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W o r d s :
S a r a h R e e s
W
ith
the exhausting
humidity of Malaysia
a never-ending chal-
lenge for locals, expats
and visitors alike, it is
easy to see why the cooler, hill-top areas
of the country are perennially popular for
weekend breaks and escapes.
Cooler Climate
The mild temperatures and calmer cli-
mates of the high spots of Fraser’s Hill
and the Cameron Highlands are a serious
draw, but they also facilitate a lush green
beauty and a wide variety of flora and
fauna that serve to make visits to these
areas so memorable and pleasurable.
Of course these beauty spots would
still be lost in dense jungle were it not
for the British and their need for a break
from the unrelenting tropical heat during
their years governing the country. It was
the British who established this pair
A century after their
establishment, Malaysia’s
two hill stations remain
as popular as ever. Let us
spare a thought for the
men they are named after.
Howmuch do you know
about Sir Cameron andMr
Fraser?
Highland Men
of ‘hill stations’ a century ago as places to
escape the heat, play a little golf, and generally
recuperate in the cooler climes.
Each hill station is named for the gentle-
men who ‘discovered’ the area. Visitors may
recognise their names, but it is time to get to
know just who these chaps were, and how they
happened upon these now-cherished locales.
Mr Fraser
Robert Louis Fraser is an obscure figure, and
one of many solo Brits that moved through the
world seeking something they were unable
to find. An accountant by profession, Fraser
had left his native Scotland for Australia on an
unsuccessful hunt for gold, and then washed
up in Malaya in the late 1800s on the trail of
tin. By 1894 he was in his late 50s, living alone
in a bamboo-and-attap hut on a dusty road in
Tras, organising a transport system to move pre-
cious tin by bullock cart to Kuala Kubu. Then
something caught his fancy; an unexplored hill
top, and the lure of tin at the peak.
The tea plantations remain a
firm feature of the Cameron
Highlands and are as profitable
as there are beautiful
Step back in time on Fraser’s
Hill, where many buildings have
stood since the early 1900s