A Day in the Cameron Highlands…Part 2.

One of the many tea estates in the highlands...

Hibiscus reminds me of home... These are for you Mom...

One of many varieties that grow in abundance in these highlands...

The Cameron Highlands were named after William Cameron, a British surveyor who “discovered” them in 1885 during a mapping expedition…

The term “discovered” when used to describe natural things such as mountains and rivers, always cracks me up… Were the highlands not there the day before…?

Did old man Cameron walk out of his tent early one Thursday morning and exclaim to anybody who was listening,

“Oh my God…!! Look people…!! A range of mountains has sprung up overnight…!! And seeing that I am the VERY FIRST PERSON TO SEE THEM” I think we’ll call them….”

Bloody things had been there forever of course, and had probably been named long before the Cameron Clan set foot on this earth…!!

Pretty in Pink....

Passionate Red too...

Thirty five years later, after the old paths up into these mountains had been cleared and widened, development of what would be a very popular “Hill Station”, commenced…

British settlers would spend the hotter months of the year kicking back at these hill stations, enjoying the cooler temperatures associated with the higher elevations…

The fertile soil led to the planting of fruit and vegetables, and in 1929, tea… Today, many of these farms are still producing fresh produce for both the local area and markets in Kuala Lumpur alike…

There are also many flower farms, and with much vegetation around, naturally bee-keepers are not in short supply either…!! On the winding roads draped over the hills, honey is sold in large glass jars and smaller bottles, from little stalls usually tucked into lay-bys…

Yet another colour variation...

Blooms are (understandably) closely guarded by a beady-eyed guide...

Our Landy took us back into Brinchang, where we stopped at one of the many strawberry farms that line the route… The vast majority of fruit and vegetables up here are grown using drip-feed irrigation methods – hydroponic – and a very intricate system of pipes and valves were being  used to nourish the strawberries at the place we visited…

The plants were suspended in long trays from the rafters of a series of greenhouses. Their roots wrapped in what looked like coconut fibres…

Phil and I spent some trying to get at the ripened fruit through the chain link fence that was put there for people such as us, but despite my long arms, we came up empty-handed every time… Miffed at our lack of success, we trudged down to the farm-stall, and prepared to dole out money for the pleasure of tasting some strawberries, just like all the other tourists were doing… Quite distressing when you consider that we were surrounded by so many of the darn things…!!

We stand firmly being the principle that stolen fruit is far sweeter, you see…

Phil and I opted to go BIG....!!

At the stall, we couldn’t decide whether to go with the strawberry shake, or strawberries and ice cream… We solved this little dilemma by settling for both…!! The shy, young Malay girl serving us was surprised when we asked her to pose with her creations, but played along with smile…

While Chenty did her best British act, and settled for Tea and Scones...!!

Apparently not included in the price of the tour... We decided to put up with this little con...

Suitably sweetened and sated, we traveled a short distance down the road towards Tanah Rata and stopped at an “Insect Farm and Butterfly Sanctuary”…

The Three-Horned Rhinoceros beetle was longer than my hand...!!

We were surprised to discover that we had to pay to get in, because earlier that morning we had paid for the tour which included the visit to this display…!! Entrance fee was minimal, but Trevor and I did raise an objection…!! Just for the record…!!

First up were half a dozen glass tanks that housed a few of the species of snake found in these parts, including a few young King Cobras… The tanks were not labeled for the most part and left one guessing as to the names of their contents… I thought back to my youth, when I had a large collection of snakes and spent all my free time out in the bush collecting them…

This was by far the most common butterfly in the collection...

Handling all sorts of venomous snakes then had been like second nature to me, and I stood wondering if I still had the “touch”… I had received a number of “good bites” over the years, but had come  through that particular phase of my life remarkably unscathed, considering some of the reptiles I had “scrapped” with…!!

While I was hunched over studying an emerald green Tree Viper, our guide came over with an enormous Rhinoceros beetle on the end of a short piece of bamboo… It was one of the largest beetles I had ever set eyes on, and was being handled very gingerly by the nervous looking guide…

This one had translucent wings...

We were ushered through a gated doorway and into the shade-clothed area where hundreds of butterflies fluttered gaily about, except for the hundreds who lay either dead or dying on the concrete walkways…

Many of them like this beauty were fading fast...

