When my editor handed me the invitation for Oracles Media Outreach trip to Cameron Highlands, I smelled a rat. It had nothing to do with me; I showered. It is not normal for one to call the media to have fun during the weekend. I checked the Itinerary and saw only one session with Oracle briefing in it. Let us hope ther would be only one.

The coach left at 3.00 and was packed about nineteen journalist, a few of the Oracle staff and two representatives from their PR agency Alpha Platform (don't get me wrong, I didn't get paid to mention names). Included in the ride was our guide, Kumar, his assistant, Terence and the driver, who remained nameless throughout the trip. We played bingo, on Kumars insistence, even though most of us didnt know how. I thought Bingo was the name of a dog.

We stopped briefly in Tapah, for rest, and met with what would be there in Cameron Highlands - flies. A more experienced journalist assured that there would be plenty of flies in Cameron Highland. I remarked that we must make sure they don't serve soups, only to be met with blank stare. I suppose they never had fly in soup situations, probably the opposite.

Once we started to climb the mountain, I realized something - I am sure that makers of roller coaster came here and made the blueprint. The only problem till now is, nobody attained the scare factor so evident here. Look out of the window, and you will see the ravine getting deeper and deeper. Imagine the tragedy of a bus plunging into it, with passengers - which is a disaster unless it is full of teen pop divas. I tried to sleep but unable to, since the fascinating sight of the jungle kept me more than awake. Along the winding road, the natives (Orang Asli) have built huts and homes for themselves. And they loved to wave at us. They must have been mistaken. We are not the ignorant foreigners who still think that Malaysians live in jungle, but their fellow-citizens. No need to wave mates!

It was getting darker and the complete lack of street light only made me more nervous. Suppose the elephants decided they had enough of vegetarian life? I asked one of the PR girl about the existence of wild animals here. She said, "Not sure. But we have you guys, the next best thing." I slept inconsistently.

Several nightmares later, we found ourselves in Tanah Rata (literally Flat Land) a small town (literally small town) with a lot of buildings in black and white, remnants of the colonial era. It seem some Scottish guy named William Cameron found and used the highland as a summer retreat, after directing Titanic. Wait, that was James Cameron. Wrong Cameron. Sporadically there were plenty of bungalows were left behind by the colonial oppressors (hey, somebody is getting cranky here) and they are really quite a sight! All white buildings with black frames and beams. Classic!

At eight, we reached the Strawberry Park Resort. We were greeted by the enthusiastic looking staff of the Resort with garlands (made from daisies, thread and drinking straw) and coloured drinks. Seeing that the other press guys didn't drop immediately of cyanide poisoning, I drank it. The taste invited diabetes, so I put it aside.

The whether was not as cold as I had expected. Of course, the air was fresher and humidity was totally nil. It was cold, but not as cold as it was fifteen years ago when I came here for a school trip. Naturally, then I was shorter, thinner and had just found out that the world was not flat. A lot of thing happened since; development, progress, global warming, deforestation and Karam Singh Walia.

We were given room keys, and since the resort didn't have rooms - only apartments - we had to share. I shared mine with Jai, a writer from Malaysian Business. We had dinner in the Chinese restaurant of the resort, with dishes that you can find in a normal restaurant in KL. Everyone was tired and chose to go to bed. A few of us stayed in the patio and discussed various issues, mostly nothing to do with IT. After coming to no conclusion and being tired at the same time, we went to bed.

Breakfast is usually the best part of any morning, and I drank as much coffee as possible, since the following event would be Oracle Briefing. Most presentations by vendors are long and boring, enough to make one hibernate longer than Rip Van Winkle. But it was different here. All Michael Lai, the Marketing Director of Oracle Malaysia, did was to introduce Oracle, and believe it or not, some of the journalist have never heard about the company. And instead of going on and on himself, he enlisted one of us to explain a few things. Earlier, some of us were asked to explain about what we know about Oracle. I said that the marketing people were probably the hardest working people around and that Oracle always serves good refreshments. I suppose I remember only the good stuff.

Lunch was served in Jim Thompson lounge in the resort. Jim Thompson, by the way, was an American expatriate in Thailand, who disappeared in Cameron Highland. I learned a lot from the other journalist, especially Jai, about this mystery. Fascinating. His disappearence is still a mistery.

The worst fear was realized during the luncheon. There were flies everywhere. Flies on the ceiling, on the table and on the faces of other journalists. Wait, it might be a mole. The real trouble is that the fact that the management of the resort don't seem to be aware of this problem. Nobody is running around with a fly swatter, nor are there any buzzes of flies getting fried by some electric gadgets. Probably they don't want to disrupt the peace on the meal table. With nineteen journalists around, that is something nobody should expect.

Then, at 2.30 in the afternoon, the tour began with what Cameron Highland is famous for...flies. Just kidding! The tea plantation. We were driven into a yet another long, winding and this time, much narrower road up the plantation. The only comforting factor about plunging into this ravine is that you will die with good aroma.

The guide for the plantation, James, is a very serious looking guy, who talked about the plantation and its history as if he was announcing someone's death. But he smiled when taking questions. I even caught a chuckle or two from him, later. Despite what you see in advertisements and documentaries, there were no women with a basket at their back to be seen. James explained that these days they use machines to cut off the young shoots of the tea plants, some of which are up to 70 years old. Someone brought up the subject of snakes. James explained that for some strange reasons, no snakes were ever found in this tea plantation. My guess would be that snakes prefer coffee.

