Scott and Becky go East

47 km, 2h47min, max temp 30 degrees C

We woke up to rain, so turned over and went back to sleep. We had only a short ride into Kuantan planned for today, so we didn’t feel any urgency to move. After yesterday, we were happy for the extra time to relax. On our short ride, it rained on and off. The riding was really nice when it wasn’t raining – the rain kept the temperature down, so even riding during the hottest part of the day, we were not too hot.

We are staying with Yew Kong, whom connected with through Couchsurfing. When we got to Kuantan, we called him, and he came to pick us up, which was very nice. Fortunately, he has a small pick-up truck, so we were able to fit the bikes in the back. Unfortunately, Scott also needed to ride in the back, and just as we started driving, the heavens opened up again. Scott has never been more quickly drenched than during that 10 minute ride!

The rain which started as we drove to the house did not stop for more than 12 hours. Apparently, this much rain is common during the monsoon season, but not at all common at this time of year. Now, the weather should be hot and humid. Becky isn’t sure which she prefers, she hates riding in the rain, but the heat was doing nasty things to her skin. Scott is firmly in favour of the rain, even after the deluge he was in!

It is wonderful to get a taste of how real people in Malaysia live. In addition to staying with Yew Kong in Kuantan, we will be staying with Jon’s family in KL (Jon and Scott were roommates during university). Another advantage to staying with locals is that you can get many of your questions answered. For example, we were wondering what the multistory cement buildings with little windows were. These buildings were broadcasting a horrible bird sound – we thought maybe the sound was to scare something away. It turns out the sound was to attract swallows. The buildings are used to farm swallow’s nests, which are used to make the delicacy bird’s nest soup.

Our current plan is to leave our bikes and most of our stuff with Yew Kong for a few days and take a bus to Kuala Lumpur. We hope to get our USA Visas figured out in KL, and maybe even get our Chinese visas.

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When we started the day at 5 am, we certainly did not expect that we would be riding over 100 km. We had planned to ride to Pekan with a goal of arriving before noon. We were up at 5 am, at breakfast by 6:15, and on the road by 6:50. The sun was just rising, so it was light enough to see. We turned on our rear red lights to ensure that passing traffic would see us – but it was light enough that this wasn’t really necessary.

With the help of a tailwind and a temperature of only 22 degrees C, we moved along quickly for the first 43 km to Nenasi, where we stopped for our second breakfast and to pick up a couple of cans of cold beverages (one soya milk and one 100 Plus for each of us).

A side note on our beverage choices: soya milk and 100 Plus (an electrolye replacement drink like Gatorade) both come in three types of container – plastic bottle, tetra pack, and can. We debated which was the most environmentally friendly option and decided on cans. We see plastic bottles and tetra packs thrown on the ground along the sides of the road, but rarely see cans. Cans may not have a deposit, but they are still actively recycled. Aluminum is actually cheaper to recycle than it is to make, so it is always good business to recycle pop cans. Even when we toss our cans in the garbage, it is likely that someone will collect them for recycling. We hope that is the case anyway.

It's a bright, sunshiny day - thank goodness for shade!

Shortly before noon, we met our second set of touring cyclists within 24 hours. This time it was Tim and Shannon from Singapore, doing a “short” tour (575-600 km) from Kota Bharu down the East Coast to Mersing. They told us that highway 3 north of Kuantan gets quite a bit busier, so we’ll keep an eye out for ways to detour off, and onto some quieter roads. We were the first touring cyclists they’ve seen, so it seems there aren’t too many cyclists out here at this time of year.

We arrived at Pekan at 12:45 with a temperature of 42 degrees in the sun. The temperature really climbed after 10:30 am. Unfortunately, the Chief’s Rest House, where we had planned to stay was full. We checked at another Inn in town, and it too was full. There might have been rooms at the two cheap hotels in town, but both places appeared to be dives without air conditioning. (The Lonely Planet said not to stay at one of them, and the other was right next door looking the same – we also had recommendations against them from several other cycle tourists). We decided to hop back on our bikes and seek out something further along. Pekan is only 40 km outside of Kuantan, a rather large city, so we hoped for more options along the way.

