Day 35 and 36: Sabak Bernam to Kuala Selangor to Kuala Lumpur We were awakened by two cleaning ladies banging on our door after having tried, noisily, to unlock it and having failed. It was 9 AM and these ladies were apparently ready to clean our room. We opened the door and requested they come back later. Perhaps after we had departed would be a better time? We quickly ate some lo mein noodles at the Chinese restaurant beneath our hotel and headed out. We biked straight on a busy road with a tiny shoulder and loads of big trucks passing. But en route there were a dozen mango stands, selling delicious fresh-squeezed mango juice for the incredible price of 1 ringit (about thirty cents), and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, stopping frequently to enjoy. It was ... read more

Day 34: Lumut to Sabak Bernam We woke up early, but it was dark and rainy, and I was tired from staying up to watch the storm, so we went back to sleep. At 10:30, we really got up, packed our stuff and rode our bikes around the corner to a busy breakfast place, named after Nasi Goreng, the national dish. J weighs forty pounds more than me, but wears the same size bike shorts as me (medium). So he carries three of our bags down flights of stairs and I carry one. That sounds right, right? We ate fried chicken, rice, vegetables and roti and drank strong, sweet coffee with condensed milk. The place was bustling with people, locals and tourists, and J’s favorite sport, table tennis, was playing on the Olympics on TV. Teenagers ... read more

Day 32: Burkit Merah to Taiping We began the day biking along the highway but after only fifteen miles spotted a sign for the zoo. The zoo!!! I wonder what animals would be at a zoo in Malaysia? J wondered too. So we detoured, and rode ten miles off in another direction to the zoo. It was fabulous! We got the ticket agents to hold our bags in their little ticket booth, and locked up our bikes in the parking lot. We saw giant Malay cats, civets, lizards, barking deer, crocodiles, monkeys, rhinos, giraffe, zebra and elephants. We enjoyed seeing the reindeer get fed, watching the zebras and the bulls break bread together and seeing the mama and the baby elephant cuddle. The monkeys and chimps were unfortunately depressed, but I think thats common for monkeys ... read more

Day 28, 29 and 30: Georgetown, Penang Georgetown was a blast so we stayed a few days. The social scene was awesome; it was great having the chance to talk to travelers from all over the world, who spoke English. And awesome having easy access to the internet, for the first time in a few weeks. Other perks were having an ice-cool room to escape the humid heat, excellent Chinese, Indian and Mexican food, and the comfortable familiarity of Buddhist temples. Probably one of the best parts of Georgetown was the Mexican 'restaurant', really just a stall inside a Malay restaurant. I hadn't seen or heard from Mexican cuisine in about eight months and I was badly craving it. The Mexican restaurant here was two minutes from our hotel, the food was authentically cooked by a ... read more

Day 25: Langkawi Island It was J’s birthday and we started the celebration with some warm, just baked buns from the bakery downstairs and some fresh milk from the duty-free shop. As it was Malaysia, some of these buns were cheese and some were peanut butter, jelly and raisin. A truly perfect breakfast in bed. We set off biking to a black-sand beach we’d heard about on the north shore, but once again, we didn’t know exactly how far it was. Apparently none of the usual visitors to this island had any need for a map with exact distances because we couldn’t acquire one anywhere. Each map we found not only didn’t have exact distances listed, it wasn’t even drawn to scale. We may have been the first tourists to arrive on the islands with bikes, ... read more

Day 23: Sintok, Malaysia to Alor Star, Malaysia While attempting to exit the University campus, we somehow ended up on a dirt path through the woods, where before reaching a dead-end, we saw a pangolin, a four foot-long lizard. That was awesome. The campus was huge, with signs listing certain buildings as 5 kilometers away, and busses transporting students from one side to another. We biked back along the road we’d come down yesterday, witnessing tons of little kids getting dropped off at school or getting on the bus to school. It seemed every house we passed had a car in the driveway. We met up with the main highway, fields running along both sides, but otherwise very little interesting life to observe. Some drivers and motorbikers were friendly, waving to us and honking. We ate ... read more