A sci-fi city and a tea-scented jungle – tempt clients with this BA route revival

Another skyscraper in town – the Merdeka 118 – became the world’s second-tallest building after its early 2024 inauguration. When it opens to the public in late 2024, an observatory and a Park Hyatt (Malaysia’s first) will occupy its upper floors.

Elsewhere, little has changed. The Merdeka 118 towers over historic Chinatown, where the covered Petaling Street Market has always attracted bargain-loving visitors (a local guide tells me she once met a Michael Kors employee dispatched to appraise the market’s replica bags which are, apparently, as good as it gets). Here, clients can test their haggling skills before visiting the nearby Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Kuala Lumpur’s oldest Hindu temple.

The Jalan Alor night market in KL’s centre has always been my go-to street food spot. Not just for cheap bottles of Tiger beer and more satay than you can shake a stick at, but local delicacies including frog, prepared in various ways, often involving Marmite marinades. Another great street food destination is Kampung Baru, in the shadow of the Petronas Towers. This small settlement was established in 1899 by Malaysia’s British colonial administration, keen to make a show of providing farmers with a place free from the risk of development, while ensuring their produce continued to feed the rapidly expanding city. Today, several wooden stilted houses remain – and are still inhabited.

For clients keen to scratch beneath Kuala Lumpur’s surface, a cycling tour with Bike with Elena (bikewithelena.com) will take them to often-overlooked neighbourhoods, while supporting a locally owned business.

A SEA OF GREEN 

A three-hour drive from Kuala Lumpur, the Cameron Highlands’ acidic soil and cooler climate make it one of Asia’s top tea-producing regions – and a great destination to pair with Malaysia’s capital. Its most popular hotels include the Cameron Highlands Resort, a hilltop country house-style affair where activities offered include guided hikes. The cooler temperatures are why I’ve always associated this region with tea, not tigers, but during a forest hike, my guide Madi produces a photo of one on his phone. “I saw him right here just last week,” he says.

Apparently, the tiger quickly disappeared into the trees, and as we fight through triffid-like foliage, Madi tells us about another disappearing act – Jim Thompson, the American Bangkok-based silk trader who left his cottage in the Cameron Highlands on 26 March 1967 and never returned. His body was never found, and Madi reels off theories ranging from tiger attacks (at which point I walk slightly faster) to kidnap.

After the hike, we follow a narrow twisting road to the pretty gabled cottage where Thompson stayed. Its quaintness and flower-filled garden are at odds with the darker aspects of his disappearance, but typical of the properties nestling in this region’s lush valleys, where half-timbered country houses cling to mist-shrouded slopes, and hikes are accompanied by a melody of birdsong.

But back to the tea. You’re never far from it here, and one of the largest plantations is owned by BOH Tea. Here, I feast on various tea-themed treats (including a strawberry tea cheesecake and green tea tiramisu) in a cafe suspended over the plantation, 1,520 metres above sea level.

Faded photos show the three-wheelers once used as delivery vans, and exhibits include ancient rolling machines used in the early 1900s to draw out the leaves’ flavour. A highlight is the factory tour through a tea-scented paradise, and I consider a career change as I watch testers sip tea poured from ornate teapots and marvel at the sheer quantity of tea leaves piled onto conveyor belts.

I enjoy a different type of caffeine fix at the Cameron Highlands Resort’s spa. My treatment starts with a soak in a skin-softening tea bath while I listen to soothing music through headphones and watch footage of tea plantations. Yes, it might be the strangest spa treatment I’ve experienced, but as a tea addict, it’s my favourite. I’d love to think I could replicate it by filling my (decidedly less glamorous) bathtub back home, but it wouldn’t be the same. Which means there’s only one thing for it: another visit to Malaysia.

Book it: Abercrombie & Kent offers a five-night stay at the Cameron Highland Resort on a B&B basis and two nights in the Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur in a Horizon Club Executive Room from £1,599pp based on two people sharing. Includes flights and private transfers; abercrombiekent.co.uk