Mossy Forest Tour
in Malaysia

By Rory

Posted September 19, 2014

The Mossy Forest in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia

What’s a rare and unusual thing to do while traveling in Malaysia? Well if you’ve found a way to get yourself to the Cameron Highlands which is just a few hours drive from Malaysia’s beaches, then you need to check out the mossy forest while you’re there. We took a tour to the top of Mount Gunung Brinchang in one of the burliest Range Rover’s I’d seen in quite a few years. I guess when you have some horns decked atop your vehicle’s hood, it signifies you mean business in the highlands. Either that or you just really have a thing for horns.

Either way, this mean machine got us up to the top of Mount Gunung Brinchang which is one Malaysia’s highest mountains sitting at an elevation of 6,666 feet. And let me say this… the ride up that mountain might have been the steepest, most harrowing ride I’d been on since leaving the mountain passes in Tibet. The entire time I was thinking how much fun it was going to be when our brakes failed on the way back down these steep mountain switchbacks. Of course, our driver didn’t seem to think anything of this since he was full speed both up and back down that day.

When we arrived, I could immediately tell what makes this environment so unique. Though it was extremely hot and humid that day, when we stepped out of the horned Range Rover, the temperature must have been just above freezing. Definitely not a day for shorts and flip flops which I was wearing! Seems the altitude up here pushes the low-level clouds right through this mountains peak, creating the mist and moisture levels needed to give this forest the ideal conditions for moss to grow among other things such as ferns, orchids, and pitcher plants. It is also a haven for all sorts of diverse wildlife such as birds, frogs, snakes and insects that are only found in the mossy forest. Of course, you can tell this area hangs in the clouds day in and day out based on my photos…

The unique carnivorous Pitcher Plants in the Mossy Forest

It is said that the mossy forest only grows at ½ to 1 centimeter per year and that the forest itself is over 1000 years old. They can easily measure this as all the trees there have stunted growth that are much shorter than those down the mountain and around other areas withinthe Cameron Highlands.

And walking through here, you couldn’t help but feel like you were walking on a set in a creepy movie (or one of fantasy) as this place was like nothing else I had walked through or experienced before. The closest I could compare it to would be to take a walk through a bamboo forest where everything is uniform and alike. However, this mossy forest was even stranger and more unique. The forest floor was almost like walking on a thick sponge. When you looked behind you, there would be water soaked footprints left in the mossy forest floor. There were even places where the trees’ roots had surfaced, found other roots to intertwine with and over the years, a thick covered moss had created a new ‘floating’ forest floor. Case in point: There was a section we jumped on that was like a swing, hovering 15’ up in the air that looked like a moss covered hammock though no matter how high you jumped, you could not fall through (at least for us that day).

Heading back out of the trails that wind through the mossy forest, you can head north, a bit further up the road leading to the peak of Gunung Brinchang. Of course, as stated before, what makes the mossy forest ‘mossy’ is the fact that this mountain hangs in the clouds almost around the clock so don’t expect to catch a splendid view. There is radio tower you can climb up though for a better chance to get a break between the clouds which is what we did. You may just have to wait a bit before you can get a good shot. This one below was the best I could do!

So the truth is that while we are in fact having a great time here, one of the people we were with thought that this was the best opportunity to take a picture of us with the ‘view’ in the background… What an awesome view!

And in case you are lucky or just want to hang out longer, you might catch a better glimpse shown here…

All in all, this place was amazing. We spent nearly an hour there but I was hoping to stay longer… maybe film the intro to the next sci-fi movie. If you do make it to Malaysia, be sure to put the Cameron Highlands on your list of places to venture to and while there, don’t miss out on the experience of heading to the Mossy Forest. It’s one of those unique but rare environments you can find on this amazing planet we call earth.