I had dreams I was stuck in the bowels of a ship as it bounced unpredictably through huge ocean waves. I think I took gravol for that trip, so maybe I did learn my lesson from the Cameron Highlands bus trip.
Cameron Highlands was named after Sir William Cameron, a British surveyor who discovered the plateau nestled between mountains in 1885 and deemed it suitable for a British style hill station - an area for a sanatorium, health resort and open farmland. Basically, a place for the rich to come and escape the heat of the lowland areas. The whole area is actually bigger than Singapore, with average temperatures of around 18 degrees - it seldom rises above 25 at night and it rarely drops below 9.
As Canadians, we are right at home here. In fact last fall I proposed three options to the girls for a six day, vacation from the vacation. First, a beach vacation in Langkawi (a developed island we would have to fly to that's west of peninsular Malysia), second, a beach vacation on a remote set of islands called the Tioman islands off the east coast, or option number 3. I give the girls credit - they chose the cooler temperatures and opportunity to do some hiking in the Cameron Highlands - so here we are.
Waking up in the morning and looking at the view out our room window, I'm glad the girls made that decision.
The previous night we'd arranged a taxi driver. They will take you around some of the sights at a minimum billing of 3 hours, but it was only $10/hr so getting around would be quite cheap. We met our driver, Selvam, a fifty-five year old Indian at 10:00am in the lobby. The population is mostly Indian in the Highlands, as they were transplanted by the Raj so many years ago, and most of the Indians are Hindu who speak Tamil as they were from the Madras/Channai region of India.
Selvam was full of that characteristic "Indian-ness" - nice, outgoing, funny and quite a character. His ride was a forty year old car with over a million kilometres on it. Selvam was born on a tea plantation to first generation Tamil parents. As he drove he would alternate between giving us the lay of the land (from his perspective :-)), greeting other passing taxis with a wave and an Indian head nod, and taking calls where he would try his best to questionable success in trying to speak to another English as a second language caller on the other end. It was quite comical.
Our first stop was one of the three Boh Tea Plantations. I had fond memories of the unique and kind of unexpected beauty of the tea plantations from last time, and I was looking forward to showing the girls.
We were not disappointed. I could hear the gasps in the back as we rounded the corner and came uponthe view below. As Abby said, you kind of expect the tea to be grown on flat land - to see the shimmering green hills stretching into the distance with white flecks of sunlight illuminating the odd patch of tea... It is really breathtaking.
Selvam got out of the car with us and proceeded to tell us all about the collection of tea. While it used to be Indian labourers toiling away up and down the steep hills with hands and buckets as tools, things have changed. The younger generation no longer wants to work the land, so the plantation started using more automated tools. Now, it's immigrants from Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Indonesia that use a cutting and vacuum tool to more quickly cut the young leaves from the 85 year old tea trees. I smiled as I listened - the irony was that Selvam himself was proof of this upward mobility of labour - he was born on the plantation, yet he was a taxi driver, his wife worked at a restaurant (we dropped by to pick up his breakfast earlier, she's quite lovely) and his three kids? A teacher, an engineer and a worker on a ship.
Oh yes, I said 85 year old trees. Left unpruned, the tea trees look like any other tree. The plantation prunes the tea trees down every 4 years so they stay at the optimal height. The leaves are harvested from the trees every three weeks, all year round - quite the business. They make 4 million tons of tea here every year, but it basically just keeps up with domestic demand - the population drinks 5 million cups of tea a day in Malaysia.
We drove up to the factory and welcome centre. We had a very quick tour to see the tea making process - which is surprisingly simple and fast.
Step 1 - Withering - They spread the green leaves out on perforated beds and blow air with powerful fans to reduce the moisture content by 40 to 50%. This also stimulates a natural chemical reaction which is vital for product quality. This is an overnight process.
