Our Camping Blog

David Bowden takes on the challenge of driving a motorhome up the long and winding road to the Cameron Highlands to delight in the cooler, temperate weather.

While many visit Malaysia for its year-round warm weather, seeking respite from the hot, humid conditions is something I’m sure everyone welcomes every so often. If I recollect my high school geography, the cooler conditions are intricately connected to the adiabatic lapse rate (dry and wet, but I need not go into detail here), which basically means that the higher the altitude, the cooler the air.

You don’t need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows, nor do you need a doctorate in meteorology to know that there are several cool, high-altitude locations in Malaysia, with the Cameron Highlands being the best known and most popular. There are other such locations, with Penang Hill being the one first chosen by wizened colonialists. Fraser’s Hill is the other well-known but less-visited location in Malaysia, and there are other high-altitude hill stations scattered across the region, from Shimla in India to Sapa in Vietnam.

While enjoying the tropical weather of the Malaysian lowland, I felt it was time for a cool change, so I headed up to the Cameron Highlands.