PLANTACIONES DE TÉ EN CAMERON HIGHLANDS | MALASIA #4

A new day has begun. I've just left the hotel. I've just arrived at the bus terminal, which is in the south of Kuala Lumpur. It's called TBS. It's 9km away, but as I always tell you with Uber, I think it cost me 3€ to get here. If it wasn't for public transport, it would have been quite complicated to get here. It took me 10 minutes by Uber. What I'm going to do now is an excursion for a couple of days. I'm going to the north of Malaysia, not quite, but to the north of Kuala Lumpur. It's about 4 or 5 hours by bus from here. And I'm going to show you around. Now I'm going to rest a bit in the bus, to see the views a bit, and I'll tell you how the day is going. I've just got off the bus. It's been about 5 hours. It's been a bit long, but it's been quite good, especially the last part, which is almost 2 hours. There have been constant curves to get up to the mountain. I've arrived here at Tana Rata, which is a village. It sounds good. It's up here on the mountain. Now I'm going to see if I can find my hotel, which should be close by, because the sky is... It's going to rain at any moment. It has already rained, because it's full of water. I think I'm going to be here for two days, and I think I'm going to find a lot of rain. So you have to have a positive attitude. I'll tell you a bit more when I get to the hotel. If you come here, you should know that you have a lot of hotel options. Look at this. This whole street is full of hotels. And this is just this street. Everything here is oriented to tourism. This is my hotel. I'm in my room here in Tana Rata. It's not bad. I've taken a private room. It's quite good for the place it is, because it's in the mountains. You can't expect a 5-star hotel here. Here's the bed. There's a painting, a small closet. It's humble, it's colorful. I like that it's colorful. It's green and blue. Here's the bathroom. It's quite similar to the one in Hong Kong, because here's the toilet, and the shower is right here. So you can take a shower on top of the toilet. There's even a small terrace here. And from here you can see this area. This is the beginning of Tana Rata, from the south. Here are the intersections. I'm going to change, because I'm wearing long pants. It's quite cooler here than in Kuala Lumpur, because the temperature is quite low The humidity is not so overwhelming. So I'm really looking forward to visit what I want to see. I'm going to show you. By the way, the area I'm in is called Cameron Highlands. This is one of the villages in Cameron Highlands. By the way, if you come here and want to stay in Orchid Haven, they also have shared rooms, think of it as a Muslim settlement. Being surrounded by Muslims means that you can't get alcohol or pork. You have to take off your shoes, but that's just for decoration. But if you come here with alcohol or pork, you're in trouble. It's quite famous for its tea plantations. It's usually the most visited by tourists from abroad, especially by Malay people. But people from abroad don't come here that often, even though there are more and more backpackers. I met this place by chance, because I saw a picture I don't even know where I saw it. I don't know if it was on Instagram, but I saw a picture one day and I loved what I saw. So when I planned to come to Malaysia, I said, I have to come here, because I really liked it. Now you're going to see the images and I'll show you the different plantations. This is an area in the mountains and it's very famous because huge tea plantations started to grow here. There are thousands of square kilometers of tea plantations. All the mountain is full of tea plantations. It's amazing. What I've done to come here, because the road is quite complicated, maybe there are 7 km or so, or even more, from Tanah Rata to the tea plantations, you can make routes by walking. I want to make a route, but today I haven't done it because as I was on the bus, I arrived here at two o'clock, and I didn't want it to get dark. The tea plantations, at the top, where I'm arriving now, there's a restaurant where you can have a cup of tea, there's a factory where they teach you how to make tea, and this is a place that closes at 5 p.m. So I didn't have time to walk because it was going to be a few hours. So what I've done to come here, to the tea plantation, is to take a taxi. I took a taxi in Tanah Rata, I talked to a taxi driver, we negotiated a price, it wasn't bad, I think it was 8 euros, for bringing me here, waiting for me, and then bringing me back, because there aren't usually taxis here, so it's better not to risk it. But you can also hitchhike, because there are a lot of people here, so someone can always get off. But I chose this guy because he made me wait here, and he's super nice because he's guiding me, he's explaining, he's been here all his life, he's explaining the history of the tea plantation, how it started here, he also talks a lot about football, but that's another topic. And the funny thing is that his name is John, I imagine he wrote it differently, but he's super nice. And I'm arriving here at the center, this is the BOTY Center, B-O-T-Y is the name of the company. So let's go in, and I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you some images, where I've talked to the guy, and he's explained the different types of tea here. And the third leaf becomes green tea. Fermentation takes place in the five stages. In the third stage, fermentation takes place, then it becomes green. And this one, the black tea. The fourth leaf. And these stalks become fertilizer. So this one is not made into tea. No. Only the three leaves. What they want is to shoot. This is what they pluck. So the black tea and the green tea is from the same plant. I thought there were many different species. No, it is not. The whole division here, we have two divisions, 1,200 hectares of tea planted. And it's all from one company? All one company. And the other side, also the same company. They own everything. We don't do any watering the plants. We have a lot of rain. But we do the fertilizing from the other garden. They have a small plane. They fly over here and they drop the fertilizers. This is how the tea flower looks like. So if you have a good nose, you can smell tea. Five petals in the flower. This one, they make it into tea flower perfume. That one is a tea tree. So you can see how big it can grow. As you can see, the views from here are amazing. I have all the tea plantations behind me. Well, all of them. Just a small part. As you can see, they are all over the mountain. And the mountain is infinite. Of course, here you can buy all kinds of tea they create. But this one is even mixed. This one is basic. This one is more basic. Jumbo. With less sugar. There are a thousand different types of tea. It's really complete. This is the store inside. Before, tea was harvested by hand by a lot of people. So little by little, they have been modernizing. And today, machines like this one have an engine and they are placed on top of all the plants. And they start pulling from one side to the other. And with the pipes they have, they pull all the leaves. By the way, this is called Cameron Highlands because it was discovered by a British in the 19th century who was called Cameron. I don't know how many Cameron. James Cameron. I don't know if he's the director. I don't think so. And it's very typical here when you leave the factory tour to have a tea with the view of the station. There are a lot of people. Also because it's a weekend. But there are a lot of people.