Tea plantation

Die Cameron Highlands, a mountain at 1500m altitude, are known for its tea plantations, the picturesque stretch over the hills. The temperatures are around 20 degrees here and for us were a welcome change to the otherwise dominant greenhouse temperatures.
The bus trip to the Cameron Highlands should really only last 5 hours, but we arrived after about 7h to the small town of Tanah Rata. Because of the Malay holiday was quite a lot of traffic on the narrow roads, to wind up the curvy mountain. A room in the Father´s Guesthouse Luckily we had already booked before, since already many accommodations were booked.

For the next day we had a tour to “Mossy Forest” and planned by the tea plantations. By jeep we drove through the huge green plantations and our guide told us a lot about the tea plants and tea production. What we did not know until then: green and black tea are made from the same tea plant. The only difference is the processing. Then we went to Mount Brinchang, with 2032m the highest mountain in Cameron Highlands. From an observation tower we could see far over the forests and mountains.
Then we took a short hike on muddy paths through the “Mossy Forest”. This moss forest is a unique rainforest, its base and trees are covered with a thick layer of moss and thus save a lot of water. The air here was very wet and cool. Our guide told us, that it is the oldest rainforest in the world with 220 million years and has a very big importance for the climate. We enjoyed very much moss forest, he looks like a fairy tale, enchanted so right. Many carnivorous pitcher plants we have seen there. The plants collect water in her stomach and when insects are thirsty and want to drink out of them, they fall in and be digested. Actually, we have learned a lot about the plants in the forest moss. After we had heard a lot about tea, we wanted to try it of course and went to a tea factory. Here we could see different steps of the tea production: Harvesting, Drying, Rollers, Fermentation, Drying, Sort out, Taste, Packing. The outlook for the tea plantations we sipped a cup “Teh Tarik”. This is an Indian drink made with black tea, Milk and sweet condensed milk. The tea is poured into the cup by a wide margin, creating a creamy lather. Very tasty!
In addition to tea and strawberries are grown in the Cameron Highlands (but not in the ground but in small pots). A taste of this we did not want to miss. We then made our way back, but not with the jeep but on your own foot. Together with the two Swabia Steffi and Jochen and Ralph and Jessi from London we walked in the rain through the forest back to Tanah Rata.
The next day, Dopey and I wanted to make one more hike, but after breakfast we went to the Indian Dopey unfortunately not so good and we spent the day in our accommodation. On Friday we went on to the Perhentian Islands…