Cooling off in the Cameron Highlands

On Unititi Express Bus

The Cameron Highlands offer relief from the heat (average highs of 21C or 69F) of KL and a chance to eat steamboat. We stayed at the Century Pines Resort, pleasant and an easy walk from town. Tracy picked up a brochure that gave the rack rate - we paid far less through Agoda, our go to source for Asian bookings.

Tanah Rata had changed radically over the past 25 years. Along the main street were a Starbucks and a HSBC branch. The restaurant tables were arranged in a row along the street. As far as the eye could see there was an unbroken line of Westerners were sitting at tables. It reminded us of Bali.

Motivated by 25 year old food memories, I insisted that we have lunch at a restaurant that served toasted cheese sandwiches. What I got was a piece of cheese, lettuce, and tomato on toast. It went down as our worse meal of the trip.

Our dinner cooking

That night we took at taxi to Brinchang for steamboat. Guided by our taxi driver (did he get a commission?) we went to a charcoal steamboat restaurant. We were served plates containing prawns, fish balls, tofu, mee, veggies, and eggs and received directions on the order of cooking them. One blog claimed that there was little difference among the restaurants - not entirely true their prices varied. In any case we were satisfied.

Our taxi driver (return trip) was a Malaysian Indian farmer - he complained about the impact of development (there is a lot) on farming and the size of cabbages. We thought of him the next day when we took a jungle hike and saw these cabbages in a small plot.

After the jungle hike we went to Boh Tea Estates. The tea tour consisted of a 5 minute overview of how tea is made. I was curious about the life of the plantation workers. Friends in KL said workers largely consist of "foreign" labor and the children are schooled off the estate

Getting a bus to Penang was a challenge. There are 2 buses - one at 8:00 a.m. (too early) and one at 2:30 p.m. (just right). But the 2:30 bus was being repaired. We finally settled on a bus to Ipoh where we could get a bus to Penang. 

Note the Color Coordination with the Hibiscus