Afternoon tea, woodsmoke and a colonial past built after independence — Cameron Highlands Resort, Malaysia.
I’m already full, but I lean forward to inspect the remaining treats on the three-tiered porcelain cake stand. My wicker chair creaks, the ceiling fan gently wump-wump-wumps and Uncle Stephen, the hotel’s septuagenarian pianist, plays melancholy jazz.
I reach for another salmon sandwich, its crust neatly circumcised, leaving two squares of white bread hugging a tantalising glimpse of glossy pink. For good measure, I add a plump scone to my plate. I slice it open, smearing it with jam before adding cream — the Cornish Method. May those devilish Devonians be damned for leading with cream! I pour my fourth cup of tea and lean back. As Henry James opens The Portrait of a Lady by observing: “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
I’m taking this particular afternoon tea in the elegant Jim Thompson Tea Room at the Cameron Highlands Resort. Through the windows I can see a sprawling, attractive golf course and beyond this foliage-dense hills, home to a handful of grand ‘bungalows’ and still further, the dark mass of higher hills.
We had arrived at the hotel that afternoon after a four-hour drive from Kuala Lumpur, with the traffic becoming increasingly heavy as we approached the cluster of towns at the centre of the Cameron Highlands.
“Holiday. Hari Raya,” our driver, Anandan, had said, as we inched forward. “Two-day holiday after Ramadan. A lot of eating. Malaysians love the Cameron Highlands. Strawberries, butterfly farms…” Anandan waved a hand to indicate the highlands’ multitude of delights then shrugged with the tolerance of somebody who had experienced holiday traffic many times before and knew there was no point fighting it.
We finally peeled off from the traffic and drove up a slope, stopping under the hotel’s porte-cochère. An immaculately uniformed doorman opened the car door and greeted us, as did the cool air. The Cameron Highlands sit around 1,500 metres above sea level, and the average temperature ranges between 18 to 25°C, numbers that look relatively high on paper, but after the humid heat blanket draped over KL, it felt positively… British.
I had gazed left and right, taking in the sweep of the long, two-storey hotel with its white walls, architectural symmetry, plantation shutters and verandas. It was the picture of a building in a British colonial hill station — except that it never was. The hotel’s origins, like much of the Cameron Highlands history, emerge only partially through the mist. Some facts are clear: it was originally a much smaller 1930s cottage, later operating as the Merlin Inn Resort after fire destroyed the original structure. It was finally treated to a luxury, heritage makeover by the YTL hotel group re-opening in the mid-2000s.
In the lobby, with its slow ceiling fans, beams and wooden floor, we were greeted by formally attired and efficient front desk staff and the homely scent of woodsmoke – not a smell you expect in the tropics. When I commented on this, I was invited to be the firestarter at the nightly fire-lighting ceremony in the library room and reminded that afternoon tea was still being served.
Now, bags unpacked and well into my third course of afternoon tea, I pop a cucumber sandwich into my mouth. What other occasion allows you to justify drinking so much tea in so short a period, accompanied by so many cakes and sandwiches? It’s ritualised indulgence and colonial cosplay, except only the waiters with their blazers, ties and polished service appear to be holding up their end of this bargain. One of my fellow diners is wearing an Arsenal top stretched protesting over a prodigious belly; the rest wear shorts and T-shirts.
In the evening, I fulfil my promise to be the ritual firestarter in the library. Wood-panelled, book-lined walls surround deep, comfortable leather sofas and the fireplace. The smell of woodsmoke is heady, dislocating, catapulting me to a stone-floored room in a friend’s farm in Devon.
The ritual party consists of me, my wife and two members of staff. I’m pleased that I don’t have an audience as I don’t have a great track record with fires. I need not worry as nothing is left to chance tonight. The staff build a pyramid of logs with practised precision and set about snapping slender lengths of wood into kindling. One man struggles to snap a length of wood, but, feeling our eyes on him, knows failure is not an option. He grunts, eyes bulging as he bends it over his knee. The wood shatters, sending shards skidding across the library’s parquet floor. Failure to light the fire is similarly not tolerated. Logs and kindling in place, firestarters are inserted and dollops of some other accelerant added. I’m handed a lit taper, and with phones poised to catch my glory, I bend low, insert the flame, and the fire crackles to life. The nightly ritual is complete. Later, after an immaculacy-plated dinner in the hotel’s The Dining Room, we are presented with a framed souvenir photograph of my wife and me sitting by the fire after the ceremony.
We don’t want the evening to end, so we head for The Highlands Bar for a digestif. A waiter quietly takes our order. A snooker table sits unused, reds racked, colours on spots, but in my mind, I hear the click of the cue ball on a red, the whisper of ball on baize as it travels the length of the table and drops into a pocket with a gentle thunk. I can almost smell cigars and whisky; hear somebody tap the table in appreciation. Of course, that never happened here. The hotel is a fantasy of British colonialism curated by people who were once colonised by Britain, and I must admit they have done it superbly.
Postscript #1
Fact: Out in the Midday Sun: The British in Malaya 1880-1960 by Margaret Shennan. Using the letters and diaries of people who lived there, Shennan builds a compelling picture of pre-independence Malaya.
Fiction: Tales of the Highlands by Choong Chi-Ying. You’ll find this delightful book of magical realism in the drawer of your bedside table at the Cameron Highlands Resort. Sit on your balcony and read it as mist masks the landscape and a were-tiger strides the hills.
Postscript #2
Jim Thompson, the Silk King of Thailand, spy, womaniser and enigma was last seen in the hills just above the Cameron Highlands Resort. I’ll be publishing an essay about his disappearance — Jim Thompson, a Tiger and Me — in a couple of weeks. I was lucky enough to experience a walking tour of the route he took, guided by the Cameron Highlands Resort’s naturalist, Madi, who was a boy at the time of these events, and he had some fascinating insights to share.