Cows visiting the Melati Inn

We are using a free GPS map for Malaysia and Singapore from http://www.malsingmaps.com, and it has proved very helpful at times, but never more so than in our search for lodging today. A quick search for waypoints of type “lodging”, and we found “The Indrapura Lake Resort” only 5 km up the road from Pekan. Their roadside signs were tiny, and we likely would have missed the place without the GPS. Our plan was to try for a room first, and if it was under 300 RG and it looked good we would splurge. If they did not have a room but they had a pool, we would ask to use it and hang out for a few hours until the temperature dropped a little, then ride on. The temperature was reading 44 degrees as we left Pekan – toasty!

Fortunately, they had a room available for 110 RG (weekend rate, the weekday rate was only 60 RG). It was clean and had A/C, so we grabbed it. We never did figure out what made it a “Resort”, since it had no pool or restaurant, and no swimming was allowed in the “lake” (which we would call a pond). It seems like a hotel to us, but that’s all we need. We were hot and tired after the early morning and long hot ride and with everything full in Pekan, we did not want to pass up an available room. There were two big grocery stores and several food stalls within walking distance, so we didn’t starve.

We has hoped to meet up with Kat and Mike again tonight, but with the Chief’s Rest House full, our plans of meeting fell apart. We hope they found a cool clean place for the night.

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Given Becky’s heat rash, we decided to take a day off and enjoy the air conditioning in our room. Kuala Rompin is a medium sized town, so there are many food stalls and many shops. There is an Internet café just down the street from our hotel, so we are able to keep up-to-date with our correspondence as well. We expect to be out of Internet range for a day or two once we get back on the bikes.

Today’s post is about some of the food we have been enjoying. We can’t give you names for much of it, as we are only slowly learning what things are called in Malay. Malaysia’s population is made up of roughly 50% Malay people, 33% Chinese, and 9% Indian. These are the three largest ethnic groups, and the food stalls are strongly influenced by each of them.

We have had several Malaysian Chinese meals – mostly dinners and one breakfast. Our experience with our limited sampling of Chinese food places is that the food is expensive and the quality is not great. The meals are reminiscent of American Chinese food rather than the yummy food found in Hong Kong or mainland China. Scott has memories of great Chinese food in KL, so we remain hopeful.

Most of our meals have been Malaysian or Indian. These meals have come in two types: the steam tray and a-la-carte. With the steam tray, you get a plate of rice and add your choice of items from the steam trays. These are usually help yourself places, and we seem to be charged based on the number of items we choose, not the quantity of each item. The cost has been around 5 RG ($3 CAD) per plate.

At the a-la-carte places you need to know what to order; however, there is often someone around who speaks enough English for you to suggest some options for you. For breakfast we have discovered a great Malay dish of coconut rice, with fried egg, or fried fish, and salty crispy minnows “Nasi Lemak Telur” or “Nasi Lemak Ikan”. This provides excellent fuel for cycling. Roti Telur, a piece of flat dough fried with an egg in the middle is another yummy breakfast. They sometimes call Roti a pancake. Breakfast at a Malay restaurant costs about 7 RG for the two of us, including our coffees.

Drinks are often sold by a separate vendor, but can sometimes be ordered through the same waiter. Sometimes you pay separately for drinks, and sometimes the drinks are included in your bill. So you always need to check. Compared to food, drinks are expensive, at 1.50 to 3 RG each. Our favourites are iced coffee and fresh orange juice. Even Scott enjoys the coffee! (If we wanted to drink more cheaply, regular coffee is usually 1 RG or less).

Mike and Kat at dinner

After lunch today, we came back to our hotel, to discover two other touring bicycles being unloaded. We were stunned to discover not just a pair of touring cyclists, but a pair of Canadian touring cyclists! Mike and Kat left Winnipeg in September, and have been touring in Utah, Colorado, New Zealand and Australia. They arrived in Singapore a few days after we did, and will be following roughly the same route we are, until China, where they plan to turn west and try to cycle through Tibet and Nepal. We spent the afternoon and evening comparing notes and sharing stories, as well as enjoying some more great food. Good thing we stayed the extra day here, or we likely would have never met them.

80 km, 4h45min, Max temp 40 deg C

Monkey Crossing!

We awoke at 5 am to the sound of crying baby, but soon went back to sleep. When the baby started wailing again at 5:30, we gave in and got up to start our day. Our alarm was set for 5:45, so this was only 15 minutes earlier than we had planned. Today we changed our morning routine to do yoga and pack everything up before breakfast. We hoped that eating breakfast out would move us along quicker. In the end, we were on the road 30 minutes earlier than yesterday – but we were also awake 30 minutes earlier than yesterday. Not quite a grand success.

