Cameron Highlands.

11 Sep 2018.

The whole Boys Wing, RMC Sg. Besi, spent one of the school terms holidays camping up Cameron Highlands in 1961 or 1962, I can't remember which one. It was my very first Cameron Highlands visit, as was almost everybody's, I suspect. But unlike now, when all of us drive up the highlands in our comfortable airconditioned vehicles, the "budak boys" then were all packed into canvas-topped army trucks, with the fore and aft ends open. That was convenient. When we were making our labourious climb from Tapah up to our final destination, Brinchang, we took turns to vomit over the tailgates - the swaying and rolling of the trucks along the twisted narrow road made all sick to the gills.

Brinchang was a vacant army camp at the foot of the Gunung Brincang, Cameron Highlands' highest point. There were no other buildings that I could remember of. Right from  Ringlet we already felt the cold air. My memory is that Cameron Highlands was much colder then. We donned our army sweaters, the cold air rushing through the trucks' canopy somewhat refreshing the seasickness. But upon reaching Brinchang camp, our destination, what did we find? The selected seniors who had left Sg. Besi a couple of days earlier as the forward group were strutting around shirtless, obviously  trying to show off to us, the main body of campers, "this cold is nothing lah!".

We were assigned by companies separate army barracks. Over each army bed a mosquito net was strung. But it wasn't for the mosquitoes. It was for the flies! There were swarms of the pesky pest, coming from the nearby vegetable farms for which Cameron Highlands was already famous for. Without the mosquito net, life would have been unbearable.

We didn't have much time to just be fighting the flies. The college made sure there were long treks, climbing Gunung Brinchang, "locate C.T. camps", etc. etc. that each night no one had problem sleeping soundly in spite of the cold. I remember marching back from one "locate C.T. camp" excersise, by the time we were about a kilometer from camp, I could hardly lift my feet.

During one of the long trekking through rough terrain and vegetable farms, one of our teachers, a Mr. Sekhon, if I'm not mistaken, adventurously picked a ripe tomato, rubbed it on his shirt, and started to eat it. That was a mistake. The farmer must have sprayed his vegetables with insecticide. That's standard operation. One rub on a sweaty shirt did not remove the chemical. In a very short time, Mr. Sekhon became ill, and we were very far from camp. One of the senior "budak" volunteered to accompany a weakened and sick Mr. Sekhon back the way we came from. I don't know to this day how that ended. I think he was hospitalised and had his camping cut short. 

Recently I went up Cameron Highlands again, one of the many, many trips that I've made since the RMC days. And this time it was through Simpang Pulai, Ipoh. What a difference. Mostly I slept in the coach. The road meanders less. There were plenty of stops, for food and bathroom breaks. Only the destination was also Brinchang, but this time a multi-storey hotel, surrounded by pretty little shops that sell everything. Somehow I remember the RMC camp as colder and fresher, even if more primitive.

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