Cameron Highlands | Malaysia

I Continue From Here: Ipoh | Malaysia

Nature's Little Backpackers

1 and 2 September 2026

In the morning, we met Tony in the common area. He was a Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur who was visiting Ipoh for some reason. He seemed genuinely curious about everything and about every new culture he encountered. He had lots of questions for Michael about America, and when I walked in, his curiosity turned towards India. He also told us about a local café that, according to him, served the best white coffee and baked items in town. 

Taking his recommendation, we got ready and walked to the café. He was right. The kaya toast, egg tart and white coffee I had there were certainly top-notch.

We then returned to the hostel and took a Grab taxi to the bus station, which was situated on the outskirts of town. Our driver was a rude Tamil man. He kept mumbling something under his breath and scolding people. When Michael asked him to increase the AC, he did so while grumbling something in Tamil. He had no idea that I could understand the language. When we reached the bus station, he stopped the car and rudely said, “Yereng” — “Get off.”

His anger, seemingly directed at no one in particular, struck me as rather strange. We had barely spoken to him, yet he seemed frustrated — not necessarily with us, but perhaps with his own life.

Our bus to Cameron Highlands was delayed by 45 minutes, and it seemed to be a fairly common occurrence. Yet things were well organised, so finding the bus station and locating our bus was easy. The journey itself was comfortable.

We reached Tanah Rata at around 1 p.m. The town looked almost like Disneyland, with its architecture mimicking some Western resort town. At first sight, it seemed to me to lack originality.

We stopped at the array of restaurants in the town centre and settled on an Indian restaurant for lunch. There, I met two boys from Udupi/Kundapura who had been working at the restaurant as servers. They were delighted to meet me and speak to me in Kannada. They did not speak Tulu, although they understood the language.

After checking into the hostel, I went back to the bus station and enquired about bus tickets to Perhentian Island. After asking around, I figured out that the hostel offered the cheapest price. We booked our bus tickets for 3rd September and also booked a hotel on the island. With all that settled, I looked forward to exploring the hill station.

The view from the hostel’s common area was beautiful. I sat by the long window overlooking the main street below, watching the rain as I completed my sketches and did some painting.

In the evening, I walked to another restaurant run by Malaysian Tamils. The Tamil crowd here were really kind. They smiled at me when they recognised that I was Indian and perhaps wondered whether I spoke Tamil. I never made it obvious, though, and kept them guessing, answering only in English.

There were also many friendly Bangladeshi workers in the restaurants. They would smilingly invite me into their establishments while speaking to me in Hindi.

For dessert, I walked into a food court in a mall and enjoyed some freshly made mango sticky rice.

The next morning, I got up early and went down for breakfast at an Indian restaurant - Restoran Bunga Suriya, located right below the hostel. They were setting up their breakfast buffet. I had a good masala dosa and a cup of chai.

The server attending to me was perhaps Bangladeshi, as he spoke to me in Hindi. The Tamil lady running the restaurant was also kind and patiently answered some of my questions about the dishes on display. I spoke to her in Tamil, and she responded in an accent that seemed slightly different from the Tamil spoken in India. The language itself was not very different, but the accent had a certain rhythm to it — almost as though she were singing.

The same seems to be the case when people in Singapore and Malaysia speak English. They tend to add a rhythm to their speech, almost as though they are singing. Perhaps it is a local influence.

There are several trekking trails in the area. I had decided to do Trail 10 and then connect to Trail 6. This 10–6 route is a popular trek in the area.

I passed through a residential area and reached the starting point of Trail 10. The trail immediately began climbing a hill covered with dense forest. At many points, it was steep, and I had to use thick ropes that had been tied along the route for support. Water flowing downhill had carved grooves and ditches into the trail, making it difficult to walk.

There was only one other group doing the trek that day. I reached the summit. The walk had been exciting, although the view itself was nothing spectacular.

After reaching the Puncak Gunung Jasar summit, I took the deviation towards Trail 6. This 3 km stretch was a little scary, to be honest. I was completely alone in the deep jungle. In some sections, the trail had been completely cut through by running water, leaving deep ditches behind. Thankfully, I had my trekking pole.

I also saw some strange reptiles on the trail. At one point, I kept noticing what looked like footprints. Initially, I thought they must have belonged to someone who had trekked before me. But on closer examination, I realised they looked more like claw marks, as though something had dragged its claws down the wet slope. Imagine a wolverine dragging its claws down a patch of wet mud, leaving long marks behind. That was when I realised the marks had probably been made by some animal.

