Singapore to KL and Fraser's Hill in RX 450h

Drive story for Lexus magazine, Story Worldwide

It sounds like something out of a Tintin book. You know—a remote hill town surrounded by dense jungle, a-slither with creeping tigers. A narrow, winding access road that only opens in one direction – uphill or downhill – at various times of the day. Unwary visitors swallowed up by the mists and never seen again. Perched high up in the lush Titiwangsa mountain range that runs down the spine of Peninsular Malaysia, Fraser’s Hill is the kind of place you expect to find on old, rolled-up maps with burnt edges. With or without Captain Haddock, I’m packing the thickest leech socks I can find to go investigate.

I’ve got to confess, though, that my urge to visit doesn’t spring from wanting to be a swashbuckling boy hero like Tintin – give me wi-fi access and a cappucino over wilderness and a compass any day. No, apart from the prospect of getting behind the wheel of the RX 450h for a few days, the main draw is the cool factor – and I’m talking climate, not lifestyle. Fraser’s Hill’s average temperature hovers at around 20 degrees C, or some 10 degrees below that endured by Singapore, where I live, and the humidity is equally easy-going. Wiping away rivers of perspiration, I stroll towards my silver RX 450h and start dreaming of the chill-out zone that lies some 450km away to the north.

Thanks to the RX 450h’s clever in-key remote entry system, I don’t have to fumble for a fob with sweaty hands. As I sink gratefully into the car’s soothing, climate-controlled embrace, I’m struck by the airiness of the cabin. With soft, reassuringly muted tones and premium finishes to every surface, it’s a bit like settling down into a tiny boutique hotel. As a bonus, dual front air-conditioning zones prevent any overheated squabbles between driver and passenger. The man who built modern Singapore, the country’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, has hailed air-conditioning as one of mankind’s greatest inventions of the 20th century. Spend much time in the Tropics and you’ll understand exactly where he’s coming from.

A cool head is vital on this trip. A series of grim statistics show that Malaysia has a daunting record of road fatalities, so I ignore the sexy power stats and start eyeing up the advanced safety features instead. Strangely enough, this gives me the same sort of tingle factor as bhp and torque. Put it down to the RX 450h’s ingenious Pre-Crash safety devices that will alert me to a potential collision, supplement my braking input and ensure headrest and safety belt optimisation prior to impact. Equally cheering is the news of 10 airbags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) and Electronically Controlled Brakes (ECB) as well as the increased stability of four-wheel drive. This weekend, I say to myself confidently, those road safety statisticians are going to see a significant blip.

Singapore is such a tiny island that within 20 minutes of collecting the car I’m face to face with the Malaysian border and passport control. Yet there’s nothing to fear from the expressway waiting for me on the other side. It’s a broad, well-built toll road that wouldn’t look out of place slicing through Bavaria in Germany – and there’s virtually no traffic. So I cease hunching over the wheel and prod the throttle, barely noticing the subtle shift from electric to petrol power. Perhaps it’s the commanding driving position or the silky limousine-like purr of the 3.5-litre 24-valve V6 engine, but I haven’t felt this in control on any road in ages. And as mile upon mile of palm oil plantations speed by in a verdant blur, something unexpected starts to happen – I relax.

It takes something special to snap me out of my reverie. The Petronas Twin Towers – 451.9 metres to the very tips of their spires – appear well before I reach the outer fringes of Kuala Lumpur. Clad in shiny steel and joined together by a sky bridge suspended in mid air, they’re like a glimpse of some playful futuristic world that’s pierced the fabric of time.

Absorbed by skyscraper gazing, I fail to notice what’s developing down at ground level. Flying along the multi-lane toll roads had been like travelling first-class, but now I’ve been rudely tossed back into economy. Not that I’m moving any slower. Despite the narrowing city streets, my RX 450h has been forced alongside a vast, tailgating gas tanker and a poorly loaded construction truck spewing chunks of bedrock all over my windscreen. Inch left and I collide with streams of motorcycles overtaking on the inside. Shift right and I exchange door paint with a low-slung modified family saloon bearing an F1-sized spoiler and dents the size and shape of a crash helmet. I start chanting the RX 450h’s safety features as a protective mantra.

Volume of traffic isn’t the issue here, it’s the unpredictable behaviour. Drivers are clearly putting their faith in telepathy rather than indicator lights or mirrors. When a battered pick-up unexpectedly pulls out of a static line of traffic directly into my path, my reflexes only have time to give the slightest of touches to the pedal, but it’s sufficient for the RX 450h’s braking system to save the day – miraculously without any loss of control. While the Lexus Hybrid Drive system is benefiting from all this extreme regenerative braking, my patience is quickly drained.

To rise above the stress I have to go to extremes, but it’s worth the effort. Clinging to the 33rd floor of Traders Hotel, Sky Bar isn’t only the choicest drinking hole in Kuala Lumpur complete with its own swimming pool, it also has the finest photo opportunity of the Petronas Towers. But the hip young things I see tapping their feet to the DJ’s 80’s tunes aren’t here to admire the architecture but to eye up the glossy fashion parade of customers emerging from the lifts. I spot a blend of many styles – Hollywood to Hong Kong via Paris – almost as dizzying as the view from the bar’s windows.

