Roads of Asia: Cameron Highlands

Here we are, again in one other hill station disseminated in the Asia continent, born thanks to the need of cool air of the English colonialists. It is quite funny to see that wherever the Englishs have established a base, then somewhere close, they have created as well a residential hill station where they could get some fresh air and cool off from the oppressing hot air of the low lands. Clearly I refer to the tropics! Here in Malaysia the most famous is Cameron Highlands. 1500m on the sea level and beautiful mountains and hills and jungle make this place very pleasant indeed. And if an English man is at this heights and in the tropics, what would he do??.. Yes, sure... a tea plantation!!..

The BOH tea plantation, the one we have been walking through and visited, has been created very recently, only in the 1930s. The tea trees (in fact it is a tree which would grow as high as 16m!) cover the gentle hills all around the processing factory and offers some very beautiful and green view. It was quite interesting to visit the factory (which now has a tea degustation bar, a visitor center and a souvenir shop with all the forms and shapes of tea!) and to read about the process and the story of the tea. Did you know?? the tea is the second most drunk beverage after... come on... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... yes!! Water!.. ok, that was easy.. Did you know?? the tea tree needs only 3 years to grow and be ready for harvest???.. Did you know?? that only the top 15cm of the new leaves are harvested and this is done every 3 weeks??.. I could go on, I stop here.

And walking into the plantation, under the rain, we passed by the houses of the workers and then the school (I suppose for the children of the workers) and then a beautiful and colorful Hindu Temple full of statues of 1000 hands deities, which reminded us where the workers were coming from.. India! A vast majority of the people working in the tea plantations, were initially brought in from Tamil Nadul, the south east Indian state. And 5 years ago, in Kumili, Kerala, India, we saw another tea plantation, created by the British, where the harvest is done by hands by the poorest people and takes forever and gives a salary they cannot really live on. Instead, in the Cameron Highlands,it is done mechanically and can produce up to 300 times more than hand-picking. And it is weird that the people working here now have far better lives and chances than their Indian colleagues.

But Cameron Highlands offer more than only tea plantations. There are some really good trek in the jungle, up and down the mountains There is a network of 15 different, interconnected trails, from easy to quite difficult.. clearly, we went for the latter!.. even if the last kilometer was pretty hard and muddy and steeply it was a very enjoyable walk and most of all, a good preparation for Taman Nagara, the remote primary jungle in the center of Malaysia, which is considered the oldest in the world... now we are ready.. Taman Negara, stiamo arrivando!!...