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Published: March 17th 2007
A Break from the Traffic
The Malaysian roads are narrow, busy, and stressful. This is a rare glimpse of a cyclists dream road through the jungle. Still, I'm alive and privileged to be here...Day 288, 15th March
Georgetown - Butterworth - Simpang - Jaram Mas
It should be less than two weeks now before we arrive in Singapore and we are all alone doing our own thing! The trip is nearing completion, I wonder how I’ll feel when I actually arrive there? Actually, I feel a mixture of emotions; happiness, sadness, excitement, and a fear of the unknown… I awoke before anyone else in the dorm, packed quietly as not to wake anybody, and left the hostel by 8am.
It was a national Muslim holiday today, so I expected it to be quiet. It wasn’t - it seemed like a normal busy day in SE Asia. The ferry was busy, but surprise…FREE! Because it was a holiday. And there was a haze hanging in the air from the fires burning in Sumatra.
On reaching Butterworth, I had to take highway 1 south, for 60 miles. Cycling on it was pretty horrible, worse than English roads and that’s saying something! The sheer volume of traffic was un-believable. There was a steady-stream, let’s rephrase that…a un-broken chain of cars, trucks, and mopeds. All nose to tail - all the way. There was
Roadside Drinks
Fresh juice from corn and sugar-cane, with ice. (Yes, the ice was safe to drink). no shoulder for most of the way and the surface was terrible in parts which, I suppose, was a result of the traffic volume. There was no viable alternative road or I would have happily taken it. So, I resulted in the old stick-hanging-into-the-road-trick to keep passing cars more than 6 inches away from me. The idea is that you have an old stick, a branch is good, sticking out a yard into the road from your back panniers to keep cars a safe distance away. The end of the stick I cover with silver foil so it looks like metal. It won’t damage a car, but the drivers are happy to steer clear of this thing for fear of getting a scratch on their beloved - never mind the poor cyclist! I’ve done this in many countries and only had one complaint, in Italy, where a car passenger ripped the stick from my bike while passing…
On the plus side, there were some great snackie-stops. My favourite from the roadside vendore was a dozen fried bananas for R1, or 4 fried potato balls also for R1, and refreshing iced-corn drinks for 50 Sen. I discovered that water was
Ringgit Notes
The Malay Ringgit, unit of currency, two different types of note for the same values were circulating. free to get at petrol stations here. After 60 miles I took the route number 60 to Treung, and then a smaller route, A103, towards the coast.
I found a small internet place, so I mailed the others to say where I was and that I’d leave messages at mileposts that I’d mark with a big ‘X’ made of electrical tape. I also voiced my concerns about cycling to Kuala Lumpur because of the crazy traffic. I told them I’d take the alternative route number 5 along the coast which misses out the city altogether. When I left the café it was raining….Great! A storm was on the way. I hadn’t seen rain for two months so I cycled through it. Refreshing rain…. It soaked me through, washed the weeks of accumulated mud from my bike, particles of dirt from as far away as Mongolia and Russia, thousands of miles away from their origin, were washed away and found their new home in Malaysia. In coming months they would be washed into the sea and who knows, may end up in centuries on the shores of England… such strange thoughts I have…
I stopped raining after an hour,
Driver Warning!
The macarbre yellow-painted wreck on a plinth warns motorists of the perils of driving too fast! and shortly afterwards I decided to camp. I took a small coastal path made of red dirt, the puddles coloured my legs as I rode through them. To my right were mangroves and to my left quite dense jungle. I found a clearing and pitched just before it started raining again. I discovered that my tent had lost some of its waterproof qualities and that puddles started to appear inside. Still, I made a meal on my cooker before it got dark then had the feeling I was being watched… monkeys! Lots of them appeared in the trees. It was quite funny to watch them watching me when I was eating. Then they became naughty and started to jump over my bike, biting at the brake cables and saddle! I shooed them away and that was the last I heard of them. Monkeys must be nocturnal cos they never came back during the night.
Total Miles: 13151.91 Todays Miles: 74.52 Average speed: 11.9 Time on bike: 6:14
Day 289, 16th March
Jaram Mas - Sitiawan - Kampung Kayan
Today I am dedicating this memorablog to my son, Christopher John, who is 16 years old today.
Jungle Camping
The nightly view from my tent just before it got dark. Can you see a monkey? He’s now eligible to have his own passport and to go wherever in the world he wishes - he has my consent. And I hope that these journals inspire him to go out into the world and make this world a better place for all of us living on it. Go for it Chris!
Life goes on and those we love, and the places we love change. I’ve noticed changes in my body due to the tropical climate. My skin feels a lot smoother but has become blotchy all over. There are heat spots that keep appearing on my arms and legs, small rashes on the upper-sides of my fingers. And the sweating - I didn’t know that the human body could sweat so much! Last night was stifling because I had to keep the fly-sheet on my tent because of the rain. To compound this my netting had fallen apart on the opening and mosquitoes were coming in. Then came the mosquitoe hunt. You know what I mean? It’s dark and it starts buzzing round your ears - then the hunt is on… I HAVE TO get the little bastard before it gets me. There’s a lot of thrashing about and I end up sweating profusely in the process. Then I remember stories like…”Roughly 22 people a year world-wide die of shark attacks and over 3 million due to mosquitoes”! This doesn’t make me feel any better.
