Day 293
The internet tells me I should book the ferry to Langkawi in advance, and further searching says there are no tickets left on today’s sailing. I’ll ride to the port anyway, and with time to kill I start by riding out to Sotun’s only attraction, the monkey park, which is a little underwhelming. Then it’s ten kilometres to the ferry, via a 7-Eleven for breakfast, and it turns out there’s plenty of space left. What they don’t have is any money in the Bureau de Change.
Langkawi seems like a once-grand destination, lots of buildings are abandoned and with the start of ramadan most places are shut, in particular anywhere to eat. Even the Chinese restaurants are closed so I end up in an Irish pub and spend an entertaining couple of hours drinking Guinness with a Mancunian ex-cocaine smuggler.
Day 294
Today’s ferry takes me back to the mainland and an afternoon cycling down Malaysia, alongside the many irrigation canals. It’s quiet and there are thousands of great-billed heron and egrets, which makes a change from monkeys.
Day 295
It’s not far to George Town and initially I wonder whether to make a flying visit, see the sights, and carry on. Komoot has other plans for me: on planning a road cycling route it silently switches mode to hiking. I’ve seen it do this before, but usually it’s obvious as the ascent figure jumps to a ridiculous amount and the route is obviously wiggly. This time I don’t realise until the paths get progressively narrower and I find I’m deep in a forest with no sensible way out other than back-tracking.
I finally end up in George Town in time for a fairly late lunch in Little India and decide to stay. Then there’s a message from Anbera, she’s here too and hunting for a way to fix a broken tent pole. I can help out with this, I have a tent pole fixing tube and it does the job (but leaves me without one). In return, I’m invited out on the evening’s excursion to see the new year’s lighting-up of a quite enormous temple, followed by Chinese street food and a Malay pudding shop, all in Anbera’s friend’s Porsche.
Day 296
Anbera has found another cyclist going our way, Josh, who is making his way on a circumnavigation starting from Chester. The three of us set out at 9, after an impromptu video recording from one of the hotel residents fascinated both by our audacity, and by the fact that none of us appear to have any plan beyond lunchtime today. We take the ferry back to the mainland—cycling is not allowed on the 20-km long bridge and after some discussion about just riding it anyway, we decide that even if we just get turned back that would be a fairly long ride.
We make a fairly long detour to a new town development where there’s a decathlon, in a fruitless attempt to get a proper fix for Anbera’s tent. Then it’s south to Taiping through the farmland alongside the irrigation canals again. It’s a hot, sunny day, then out of nowhere a tropical storm appears, torrential rain for about an hour, then it disappears and the roads dry up as if it never happened.
Day 297
We manage to stay on smaller roads for most of the day, again either alongside canals or through the palms. A pleasant ride, if a little slow and with long breaks, it’s very hot in the afternoons.
Day 298
We have to stay on the highway for the first part of the ride in order to cross a large river on a new but empty bridge. By the afternoon, Anbera’s not feeling too good so we take a break before heading down near the coast, though not near enough to see the sea. At 6 PM we stop at a mosque to see if they’ll let us camp, but there’s no-one about. It’s also hard-standing only and my tent needs to peg in so I book a hotel a bit further on and head there before it gets dark.
When someone did arrive, camping was not allowed, so Josh and Anbera followed me to the town where Josh camped on the beach, and Anbera at the temple.
Day 299
Despite the long breaks yesterday, we covered quite a lot of ground so have just 100 km to get to Kuala Lumpur. We take a rural route again, but at lunchtime we realise it’s a bit too rural and have to divert to find an open restaurant. Most places are shut in the day because of ramadan, but we find a curry house not too far off the route. After lunch, Anbera plots the replacement route, but chooses “cycling” rather than “road cycling” and we end up with a section of quite tricky gravel riding.
Day 300
Josh is staying for five nights in Kuala Lumpur, and Anbera for at least two, so last night we went out to a proper restaurant and said our goodbyes.
In the morning I have a flat tyre. This tube has had some problems with coming apart at the inner seam, so I decide it’s time to ditch it. With one thing and another, it’s nearly 10 when I finally get on the road and it’s already hot.
Kuala Lumpur is quite a sprawling city and it takes hours to get out, with the choice of either filtering through the huge traffic jams or weaving a commute route of a million turns through the back streets. I opt for a bit of both. When I finally get out into the countryside it’s a relief.
Day 301
Last night there was a call from Spencer, he’s spotted my bike downstairs and he’s staying in the same hotel! What are the chances? We head off at first light (which is about 8 here) but he carries on when I stop for breakfast. He prefers to just ride straight through, there’s no way I’m doing 150 km with no breakfast. He’s also using google for routing which keeps him on the main roads as google doesn’t do cycle routing here. I follow the komoot route which is much quieter, around Malacca and then along near the coast to Batu Pahat, leaving about 140 km to the border.
Day 302
More Malaysian country roads, I’ve taken the back route and stop at Johor Bahru (“JB”) just before the border, I like to cross borders in the morning in case of problems. Spencer takes the main road and rides right through to Singapore, 170 km, arriving after 8PM. There’s rain in the afternoon, and I’m glad of the slack in my schedule.
