Cameron Highlands - Beauty with Diversity

Cameron Highlands proved to be a perfect retreat for us - with hills, clouds, countryside, tea estates, jungle treks, butterflies, colorful flowers, waterfalls, mossy forests, honey bee farms, fresh vegetables....a place with beauty and diversity.

On the day we landed, we were greeted by a huge Rangoli at Equatorial Hotel and Indian clad Malaysians, owing to Deepavali. The place pampered us with its facilities, the best of which was a balcony in our room overlooking the beautiful hills of Cameron. Needless to guess, the rooms are equipped with natural air-con, with temperatures going as low as about 5 degrees. Although overpriced, we decided to relish the Diwali-special banana leaf lunch, only to realize much to our surprise that the only vegetarian item in the menu was rice! That's not too bad coz we had MTR - Instant food packets to our rescue.

The day we landed, we just took casual walks around and got ourselves acquainted with the coordinates. We firmed up our plans for the next few days after some online research and talks with the locals there. We were just beginning to soak into the vibrant colors of the place. At 1,600 m above sea level, the clouds were walking with us literally! A sudden sweep of cool air would bring a cloud onto our face and a few rain droplets as well. Below are some pictures of Equatorial and the view from the room and outside. This was only a beginning.....



The next day, we went on a short trip to the farms that Cameron earns its living from - honey bee farms, butterfly gardens, fresh vegetable farms, rose gardens, animal farms. It would be injustice if I didn't mention strawberries, as they steal the whole show. It is shocking to see the heaps of strawberries in any nook and corner of the place! The reason I didn't mention it here is coz it's turn is later, when we visit it. Of course, we also visited the locally famous Boh Tea Estate.

Here are some shots from the farms and the tea estate. Don't forget to answer the questions in the captions of some pics.



After finishing the farm tour, we shamelessly asked the driver of our tour vehicle to drop us at Tana Rata, a small town about 7 KM from Equatorial, which is supposed to have lots of Indian restaurants. After a quick meal, we removed our map of Cameron and marked out the trail to Robinsons water falls.

We set off on the exciting jungle trail - exciting because this was no more a guided activity and also because we were going to enter the jungle! Beautiful thick old foliage with the cool breeze, the slippery muddy floors, the high pitched sounds of insects and sweet chirping of birds, we made our way into the trail. There was absolutely no human inhabitation inside (we were ocassionally joined by a few western backpackers) and we enjoyed the vibrant silence at every step.

It was indeed breathtaking when we caught the first glimpse of the waterfalls. We sat and meditated in front of the falls for a long while before proceeding to enjoy the rest of the trail. Every step in the forest was an experience. We traced back and spent some more time at the waterfalls, before we took the bus back to Equatorial. Enjoy some pictures of this trek into the jungle:



The next morning, after our continental breakfast at the hotel, we decided to explore the summit of the place, called Gunung Brinchang. This is located at 2,032 m above sea level and is the highest point around. We remembered our guide in the bus from Singapore mentioning that there are conducted tours to the summit for about 100 RM per head. They would take us up the steep uphill by vehicles with large horsepower and get us back. We thought, that wouldn't do justice to the scenic view along the hill slope. So we decided to WALK!

So we set out for the 10 km long trek up the ghat of Gunung Brinchang. Crossing many strawberry farms and vegetable forms, we reached the Boh Tea Estates (that we had seen the previous day) after about 2 km. Taking a detour from Boh, we started the steep climb into the misty tea patches. We spoke to the friendly tea workers. One of them offered us her tea basket and scissors for us to take a picture with. The overwhelming sight of the green hills and clouds on all sides made us halt at many places so we didn't compromise on admiring the sheer beauty of the place. On another note, it seemed like we were the only ones walking up the hill that day!

Now, as we continued to climbed up, we went beyond the tea estates. it started to become chill with a spray of fresh water on our faces. For a while, we made our way through lush green dense foliage. And suddenly what a strange change in vegatation! All a sudden, the trees and creepers displayed thick layers of moss on them. This was an indication we were almost at the top. As expected the view from the summit was no different from staring into a white sheet of paper! The dense fog and clouds had painted the whole place white.



We weren't too bothered about the view from the summit as our hearts were filled with the sights en route. We were looking forward to enter the 'Mossy Forest'. When we entered in, it had started to rain and the fog had thickened. But this only added to the wonderful experience of the mossy forest. The only word to descrobe this is 'WOW'. It was like those oil paintings you see in books. The whole area was padded with 5-6 inches of bright and dull green moss giving it an eerie look. Photos below:



Our trek downhill was a breeze, it took us less than quarter the time it did for going up. We stopped at a strawberry farm. Ahaa! Now, we got to pluck our own red, big strawberries. They say that at Cameron you don't need to carry energy bars, a handful of strawberries is a great replacement. Indeed it was!



After a good 7 hour trek we reached the hotel, shopping for more fresh strawberries at the market and taking more pictures of the newly blossomed floral beauties outside the hotel.



The next morning, we had a blissful journey back to Singapore listening to discourses of Swami Nithyananda! All in all, the trip to Cameron was a great meditative experience with nature, with the divine!

Here are some pictures of us in Cameron.