I enjoy this colourful, if brief glimpse of the city’s elite at play, but I have an appointment in the dark hills that rise up to the north. An eccentric Scottish prospector and mule train operator had the bright idea of founding Fraser’s Hill. Back in the 1890’s, Louis James Fraser discovered lucrative deposits of tin in the hillsides of the Ulu Tras region, some 100km from Kuala Lumpur. Much like Joseph Conrad’s Mr Kurtz, Fraser was a bit of a law unto himself in this remote jungle outpost, deliberately cutting himself off from the constraints of “civilised” society. Colourful stories spread that he ran opium and gambling dens for his Chinese workers – until the day in 1910 when he disappeared without a trace. Search parties that came looking for him were impressed by the refreshing climate of Fraser’s Hill (altitude: 1,524m) and it didn’t take long for the British – who at the time had Peninsular Malaysia under their colonial wing – to establish a hill station for government officials and other nobs who wanted to escape the sweat, flies and malarial humidity of the lowlands.

Two hours after leaving KL’s traffic-choked suburbs, I’ve climbed steadily through the foothills of the Titiwangsa Mountains to reach the guardhouse for the Gap. Completed in the 1920s, this eight-kilometre pass marks the snaking approach to my final destination Fraser’s Hill. Too narrow for two-way traffic, a system is in place whereby the traffic direction switches every hour or so. Waved through by the guard, the RX 450h irons out the endless twists and turns with minimal body roll and brushes aside prehistoric tree ferns that overhang every corner. As the temperature lowers and I switch off the air-con to open the sunroof, this car displays the grace and agility I’d expect from a two-seater sports car.

Not everyone has a nimble RX 450h of course, so in 2001 the authorities decided to improve access to the village by constructing a new “down” road. Ironically, this is currently closed following a series of massive landslips. Locals shake their heads and tell you that the new road’s builders used dynamite to blast a path up the mountain, loosening the earth and making it vulnerable to heavy rains. Meanwhile the old road, carved out by hand, stands steady.

Heritage holds firm in many other ways here too. Much of Fraser’s Hill retains a surreal Olde England appearance, with a stone-clad post office and police station built in 1919 overlooking a neat little clock tower. You’ll also find shops, restaurants, markets, modest hotels and even two golf courses, one dating right back to 1925. It could all be chocolate-box quaint and touristy – yet England it ain’t.

This becomes clear when I check in for the night at Ye Olde Smokehouse. Sure enough, out on the hotel’s sun terrace, fine bone china is busy being rattled as guests tuck eagerly into pots of Earl Grey tea with freshly-baked scones. But high in the trees across the road there’s a mighty crashing and snapping of branches as a pair of heavyweight Siamang gibbons swing by, barking out their loud hoots like unruly teenagers. Perhaps they spotted the Black Eagle that’s circling menacingly above. And as the afternoon shadows begin to lengthen, a muezzin’s amplified voice starts calling the faithful to prayer from the nearby village mosque. This can’t be called “getting away from it all”, I think.

But perhaps that’s an overrated concept. Listen to anyone who’s spent some time lost in a wilderness, for example, and they tend to agree. In 2005, British microbiologist John Gillatt came on holiday to Fraser’s Hill and set off on what was supposed to me a five-hour hike along the Pine Tree Trail. Five days later, following a search by police, special forces, dogs and helicopters, he was eventually found – an outcome that would have been less likely had he not been carrying his mobile phone to dial for help. He said: “I never prayed before, but I was certainly praying those five days.”

I take no chances on my venture into the jungle, so I don’t just pack a phone but I also hook up with wildlife expert and Malaysian Nature Society guide, Gary Phong. We meet at a trail entrance where I’m happy to see a sign stating it’s only 1.5km in length.

“Don’t suppose this one can cause many problems,” I chuckle, casually.

“Oh, some teenagers from Singapore got lost here for a few days a year or so back,” he says, equally casually.

After that, I make sure I keep Gary’s little orange backpack firmly in my sights. The calls of birds and insects reach head-numbing intensity, and now that I’m seeing the forest up close, the diversity of the plantlife is extraordinary. Gary explains how the area harbours at least 952 species of seed plants with 36 endemic to Fraser’s Hill. It’s also home to some 52 mammal, 275 bird, 27 reptile and 26 amphibian species. I ask the obvious, dumb question, “Any that’s likely to eat me?”

Tigers are thought to be here, but with only 500 believed to be left in the wild in the whole of Malaysia, an encounter seems unlikely. Leeches, on the other hand (or leg), are a common menace.

“Don’t worry, they fall off once they’re full of blood,” says Gary. “Look out for wasps, though. I brought a party here once and somehow we disturbed a nest. The fourth person in the line got 15 stings in the neck and lost consciousness. We carry anti-histamine tablets, though, and he was fine once he’s been stretchered out.”

If the story is designed to freak out the city slicker, it fails. Spending all those miles with the sure-footed RX 450h has proved a fine way to prepare for a dose of adventure, for this is a vehicle that inspires confidence. Stopping to look back over my shoulder through a thick curtain of creepers and vines I watch the silhouette of the car get swallowed up by the foliage. I turn to skip quickly after Gary deeper into the jungle. n

SOURCE NOTES

>   Trader’s Hotel kl-hotels.com/traders-hotel

>   Ye Olde Smokehouse, thesmokehouse.com.my/fh.htm

>   Malaysian Nature Society mns.my

>   Fraser’s Hill Development Corporation
     (accomms, inc. bungalow hire) pkbf.org.my