Cameron Highlands is a temperate hill station about halfway up the otherwise blistering Malaysian peninsula. Bill Cameron was a surveyor, working for the British government in 1885. Just 125 years ago, these highlands were being mapped for the first time. (Photos from Malaysia)
About five or eight of us jumped off the train at Tapah Road, Malaysia, on schedule at 9:51. Ten minutes later a taxi rolled up and we piled in, Mirja and Peter and me.
Peter's an Aussie who runs transport for a coal mine in Indonesian Borneo. Like us, he was headed up here with just a vague idea why. He had to be in Singapore on the fourth. We had to be in Bangkok next week.
We agreed on the ringgits (Malaysian money) for the load of us and drove into town, where we swapped drivers and climbed into a beige, pre-war Mercedes. Our new driver was ancient, gnarled. He laid his safety belt over his lap, but he wouldn't attach it.
Every four minutes he'd dredge phlegm from deep on the bottom of his lungs with a low, two step wheeze. He had a lump the size of half a cue ball on top of his old bald head.
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On the road up into the hills, the only suggestion of commerce was a series of untended bamboo poles. Durians dangled from some.
Most of the time the old man was generally in the correct lane, and he never overtook a bus, though not for lack of trying. He got to fourth gear fast as he could and slowly accelerated up the switchbacks. But somewhere along the way he got fire in his belly and drove like a bat outta hell the rest of the way.