Step 2 - Rolling (don't get too excited here Probir) - The leaves are placed in a rolling machine that's used to twist and break the withered leaves, distorting and rupturing its internal cells. This process liberates and exposes the leaf's juices for fermentation and takes just 20 minutes.
Step 3 - Fermentation - Otherwise known as oxidation, this process exposes the enzymes in the leaves to oxygen. This process only takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours, during which the characteristic flavour and aroma are developed and the leaves turn from green to a coppery colour. This is the most important process to be monitored to maintain quality and flavour.
Step 4 - Drying - The fermented leaves are fed into machines through which 100 degree Celsius air is passed through. This stops the fermentation process and brings the moisture level down to less than 3% and crystallizes the juices, converting the leaves into their familiar crisp black form. The drying process only takes about 20 minutes.
Step 5 - Sorting - After drying, the tea is graded according to particle size by passing it through a series of vibrating sieves. Stalks and fibres are removed. This is the way they choose which tea goes to what product line - each grade of tea has its own density and flavour characteristics. At this point, the tea is packed in bulk and shipped to KL to be packaged for retail distribution.
All of this knowledge was getting us thirsty, but we made sure to stop and get another cheesy cutout shot...
We sat down to some tea, cake and cookies. Selvam was there with his cronies, chatting away. I think if he started charging by the word, he'd do much better! The tea was awesome (Alex... Fresh grown and processed pulled Teh Terik.... Ohhhh.....). We got back in the old-mobile and made our way out the meandering plantation road. Our next stop was a "must-do" stop at the butterfly farm. It was actually pretty fun, but not because of the butterflies.
The place was full of Rajah Brooke Birdwings - the massive, quite lazy national butterfly of Malaysia. Before I knew it, Selvam was placing them on my hand - "you see sir, they are quite lazy!".
Selvam found a buddy who at his request reached in and grabbed a whip snake to put around my neck. Then Robin gave it a try too....
Selvam's buddy then brought out a Rhinocerous Beetle - huge and very prehistoric looking.
I turned around and buddy slapped a millipede on my wrist like a set of handcuffs. It was surprisingly "dry" and not as creepy as it looks.
I'm not sure why I became the guinea pig, but somebody put this huge green monster on my shirt. It didn't do much.... It was fine...just fine. No problem....
Luckily the scorpions stayed in the cage.... They are really creeping looking.
At this point, we were ready to leave when Beth shouted "watch the snake Abby!" - Abby and Robin screamed, turned and jumped to avoid the green monster laying in wait on the pathway.... Ok it was a long leaf. Beth pulled off the biggest prank of her life and was quite happy with herself. The kids hearts were beating out of their chests and they were half annoyed / half impressed with this unexpected stunt! Well done Beth.... Though I wonder if this will trigger reciprocation.....
Strawberry farms are apparently a big thing here (including pick your own strawberries.... However, after suffering through very traumatic pick your own fruit experiences as a child, there was no way in hell I was picking any strawberries.... Ok that sounded harsh, but I was really scarred!), and Selvam took us to the most Indian popular strawberry farm in the area. We weren't expecting much, but it was pretty funny that after we saw the "fields" (in a greenhouse with three or four lonely strawberries hanging off the vines) we came back to the retail shop to find Selvam working the counter! "Yes sir, you want strawberries, juice, milkshake, strawberry ice cream float, strawberries and cream? Ma'am? My friend gives me free juice for helping out."
The guy is a good salesman.....
What a morning. We got dropped off in town at 1:30pm, promising that we would see our little Indian friend again - he really made our morning. Next up? Kumar made our afternoon, serving another set of delicious meals....this time we tried the Thandoori chicken.... Yum. I know it seems weird to repeat at a restaurent after having dinner there just last night, but we have nothing to prove... Our goal is to find a good place to eat, then eat, sleep, repeat!
The girls had a very productive afternoon - two hours of math homework then a spa! They earned some iPad time, so after dinner we migrated to Starbucks for some online time. A great day.
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