The morning riding was beautiful. We are contemplating how to make an earlier start. We will try eating a light snack in the morning and stopping for breakfast after 1-2 hours of riding. Perhaps that will allow us to get to our destination before noon and the worst of the days heat.

The ride from Mersing to Endau was uneventful. We took highway 3 until the turn off to Mawar and Resang, which allowed us to follow the coast a little closer – it turned out to be about a 10 km detour, but brought us through some small villages which were much more interesting than the shoulder of the highway. At one point we rode by a Muslim school with all the children out playing during their morning break. We could feel the rush of excitement in the children as we passed, with a wave of waves, grins, screaming hellos, and lots of giggles as each group of children noticed us. The responses we get from people here in Malaysia always make us smile.

We stopped for lunch in Endau at a Muslim café. We have found that Malay Chinese restaurants are much more expensive than the Malay Muslim restaurants. We paid 42 RG for dinner without beer at a Chinese food place (albeit we had some seafood) and only 12 RG at the Malay place. This price difference was emphasized at breakfast, where the Malay breakfast runs us about 4-6 RG and the equivalent Chinese breakfast is 12 RG. In the grand scheme of things, both are pretty cheap, but we are counting our pennies, so we’ll stick to Malay when we have the choice, and save the Chinese for special occasions.

When we hit the road right after lunch, the temperature had soared from 35 deg to 40 deg, so rather than riding the 26 km to our evening destination, we decided to seek shelter until the cooling of the late afternoon. Scott saw a sign for the Seri Malaysia Rompin – a hotel chain, and thought they might have air conditioning, a pool and Internet. Becky just hoped for a pool and wanted to look into getting a room for a few hours. Unfortunately, all the rooms were booked, but they did have free Internet, air conditioning in their café, and a pool. Once we received permission from the hotel manager, we found a comfortable spot in the café, drank some great fresh orange juice, and spent a few hours on the Internet.

Before getting back on the bikes, we hopped in the pool for a brief cool down. The water was pretty warm, but it was still nice to start the ride off while we were cool and a little damp from our swim. The thermometer on Becky’s bike read 38 degrees at 3:50 pm, but within 20 minutes, the temperature had dropped to 32 degrees.

We were back on Highway 3, and at Endau we had lost the nice paved shoulder. Fortunately, there was not much traffic, and the little traffic was happy enough to give us plenty of room when passing. It was a quick ride into Kuala Rompin.

We checked out the Hotel Kenkana but found it to be rundown. The room first room Becky was shown only had a fan, and the second room had an air conditioner but it was in very poor condition. Air conditioning and cleanliness are our two main requirements. So, we went down the street to Hotel Sri Rompin. There we got a basic but very clean room on the third floor with good air conditioning for only 40 RG (with a “Shower of Happiness”). The foam on the beds was a little thin, so Becky added her thermarest under the mattress to make it softer. A nice bonus was the hotel had a reception on the ground floor, and a room behind the reception to store our bikes – so we did not need to lug them up the three extra long flights of stairs.

Shower of Happiness

By the end of the ride, Becky’s heat rash had gotten bad again. The rash is on the front of her thighs, below her cycling shorts, and above her knees. We do wonder if the fact that we are riding recumbent contributes to the heat rash – the location of the rash is definitely related to riding ‘bent, as the fronts of our legs get the full force of the sun while riding, and with our legs in front of us, gravity doesn’t help to wick sweat away as well as the vertical position on a diamond frame. This “Prickly Heat” or proper name “Milaria” is a problem for many visitors (not to be confused with Malaria, the mosquito-born illness). We have decided to take a rest day here tomorrow and give her skin a chance to heal.

While on the Internet this afternoon, we learned that our freighter from Shanghai to Seattle is running into complications. The company that manages the ship, NSB, will not take us if we do not have a USA Visa. We have talked to the embassy in Singapore who gave us a letter and our travel agent has gotten letters from Homeland Security specifying that we do not need a visa; however, a few years ago NSB had a ship delayed in Seattle because they had a Canadian on board with a Visa issue, so they are firm in their requirement that we get a USA Visa.

