Part Two: Sir Cameron’s Lands On High

Travel in Malaysia feels like it simply shouldn’t work. One asks for directions. One is pointed in the direction of a bus terminal. One gets to the bus terminal, one is immediately scouted out upon alighting from the taxi: “WHERE YOU GOING? WHERE YOU GOING? 35 RINGGITS 35 RINGGITS. I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING YET, BUT THAT’S HOW MUCH MONEY YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE ME.” And in a whirlwind of motion one finds oneself on a bus somehow or another going to the desired destination. This very bus, no doubt, has chauffeured hundreds of other bewildered tourists and befuddled backpackers enduring the same ordeal. In fact, if one is attuned enough to their environment, one can see tangible hours of past panic, fatigue, confusion, profanity, skepticism and general curiosity as to where those 35 ringgits went, living like mildew clinging to the walls. The whole process feels so rushed, crazed, shaky and mildly illegal, that one wonders if the bus is really going where it claims to and not simply collecting money and dropping off its unsuspecting passengers in a hidden black hole where Malaysia keeps all its idiotic tourists who are dumb enough to give money to the first person they met who asked for it.

Eight seems to be the magic travel number in Malaysia. Whether traveling from Kuala Lumpur to the Cameron Highlands, or from one side of Kuala Lumpur to the other, or walking down the block attempting to find ones hotel, it always seems to take eight hours.

The Cameron Highlands are aptly named. The bus winds up and up a seemingly endless tortuous mountainous path. We do not go ten feet without turning a sharp corner causing my centripetal balance to wonder if such a thing as a ‘center’ ever really existed. The trees get thicker and more voluptuous as we ascend. We pass an accident on the way up – a silver car with its door battered off and flipped inside out waits at the side of the road, the driver’s bloody head looks remarkably happy despite its ruined car. Our bus driver honks, presumably a honk to ensure the driver’s well being and not to urge the poor, bloody, bedraggled man out of the way. Upon reaching optimum altitude, high enough in the highlands, the bus finally drops us off at the bus station. The air is crisp, cool and spring-like with a hint of tea lingering around. However, we have only a minute to enjoy it as we are once again pounced upon by over eager locals entirely too gung-ho in selling their tour packages.

A man grabs me upon leaving the vehicle. A mixture of A) the need to embrace tourism, as I am, after all, a tourist and B) wanting to escape his used-car-salesman-like clutches, takes over and I succumb to his zealot-like pitch. We are sold upon a half-day tour package that includes the riveting attractions only the Cameron Highlands can boast: TEA! BUTTERFLIES! STRAWBERRIES! CACTI! HONEYBEES! FREAKISHLY LARGE INSECTS! This tour has it all. We sign up and are told that a bus will be by to pick us up in a couple of hours. This is the first of many temporal lies that we will come to experience.

The appointed time arrives. The appointed time leaves. The compulsively on-time and very small Japanese person living inside of me expands and silently irately implodes as the seconds tick on by. I soon come to love and appreciate grin and bear the lax time schedules of Malaysia. A schedule, by definition, is not a schedule in Malaysia. It is simply a suggestion, a possibility, a hint. The bus drivers and tour guides consult archaic sundials, which give an approximation of the time allowing them to show up within 30 to 45 minutes of the stated time of departure.

The town in the Cameron Highlands consists mostly of one main road. On this road one can find all the necessities of life- drugs stores, western food (“Mum’s cooking away from home”), spicy curries and pickled who-knows-what on banana leaves, banks, shell necklaces, postcards, and a slew of Malay men who either leer lewdly at you or try to coerce you into their restaurants, much like all the Italians do in Rome. Menus are waved in your face, pleas are made in the hopes that you’ll come back for dinner and no matter how many times you walk by and state you’re still full from the breakfast that they force fed you 20 minutes ago, they’ll do it all again taking into account that surely you’ve burned at least a few calories on the painstaking walk down the block.

The sidewalks are lined with plastic chairs and tables, clearly not set out for aesthetic appeal, but for utility’s sake. They are all used, used, used. From morning to evening locals and tourists alike can be found relaxing in these lawn patio-esque chairs fending off the droves of flies that swarm around anything possibly edible, and taking in the sites around them. By sites, I mean people, as picturesque scenery in this area of town is lacking. The beauty of the Cameron Highlands (and it is indeed beautiful) is IN the highlands – IN the massive amount of trees, IN the winding paths up, IN the rows and rows of tea leaves that geometrically line the lands and are worked to death.

