Cameron Highlands

Trail 7, the Mossy Forest and Boh tea over three days

Three days cover the Cameron Highlands. Arrive in Tanah Rata by early afternoon and walk Trail 7 at the edge of town, watching for white-thighed langurs. Start day two early with a Land Rover tour to the Mossy Forest and the Boh tea terraces, and use day three for the tourist bus to the farms.

Back in town, settle in over a steamboat dinner, the right meal for a cool highland evening.

Day two needs an early start. Take a morning Land Rover tour or a taxi up Gunung Brinchang for the view from the observation tower, then, if the boardwalk is open, walk into the Mossy Forest while the mist still hangs in the trees. On the way down, stop at a Boh tea estate for a tour of the factory and a pot of tea on the terrace above the rows. Cloud usually closes in after lunch, so the order matters; spend the afternoon over scones in Tanah Rata.

On day three, ride the tourist bus that runs every two hours along the main road to the farms and nurseries around Brinchang and Kea Farm, where strawberry fields, flower nurseries and vegetable stalls line the road. Eat kampung-style nasi lemak before you leave, and if it is the weekend, stay late for the Brinchang night market and its grilled corn and local fruit.

Steamboat, Boh tea with scones and the Brinchang night market

Steamboat is the evening meal here: a pot of broth bubbling in the middle of the table, into which you drop meat, fish balls, tofu and vegetables while the air outside falls to about 15°C. By day the drink is Boh tea, often with scones, and the weekend night market in Brinchang sells strawberries and grilled corn.

When the evening drops to 15C, the obvious meal is steamboat, a pot of bubbling broth set in the middle of the table, into which you drop meat, fish balls, tofu and the leafy greens grown on the farms down the road. Tanah Rata has several restaurants built around it.

Tea comes next. Boh is the drink of the hills, and the best place to have it is on an estate itself, looking over the clipped green slopes. Afternoon tea with scones and strawberry jam is a colonial leftover the highlands have kept with enthusiasm; guesthouses and small cafes around Tanah Rata serve it all day.

Breakfast can be Malay or Indian. Food stalls in Tanah Rata serve kampung nasi lemak, coconut rice with sambal, until the pot is empty, and the south Indian restaurants on the main road do banana leaf rice and tandoori chicken for lunch.

At weekends, the night market in Brinchang sells strawberries, grilled corn, sweet potatoes and snacks. The fruit and vegetables on sale everywhere come from the slopes you walk past, which is why the cooking here leans so heavily on greens.

Cool nights, two wet peaks and holiday traffic

The Cameron Highlands are the coolest place most visitors reach in Malaysia, with highs of 21 to 23°C all year and nights near 15°C, so pack a fleece. Avoid Malaysian school holidays and long weekends, when traffic jams the main road.

Rain is the variable. Those are the windows for the Mossy Forest and the walk up Gunung Brinchang, when the summit is more likely to be clear in the morning.

Two wet peaks frame the year. April and May bring more than 260 mm a month, and October is the wettest month of all at about 335 mm, with November not far behind. In those months the pattern is predictable: bright mornings, cloud building by noon, then a heavy downpour in the afternoon that turns the trails to mud. Walk early, be off the hills by lunchtime, and keep the afternoons for the tea rooms.

Crowds follow the Malaysian calendar more than the weather. School holidays and long weekends bring heavy traffic through Brinchang and up the access roads, and rooms fill fast. A midweek stay is quieter at any time of year.