, wherever it was, was far far below. We were walking ontop of an ancient forest. We could look at the way the trees were growing, these dripping green things, and understand that the forest was still extending upwards. In another thousand years or so, all we saw would be buried under a newer forest. The forest seemed alive around us, one huge ecosystem extending through the ages. Gavin told us that James Cameron had used the Mossy Forest as his inspiration for Pandora in Avatar (though I looked this up as well and I couldn't find any confirmation of this). Regardless, the Mossy Forest has that otherworldly feel to it. The trees are strangely alive, and you can almost feel their healing effect when you touch them. The Mossy Forest is a great place for the imagination, and I could tell that Gavin really had a fondness for it. He tried to impart its magic to us, and we caught on to it, winding around the trees as we continued on our hike. It was the best part of the tour for me. But then again, I've always been somewhat of a tree-hugger.

Butterflies, Strawberries and Corneal Ulcers

The tour continued and we headed back towards Brinchang. Unfortunately we left the magic of the plantations and the forest behind. We entered society once again, in the form of bus fumes and tourist-orientated activities. Gavin dropped us off at a Butterfly Farm. This was okay, afterall I'm sort of a fan of butterflies. But it was so hot, and incredibly bright. It's to be noted that I had suffered through most of the day. Still fresh out of the Eye Hospital, my eye felt very sensitive and vulnerable. Light, any kind of light, was agonizing. I squinted through most of the day, other than in the Mossy Forest where I had found relief. Wearing my sunglasses ontop of my regular glasses, it was all I could do to try to keep the light out. But it wasn't enough. I squinted, and my eye watered, and I had to apply drops every hour, alternating between two kinds of drops (plus a third one to relax my eye muscles). It wasn't pleasant. I enjoyed being out, but at the same time I wanted to crawl into a dark room and just rest my eyes. I felt that a lot of money was going to be wasted on our travels if I couldn't actually see anything.

After the Butterfly Farm came the Strawberry Farm. This sounded delicious, and I was so ready to go strawberry picking. It reminded me of trips out with my mom and sister when I was kid, and of the taste of freshly picked strawberries. I was an eager tourist, so I handed the money over without thinking, though Chris was somewhere in the background frowning, but hey, you only live once, right? The farm was immense. I was ready to start picking, spotting some juicy numbers dangling nearby. But no, there was always some guy there telling us not to pick there and pointing us in some other direction. After this happened a few times, some guy stepped in and guided us to a place we were allowed to pick from. There were shelves of potted plants, so we didn't have to bend over or anything. The pots were filled with husked coconut shells, a better method than regular soil, or so we were told. The flavour of the strawberries was supposed to be like no other. But we didn't know—we weren't allowed to taste. We spied strawberries, but the guy hanging around would either tell us yes or no (mostly no). A lot of times he pointed out strawberries he saw fit for us to pick, thus taking the fun out of the experience for us. He was a funny guy so he was okay, but it wasn't like we were actually picking strawberries for ourselves, rather we were being directed. This went rather quick and we were out of there in about ten minutes. We had payed £6 for a container of strawberries. It was dawning on me how expensive this actually was, expecially considering most of our meals had been about £2 each. Chris had found a container of strawberries just outside in the shop that were a quarter of the price. We had paid for the fun of picking our own strawberries, but that had been somewhat of a joke. Oh well. Live and learn. Finally we were allowed to taste our strawberries, and yes they were good. But I still think British strawberries are the best in the world. Ain't no comparison.

After the strawberries we were taken to a Buddhist temple in the hills. This was a Chinese temple. It was okay, but not much to write home about. Lots of little golden Buddhas and lots of joss sticks. I still hadn't connected with Buddhism.

We returned from our tour rather worn out. Armed wtih strawberries, I retreated to our damp dark hotel room and planned to stay there for the rest of the day.

The Mossy Forest and all that had been great. I even enjoyed the backwater feel of Tanah Rata and its cute British-inspired cafes. But I was entering a dark period. It could very much have been due to the fact I was reading George Orwell's 1984 which, let's face it, is a real downer. Imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever. Geez what a thought. I felt a boot of my own, limiting me in every activity. I really thought this trip might be over. I was due to see the doctor again in a few days. There was still the fear hanging over me that the infection might get worse. I tested my eye out every day to see if there was any improvement. It was hard to tell. The pain might have disapated, but the discomfort was very much there. Venturing out of a dark room into sunlight was as unpleasant to me as it would be to a vampire. I’d hold my arms out and scrunch my face in horror. Yes, this was far from ideal. How would I carry on traveling like this? Chris and I continually talked about it, and like 1984, it was a real downer. Was it worth spending all this money if I had to keep my eyes down all the time? Or stay in hotel rooms in the dark? It wasn't looking good, though we decided to keep plugging along. The future was undecided. We'd have to see how my doctor's appointment went. But first we had a few days in Taman Negara, and my 35th birthday to celebrate.