Port Dickson - James's Birthday!

We checked in to Avillion; I will say no more. We had a water chalet that was built out into the sea with a balcony and a bathroom that was actually on the outside, allowing us to look straight down into the sea. We stayed there because it was a special day for James; his big 40^th birthday!! We didn’t do much, I will admit other than eat breakfast, sit by the pool, read, swim, then order lunch by the pool, swim some more, then have dinner and sleep. 

I bought balloons and wrote 40 all over them and made James carry them EVERYWHERE he went that day. He hates me for it! Hahahahahahaha! 

I won't write much on this as it wasn't really part of our trip, but on we cycle!

Penang Island to Port Dickson

We cycled for 6 days straight from Georgetown (Penang) to Port Dickson, on the west coast of peninsula Malaysia, just south of Kuala Lumpur, with a few adventures and stories to tell along the way. 

For the first time on this whole trip, we found that hotels would not accommodate our bikes. So far, no one has had a problem with letting us bring the bikes inside, whether that be in the lobby, a back room or in our room, but in one particular town we had to try four hotels before we were allowed to leave our bikes inside. However, this may have been to our advantage because the hotel we stayed in had a swimming pool (with water, and yes it was clean – thanks for the tips on asking this first Alan!). 

We stayed in one town called Kuala Selangor, famous for one thing; fireflies. We waited until it was dark and took a taxi out into the middle of nowhere. We arrived at a place along the river, with cheesy flashing lights and tacky firefly merchandise for sale. We weren’t really sure what to expect but we put on a buoyancy aid (the first safety exercise I have ever seen in the whole of SE Asia) and we boarded a little boat with a very quiet electric engine and set out in the pitch black river. All of a sudden we could see it in the distance; the bushes on the banks of the river were covered in what looked like Christmas tree lights. Thousands, if not millions of tiny flies, bums flashing yellow were busying themselves doing whatever it is fireflies do. It was magical and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The next day was one of the hardest days riding for both of us. We decided not to cycle into Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur as looking at the map, it seemed the only way to get in was via an expressway – the motorway that bicycles are not allowed to ride on. However, even to cycle past it, along the coast (perhaps the equivalent of London’s M25) was horrific. It was a dual carridgeway with no hard shoulder, so cars, vans, lorries and trucks were screaming past us at at least 80mph. It was the only road and I have to say, I feared for our lives that day. I wanted to be seen as much as possible so I wore my fluorescent yellow jacket, albeit sweating underneath, but it was better than being clipped, or worse, hit. 

Perhaps this is the time to go in to a little detail on Malay driving. In a word, it is crap. It two words, it is appalling and erratic. In a sentence, I have never seen such bad driving on such a high scale, from so many drivers. Naturally every nation has its terrible drivers, but I never fail to be shocked at how Malaysia’s driving scares me. They have no spatial concept, so a wide, heavily loaded lorry will squeeze through a gap, missing us by inches. Yet drivers in the puny and pathetic little Perodas (it’s Rover Metro size) can’t park, reverse around corners or pull out at a safe distance. It is no wonder that we are exhausted after each day, because not only do we have to have eyes like a hawk, but we also need to listen to vehicles coming behind us and judge those too. Thank goodness we both bought mini handlebar side mirrors because we are both continuously looking into them to see what is behind. 

We eventually left the horrible main roads outside of KL and turned off on to a quiet little coastal road, which would take us all the way to Port Dickson. We checked in to a cute little house and went out to get supplies when we met Jacqui and Aaron on their touring bikes coming along the road on the opposite side. Of course, we stopped and ended up chatting to them for 45 minutes on the side of the road and much to our delight they stayed in the same house that night. Jacqui and Aaron are Australian, and newly married, and have been planning their trip for 4 years. They cycled from Sydney through the middle of Australia (!) through desert for 3 months, then through Indonesia and they will continue up through SE Asia, China, Mongolia, through the ‘Stans’ and into Europe, finishing in Ireland. We had a fantastic evening with them, swapping bike and journey advice, eating and talking til a little later then perhaps we should have done – thanks guys and all the best for your onwards journey. 

Jacqui and I have the same frame!

James then had a bit of a tube crisis. For some very strange reason, his tubes keep bursting at the valve, making them unfixable. We were going along at a good pace, when we literally heard a ‘pop’ and something had pierced James’s back tyre in two places, a centimetre apart, leaving us at the side of the road for an hour! He has an odd shaped wheel; 28 inch is rare here. We have been in many bike shops along the way trying to find spare tubes with no joy, as the ones he bought from home have all since been ditched. We were stuck, but luckily I managed to glue the valve back together which held for another 2 days, exactly when we were able to get the right tubes – very lucky!