So, with the combination of heat rash and the need for a USA Visa, we plan make our side trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL) a week earlier than originally planned. We have two more days of riding to get to Kuantan. In Kuantan, we will store our bikes and take a bus to KL. While in KL we will try to get ourselves Visas for both USA and China; and the time off the bikes and away from the most strenuous of exercise should allow Becky’s heat rash to clear up completely (we hope).

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98km, 6h30min, max temp: 44 deg C

We awoke to a nice clear day, with only the wetness of the ground and our clothes to remind us of all the rain of yesterday. We both got up with the alarm at 6 am, since we knew we had a long day ahead. Unfortunately, it took time to cook breakfast, pack up our still-wet clothing and do yoga, so we didn’t start riding until after 8.

We stopped for ice coffees (Kopi Ais) after 15 km in Sedili Besar, and saw several places to eat along the route until Sedili Besar, but weren’t hungry after our big breakfast of scrambled eggs and oatmeal.

One big advantage to the rain is that it keeps the temperature down. For most of our ride yesterday the temperature was in the mid to high 20s. With the sun shining full force today, we saw temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s all day.

The ride today was mostly through palm plantations. There were times when all we could see were hills covered in palm trees. Once we passed Sedili Besar, we saw nothing but plantations for 23 km, until we reached the turnoff to Tanjung Leban. After that, more services appeared, but the roads continued to be really quiet until we intersected with highway 3. From other reports, we were afraid that it might be a horrible experience riding on the 3, but it turned out to be rather pleasant. For the most part there was a large paved shoulder, so the traffic was not bothered by us or us by it.

We are still working on the idea of an afternoon siesta. We stopped at 1:30 pm for 45 minutes in a covered bus shelter and took a short nap. With a little breeze, it was a nice break; however, we really should have stopped for longer. We now know that the hottest part of the day is 1 pm – 3:30 pm.

We are really enjoying all the cheers and waves from the people as we ride by. Often a car or truck passes us and a hand or head appeares – smiles, waves or a “thumbs-up” are common. When we pass houses in small villages, the women and sometimes the children wave and shout “hello”.

Becky continues to be surprised at how outgoing the women are here. It is a dramatic change from the Middle East where we found women were quiet, reserved and often invisible. Here, we regularly see Muslim women running restaurants and driving scooters to and fro. Both of us find the Malaysian attitudes and friendliness very refreshing.

We arrived in Mersing at 6 pm, exhausted, hot, and with heat rash and sunburn. Fortunately, the first hotel we checked had a large room on the first floor (one story up) for 65 Ringgit (about $20 CAD). We were too tired to bargain, but since Mersing is a tourist town, we likely wouldn’t have gotten very far anyway.

We have decided that tomorrow will be a rest day, as we could use a day to recuperate and catch up on things. Mersing is the first “city” we have been in since leaving Singapore. Until now, we have ridden through small villages and resort areas, but nothing big enough to have a pharmacy, mobile phone store, or Internet café. So we will spend tomorrow catching up on various errands and letting our bodies recover from too much heat. When we get back on the bikes, we plan to start earlier to avoid long days and riding between 1 and 3:30 pm.

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max temp: 32 Deg C, 77 km, 4 hr 40 min

We got off to a reasonable start, 8 am. Not as early as we hoped, but pretty good for us. After 10 km and a half hour, we stopped under a bus shelter for a snack and to allow the rain shower we could see pass over us. Our timing was perfect, within a minute of entering the shelter, the rain started in force. Fortunately, this was just a quick storm that passed by within 15 minutes.

Back on the road again, we saw our first Malaysian wildlife, monkeys. At first we only saw a couple in the trees, but then we notices a group of about 20 of them prancing about on the road in front of us. For the next hour, we frequently noticed the trees moving and saw monkeys in the branches.

As we approached Desaru (a place full of resorts, with no town we found) shortly after 11 am, thunder and lightning were threatening, so we stopped at the Pulai Beach Hotel for lunch. We thought it looked very nice, and they had a weekday special for rooms, 120 RG, so we considered it, but decided it would leave us at a distance that was either too short or too long for the next day’s ride. It rained while we ate lunch, but then cleared up in time for us to continue riding.

