We went to Malaysia for a few weeks

14th February 2018
Swiss Heritage Hotel, Melaka
Very, very hot – about 40c!

I almost forgot about writing this entry, so keen are we to get on a ferry to Sumatra!  Only kidding, the past month seems to have flown by, so a brief update:

From Koh Lanta we backtracked to the mainland and headed south towards the Malaysian border.  Every now and again Maps.me takes us on a little adventure which, depending on how we are feeling at the time, we choose to take or otherwise.  In the Thale Ban National Park we let Maps.me do the guiding, only because it was 8 kms shorter than the main road and by that time of day we are getting well and truly fed up with the fishy smell emanating from the many trucks that whizz up and down the highway (what IS that smell?).   We were directed away from the rubber and palm oil plantations into a community forest.  Past a gathering of some sort, the man on the microphone making us the centre of attention for the 30 seconds or so it took us to cycle through.  Everyone stopped eating and drinking, started waving and clapping, smiling and laughing;  We felt like royalty.  We meandered through this beautiful area for about 5 kms, then it was back onto the main road.  Thank you Maps.me, a fabulous little diversion.

Rubber to the left of me, Palm Oil to the right, here I am ......

We crossed the border at Wang Prachan, incident-free, and the first challenge was to get over the 5kms of hills standing between us and Kangar.  The road was very steep at various points made more difficult by the midday sun and the fact that we hadn’t climbed anything steeper than stairs for ages.  Dave lucked out when he found a mobile phone (obviously fell out of someone’s pocket) so like the little Magpie he is stashed it in his pannier for later.  Lo and behold, once he’d cleaned it up and reset it (unable to find out who it belonged to sadly) it works perfectly!
 
Afternoon/early evening showers became a thing right from the start in Malaysia, so on our first day we spent an hour sheltering in a disused building waiting for it to stop.  Pretty much every afternoon, somewhere between 3 and 6, it rains for an hour or so, sometimes longer, torrential wet-you-in-a-moment kind of rain, that no umbrella will repel.  By the way, it's the dry season.

Stuck drinking beer while the rain stops, shucks

It became clear that my memory of accommodation in Malaysia was correct.  It is expensive compared to it’s neighbours, and the quality is, on the whole, quite poor.  Windowless rooms are common and one of them had 3 out of the 4 walls painted black!  We aborted our ride up to Frazer’s Hill because the hotels in Kuala Kubu Bharu were SO awful (and expensive) we couldn’t bring ourselves to stay.  Having said that, we had a fabulous room in Tapah, with floor to ceiling picture windows and views of the mountain, for just 10 Ringgit more than the ‘black hole’.  Also, where we are staying in Melaka is amazing, with an actual bath, balcony, fridge and we could have a game of badminton in it if we were inclined (we’re not) it’s so big.  So accommodation in Malaysia is, shall we say, a mixed bag.
 
We spent a few well deserved days off in Georgetown, re-acquainting ourselves with the old town and finding the street art that it is now famous for.  We found ourselves drifting back to Little India everyday for Roti Canai, Dosai and Thali, we had a 'western' style breakfast one morning but decided that was a mistake.  It really felt like being back in India.  Malaysia has very high taxes when it comes to alcohol so our ‘after ride’ chilled beer has been quashed.  However, in Georgetown we managed to find the ‘bar’ (it’s a little supermarket that just happens to have stacks of tables and chairs that people are able to use) selling cheap beer and liquor.  Locals rub shoulders with visitors, everyone shares tables and stories, it’s really quite sociable.  We're not sure how they do it but suspect they have a 'source' in Langkawi (duty free alcohol).

Right round the corner for The Seven Terraces, you can't miss it

I have little to no recollection of the quality of driving in Malaysia on previous trips, just as well because we probably would have avoided it.  It’s like Mr Bean meets every Sunday Driver you’ve ever known that SHOULDN’T be driving, or, Boy Racer in supped up cars (brand new and lowered suspension, or, old and battered, like the cars me and my friends would have been driving in the 70s).  We love the Malaysians when they're not driving, really we do.  I've lost count of the number times people have paid for our coffees or rotis, or stopped us in the middle of the street or a supermarket to say hello and have a general chit chat about where we were from etc.  We always feel comfortable in Malaysia in a way we don't in, say, Thailand, even though over the years we've spent the same amount of time in both countries.  Some places are just like that.

