late stories: malaysia part 2: cameron highlands

the cameron highlands are a british-style hill station with gorgeous cool weather, incomprehensibly (un)marked hiking trails, and hilarious intermingling between the trickle of gringo tourists and the thick stream of locals.

ch is billed as a great place to self-hike, but all the malaysian tourists ignore the hills and drive from sight to sight.  it can get sort of trafficky, actually.  unlike us, the malaysian tourists are here only for shopping, eating, and kitschy events.   they cruise around by the bus- and car-load, bouncing from tea plantation to strawberry farm to honey bee farm and back … they tour tea plantations, pick strawberries, buy ridiculous strawberry-themed trash (e.g., pillows, umbrellas, dolls, pencils, earmuffs), sip tea, pretend to get lost in the bee-maze, eat royal jelly, buy tea sachets and tea t-shirts, and eat and eat strawberry ice cream, belgian waffles, chocolate-covered strawberries, strawberry shakes … 

of course we get in on this.

 

but for gringo tourists, since almost all of malaysia’s rugged mountains and forests require a professional guide, ch’s network of mapped, signposted hiking trails to nearby peaks and waterfalls and villages is a welcome change for the diy set.  slight problem: although the trails are beautiful, it’s generally impossible to figure out which one you’re on until (a) you show up where you were trying to go or (b) you end up someplace totally different and puzzle out where you must have been or  (c) you can’t tell whether you’re on a 5k trail or a 30k trail, and you end up turning around.  (c) was pretty frequent … there are all sorts of reasons why it makes sense to avoid allowing your 2-hour pre-breakfast jaunt to morph into an all-day, hoovering-up-the-peanut-crumbs-from-your-pants-pockets extravaganza. 

occasionally, we got lucky, found the right way by accident, and perfect pictures of peaceful hill-station life popped out of the woodwork … like this house, surrounded by fields of a feathery green spice with red flowers …

… or this one, with a household garden and household dog taking his guard-duties very seriously …

… or this little shrine, seeking good fortune  and a strong growing season from the tea-gods … 

sometimes, i really thought we were following a legit trail!  but what initially looked like a trail subtly and gradually changed into another beast entirely, until all of a sudden i’m in the jungle bushwhacking scene from “romancing the stone,” complete with mudslides and blame and eeeks! and emeralds and crocodiles and true love.   see how clean i look here?  this does not last.  

sometimes we spent most of the hike just praying for some signage – which, when we were lucky enough to find it, often looked something like this:   

 is this trail 10 or trail 11?  there’s only one way to find out.   here, there was no real difference … both of these trails lead to mountains of similar orientation,  trail-length, steepness, and sweeping panoramic vistas.  

however you choose to do it, you can’t really go wrong.