Day 253 – Cameron Highlands

When my tour group arrives, we will have another packed program visiting all the important Malaysian sites, so for now I decided to take it easy and just go explore some nature in and around the city. My first stop – Cameron Highlands.

It was a full day of driving around, first 120 km/hr on a state-of-the-art highway, then 100 km/hr on a winding mountain road leading up to and around the endless tea plantations. We (that is my driver and I – following the finally found slogan for my travels – "Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves" by Dorothy Parker – I booked a private excursion to the Highlands in the successful attempt to avoid crowds of yapping tourists) also made a couple of stops to admire the views and just aimlessly walk around the beauties.

This plant is called "touch-me-not" - it closes its leaves immediately when you touch it - very cute

This flower is called Stingray Fish Flower because of its shape when open completely

I was surprised to see that there are some roses that don't look like roses at all!

This is my first time at a tea plantation - I have never known that tea grows like a carpet - so beautiful!

This aborigine calls himself Michael Jackson and wears lipstick...

The process of making bamboo baskets is super impressive: it takes only 10-20 minutes to make one from beginning to end, all by hand. The baskets are used to transport fruits and vegetables to Singapore and other nearing countries. This job is usually performed by elderly Chinese and Indians.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to enjoy the excursion to the fullest. For several reasons:

• This time the jet-lag got to me (I'm usually prone to this unfortunate inconvenience of the fast travel luxury), and instead of paying attention to what my guide was saying, I was struggling not to fall asleep. I did get some of his narration points though – about them, later.
  
• The excursion is marketed as featuring "strawberry fields" and "rose valley" in addition to the beautiful views from atop the mountain. I would have gone even without those value-adds, but still couldn't help but feel cheated and annoyed when the "strawberry fields" turned out to be a huge greenhouse (with most delicious strawberries, I must give them that), and the "rose valley", just a rose garden (with all sorts of beautiful and rare roses, granted, but still no valley at all).
  

Some facts about Malaysia and K.L. that I did get from my guide / driver:

• K.L. is pretty safe. You can walk around without any concern pretty much at any time, day or night. The only thing to watch out for is "snatchers": guys snatching your bags while driving along the road on motorcycles; so it's smarter to keep your purse on the inside side of the sidewalk (what a horrible expression I concocted – too many "sides" next to each other). Another strange crime development lately is a couple of Iranian tourists walking around, striking up a conversation with other tourists and asking them to show their country's currency (because the Iranians are supposedly going to that very country – what a coincidence – in a week or so). And voila – while you are showing your native currency, you are being quickly and masterfully robbed.
  
• In Malaysia, 65% of population are Malay, 25% - Chinese, and 10% - Indian (www.wikipedia.org has a different opinion about the ethnic groups distribution in this country, but now I'm just relaying my guide's story). To my question about the potential existence of local racism between all those groups, the guide (a 2^nd generation Malaysian Indian himself) assured me that there is no such thing in Malaysia at all, because there is total equality for everybody. Then added, "of course, only Malays (the "true" locals, Muslim) can have the status of [damn, cannot remember the word, although I really-really tried to memorize it, the stupid jet-lag made me forgot my usual fact-saving companion – my phone!], which gives you priority for government loans for education, cars, etc. as well as other privileges, but we – Indians and Chinese – totally understand this, because, you know, they are the majority…" I was perplexed and asked him if he thought that was a fair state of affairs. He repeated – this time not so sure though – "Yes, yes, ma'am, I think this is very fair, you know, they are the majority". Then he fell into a complete pensive silence for a while. Was I the first one to ask him this question?
  I just found an interesting website on various cultures around the world, describing their social systems and traditions – check it out here.
  
• The Malay language is written phonetically using the Latin alphabet called Rumi (although a modified Arabic script called Jawi also exists, but is not widely used at all). "So" – he said, - "it will be very easy for you to learn it, I bet you can do it in a couple of days, it's such an easy language". Don't know about that. So far I've only learnt terima kasih – thank you!
  

There is no skyline but Manhattan skyline

In the evening, on the way back to my hotel, I was looking at the objectively magnificent skyline of K.L. - with its metallic glow of the Petronas Twin Towers and multi-colored disco shine of the Menara K.L. antenna - and thinking that for some reason there is only one skyline in the world that speaks to me. The skyline of Manhattan. I remember how I felt when I saw it for the very first time from the Brooklyn Bridge – I couldn't help but think that it was not real, that it was just a decoration set to some movie; it filled me with confusing feelings of awe, joy, optimism for the future, fear of the unknown… And so far no other beautiful skyline – not Dubai, not Kuala Lumpur, not Cape Town – can top the once so inaccessible and now so homey landscape of Manhattan.