– JULY 17-19, 2015

We have hopped on a bus from Penang to ride a three hour journey to the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia.  There are a few quite interesting things to see here, so we hooked up with a tour group to hit the major parts on their “Rafflesia Full Day Tour“.

First we took a hike through some of the trails around this area before we started the guided tour.

Then we were picked up by the tour bus and driven 90 minutes to the starting point of the Rafflesia hiking path.  This path was well groomed for the most part, but there a few spots in the pics to come that show the path can get a bit treacherous.  At the start of the path the guides made ceremonial headpieces out of ferns on the side of the path.

Some path spots were reinforced by bamboo to help from falling down a steep cliff.

Low water crossings meant you had to hop over rocks.

The steepest of slopes had some bamboo handrails which weren’t able to support any weight.

Bamboo bridges over faster water were sometimes sturdy but other times a bit unsteady and seemingly unreliable.

This plant below contains a poison that is used for blowdarts to hunt animals.  If you touched it with your skin then it would only cause a brief skin irritation.  If you allowed it onto your bloodstream or licked it, then you would be down for the count in a state of paralysis for hours.

After the long hike we ended up at the location of one Rafflesia flower, the largest flower on the earth.

The Rafflesia has no stems, leaves or true roots.  It is a holoparasite of vines, which means it spreads its absorptive organ inside the tissue of the vine.  The only part that is visible is the five-petaled flower seen in these pics.  The flowers look and smell like rotting flesh, hence its local name which translates to “corpse flower” or “meat flower“.  The foul odor attracts insects, which in turn transport pollen from male to female flowers.

It takes about nine months from the bud emergence to the full blown flowering in the pic below.  The flower has the world’s largest single bloom.  The flower will begin blooming at night and then start to decompose only two or three days later.  The Malaysian guides have to work everyday to find the next bud ready to bloom so they can continue to bring tour groups through to see the flower in full bloom.

As seen in Rambo, you can find filtered water in a bamboo shoot!  The guides cut the shoot and there you go, it was filled with clean and tasty water.  Very refreshing!

There was a local small village seen just off the trail.  The locals have removed their original huts and replaced them with concrete buildings.  In the past they took this tour group to visit the village, but their traditional ways have been replaced with more modern ways.  The tour group took them off the list of stops…it would have been cool to see them in their traditional ways, but I cannot fault them for swapping bamboo for concrete.

At the base of the Rafflesia walk the guides displayed an authentic bamboo blowdart gun.  They demonstrated how it worked, then we took turns shooting darts at the target.  It was our “Survivor Reward Challenge” moment.

Then after a quick lunch, we moved on to the B.O.H. Tea Plantation.  B.O.H. is a world renowned manufacturer of tea.  Their grounds were very beautiful.

The equipment used over the years was on display for our viewing.

They had a tea sales area and the walls of the hallway were neatly designed with cut pieces of wood.

The weather was sunny and rain throughout the day, so we could experience the rainforest.

Then we went to the Butterfly Farm.  It contained a heck of a lot more than butterflies, but they were present in multiple species.

The final stop was the Strawberry Farm.  It wasn’t much more than its name.  Saskatchewan has its fair share of strawberry farms, so this was neat but nothing new for us.

The Cameron Highlands were a good experience and we plan to return here in about 5-6 months time as we return to Malaysia for a festival in Kuala Lumpur.  Next we travel via bus to Kuala Lumpur so we can catch a flight to a new and exciting destination.

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For more photos of our adventure go to our flickr account here.