A Piece of Heaven (published in BusinessWorld)

Published in the February 16, 2012 issue of BusinessWorld. Click here for original story

Posted on 06:24 PM, February 16, 2012
TEXT and PHOTOS BY JENNEE GRACE U. RUBRICO

A piece of heaven

WATER CASCADED gently down a mountain slope to stone basins that allowed it to trickle into the stream below. In one of the pools, bathers were oblivious to the tourists milling around and taking photos. Towels and discarded shirts were strewn on the rocks to dry, while trees provided shade to those who elected to keep to dry land and explore the watershed.

THE BHARAT tea plantation at Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands

I stood at a vantage point to observe the falling water while further down, my parents chatted on rocks that broke the flow of the stream.
We were basking in the sun at Iskandar Falls on the way to Cameron Highlands in Pahang, Malaysia, taking a break from navigating the winding road that connects the tourist destination to the Tapah Interchange, which we had taken from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.
It was going to be a two-and-a-half-hour trip by car to the chilly, hilly getaway from Kuala Lumpur, and we had only covered half the distance.
Sunny -- the cab driver we hired for the day trip who lives up to his name -- had maneuvered blind curve after blind curve in the two-lane strip of a highway that ran between a mountain and a cliff. We had been getting nauseous from the drive when we reached Iskandar Falls and found an excuse to get off the road for a bit.
By the roadside, stalls sold handicrafts, fruits and flowers. Except for those who intended to stay for a picnic or a bath, however, there wasn’t much to do around the area, so after taking pictures and preparing to once again zigzag our way to our destination, we hauled ourselves back into the cab.
Sunny told us it would take another half hour before we could get off the road.
“No one gets to heaven without dying,” I muttered, going for a laugh.
A truck passed us from the other lane. Then another truck with a trailer and a whole lot of wheels suddenly appeared in front of us. It seemed to have tailed the first truck and was now careening towards us. Our cab screeched to a halt, staying close to the mountain wall. The front of the truck passed us, and as it continued to move, I covered my ears and shut my eyes, convinced that the rest of it would hit our vehicle.
We all breathed a prayer of thanks when the truck’s brakes bit into the pavement, halting the behemoth completely and preventing its trailer from sideswiping our car.
Suddenly, that comment about dying to get to heaven was no longer funny.
Thankfully, that was the only near-mishap we had.
After a pit stop at the Tudor-style Lakehouse Hotel where we stretched our legs and took in the beautiful view of the Sultan Abu Bakar Lake as Sunny inputted the places we wanted to see into his GPS, our Cameron Highlands tour started -- with a visit to the bees.

BATHERS are oblivious to the other tourists at Iskandar Falls

Located in Jalan Boh in Ringlet town, the Highlands Apiary Farm grows different kinds of flowers and has bees flying all over the place to gather nectar from them. It was hard work trying to take photos of the bees, as they could never keep still.
The place has beehives on display, with one made of glass so that visitors can view the bees as they work. The farm, which has a heart-shaped pond filled with koi in the middle of the nursery, also grows strawberries and visitors can pick their own fruits if they want to buy them. Also for sale are bottled honey and bee souvenirs that range from pins to plush toys.
A few minutes’ drive from the apiary brought us to the main road of Tanah Rata where the Cameron Valley Tea House greeted us with a spectacular view of rolling hills that host the Bharat tea plantation.
Visitors can walk around the verdant maze but are warned against plucking tea leaves by a sign board that issues the admonition in three languages.
The path, while navigable, can be difficult to the uninitiated and those with the wrong footwear. But the scent of tea leaves that wafts through the air as one ambles around the plantation is worth the long walk down and the steep climb back.
We had drinks in the tea house that offers a wide array of choices for around RM6 (around P85). The mint tea infusion I had was the best I’ve tasted, and my mom’s strawberry tea, which I sampled, made me rethink my aversion to fruit-flavored versions of the beverage.
There is a shop beside the tea house that allows visitors to purchase the drinks that suit their fancy and recreate the delicious experience at home. While browsing through the products, I wondered whether the coffee growers in Batangas have thought of doing something similar for their plantations. It was shrewd and brilliant for an already profitable tea industry to incorporate tourism into its business strategy to generate even more earnings.
Our next stop was the adjacent town of Brinchang, where we had a delicious, filling lunch of noodles and pork before we visited Cactus Valley. Perched on a hill, the nursery invites visitors to see different kinds of cacti for a RM4 fee.
If only for the sheer number of cacti it hosts, the place is worth the entrance fee. It would have been great if there was a system to help visitors identify the cacti in the collection, but just seeing the plants in forms I would never have associated with the species was so astonishing that not knowing what they’re called didn’t matter so much.

HIGHLANDS APIARY visitors can pick the strawberries they want to buy.

One variety looks like an octopus, while another looks like a baby elephant. There’s one that’s shaped like a starfish, another that looks like a flower, and yet another that looks like a mushroom. The Hollywood western variety, with its tall, thin appearance was also present, as was its complete opposite, the spherical one.
The nursery also hosts other kinds of plants and flowers, including the carnivorous monkey cup (also called the pitcher plant).
Besides the impressive selection of flora, the nursery is also worth the visit for its quaint view of the houses and shops of Brinchang at the foothills.
Also in the town, Healthy Strawberry Farms offers all kinds of products that contain the fruit. The farm, which also allows fruit picking at certain times of the year, sells chocolate-covered strawberries, fresh strawberries, strawberry jams, and others. A word of caution about the strawberry ice cream, though: only the fresh strawberries they put in it come from the farm; the four scoops of ice cream over the fruits is a commercial brand.
The farm also sells potted plants for RM10. If a flower catches your eye and you don’t know what it is, ask the gardener. Thanks to them, I now know what a cyclamen is.
For the more culturally inclined, Cameron Highlands also highlights its Kampung Orang Asli (indigenous people’s villages). They aren’t easy to find, however -- it took us three attempts to find one of them, and by the time we got there, it was already too late in the day to explore the area.

SPHERICAL CACTI at Cactus Valley

It was on the way back to the Malaysian capital that we passed the Time Tunnel, a memorabilia museum. For a RM5 entrance fee, visitors see over 1,000 vintage items on display. While not everything in the collection is worth noting -- the old M&M toys just didn’t cut it for me -- a lot of the items can make one chuckle with nostalgia.
An old water thermos on a wooden table, an earthen stove and a charcoal iron reminded me of the things I used to see as a child in my grandparents’ house. The LP covers on the walls, old valises, and tin covers for chocolates also brought back memories. The old packaging of food products and sodas were interesting, as were the wall telephones with rotary dials and the mini jukebox that greets visitors at the entrance.
I wasn’t ready to see an “Octupus” game-and-watch unit in the museum, however. I used to play game-and-watch as a child, and I never thought that something of my generation would be found in a museum for vintage stuff.
I felt old.
The Time Tunnel also displays photos of the Cameron Highlands of yesteryears and shares tales of mysterious disappearances of affluent men in the area, earning it the moniker “local museum.”
The trip back to Kuala Lumpur took three hours -- via the safer, wider, and less meandering road to Ipoh.
Cameron Highlands, with its crisp, rainy weather, laid-back ambience, beautiful scenery and delicious farm products really is a piece of heaven on earth. And I was happy to note that one need not die to get a glimpse of paradise, after all.