Day 273: Being Touristy in Cameron Highlands

The day tour I signed up for around Cameron Highlands was a mix of attractions, some of which were much more appealing than others. Our first real stop was in the Mossy Forest, which is, according to our guide, is part of the oldest rainforest in the world. I somewhat suspect that this claim is one of those vague, unproveable ones that more than one place claim, but I'll at least accept that it's really, really old. We first drove all the way to the top of the hills to visit the highest point in Cameron Highlands. Unfortunately it was above the level of the low-hanging clouds, so all we could really see was mist. While leaving this point I managed to accidently slam a girl's finger in my door. I felt terrible about it, despite it not really being my fault or anything I could have done to prevent it (I was sitting in the front seat, and everybody else was sitting in the back of a van - I still don't really know how her fingers got into the frame of my door). It was a substantial wound with blood and probably a nail torn off, and the first injury I've caused another my entire trip, but she handled it very well and trooped on.

For the Mossy Forest, the group does one of two walks. One is a rugged jungle hike and the other is a walk of the same length, but over a maintained boardwalk through a similar terrain. Obviously I would have preferred the first option, but due to heavy rain in the last week there was a high risk of cobras so our guides opted for the boardwalk. It was still a nice walk, and the forest was one of the most beautiful I've been to.

Our next stop was at one of the major Cameron Highlands Tea Plantations. This one produces BOH Tea, which I'm not familiar with, but maybe is a recognized brand by one of you tea people. It's quite shocking how beautiful a tea plantation really is. You'd think it would just look like a normal field, or an orchard, but when the tea bushes are spread out over the hills and valleys it's quite striking.

The tour included a visit to the tea processing plant, which is a pretty straightforward process. I also learned an awful lot about growing tea, which will probably never be terribly useful information, but I have a special fondness for mostly useless knowledge.

The last two stops were to those sort of manufactured attractions I mentioned earlier. The first one was to a butterfly/insect/reptile/etc garden, which I guess is the Malaysian equivelant of a petting zoo. Despite my skepticism, parts of it were actually quite cool. My favourite part were the camouflage insects, like the stick and leaf bugs and the dead leaf and orchid mantis'. The last stop was a strawberry farm, where we couldn't even go to the farm, and was really just a stop to buy strawberries and strawberry products. Dull.