We arrived in Port Dickson where we stayed in the usual budget fare and booked into a slightly more upmarket place for the next few days, as it was a special day that we wanted to celebrate in style. PD itself is a bit of a hole, but it is more famous for its beaches which run 16km outside of the town. It’s quite close to KL so it’s quite a trendy weekend getaway spot. We were there during the week however, so prices dropped and we got a bit of a bargain…

Cameron Highlands - New Year's Eve

In Thailand we met three Dutch cycle tourers who we cycling the opposite way to us. We stopped by the side of the road and had a good chat and swapped stories. They told us that they had cycled up through the middle of Malaysia through the Cameron Highlands. They told us had they known what it was going to be like, they would not have done it as the two guys were hospitalised due to exhaustion, and knee and neck injuries. We had considered cycling it, but I think this made up our minds for us. Isn’t what we are doing already a challenge enough? With this in mind and also the fact that our end date for this trip was coming up soon and we wanted to see and experience as much as we could, we decided to hire a car and drive up into the Cameron Highlands, with the bikes and all our gear chucked in the back. We had also read that the attractions worth doing were quite spread out, so having our own transport was a bonus because it meant we weren’t tied to the random bus service we had heard about too. The drive up there took 4 hours, 2 of which were ascending up the mountains. Our ears were popping as we went – up, up, up for 60km and down, down, down went the temperature. By the time we got to our hotel, we were both exhausted from concentrating on the hairpin bends and the ever mental driving and over taking from the Malays. 

I knew it would be cooler up there, but I certainly was not prepared for it being this cold! I was frozen! Yes, it may have been 18-20 degrees, but coming from 40 degrees plus, it was such a huge drop in temperature. The first thing on my to-do list was buy some socks and a shawl. I was a little shocked at the lack of clothing sold up there; there was a real niche for a decent clothing company to get their latest winter range in stores, I would have paid anything to get a half decent jumper! I layered up with nearly all my clothes and just about survived the 3 days we had there.

The Highland activities we did included the Butterfly centre – how twee! But actually they had some pretty good bugs there too. It was the first time we have seen a green leaf insect and a dead leaf insect – pretty amazing!

The main attraction in the Highlands is the tea plantations. ‘Boh’ is the primary tea company in Malaysia, sold everywhere and this is where their plantations are, so we paid quite a few visits to their cafes, shop and factory. We learnt how tea is made, had a tour of the factory (which smelt amazing), sampled many of their tastes, and enjoyed various cakes and scones, although sadly no clotted cream. 

Tea bushes in the background

Inside the tea factory, this is the first stage where the leaves are left to ferment and dry and then grinded.

Another big attraction up here is the strawberry. The temperature there is perfect for growing them and Malay people are fascinated by them because you can’t really get them anywhere else due to the heat. This was the first time (and probably the last) that I had pure strawberry juice – that was just awesome. 

After visiting tea plantations and strawberry farms, high up on the rolling hills, we decided to see if our bad boy Toyota Avanza could make it up the highest road in Malaysia. Thanks to James’s driving, we did and although it was too cloudy to see out, we felt pleased (and cold) that we were at 2045 metres. We tried to walk the path that leads to 2090m – the highest point in all of Malaysia, but the rains had visited significantly recently and it was so boggy, that I ended up ankle deep in cold wet mud and nearly fell straight onto my hands – much to James’s amusement. Our little trek sandals couldn’t cope so we turned back. 

We spent New Year’s Eve at a posh hotel resort having a five course delicious and very creative meal. ‘Dancing’ prawns and salmon to start, followed by lobster bisque, cleansed by a black cherry sorbet, followed by roast beef, potatoes and veg, and finished off with chocolate lava cake and ice-cream, and coffee in the lounge listening to the piano playing. We didn’t stay to count the New Year in at the hotel, but went back to our little apartment to drink our pink champagne we bought in Tesco (yes they have Tesco here) before we came up here and celebrated just the two of us. : )

We then drove back down the mountain to Georgetown, over the huge 13km long Penang Bridge, dropped the car off after unloading and spent the afternoon researching our cycling route down through peninsula Malaysia. The next day, we cycled to the ferry port and caught the free drive on, drive off boat from Georgetown to Butterworth and headed south down the west coast. 

Driving over Penang bridge