The stupid thing was that when I woke up I remembered that I had a stick of Mozzie-Guard deep down in one pannier that I’d forgot about since Russia! I applied it, packed early, the stuff was crap, the mozzies ate me! When I set off back along the track the forest was kinda steaming, it was a real rain-foresty atmosphere. As I rode south I was shocked about the amount of road-kill, there was a 3-foot-long dead monitor lizard in one place, far from photogenic, and rather put me off my breakfast.
An hour later, I stopped at Pantai for breakfast. Food here is much different than that in Thailand. No more fried rice with rucks of gut-wrenching chillies - the call of the day is the Roti with mild curry followed by milky tea with heaps of sugar…just what the doctor ordered! This country is different, quite multi-culti, and I’ve not really discovered the ‘rea’ Malay person as yet, I don’t think. In the cafes it’s a kind of mixture between Indian and Muslim culture, and it seems to work fine.
I rode slowly today covering just over 50 miles before I decided to have an early day and pitched my tent among palm-oil trees just off the road and near an estuary. It was a bad move in hindsight because palm-oil trees aren’t tall and there wasn’t much shade. I was sweating for ages before the sun went down. Luckily there was an iced-drinks stall by the roadside half-a-mile from where I’d camped and I was able to fill up my bottles. The sun went down after 7 and it was dark 45 minutes later.
In the middle of the night the heavens opened big time. I had to run outside naked and whip the outer sheet over the tent that I’d been using as a makeshift pillow. As I pegged it down the ground was turning to mud. Once inside the tent it became apparent that the heavy rain was blasting through the outer sheet and it felt as if it were drizzling inside. Pools formed and my sleeping bag became soaked. Half hour later the rain stopped and I tried to get a soggy nights sleep.
Total Miles: 13205.95 Todays Miles: 54.03 Average speed: 11.4 Time on bike: 4:44
Day 290, 17th March
Kampung Kayan - Sabak - Kuala Selangor - Jeram
As I was packing up around 8am I heard a rustling off to my right and saw what I thought to be a crocodile disappearing oer the edge of the plantation down into the river. I rushed across not wanting to miss this only to see either the back end of a small crocodile disappear under the water or a huge monitor lizard….wow! I waited for some time but it didn’t re-appear. Crocodiles! It’s getting really wild out here now!
I got on my bike and followed the number 5 route south. I took my time and stopped plenty of times during the day to leave messages for the other guys, and to take a break from the hectic road.
Today must have been one of the worse days for cycling. Malaysia has one big traffic problem (Europe and America are no better) that if it doesn’t get sorted soon is going to fuck up the country. It was a steady stream of nose-to-tail traffic all day for 80 miles, cycling on a narrow shitty road full of potholes. I saw not one bus! All cars and trucks - public transport doesn’t exist it seems. I did the old stick hanging a yard out from my bike trick again to force traffic to keep more that a hairs-bredth away from me. It was really nerve-wracking having to concentrate on every vehicle. When there was a break in traffic passing me, traffic from the other direction would overtake and was heading straight towards me on my side of the road. The amount of exotic road-kill increased, I was astounded - huge dead reptiles, beautifully coloured birds, loads of dogs and cats… Along with the road kill were the hundreds of wrecked cars littering the roadside, many looked like they’d been there for years, rusting, covered in creepers. Monuments too, like I saw I Russia - wrecked vehicles on a plinth with the numbers of dead the road had claimed in 2001. Sorry about this moaning, Yes, I should be glad I’m privileged enough to see the world, but, I have to have an outlet for this angst and it’s here in my journal…
After Kuala Selengor, I started to look for a place to camp for the night. I took a road to the sea hoping to find a beach to camp on but found mangroves. The first place I looked at was a palm-oil plantation, but was a no-go area as two vicious looking dogs warned me off. I carried on along a similar looking dirt-track as yesterday with huge monitor lizards crossing it as I rode along until I found a better camping spot. I cooked noodles, made a cuppa and watched the monkeys in the trees watching me again. It’s a strange life doing what I’m doing. It all seems so normal, so day-to-day in a way. I feel part of the jungle, more at home camping in the wild than in a hostel. However, I do miss the company of people, specially my buddies, I wonder what they’re doing right now? I drifted off to sleep with these thoughts in my head….
Total Miles: 13288.40 Todays Miles: 82.45 Average speed: 11.3 Time on bike: 7:15
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jaxw17
jackie waring
Dr Doolittle
You are getting a right wildlife following. How wonderful for your Son to have these journals to read and to inspire him. He must be really proud of you. He won't know it yet 'cos at 16 you don't. I like the thoughts about the soil and dirt and wonder if in years to come the mixing of them like that will screw up some scientist looking at soil. Still enjoying. Jackie