Hidden Gems and Local Secrets in Cameron Highlands
Part of the Cameron Highlands travel guide — see every topic in All Cameron Highlands Guides.
The Cameron Highlands' visitors do a fairly fixed circuit: BOH Sungei Palas, the Mossy Forest, a strawberry farm, the Kea Farm market. Step off it and the region empties immediately. What is out there: the Tamil estate communities and their temples, the older Habu tea estate at the southern end, forest trails that see almost nobody, and a set of small places that Malaysians who come here regularly know about and visitors never find.
The estate communities
The tea estates were worked from the 1930s by Tamil labourers brought from South India, and their descendants live in estate settlements with their own Hindu temples, schools and shops. Several small temples sit among the tea bushes on the estate roads and are quietly remarkable in that setting. The South Indian restaurants of Tanah Rata come from the same community and are the best food in the highlands. Thaipusam and Deepavali are observed here, and the estate temples are the place to see it.
The southern end
Almost everyone goes north from Tanah Rata to Brinchang and the Sungei Palas estate. South, towards Ringlet, is the older half of the highlands: the original BOH estate at Habu, planted in 1929 and much quieter than Sungei Palas; the Sultan Abu Bakar reservoir, built in the 1960s and now heavily silted from upstream land clearing; and Ringlet town itself, which is a working place with no tourism. The Lata Iskandar waterfall on the Tapah road below is a popular local stop.
The quiet trails
Trails 4, 9 and 10 carry most of the foot traffic and even those are quiet by Malaysian standards. The longer routes — Gunung Berembun, the connections between trails 3, 5 and 7, and the approaches to Gunung Irau — see very few people, and five minutes off the road you are in montane forest with nothing but birds and cicadas. Check status first, take a guide for anything long, and understand that quiet also means nobody will find you quickly.
Small things
The Sam Poh Buddhist temple above Brinchang, on a hillside with a view over the valley and almost no visitors. The Time Tunnel museum in Brinchang, an eccentric private collection of Malaysian ephemera from the 1930s onwards, which is far more interesting than it sounds. The old Anglican church at Tanah Rata. Cream tea at a colonial bungalow you are not staying at. And a jungle walk with an Orang Asli guide, which is the single most rewarding thing available here and which barely anyone books.
Hidden Gems and Local Secrets at a glance
| Estate communities | Tamil settlements and temples among the tea bushes |
|---|---|
| The original estate | BOH Habu, planted 1929 — quieter than Sungei Palas |
| Overlooked south | Ringlet, the reservoir, Lata Iskandar falls |
| Empty trails | Gunung Berembun and the longer connections |
| Eccentric museum | Time Tunnel, Brinchang |
| Most rewarding | A jungle walk with an Orang Asli guide |