Malaysia is a proper melting pot of cultures and nowhere is this more evident than in Georgetown and Melaka, where we are currently.  Buddhist and Indian temples side by side, mosques share spaces with churches, incense mixes with chanting and bells, and the call to prayer wafts out of minarets that look like pagodas.  In Melaka we also have the Dutch and Portuguese influences so we can eat the little custard tarts we used to buy in Porto and sip a coffee, by the river, in an old Dutch Colonial building with a windmill attached.  The riverside walks have been regenerated and sitting with a coffee or a cold beer you could be anywhere in Europe.  We liked The Reggae Bar, not for the reggae but for the guys running it, it’s a very chilled place.

Melaka waterfront

To be fair, the cycling hasn’t been amazing.  We would have preferred to cycle the east coast, but as it’s monsoon at this time of year we stuck with the west.  The road up to the Cameron Highlands, thankfully, was wide enough to cater for everyone, the superbikes, the dotty drivers and the boy racers, oh and us, in our little lane to the side of the mayhem.  The road down to Tapah was not so great with potholes and, in places, no special lane for cyclists.  A bit hairy but very beautiful.  We took the Simpang Pulai to Tanah Rata route (94kms, 1500 mtrs), which was a challenge.  The steep gradients are at the start of the climb, 8.5 – 10%, thankfully when it’s cooler, (we set out at dawn) then it settles down to 3-5% for the rest of the way. Ten years ago we would have completed the ride in a day, but, this time we decided to do it in two.  Round the 47km mark there are a couple of cafes, with public toilets and mandis, which is where we camped for the night.   Ideal.  There’s very little on the road up to the cafes, so provisions and water are a must.

Strawberry anyone?

After our camping spot came the strawberry farms and eventually tea plantations.  The strawberries are grown in poly-tunnels the numbers of which are rivalled only by those in southern Spain.  Not terribly attractive.  Tea plantations are always beautiful as they have to be planted in such a way that tea-pickers can get to the tips of every bush to gather the ‘golden’ or ‘silver’ tips, so the texture of the landscape is quite stunning when viewed from the seat of a bicycle.  The ride down to Tapah was absolutely sensational.  We took our time and stopped regularly to admire the views and the Kampungs along the way.

Yes, run off from the mountain pouring down the gulley ALL night

We have ‘history’ with Kuala Lumpur roads and hoped that a bit of extra planning on our part would mean that history did not repeat itself.  Well, somehow, the planning and Maps.me went all to pot.  The way in wasn’t so bad but the way out was a nightmare, AGAIN, taking more than two hours to clear the main roads in.  We will never, EVER, cycle in KL again.  The city itself was much nicer than we remembered, it helped that the weather was cloudy most of the time we were there, plus lots of tall buildings means shade most of the day.  We stayed at the 1000 Miles Guesthouse, highly recommended by Travelfish and now us.  We met a lovely group of people too, which always makes any stay more interesting.

I’m sure there have been other days when I’ve been really fed up, but, the last three days, from KL to Malacca, have been really hard work.  A combination of pants trouble (ruching on the inner thigh) an uncomfortable saddle (or is it?  We just don’t know, I have new cycling pants which I’m hoping will sort out of the chafing problems), the heat – it’s really hotting up now, reaching 40-42c by 1pm, and undulating terrain that is never-ending.

Being in Melaka has cheered me up though as has seeing Hornbills, White Bellied Sea Eagles and huge Monitor Lizards, one was being stalked by a cat!  The incredibly large (dead) Python  we saw on the road up the mountain scared the bejessus  out of us knowing that we would be camping that night!  We couldn’t remember much about Malaka (apart from some canons which we found at the old fort, and the antique shops which it turns out is now the Jonker Street area) but suffice to say it is very charming.  Chinese New Year is just around the corner and the place is awash with red lanterns, juicy tangerines being offered to anyone and everyone and people “cleaning” like crazy, out with the old and in with the new, apparently.

Beautiful relief work

Here be dragons

Chinese temple

So the new for us will be a new country, Indonesia (Sumatra).  It’s looking a bit ‘wild west’ at the moment, there’s not much out there in terms of blogs or detailed travel (cycling) information, although we have found a few on the CGOAB site.  We have decided to concentrate on the north and have already hit a problem in trying to get a bus to Medan.  There appears to be one bus and it’s a night bus (taking 10 hours).  Both of us would prefer a bus during daylight hours, just because we value our lives really, so we will have to investigate getting a minivan.
 
Firstly, it’s a ferry to Dumai, and we still haven’t paid for the bikes yet although the woman who sold us our tickets has assured us they WILL be allowed on AND it will only cost 20MYR!

Laters

Link to all Malaysia photos on Facebook here