The Cameron Highlands; home of carnivorous pitcher plants and wild orchids.

I recently managed to spend some time in the Cameron Highlands in Peninsular Malaysia. The cool fresh mountain air was a relief from the heat of KL. This former colonial hill station established by the British has a few relatively old colonial era buildings and we managed to stay in a 1930s British school house now converted to a hotel.

The area is home to a number of tea estates and tea shops offering up the chance for a reasonable cup of tea. The views across the tea estates form interesting patterns on the hillsides.

The main disappointment with the area for me is that so much of the original forest has gone and the ongoing development has turned the lakes and rivers brown through soil loss. Despite this some good trails remain. Well worth a visit is the mossy forest on Gunung Brinchang at a height of 2032 meters above sea level. The cool climate and constant watering from the clouds that blow over the ridge make this an excellent place for epiphytes (plants that grow on trees) including orchids and pitcher plants.

Epigeneium longipes

Ceratostylis eriaeaoides

Nepenthes Macfarlanei

View from the mossy forest trailhead

Another feature of the Cameron Highlands and Fraser's Hill as well, is the profusion of Bamboo Orchids (Arundina graminifolia) that can be seen growing along the roadsides where the ground has been disturbed. These plants seem to have benefited from human activity and form spectacular displays along the roadsides.

Palau Tioman, great beaches and jungle

Palau Tioman is a beautiful island of Peninsular Malaysia's south east coast.  As you approach the island from the sea it's famous dragon horns stick out from the jungle clad hills and catch the clouds giving the place a really magical look. The jungle covering its interior is pretty good and it is easy to cross the island along a well used path between Tekek and Juara beach. There are few large mammals other than long tailed macaque monkeys and black giant squirrels(they aren't really that big), but I saw plenty of lizards, day flying bats and insects when walking through the forest there.

The marine life off Tioman is also excellent with great opportunities for snorkelling including with the local black tip reef sharks.

Black tip reef shark with remora attached. Taken at night feeding by the jetty seen in the picture above.

There is a nice waterfall that can be visited called the Asah Waterfall near Mukut. This a nice but popular waterfall. It took about an hour and a half walking there from my resort and for most of the time I had the place to myself. Inevitably a tour group turned up eventually taking the short walk from Mukut jetty, still clad in their bright orange life jackets. At this point I left it to them and walked back along the undulating forested coastal path.

The highlight of the return leg was undoubtedly being charged past by two huge stampeding monitor lizards. The first shot past oblivious to my presence but the second stopped dead on top of my feet, looked at me, panicked and shot off into the forest.  There were loads of these lizards on the island which with no natural predators on Tioman are at the top of the food chain.

Another monitor lizard (Varanus varanus) taken at the resort

Another group of animals seemingly doing well on the island was bats. There were unusual day flying insect eating bats wherever I walked through forested areas. Too fast to photograph(I did try) these bats zipped about me at high speed keeping low as they hunted between the trees.  In the village of Tekek however I found a big colony of short nosed fruit bats roosting through the day in some trees near a river. The stink from their droppings was pretty potent so I guess that they have been there for some time. They were a restless bunch constantly fidgeting and squawking as I took a few shots with my SLR.

Cynopterus brachyotis (Lesser Short-nosed Fruit Bat) 

Another notable feature of the jungle on Tioman was the abundance of flying lizards gliding between the tree trunks, with the males often chasing rivals whilst signalling with their brightly coloured skin flaps(dewlaps) under their chins.

Draco melanopogon (Black-bearded Gliding Lizard) Male 

Life is good on the island!

The long tailed macaques were also common throughout the island and pretty chilled out in the absence of big predators.

All in all if you like decent jungle at the back of your beach and decent reefs, Tioman is for you.

Beach used as a location in the film South Pacific