Cameron Highlands and Taman Negara, Malaysia

Cameron Highlands and Taman Negara

Cameron Highlands and Taman Negara are two tropical rainforest areas in Malaysia. Cameron Highlands is more accessible from major cities throughout Malaysia so it is a common holiday destination for Malaysians and international tourists alike. Taman Negara is home to the worlds oldest rain forest estimated at 130 million years old and is further inland*.  With only one major road in and out it is less accessible and less touristy. 

* We have recently found out that Australia's Daintree forest could be older, but hey 130 million years old is still impressive.

Tea Plantation Cameron Highlands

Cameron Highlands

We took a bus from Kuala Lumpur to Cameron Highlands.To get there from China Town, Kuala Lumpur, you have to catch the train from Pasar Seni Station to KL Sentral Station. From here catch the KTM train to TBS bus station. We booked our ticket online through easy book to catch CTS bus (6AUD pp). However, you have to have a printed copy to get it swapped into the bus ticket. There is a customer service area where you can print it but in all honesty I think it would be easiest to buy a ticket directly at the terminal as this bus was fairly empty.

The first half of the three hour drive was cruisy on the highway. The second half through the mountains was scenic and beautiful but our bus driver was going to fast and cutting off blind corners (I was clinging to my seat throughout the journey). He was going so fast around one corner that he actually ran over a local dog. It was heart breaking.

Once I got over that emotional trauma we finally made it to Cameron Highlands. It was about 10 degrees cooler than Kuala Lumpur and no where near as humid. We were so excited as it was the first time we had used our jumpers in over a month! Cameron Highlands has a European influence with its architecture. All of the buildings didn’t look like they belonged in the landscape. We stayed in one of these buildings but were absolutely stoked with our accommodation, Gerards Place ~ 30 AUD. It was a home stay with shared kitchen and lounge room overlooking part of the jungle and was within walking distance of the main town Tanah Rata. 

Main Street Tanah Rata

Cameron highlands is known for: the cooler climate, walking trails, mossy forest, tea plantations and strawberry picking. Our first day in Cameron Highlands we took a tour to the mossy forest and to a tea plantation. We did it through Cameron Secrets (16 AUD pp.) with our guide Satu. He was fantastic and was able to point out medicinal qualities of flora in the mossy forest.  As well as describe exactly what is involved from the growing and fermenting of tea (did you know it grows on trees not bushes?). 

Tea Plantation Cameron Highlands

View from the top of the Mossy Forest

The best part about Malaysia is that we came throughout Ramadan which means that the majority of people are fasting throughout the day. What we love is that in the local towns they have bazaar markets so people can come and buy cheap meals and sweets to eat once the sunsets. We haven't been able to buy any meals (because we couldn't find any without meat!) but the sweets are delicious. Just so everyone is aware when we eventually come home I will be a few kilos heavier.

Local Bazaar 

If you go to Cameron Highlands or travel anywhere overseas make sure you download the app maps.me. Luke and I don't have sim cards, so we can’t use google maps when we are out of range of wifi, where as maps.me uses GPS so its like having a navman on your phone instead of it chewing up your data. The best bit about using maps.me in the Cameron Highlands was that it has on it all of the walking trails in the national park. Making it achievable to actually find the start of the trails (which is the hardest part!) and not get lost in the jungle. Luke and my favourite trail was trail 5, 4 to 3. Thankfully we didn't see any tigers, and only one leech (Luke was able to get rid of it before it drew any blood- what a hero). But unfortunately we didn't see any monkeys either. We instead got to enjoy all the beautiful different landscapes throughout the walk.

Mini Forest in a forest, Trail 5

View from Trail 3

View from Trail 4, the easiest,
most used and one with the most rubbish

Taman Negara 

From Cameron Highlands we took a shuttle bus to Jerantut and a boat to Taman Negara, 23 AUD pp. The first half of the journey was awful. Let's just say that I was cocky in my earlier post about not getting sea sick…because we definitely got car sick. It probably wasn't helped by the fact we were sitting in the back of the van which had no airflow. The second half of the journey well and truly made up for the first. We got into a thin wooden boat where we sat on the floor and rode up the Tembeling river for 3 hours. On the journey we got to enjoy seeing monkeys, water buffalo, many birds, and some massive reptile thing about a metre and a half long sun bathing on a log in the river (sorry I don't know what it was as I'm not an ecologist). 

On River Tembeling (Luke sporting a headache)

Water Buffalo 

The town that you stay at is Kuala Tahan, this is on the other side of the river from Taman Negara National Park (4,343km2). Kuala Tahan is a sleepy little village which is mainly only there because of the tourists. To get to the National Forest you have to take a 1 RM (~30 cents AUD) boat ride across the river.

Looking over to Kuala Tahan from Taman Negara National Park

Our first night in Taman Negara we stayed at Wild Lodge Hostel,  9 AUD pp, in a four bed dorm. The view from our room was extraordinary looking over the Tembeling River with floating restaurants  and over to the Taman Negara forest. We took a night time hike, 10 AUD pp, with wild travellers. Here we got to actually slow down and see; tropical frogs, snakes, spiders, lizards and scorpion’s. Unfortunately we didn't see any elephants, tigers, panthas, or tapir- but its awesome to know that they are still there. 

Classic Luke and me decided to have our main day on a thursday. Which seems totally acceptable, however the one thing that we really wanted to do in Taman Negara was to go on a canopy board walk. Tuns out the only day of the week it is closed is a thursday. But oh well we were able to go on one of the many hikes instead.  

Hiking

Next stop is the city of Ipoh with a claim to fame of Lonely Planet listing it number 6 on best Asian city's to visit in 2016. With reviews like that how can we not go?! We will keep you posted on how it goes.

Love,

Claire and Luke (Luke was stalking people on Facebook whilst I wrote this so he counts as a co-author to right?)

Hammock Boy, Langkawi, Malaysia