Travel

Trails and Tales of Cameron Highlands

Should so unremarkable a day slip by without sign or portent? And to be followed the next day by a torrent of questions, whirring helicopters and search parties combing the forest for a lost soul, a dead body. And no answers. S hould such an unsatisfactory close to a day be borne with? But this was the type of day that was the last day of Jim Thompson, the legendary American-Thai silk baron who visited the misty Cameron Highlands in April 1967 - who went for a late afternoon walk, and never was found again. So this disappearance continues to haunt the Cameron Highlands with its strawberry farms and tea plantations. My recent trip up there brought back memories of this unsearchable riddle and more. As the car hugs the serpentine road, the views alternate between mountain edges rising as flinty or forested walls and slopes tumbling to valleys. The air cools midway up the mountains – it catches my face, mixes with the sunshine, goes straight to the head. Never mind the precipitous fall, the hairpin bends – I nod off inelegantly to sleep. (Thank goodness for the chauffeur.) But this is the soporific effect of the highlands on me. Because everything slows to a crawl way up here in the mist – that sometimes drifts through the lobby of the Cameron Highlands Resort where I stay.

Strawberries and cream at the Jim Thompson Tea Room – Cameron Highlands Resort

Gonbei at the Cameron Highlands Resort

Perhaps this veil soft-focuses everything – no activity is too hurried or will allow itself to be hurried – not even strawberry picking. This is an exercise that does not accept brisk hand motions unless you want bruised fruits. So I turn the fruit over carefully and break the stalk with excessive deliberation. Back at the hotel, from the guestroom balcony overlooking a golf course, I want nothing more than to sit and sip, taste my strawberries and roll only the dice. ‘Jeanette, could you move my token, please?’ My daughter moves me past GO and doles out $200. Sometimes, a daredevil driver zips through the landscape. That vroom thinning into a screech annoys but the 5,850 feet-high mountains shrink this burst of activity. Against the sweep of tea plantations, any car or bike tearing along the narrow road loses its ability to jolt me from my tranquillity. The square upon square formation of the tea bushes gives up a startling geometric beauty. The plantation curves up and down, the tea bushes shorn of their leaves to different degrees and showing varying hues of waxen green and crusty brown. The Boh tea factory has a café perched high over the plantation – strong stewy tea is served with teacakes, which is very English because it is so indifferent cuisine-wise. But there is an unshakeable calm in this setting, as I lift my cup against this backdrop. So it is the same tranquillity on that fateful Easter Sunday afternoon 40 years ago when Jim Thompson set off for his last walk. He had been a guest of the Lings, Singaporeans who owned a house in the highlands. They were to drive to Singapore with their guest the next day. The house was called Moonlight Cottage. After the routine of church and a picnic lunch, the party comprising the Lings, Jim Thompson and another friend, returned to the house accessible by a twisting road through the jungle that terminated at the property itself. This was around 2.30pm – everyone retired to their rooms for a nap. But Thompson never did – shortly after, he went out for a stroll in the jungle. The gardener looked up briefly and saw him leaving; afterwards, Mrs Ling remembered she heard from her room the crunch of gravel on the footpath. She never looked out the window. Thompson was never seen or found again. Perhaps it is the total absence of tell-tale signs or any building up to a climax to close the story of the disappearance. This blank rudely abuts a life and precludes an ending that one can wrap one’s mind around – a scandalous liaison, a man whose temperament made many enemies or who looted millions. Anything but this nothingness that turns innocent quiet into a cover of silence. Retracing the Jim Thompson trail is possible today – the Cameron Highlands Resort offers its guests a two-hour walk from near Moonlight Cottage along the trail from where Thompson supposedly waved to the gardener before going into the jungle. This is a walk full of visual delights for nature lovers and bird watchers, with its jade green fauna and colourful birds such as Bulbuls, Sunbirds and white-throated Fantails. Other trails lead to mossy forests, past waterfalls and exotic flora, and even to the tribal villages of the Orang Asli. Wild ginger, orchids, begonia and a variety of plant life dot the path that is variously dank and sun-dappled. It was here in the highland forests that Thompson’s footsteps simply vanished.

For months after, the sleepy highlands were abuzz with rumours – Thompson had planned his disappearance or he had been abducted by the communists were some of the theories circulated. None has been proven. But no resolution opens up a space for what-ifs. If they had tarried at the picnic or driven off elsewhere and not back to the cottage, perhaps the fateful walk might have been cancelled. Or if Mrs Ling had looked out her window that still afternoon and spoken to Thompson, who knows? For now, the mystery has been absorbed into and changed the jungle – even the Orang Asli natives who knew the jungle more intimately than anyone else failed to find a whisper of the man. So impenetrable is the secret that the stillness and quiet have never been the same since. Thompson of course never made it to Singapore.

Cameron Highlands Resort

Resorting to the Resort Perhaps the most evocative thing about the Cameron Highlands Resort is the etiolated black-marbled staircase leading up to the lobby. Modest in scale but rather steep, this distinctly 70’s touch is a reminder of an era when the idea of luxury was nothing like the aggrandised style of some modern hotels today. This theme runs throughout the resort - a 56-room boutique property of a 70’s constitution given an extensive colonial-style makeover, where everything has restrained proportions and is never over-the-top. The two eras are merged convincingly and it is a delight to spot the mosaic corridor floors and brick-latticed walls and other 70’s signature styles. Big pluses include guestrooms beautifully appointed in English style with four-poster beds, and a quite charming spa offering traditional Malay massages and heated stone therapy. Eschewing a heavy colonial touch gives the guestroom an agreeable fusion of modern with the traditional. The Dining Room for all-day dining and the Highland Bar with a freshly spruced-up air will need time to settle into a handsome maturity. It is ironic that in the hospitality industry today, the era of colonialism is romanticised, when it was so marked with racism and discrimination. Of course, careful expurgation of colonial history in publicity materials makes the afternoon tea and scones somewhat more digestible. What lifts the property into a class of its own, however, must be its Japanese restaurant, Gonbei. This divine establishment serves fabulously fresh seafood, and the Japanese fare is absolutely authentic. My stay here was restful and luxurious Gonbei made it unforgettable.	Tea Rolling Machine at Boh Tea Factory
Tea Processing at Boh Tea Factory Boh Tea Plantation
Service : Adequate service. Room : Colonial posh without ostentation. Restaurants : The magical Gonbei restaurant orders its supplies directly from Japanese wholesalers and ships them in three times a week. The atmosphere here is unrelentingly chic. Afternoon tea at the Jim Thompson Tea Room is a half-hearted culinary affair. Dinner at the Dining Room is brimful of the colonial era, with familiar Western and Asian fare. Location : Set on a lush hillock overlooking a golf course, the resort is close to Mount Brinchang and the Gunung Brinchang trail. Wish-List : Unlike heritage hotels with an aristocratic lineage, the resort is a new creation trying on vintage clothing, at which some purists may scoff. It is not too early to brand its services and merchandising in a more distinctive fashion. Overall : The only place to stay in the highlands if you wish to travel in style. Cameron Highlands Resort 39000 Tanah Rata Cameron Highlands Pahang Malaysia