June 13, 2013, Thursday,Malacca-Batu Pahat(Malaysia) 120km total: 4990km
Late to get up, late to pack, and late to leave. Howard almost convinced us to stay and relax longer, but we fought inertia and headed out. It took us a while to navigate out of the city, but finally we found the right road.
The ride was flat, and straight, pretty simple.Under the hot sun, the glue from the duct tape(from my seat post holder work-around) turned into a lubricant allowing it to slide down. My 20+k/hr turned to 10k/hr as my seat repeatedly fell so low that my calves would touch the backs of my thighs. There is nothing worse than riding an uncomfortable bike. Really though. I was started to get pissed off. Thank god, one of the small-town bike shops had seat post clamps. So then my seat post slid down every 5km instead of every 1km.
We got to Batu Paht by 4, and looked to find out where our next couch surfing host lived. Locals told us his house was “far, very far”,… we’ve heard that so many times, we were sure it’d be an easy ride.
Turns out for once, “far” was actually far. We followed signs to the university near Zul’s house. 5km out of town, not yet. 10km out of town, still not there. 15km, we were starting to get frustrated. A guy tried to stop us on the side of the road, but we kept pedaling, we were focused on getting to this house. Apparently that guy was our host, Zul and he caught up and led us to his house. Another “1km” according to him. It was actually another 5km.
Zul was really nice and well traveled, having been to the Australia, Europe and nearby countries. He works as a cook for a local nursing school and provided us dinner.
June 14, 2013, Friday, Batu Pahat-Pontian Kecil (Malaysia) 70km total5060km
We went to Zul’s work for breakfast and met his coworkers. They were all stoked to see us and for the first time in Malaysia, people asked us to take pictures with them. We obliged and then hit the road. Luckily, our 20k detour out of town yesterday put us in the general direction of Pontian.
We blew through the km’s and got there in the early afternoon. Cier, our couch surfing host wasn’t done working till 3, so we picnicked on a field by the beach and took a nap in the shade.
We went over to Cier’s at 4, washed up and that evening she took us out for awesome Chinese food and to walk along the beach front market place.
June 15, 2013, Saturday, Tanjung Piai (Malaysia) 60km total: 5120km
Today, we detoured to Tanjung Piai, the southern most tip of the entire Asian continent. It was a 30km ride and without our panniers, we flew down in a touch over an hour. Andres and I did get separated, reconvened at the parking lot, paid the park fee and walked down to furthest south point. We didn’t go down for the sight, we went because it’s there. So, now that we’ve done it, I guess we need to go to the most northern point?
On our way back up to Pontian, we stopped by a loud fair-type set up to buy a drink. It was actually a family/village gathering, but they still let us buy some drinks from one of the stands. We hauled ass on our way back to Pontian. How great it is to ride without bags, but it just makes us want to ride our truly road-bikes back home… Right now they’re collecting dust. I seriously miss my fire orange, 80’s, light, steel frame Torelli. Really though. I miss it so much.
We were going to pack up and go back to Tanjung Piai to stay with a friend of Howard’s, but we realized we really can’t do everything. The sun had set and we try to not ride at night, so we stayed with Cier and went out to dinner with her family. The food was sooo delicious. Steamed, veggies, soup and amazing caught-that-day fish.
breakfast
tanjung piai
photo: the southern most point of the entire Asian/Central Asian/Eurasian landmass.
photo: hair was too hot for Andres
June 16, 2013, Sunday, Pontian Kecil-Johor Bahru (Malaysia) 50km total: 5170km
Riding in Malaysia goes by quick. On our way to Johor Baru, we saw a “SHIMANO” sign, the factory for our bike parts! Time for a detour! We hopped off the road to see if we could arrange a tour. For the lay person, Shimano manufactured our cycling components.
We rolled up to the visitor’s gate guard and asked if we could see the factory. It’s Sunday, so it’s closed. No! He told us to come back the next day. I asked if there is anyone we could speak to about arranging a tour, because we were biking another 20+km to Johor Baru. He suggested coming back the next day to talk to someone about a tour. I told him “kalau kami tidak visa masuk, tidak lihat, tidak mau kembali lagi. kami mau hari ini tanya bole, tidak bole lihat. A phone number, email?” (If we can’t go in and look, we don’t want to come back. We want to ask someone today if we can go in. Is there an email or phone number?) He suggested that we come back the next day to talk to someone. WE JUST NEED A PHONE NUMBER. Andres had the idea to bring out a friend’s business card to see if there was at least a business card(we don’t know the word for business card). We asked “punya ini”(do you have this?), then the security guard starting intensely staring, reading the business card. I stopped him, “NO no no, ada ini*holding the card* disini”(do you have this here?) “Oh. No” A factory worker walked by and asked what were were looking for. He told us the factory was closed. Thanks, we know that. Then he requested a picture with us, and so did the security guard. We gave up, posed for the photos, asked if Andres and I could take a picture in the front entry way next to the Shimano logo. We can’t, so we walked a few steps away to talk pictures in front of the Shimano sign.
We left with disappointment and a few pictures.
Cindy is our next host, a Malaysian from the Malaysian Borneo, studying Computer programming in Johor. We met Cindy in Toba and she offered for us to stay with her once in Johor, as long as it was after she got back.
We made it to Cindy’s mid morning, and she invited us to go hiking with her that afternoon. I quickly took her up on the offer, Andres too. We, showered, ate some noodles, and went to a cafe to kill some time.
That afternoon we picked up Cindy’s friend and headed to a popular weekend hiking spot, Gunung Pulai, outside the city. It was a Sunday afternoon, and we saw hoards of locals parking, getting ready, heading up and returning from hiking the mountain. The route was a service road for a military station at the top. Today’s ride was only 40km on the flat, so Andres and I decided to make this our workout, so we powered up the hike, 5km with 500m elevation gain. We hauled ass, no breaks, finishing in just over an hour. We caught the Cindy’s on the way down, encouraged them to finished the hike, waited and then headed down, rewarding ourselves with a dip in the water at the bottom.
We added a new taste to our flavor palette: Stingray, pretty good. As softer fish which smells fishy, but that flavor isn’t overpowered by that fishy taste. I recommend it. We finished off the evening by playing the card game asshole with Cindy. One of the best card games. We actually played until the early morning…