Unfortunately, the nice weather did not last long. Light rain began within 10 minutes. At first, we found the rain rather pleasant, as it was warm and it kept the temperature down. However, the rain just kept coming, heavily at times. After 2 hours of rain, we were soggy and still 15 km from anything that might resemble a place to stay. After leaving the hotels at Desru, we did not see another place to stay until we reached Sedili Kechil.

The first resort/chalet place we stopped at appeared to be closed for the season. The second place we stopped (Mutiara Motor Resort) looked nice, but was full! We are not sure what was going on, but we guess there was some special event like a wedding or conference filled it up. Fortunately, there was a third place in town (Sedili Country Resorts) that had chalets available. We found the cost to be a little much at 80 Ringgit, but it was dry and we were very soggy. We had been riding in the rain for about three hours. The next opportunity for a place to stay was at the Tanjung Sutera Resort in Kuala Sedili Besar, a further 10 km down the road, but we were not able to reach them on our cell phone. We did not want to risk them being closed or full, so we took the chalet here at Sedili Country Resort. We had heard good things about it from Chris and others. Unfortunately for us, Jackie the Malaysian Princess was nowhere to be seen, so we did not receive the same level of hospitality as Michelle and Dave.

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2h45min, 50 km, Max Temp 42 deg C

We are on the road again. It seems like forever since the last time we were really riding, and yet once we were on the bikes, it felt like only yesterday we were crossing southern Italy. It is definitely hotter here, and much more humid, but so far we are surviving the heat.

We were glad to have scoped out the path out to Changi Village, as we were able to find a route that involved much less traffic (both pedestrian and car). At one point on the cycling path, we ran into Raymond on his tadpole trike again. We had met him when we were out riding on Thursday, but this time we actually introduced ourselves. His first comment was “you guys are still here?” Most cycling tourists don’t stay in Singapore for more than two to three days, and Raymond thought we were leaving when we met him the last time.

It took us less than 2 hours to ride the 33 km out to the ferry. There were so many tents and people at Changi Beach that Becky did not even recognize that we had arrived!

The ferry we took over to Pengerang is called a “bumboat”. Upon arrival at the ferry terminal, we told the receptionist that we wanted the boat to Pengerang. Once enough people arrive (12 people) the boat leaves. We waited an hour and it was not looking promising, but the boat left anyways with only 4 passengers. There were many people waiting at Pengerang, so the boat needed to make the run regardless of the number of passengers in Singapore.

The boat was pretty small (about 35 feet long). We were a little nervous about Scott’s bike, as it was just place lying down on the stern. Becky’s bike was placed inside the cabin, so there were no worries about it. It turned out to not be an issue, as even when the boat rocked over the wake of other passing boats, the bike did not budge.

When we arrived in Malaysia (after about an hour long boat ride), we were greeted by a female customs officer wearing hijab. She was very friendly and welcoming. Becky was immediately concerned about the skimpiness of her clothing (cycling shorts and short sleeve T-shirt).

Once out of customs, we ran into a large group of cyclists from Singapore. Becky was happy to see several female cyclists in standard cycling garb (lycra shorts and short sleeve cycling jerseys). She was afraid that she would have to adjust her riding outfit. That being said, it appears that the heat and sun will encourage her to wear long sleeve shirts and capris that protect the tops of her thighs from the sun.

One difference we immediately noticed between Malaysia and the Middle East was the number of women driving scooters. More specifically, the number of women wearing hijab and riding scooters. We also noticed that the women were quite outgoing and waved and smiled at us as we rode by. We also notice many people greeting us with “hello” as we rode by various small houses – amusingly it was often the adults shouting rather than the kids!

So far, we have found the Malaysians to be very friendly. People here are much less likely to speak English than Singapore, and we have found restaurants that do not have menus – something that will pose a challenge for us as our journey continues. For tonight, we were happy to find a nice seafood restaurant. The owners seemed to be of Chinese ancestry, and the food was close to what we would consider Chinese. We enjoyed a wonderful meal of steamed prawns, fried baby squid (the whole squid – eyeballs and all), veggies, and rice. We think we paid a “tourist rate” as the meal was more expensive than we anticipated and likely more than many locals could afford, but we quite enjoyed it. (Even with the tourist tax, it was still under $30 CAD – much cheaper than an equivalent meal in Singapore). Overall, we had a great first day in Malaysia, and are both very happy to be back on the bikes after our long hiatus.

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