Oddities

A little while ago we, my wife and I, went to the Cameron Highlands for a short break.

Up there, in the hills, it is cold. The night-time temperature can plummet, as it did, to sixteen degrees Centigrade. It is my opinion that temperatures below twenty degrees are the point at which the water on your eyeballs begins to freeze over.

I may be wrong about that but...

There is much to be enjoyed ‘up there’. Not least of which is the cream tea. Scones and strawberry jam with a pot of hot tea – tea that is grown there on large plantations.

Indeed, on the way down from the Highlands after Tanah Rata (a small town) and before Ringlet (another small town) there are a couple of teashops run by the ‘Bharat’ tea plantation wherein the cream teas and cakes are delicious.

Of course we British always enjoy a good cup of tea brewed in the soft Highland water. The additional benefit is a glorious view over the plantation and the hills around about.

We stayed, as we often do, at the ‘Dahlia Apartments’ just south of the main town of Brinchang. The accommodations are a little spartan – no internet and limited TV, but they are clean and adequate. The refrigerator is large enough to store the strawberries that we buy to take home and the bed is comfortable and mosquito free.

Everywhere you go there are reminders that the Highlands grow strawberries. There are felt strawberries to sit on the back parcel shelf of your car, strawberries to dangle from your mirror, ‘T’-shirts with strawberries on them, strawberry hats and strawberry slippers. Then there are, not unnaturally, strawberries. They exist there as fruit and as flavourings in tea. There is strawberry jam, chocolate strawberries and all manner of odd things that taste of strawberries.

Last time I noticed that there is a rise in the number of Passion Fruit sales – mayhap it is the thing for the future.

Of course, the trip would not be complete without a visit to a strawberry farm. These abound. I was amused by a sign that pronounced that there were “SELF PLUCKING STRAWBERRIES’ at this location.

A thing of wonder if not actual awe. We were tempted but managed to decline the sight.

There are other things. Wonderful fresh and succulent vegetables for sale and flowers, too. My wife failed to resist a large bunch of lilies for a fraction of the price we pay for them in the lowlands. Beautiful. The car still smells of them.

On the way down we passed by several Orang Asli (Aboriginal) settlements that sold all manner of odd things. Blowpipes are very popular, it seems, but so are several of the edible goodies from the jungle – bamboo shoots, for example. I would have mentioned petai but you will not, very likely, know what that is. Tasty but they give me terrible wind from which all others about me suffer, too.

We shall draw a veil over that!

Once we were on the expressway and well on the way home a billboard by the road shouted at us, “Welcome,” it said, “To the Lost World of Tambun.”

This immediately struck me as a very strange thing.

Surely, and do correct me if you believe I am in error here, the suggestion that it is a ‘Lost World’ would pre-suppose that they are still looking for it.

If, as the legend on the sign states so clearly, you are invited to visit it then it has been found. It is, in fact, no longer ‘Lost’.

This is a hoax. I am convinced that this is no ‘Lost World’ and that the whole thing is a scam to separate tourists from their hard-earned cash.

While I am at it; they display a picture with a notice in it with ‘Petting Zoo’ clearly apparent. In front of the signboard is a small boy fondling a large python that is wrapped around his neck.

I’m not sure that I approve of their choice of ‘pets for petting’. In my mind I was thinking more along the lines of bunny rabbits and guinea pigs.

Perhaps the python has eaten them.