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After the “hot” days in Penang with way more than 34 degrees it was a pleasure to leave for the Highlands: Just a 5 hour bus ride and we found ourselves at about 1500m above sea level in Tanah Rata, in the “center” of the Highlands in Peninsular Malaysia, named after the surveyor William Cameron, who arrived there in 1885. We choose Father’s Guest house as our place to stay and settled down for some Tea.

The Highlands offer an unique climate, being on the one hand in the inner tropical belt, but on the other hand at 1500m (and more) above sea level: So there is all year round a temperature between 20 and 25 at days and around 10 to 15 degrees at night. This is fairly optimal to grow all kinds of vegetables and: Even non-tropical fruits, such as strawberries. But the far most prominent thing, that is produced in the Highlands is Tea. The climate was the reason, why the Highlands were a “hide-out” for the British people in colonial times: And because of this, there a some house in Tudor style left. Together with climate and so on it feels almost like in Great Britain.

About 70 years ago a British guy named J.A. Russell had the brilliant idea of starting a Tea plantation in the Highlands… Visiting a Tea plantation is impressive: It is unbelievable how many greenish colors exist! And the tea… hhhhm… wonderful!

Besides visiting Tea plantations, we did some hiking at the Jungle trails around Tanah Rata. But the highlight was: The sunrise & mossy forest tour. Concerning the sunrise, we were only partially lucky, because of fog blocking most of the view, but the mossy forest was just impressive. This piece of jungle at about 1800m above sea level is a very interesting piece of nature: Trees completely covered with moss, carnivore plants and ultra-soft ground: Because you are walking on about 3m of leaves…

All in all: Cameron Highlands were a decent spot to chill out: Nice jungle hiking, impressive natural wonders and the tea plantations… And the non-tropical temperatures: A pleasure!