there are stories of apportionment--when god was handing out this or that, such and such got it, or the bird which is red because it stole a feather. tea is one of those: when color was being handed out, tea leaves took the darkest, deepest, truest shade of green. but this green is only there to be seen when the tea is viewed through polarizing glass and is stunted and warped, from the tree that it would be into a tiny shrub, hacked at every 20 days by drug-addicted apes yielding shears and machines.

the sungai palas boh tea plantation is covered with hectares of green leaves. the tea they produce comes from some of the same trees planted over 70 years ago. around 1929, the founder of the boh tea company realized there was money to be made from tea even as other commodity prices dropped in the great depression. i wonder how tea is faring in the current economic recession. it is sunny this morning. i run down to catch the 0730 bus to get some early-morning shots of the tea plantation, but the first bus today is at 0830 and it doesn't occur to me to take a teksi (taxi) until it's too late. the bus driver speaks decent english and is happy to let you know where to hop off--he knows all the tourist spots where backpackers will want to go. the ticket is myr$2.50, about usd$0.60. i get off just past a couple of the "butterfly farms" and walk up the road.

a sign leads to "palas view", but the dirt road leading to the view is guarded by a vocal dog so i turn back and continue along the narrow road, wary of any vehicles coming around the bends. morning glories grow along a barbed wire fence. the tea plantation stretches below. a couple pose for wedding photographs, the bride wearing a white dress with red embroidery, a modern chinese-style dress. rows and rows of green tea leaves form beautiful green patterns. verticals, horizontals, diagonals. workers pick the leaves down the slope. a guide stops with his tour group and explains that workers are paid by the weight of tea collected. a good worker can make myr$44 a day collecting over 100 kg of tea leaves, with picking lasting from 0730 to 1130, though it seems odd to me that people would get to work only a half-day (i may have misheard this). down the steep hill a man is hacking at the leaves with his hand-held manual clippers, tossing leaves back into a basket on his back. other men run a mechanical gas-powered clipper along the tops of the bushes. which method is used depends on the steepness of the slope. the workers stay in company-provided homes and the guide says it is a desirable job, even for malaysians. later i speak with one of the guests and she says that her guide said they take a break at midday and then go back out, it is hard work, and many workers are from nepal. on a subsequent visit i look at the steep hills and think about what hard work it must be going up and down the rows of trees, hacking away at leaves, carrying an ever heavier sack on one's back.

cars crowd along the road, trying to make their way on the congested narrow path. smoke rises from a building, perhaps the tea factory. i make my way slowly down the road, stopping finally to photograph a tree standing amidst the stunted tea treas. though it is nearing midday clouds keep the light from being completely featureless. i use a polarizer in nearly all my pictures of the tea plants as this greatly enhances their green color by eliminating reflected light from the shiny surface of the tea leaves. a man gathers his load of leaves and walks it back to a collection point. a tractor carrying bales of tea leaves trundles down the road toward the factory.

by midday the place is packed with people. i take a little tour of the factory while it is in operation. it looks like a good place to work. the noise level isn't too bad, it's open, light, and clean. they use some of the same machines as they did in the old days. tea production takes several steps. first, moisture content is reduced by drying overnight (12-20 hours) at ambient temperature. the partially dried leaves are then ground in two stages then laid out to oxidize. the duration of oxidation determines the type of tea: the longer the oxidation the darker the tea and the more flavor. short periods, up to an hour, yield oolong tea, whereas oxidation of 2 hours gives black tea. the leaves are transfered from the oxidation trays to a conveyor belt and into a machine where hot air is used to halt the oxidation and dry the leaves. the factory uses a clean-burning furnace fired with locally produced wood to heat the air. moisture is reduced to just 3% at this stage. the tea is then electrostatically and mechanically sifted and sorted to separate the tea from debris and into separate particle sizes. the debris is returned as mulch or fertilizer while the tea is placed in sacks and transported to a packing facility where it is packed in air-tight containers.

it's 1300 by the time i leave and clouds have gathered. i hitch a ride to save some walking. a late-model orange car driven by a young malay pulls up, he's a property assesor here for a few days on holiday. next to him sits a muslim woman wearing a traditional head covering and another young guy is in the back. we wait for all the cars going back and forth to inch along the narrow road. it starts to rain lightly. the ride is brief as i get out to visit one of the butterfly farms.

admission to the farm is myr$5. a bunch of butterflies are sitting on yellow flowers. just as i'm getting my tripod set up for a shot of a perfectly positioned butterfly a man comes by, grabs the butterfly by its wings, and puts it on another tourist's arm for photo. the butterfly flies off, so the man grabs another butterfly. thank you for nothing buddy. many of the butterflies are missing the ends of their wings; i imagine it is probably due to the not-so-delicate handling they receive. i get some less optimal shots of butterflies. several terraria house species of the giant rhinoceros beetles found in malaysia, as well as cool lizards and tarantula. there are cages with leaf bugs, which look astoundingly like leaves, and stick bugs, which look astoundingly like sticks. a small insect museum houses a few delapidated specimens of moths, butterflies, stick insects, horned beetles, scorpions, and more. the gift shop has display cases with some of the magnificent fauna in malaysia, but it seems to me that these creatures' populations could do without people collecting them for their livingrooms.

the next bus won't arrive for another 90 minutes so i start to walk back. it's about 8-9 km back to town. i pass some fruit and vegetable stalls and munch on oranges. there are "pluck your own" strawberry farms, akin to "pick your own" in the usa, but it seems unproductive to me to come all the way to malaysia to pick my own strawberries. there are plenty of giant stuffed strawberry memorabilia for sale but no yummy looking edible strawberries so maybe the crop isn't doing so well at the moment. it starts to rain a bit harder just as i arrive at brinchang. i split a cab with a lady for myr$3 each (less than usd$1) back to tanah ratta, have dinner, and head back to the hostel. it rains for the next several hours, well into the evening. i watch little miss sunshine, again, and meet some american women teaching english in bangkok for a year. the next movie is 21, about an mit team that found a way to beat the casinos at blackjack--it's a lame movie and i remember hearing it had little to do with the actual events, but it does get me to read up on the Monty Hall problem. the rain doesn't look like it will let up so i have curry chicken at the guesthouse. all in all, a typical touristic day with some beautiful views of a working tea plantation, some random conversations and random movies. i hope this mundane blog entry wasn't too dull.