In the Cameron Highlands, everything happens in the morning. At half past eight the mist is still lying in the valleys between the tea hills, the pickers are already at work and the trails are dry. By midday the clouds close in, the day trip coaches pull up at the tea plantation and a heavy shower often rolls in. Get that rhythm, and you get twice as much out of the same days.
A few things are the reason you take the winding road up: the mossy forest in the clouds and the tea on the slopes. Others round off your stay, like a hike that starts right behind your hostel and a pot of broth on the table when it gets cold outside. And a few you save for a third day.
So how do you fill your mornings up here, and what do you do when the rain comes?
How to get there, where to sleep and how many days to give it are all on our Cameron Highlands page.
The Mossy Forest
As far as we are concerned, this is the most magical bit of nature on the peninsula. High on Gunung Brinchang, at around two thousand metres, there is a cloud forest where every branch, every root and every stone is under a thick layer of green moss. The clouds simply drift between the trunks. You walk through it on a boardwalk, and ten steps in you have forgotten there is a mountain road full of coaches down below.
For foreigners it costs about €6. The road up is narrow and steep and there is no public transport, so most travellers go on a Land Rover tour. You can go on your own, but on a tour you get the tea plantation thrown in.
Ask in Tanah Rata first whether the boardwalk is open: after landslides it sometimes closes for weeks. And bring a jumper and a rain jacket, because up there it is a few degrees colder than in the village. On a clear morning you get a view over the Highlands as well.
Our verdict: the reason to go up the mountain, if the boardwalk is open
Early to BOH Sungei Palas
BOH Sungei Palas is Malaysia’s most famous tea plantation, and you see why as soon as the winding road brings you up through the bushes: entire hills in rolling, neatly clipped rows, with the odd picker carrying a basket on their back. At the top is the tea house, with a terrace that juts out over the slopes.
Entry is free, and a pot of tea with a scone costs a few euros. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, from half past eight to half past four. On Mondays the tea house is closed. A taxi or Grab from Tanah Rata costs about €5.
The trick is in the order. Arrive at half past eight, when it opens, and walk the narrow path between the bushes up the hill first. You will have the slopes almost to yourself, with the morning mist still in the valley. Only then sit down on the terrace, right when the first coaches arrive.
Our verdict: tea where it grows, and the early morning makes all the difference
A jungle trail from your hostel
Numbered trails head up into the hills from Tanah Rata, and a few of them start literally at the edge of the village. No taxi, no tour, no ticket: you walk out of your hostel and within a few minutes you are in dense jungle, over roots and through mud, until you come out among the tea bushes.
Gunung Jasar is a good first summit, and if you want more you carry on to Gunung Brinchang. The shorter trails you can walk on your own, for free. The longer routes may need a guide or a permit, and that changes fairly often.
So ask your hostel which trails are open, tell someone which one you are walking and when you will be back, and set off early. That way you are back before the afternoon shower and well before dark. Sturdy shoes, water and a rain jacket belong in your daypack.
Our verdict: hiking in the coolest corner of the peninsula, free from your front door
The Land Rover tour
Want to see the Mossy Forest and BOH Sungei Palas in one morning? This is the easiest way. You sit in the back of an old Land Rover bouncing up the mountain road, with stops at the moss forest, the tea plantation and usually a strawberry farm or a bee farm. Some tours leave before sunrise.
A shared half day costs from about €20, and you book it at your hostel or at one of the little tour offices in Tanah Rata. A guide tells you about the tea and the forest along the way, and your transport up is sorted.
Do check what the price includes: the Mossy Forest entry is sometimes charged separately. And ask when you book whether the boardwalk is open at the moment.
Our verdict: the highlights in one morning, and the ride is an adventure in itself
Steamboat on a cold evening
Food tastes different in the cold, and up here you notice it most with steamboat. A pot of boiling broth sits in the middle of the table, and you cook vegetables from the surrounding greenhouses, fish and meat in it yourself. You sit there in your jumper with your hands over the steam, and it lasts exactly as long as you want it to.
You eat it in Tanah Rata, a few minutes’ walk from your hostel. A meal here costs about €2.50, and you drink a cup of tea from the plantations round the corner with it, or a teh tarik.
Plan it for your first evening, while the cold still feels new. After a day in the Mossy Forest, little goes down this well.
Our verdict: the dish that belongs to these mountains, and the best end to a cold day
Strawberries and the Brinchang night market
The Highlands are called Malaysia’s vegetable garden, and the strawberries are their pride. At the strawberry farms you pick your own or drink them in a milkshake, and fresh strawberries in a tropical country stay a strange, fun experience.
On Friday and Saturday evenings Brinchang sets up a night market, with corn, strawberries and grilled snacks from about €1. Wandering around is free, and in the cool evening air it is lively. Brinchang is a few kilometres on, so you take a taxi from Tanah Rata.
Time your third day so it falls on a Friday or Saturday, and you can combine a farm during the day with the market in the evening.
Our verdict: a nice change from all the nature, at its best at the weekend
Got time to spare in the Cameron Highlands?
A bee farm or the butterfly garden
On a third day, a bee farm and the butterfly garden fit nicely alongside a strawberry farm. Like the strawberries, you get there by taxi or Grab, so plan them for the same afternoon.
Banana leaf rice on the main street
On Tanah Rata’s main street there are a few Indian restaurants where you eat rice and curries off a banana leaf, and roti canai in the morning. Warm bread with curry is exactly what you want on a fresh morning before a hike.
The sunrise tour
Some Land Rover tours leave in the dark, so you are up top at sunrise. From January to March, the driest months, you have the best chance of a clear morning over the plantations.
A jumper and a rain jacket
It is around 22 degrees here in the day and about 14 at night, and it rains in every month. Wear layers, keep your rain jacket at the top of your backpack and bring shoes that can handle mud. Then a shower will not ruin your day.
Our top five in the Cameron Highlands
Only got two or three days in the hills? These are the five to pick:
- The boardwalk through the Mossy Forest, if it is open, with a jumper on
- Up the path between the tea bushes at BOH Sungei Palas at half past eight, then tea on the terrace
- A jungle trail from Tanah Rata up Gunung Jasar, back before the afternoon shower
- A Land Rover tour to do the moss forest and the plantation in one morning
- A steaming steamboat on your first cold evening
Got a day left over? Put it on a Friday or Saturday and finish among the strawberries and the stalls of the Brinchang night market.
So what do you really have to do in the Cameron Highlands?
One early morning. That is really the whole secret of the Highlands. At half past eight among the tea bushes, with the mist still in the valley and the pickers at work, you see the place the way the photos promise. At twelve you are standing there with the coaches and the first drops of rain.
Then the moss forest. Ask in Tanah Rata whether the boardwalk is open, and if it is, go. A forest where everything is green and the clouds hang between the trunks is the most beautiful thing these mountains have to show you.
And give yourself a rest. The Highlands are not a place to tick off, but a place to recharge before you head on to Penang. A hike in the morning, tea in the afternoon, steamboat in the evening: after a few weeks of heat, that is exactly right.