After a day munching on berries, petting insects I would normally scream bloody murder at and beat to death with someone else’s shoe should they find their way into my home, and jumping in place in a futile attempt to see over a sea of scarves covering the heads of children on a school trip at the Boh Tea Plantation, My Lovely Travel Companion (henceforth referred to as MLTC) and I make our way back to the hostel.

Our hostel has character. It has charm. It has children running around in diapers. It has two scruffy, bored looking dogs that wander aimlessly looking for attention. It has children who bang on your door screaming “HELLO HELLO” in an attempt to improve their English if your light happens to be on and especially if you happen to be in the shower. It has hot water. It has a bonfire every night. It has a friendly staff. It has overly friendly guests. It has beer. And it has a large population of hippyish, barefooted hipsters, profoundly set on conspicuous underconsumption who make sculptures of young Bob Dylan from their own ear wax, whilst knotting their blonde dreadlocks, gnawing on organic roots for subsistence, listening to music created by someone who undoubtedly killed themselves and debating the latest book they read on ‘experimental fiction.’ Whatever the fuck that is.

As I whip out my Lonely Planet to look up something or another about the Highlands I feel all eyes land upon me in disgust and disapproval. My eyes then rise to see a Happy Looking Sign below the front desk: “FUCK THE LONELY PLANET!!!” it screams in indignant retaliation to the poor review found in the guidebook. Bashfully I attempt to slide this abhorred book back into my bag next to my Purel hand sanitizer, Overpriced Monster Of A Camera, Sleep Sack For Suckers, List of Contact Numbers For The In-General Worried Wussy Traveler, twenty cans of bug spray and membership card possessed by those who hate anything at all made of earwax, all the while looking aghast with wide eyes as I notice several female travelers running around the hostel without any shoes on.

A portly Malaysian man going by the name of “Daniel” runs the hostel. I meet him as he barges into our room to have a nice long chat as I’m trying to sleep. As MLTC attempts to wedge him out the door he cheerfully invites us to the bonfire before slowly sauntering away to flop down on the old beat-up flower sofa that lazes before the check-in desk. Daniel is extremely helpful as a host. He encourages our excursions, provides invaluable information, shorts out MLTC’s battery charger, and advises us to not book certain hostels in Taman Negara letting us in on some of the behind-the-scenes politics and mind games that have tarnished more than one hostel’s reputation.

The food along the strip in the Cameron Highlands caters to everyone. Those desiring a western food fix of oatmeal, scones, omelets, lasagna, burgers, etc. can satisfy those cravings. The food is, for once, not Japanified, as we are, after all, in Malaysia. The omelets aren’t coated in a layer of mayo and the burgers aren’t anorexic-fairy sized. The banana leaf platters are served on authentic banana leaves quite possibly picked from the tree down the street. Various spicy red, green, yellow globs are spooned out of silver dishes and plopped down upon our bits of wilderness next to a generous serving of thin-grained Malaysian rice. Our waiter offers no explanation as to what we are about to ingest with the exception of one glob, which he mumbles is “pickled something or another.” As we delve into our banana leaf one of the very many flies swarming around all the diners commits a tragic suicide and dive-bombs into my delectable ginger tea. This irritating, poor-aviator of a fly is spooned out and left on the sidewalk as a warning to his friends should they fancy a spot of tea.

The clientele along the strip appears to be about 40% tourists, 40%locals, 19% staff and 1% strange transgender she-males who could have been coming or going for all I know. Our hostel appears to have a monopoly on many of the eateries around there as I keep seeing the same check-in woman taking money from tourists in a slew of restaurants. For the sake of variety, MLTC and I decide to try a different restaurant next door to one we had eaten at the previous day. As we go to pay our bill we notice the two restaurants are, in fact, joined by a small door in the back allowing the staff access to the one register and the one kitchen. The color of the walls and the prices are the only things that differ. No doubt the same check-in woman is in the back office tallying her ringgits on her abacus.

After a day and a half taking in the sights of the Highlands whilst relishing the cool air and wafts of pre-pubescent tea leaves that occasionally dance past us, MLTC and I are once against destined for that magical eight hour bus ride with two girls from Slovenia, which will wind back down Sir Cameron’s screw-like coiled roads, through miles and miles of various shades of green and finally arrive in the lush rain forest of Taman Negara. There, on a dirt road, we will sit next to our bags, chat with an unimpressed English girl who munches on crisps and wonder about the accuracy of our hostel’s sundial, all the while mindfully considering my mother’s constructive warnings to watch out for slavers and pimps.

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Published:
5.17.07 / 7pm
Category:
what i call life, travel, culture