Tea and Trekking in the Cameron Highlands

The lush, rolling tea fields and rugged hiking in the Cameron Highlands quickly boosted Malaysia to the top of our ‘must visit’ list.

We lucked out with picture perfect weather on our first full day, and kicked off our time in the highlands with one of our mutually favorite things - a sunrise hike! We landed on trail 10 leading us to the summit of Gunung Jasar, down through tea plantations, before ending at Cameron Valley Tea House.

Headlamps activated, we left Father’s Guesthouse in Tanah Rata at 5:30AM and walked about 15 minutes to the trailhead, which begins just past Tan’s Camelia Garden on the left. We stumbled a bit through a construction zone to find a staircase marking the correct entry point, greeted by a few wild but tame dogs along the way. We were using AllTrails and Maps.me simultaneously to cross-reference the trail as it was poorly marked, and pitch black. We got a bit lost searching for the trail at first, retracing our steps, and ended up wading through jungle for the first 30 minutes or so. Behind schedule with dim light softly peeking through the clouds, we barreled up the mountain, racing to summit in time for pastel mountain views.

We then descended through gorgeous vegetable, fruit, and tea plantations in Cameron Valley, crossing paths with several farmers just starting their day.

We reached the tea house shortly after 9, treating ourselves to a pot of local Chai tea and scones with cream and jam. Does it get any better than this?

We walked about 2 miles back into town via the winding main road. It’s common to hitchhike back as well. In the evening, we capitalized on Malaysia’s thriving Indian cuisine, and had a fresh made-to-order vegetarian feast at Singh Chapati.