I also saw fresh animal droppings lying on the path. I began walking hurriedly. There was no way I could turn back; I had already entered deep forest. Interestingly, the marks disappeared after I crossed a stream running across the trail.

I was fascinated by the different types of flowers I saw along the way. Here are a few pictures.

The forest was deep, and the crickets were crying loudly. The vegetation was incredibly diverse, with wild banana trees, wildflowers and other enormous trees. It was a beautiful walk.

The trail eventually ended at the main road leading to a small village called Surau Al-Hidayah.

At the village, I walked past the houses. Apparently, nobody seemed to be outside. I could hear voices coming from inside the houses, but nobody came out. I walked into the tea plantation.

The Cameron valley tea plantation is run by the Bharat Group (founded by Shuparshad Bansal Agarwal). There is an entrance ticket and a few attractions for tourists. Since I entered from the other end, I had to buy a ticket and wristband while exiting.

I walked through the souvenir shop and tea stalls, but nothing seemed worth buying. I then walked back towards the town along the main road.

On the way, I stopped at a local fruit vendor. I bought tampoi (Baccaurea macrocarpa). It tasted somewhat like mangosteen, although it was not as sweet. He also told me that the beans of petai, or stink beans, were commonly used in their dishes.

Back in town, Michael and I walked down to Curry Leaf, the restaurant below our hostel, where I enjoyed an onion dosa and some lassi. The Tamil owner, a young man, seemed particularly interested in striking up a conversation with me. He smiled and asked me if I were Indian while paying the bill. I was too tired to continue the conversation, so I replied affirmatively with a smile before walking away.

But I was also curious to know how so many Tamils had settled in this country. I learnt that there were two major waves of Tamil migration.

Tamils first arrived on the Malay Peninsula through ancient maritime trade, as early as the 1st century BCE, with further links developing during the expansion of the Chola dynasty in the 11th century. The largest wave of migration, however, occurred during the British colonial era, from the 1830s to the 1920s.

Traders from South India connected the Coromandel Coast with ports such as Kedah and the Strait of Malacca well before the 1st century BCE. Trade and economic activity grew significantly during the 11th-century expansion of the Chola dynasty into Southeast Asia. Small numbers of Tamil spice and textile merchants settled locally, although only a tiny minority of these early communities remained permanently.

The major movement of Tamils occurred under British rule, when labour was brought in for infrastructure projects, tin mines, and rubber and palm-oil plantations through systems such as the Kangani recruitment framework. The largest numbers arrived continuously from the 1830s through the 1920s, originating mostly from the Madras Presidency — present-day Tamil Nadu — and northern Sri Lanka.

A significant portion of Malaysia’s ethnic Tamil population — which constitutes the vast majority of the country’s Indian minority — experiences lower-income status and economic vulnerability, although a growing middle class has emerged.

Though it was not obvious to me, I felt that there was some kind of discrimination faced by the community here. I read much later about the Bumiputera policy, which gives certain privileges to the indigenous Malay population over communities such as Indians and Chinese. I also felt that Tamils were underrepresented in the civil services. I am not sure whether this is actually the case, and proper research would be required before making such a claim. These are merely impressions based on my initial observations.

Most Tamils I met here seemed kind and polite. Except for a few people in Kuala Lumpur who seemed a little rude, almost every other Malaysian Tamil I encountered was polite and humble.

Whenever I saw them notice me and look at me, I felt a certain sadness. I cannot say exactly why, and I cannot claim that I understood what they were feeling, but that was simply the impression I had.

They are, after all, a minority in a country that is not their ancestral homeland. At the same time, some must also navigate the caste hierarchies that continue to exist within Hindu society. There can be many layers of disadvantage for a poor person in this world.

I wondered whether, given a choice, some of them would want to return to Tamil Nadu. Yet they seemed deeply connected to their culture — through the music and films I saw them constantly playing and watching. I wondered what it felt like to be a Tamilian in Malaysia. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to speak to anyone there at that depth.

Back at the hostel, I noticed that my shirt still had some Desmodium seeds stuck to it. These seed pods cling to our clothes and skin, hitching a ride and travelling unknowingly from one place to another. Nature calls it propagation — the ancient impulse to multiply, to scatter, to ensure that one’s kind does not disappear. But maybe the pods simply want to travel.

Perhaps every seed dreams of leaving home, of seeing distant places, of being carried by strangers along unfamiliar paths. What we call the instinct to propagate might, from another perspective, be nothing more than a longing for elsewhere.

And so these tiny pods become nature’s little backpackers — clinging to whoever passes by, surrendering themselves to chance, travelling without maps or destinations, trusting that somewhere along the way, they will find a place to begin again.

To Be Continued…