Ever try and photograph butterflies…? Buggers hardly ever stop moving, flying about as if they were on steroids…!! Most of the ones I did manage to get decent pictures of were those that were well on their way to Butterfly Heaven…!!

There were probably no more than a dozen species in the collection, and one very large and beautiful specimen with long swallowtail wingtips had me dashing about dementedly trying to photograph it… All in vain…!!

In smaller cages scattered throughout the aviary, were some insects that had us slack-jawed…

The amazing camouflage of this Mantis had me shaking my head in disbelief...

Here's another with the perfect disguise...

There was the praying mantis that looked so much like a dried and dead leaf that I had to blink and look again to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me… It was far easier to see when the guide held it in the palm of his hand…

In the next cage, a leafy shrub stood in its centre… On the very top was an outlandish insect that identified itself as yet another type pf Mantis only when it moved…!! Our guide then asked us to look carefully at the shrub and tell him how many of these mantids we could see…

After a minute, Phil said “Six…!!” I thought there might have been one or two more but wasn’t sure as Phil and I had counted them together…

“There are twelve such mantids in this display, sir… Let me show you…!!”

And so there were… What an amazing thing nature is…!!

In another bigger cage stood a dried branch… From a distance, the cage seemed empty of any insect or animal, until we got up close to it… One of the branches came alive and moved an inch forward…!! We were looking at one of the longest and largest stick insects in the world…!!

It’s body was as thick as my thumb and all of a foot long… There are over 3 000 species of stick insect (I Googled it…!!) and many of the largest are found right here in South East Asia, especially on the island of Borneo in Malaysia’s Sabah region…

The largest Stick Insect I was ever likely to set eyes on....

When I tried to pull one off the branch it was on (as inquisitive boys sometimes want to do…) I was surprised at the strength it held on with… Then it released it’s two back legs and brought them clicking loudly together millimetres from my wrist… The legs were lined with sharp rose thorn-like ridges and I am sure would have broken skin had they made contact…

The Man's Face Beetle display... Can't think how they got the name...!!

We walked on, to a tiny museum where displays of other insects were attached to the walls… Although it was very basic, there were a few interesting things to peek at… Back in the aviary and on our way out stood a large concrete pit filled with scorpions, almost all of them venomous…

You know the ones… Small claws, thick tail…!! As apposed to the non-venomous varieties that have stronger pincers and a thin tail…?? No…?? Ah well, you live and learn, huh…!! Tell your kids you heard from Uncle Ron…!! Ha-ha…!!

Look Ma...!! They made a sticker especially for me....!!

Our short tour of the Highlands had come to an end… There were places I would have liked to see again, spend more time in, but such is the nature of the guided tour…

You are not as in control as you would be on your bike…

Chenty and Trev convince me to get a pair of reading glasses...

Back at our hotel, Trev and Chenty made plans to leave for Kuala Lumpur the next day and Phil went to buy a bus ticket to meet them there…

Trev and I met a young guy who was a biker himself and arranged for us to meet with the BMW Club of Kuala Lumpur… This chance meeting would lead to many other things, but more about that in the K.L. blog later…

We strolled through town, looking for a place to have a decent dinner and settled on a small outdoor / pavement restaurant which served good food and whose service was pretty sharp to boot…!! I had trouble reading the menu (it was the poor lighting, see….!!) and on the way back to the hotel, Chenty, always the concerned foster-mom, had me trying on reading glasses…

I finally selected and bought a pair…. But only to please her, you understand…!!

After breakfast the next day, my friends departed on the three hour run to K.L. Phil’s bus had left at Dawn’s crack, and they were hoping to reach the capital at the same time… As it turned out, their timing was perfect and they arrived at their hotel barely minutes apart…

I planned to stay an extra day in  to do some work on the blog, and smell more of Tanah Rata’s roses… I took a long walk, got some laundry done and wrote a post or two… I enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the highlands and the roads through the mountains are amazing…

Similar to Sabie and Graskop in the eastern part of South Africa, where bikers also let it all hang out on weekends…

Yan apparently has not made many friends in Tanah Rata...

I will carry fond memories of this place, and would recommend you take the time to visit it should you ever find yourself in Malaysia, and especially if you’re on a big, bad bike…!!

©GBWT 2011