From a high point, the plantation looked like how heaven should look. Green, clean, parted irregularly; it almost represented the most expensive painting yet to be painted. It looks like a huge fluffy carpet stretched for miles. The air is clean, the climate cold and the sight was so refreshing, such a contrast to the concrete jungle. I felt very romantic just looking at it. Maybe I should alert Bollywood.

From the plantation, we were brought to the BOH tea factory. Before going in, James asked how many of us liked drinking tea. Plenty of raised hands. "After this," he said, still serious, "you won't." From exterior, the place looked like any other old-fashioned factory, with wooden planks and zinc roof. Inside, it still looked any old-fashioned factory, so old that the machines used were the ones made in 1935, from Brussels. They worked well, with the spare parts still available in most third world countries. The machines were oily and looked dirty, and the workers looked like they could use towels. James was right. Just when we thought it was safe to drink tea...

I missed the explanation of the whole process in the factory. There were so much of whirring and mechanical noises that we could only see James somber face describing the processes. For all you know he might be miming - it was that noisy.

Out of the factory we were brought in to the shop, where we realized that there are more than two type of tea Malaysians know (Teh-O and Teh Tarik)Though right out of the factory, they were slightly more expensive than the ones sold outside. Most of them were neatly packaged and piled that the mere sight made us forget about the condition of the factory. Almost all of us bought a few packages each. After that, back to the roller-coster ride down the valley, with a lighter wallet.

The Second stop was the Cactus Valley. The visit confirmed me that present day Cameron Highlanders are absolutely fascinated with - apart from tea - cactuses. There was the whole bunch of them over here. Some smaller than a thumb and some big enough to be a nightmare for the accident-prone. There were some with tarantula like extensions; some that looked like spiky watermelon; some that looked cute and cuddly; and some that looked as menacing as porcupines. I thought cactus belonged to desert not a cold climate highland like this. I won't be surprised to see, in my next visit, some camels hanging around and belching and spitting at the visitors, especially journalists.

The next visit was the Strawberry Farm. The plants were growing in stretches of hydrophonic platforms. Visitors can buy the packaged strawberries or pick it from the farm themselves. Naturally, fellow journalists were all excited and picked as much strawberries as they could, and paid through their noses. Some of the noses are still bleeding. I settled for the homemade jam that tasted much better than the berries. The latter were sour and are too small that you got keep your eyes open or you would be biting your thumb.

After the strawberry park, we stopped over at the Honeybee farm. We were supposed to walk around the boxes on poles that were supposed to be beehives. Thank God, the fear of getting stung alerted the nature and it rained heavily. I am sure the bees were disappointed, as I imagine this scenario:

Bee X: Darn the rain! There goes our sting.

Bee Y: Yeah! Never stung a journalist before.

So, the rain got us back into the bus and off we go to the Ye Old Smokehouse for the traditional English tea and scones. This place, like most of the resorts and restaurants, is a hotel that was styled after an old English inn, which had the atmosphere, ambience and the price tag to match. Most of the press people were impressed with the interior, especially the four-poster beds, leaded- windows and wooden beams. Personally, all the fascination was destroyed when I sipped the tea. It was the reason why we were there, and there was absolutely nothing in it. It was thinner than bottled mineral water and had about as much aroma. The scones were good, though.

There was a visit to the market in the itinerary, but it was getting late and spurred by League game between Liverpool and Spurs, we opted to go back to the resort. Of course, we were tired and I personally wanted to see Spurs kicking Liverpool's behind. After dinner was the most dreaded of all events - Karaoke.

Karaoke session took place in Equatorial, which is a good hotel with the dullest looking building in Cameron Highlands. Hey, even Twin Tower can look dull in here. The group was divided into a few rooms for private Karaoke session. I was stuck with a group that obviously favored Canto-pop. I had no problem with that, except that I didn't understand a single word. I sneaked out politely and joined the group that was belting out some English and Malay numbers. A couple of drinks and song made everyone a jolly good fellow. But then it struck twelve and we had to go, as Hamid from The Malay Mail remarked, "The carriage might turn into a pumpkin."

The missed market trip was rearranged the next morning. Only a handful joined the trip, as the rest were buried deep in sleep. I followed and got a few souvenirs consisting of plastic encased insects and scorpion. The rest got themselves flowers and vegetables - loads of them, enough to lay it out in a full Pasar Malam. The vegetables were cheap and varied in shapes and sizes. There was one that I swear looked like dead, oversized maggots. One girl assured me that they grow on land and are edible.

The vendors were very persuasive, and some, I suspect, posses the force of a Jedi knight. Though I didn't see it, I imagine this incident did take place:

Market vendor: (waving her hand) You will buy my vegetables.

Journalist: I will buy your vegetable.

As a matter of fact, Michael Lai got himself many boxes of flowers. He said he wanted to lay it out on the bed when he gets home. That was a joke, of course. He gave it to his mistresses. Okay, I made that up. Only at the end of the trip we realized that they were for us.

At noon, we got back to the Resort, checked out and had lunch, while battling the flies. Just when we were getting used to it, we had to go back. For those who missed the morning market, they were given forty-five minutes to do a quick shopping in Tanah Rata. Too bad, by the time we got off the bus, it rained heavily. Talk about anti-climax.

So, on to the bus and back to the even more terrifying (now that it is raining) ride down the mountain. The bus was heavier with flowers, vegetable, and loaded bellies. I liked the trip, thanks to Oracle Malaysia, which always knows how to take care of the media and hopefully their clients (Did I mention they serve good refreshments). It nice to see some rival publication together (InTech and Computimes, Malaysia business and Business Today, IT Malaysia and the flies). I would certainly like to go back to Cameron, this time only if there is a cable or helicopter ride.