23. A change of Direction

We left Taiping well before first light to try and beat the heat and headed towards the coast again. By 9am we had covered 50km (ok 49.8km but if it hadn’t been for that last few hundred meters of gravel….) and my shirt was so wet I could wring the sweat out of it. I wonder if our water filter can recycle that??? 🙈

We’d made really good time and wound our way through lots of little lanes on a pretty route. The last section however was on the main road, which wasn’t too busy but with our trusty flag sticking out we had no problems with traffic.

Eventually we turned off the main road to head to our hotel for 2 nights – one of the world’s top 100 hotels! (Obviously with an Asian price tag) … I wonder how many cycle tourers they’ve had!

We rolled up and were an instant hit with everyone from porters to security greeting us – and we must have looked wrecked as the last few kilometres were up and down quite steep hills and the sun was full blast with no cloud cover…the monkeys lining the route no doubt thinking..’what idiots’. We’d done well to beat the heat for most of the day, but the bit we could have really done without the sun was awful, especially as we had already cycled 80km, and ended up pushing Tilly for some of the hills grinding our teeth and muttering “This better be worth it”! Half way along the hills there was a guy with a leaf blower sat in the shade on his phone with the leaf blower going but aimed at him to cool him down.. We almost asked if we could join him!

Anyway, the hotel security discussed with management where Tilly should go and it was decided – quite rightly – she was far too posh for the outdoor bike rack and so she got her own suite instead where she relaxed and chilled out with the staff.

We had a lovely room after the now normal 20 minute check in and adjourned to the pool for the rest of the day, which for once was lovely and warm.

Many of the hotels in Asia call themselves resorts. We’ve no idea why as they often only have a pool, this was a proper resort with water slides, great big buckets of water that tipped over every now and then, an adult pool and a smaller pool to wallow around in.

It all overlooked the beach and bay and was done extremely well. The place had a bar – shock horror – and two restaurants but being Ramadan they were dedicated to Muslims breaking their fast, which appeared to consist of the Pizza Hut Salad Bar challenge (you know, small bowl, ringed with celery then crammed full of salad in a Jenga tower). They can’t eat until a certain time so go up and get their food – plates and plates of it – well before the time and then sit and look at it whilst it goes cold until the ref blows for kick off.

They may have fasted but they had more food in one meal than we would eat in a day! And we are cycling!

We were banished to the bar with the other westerners, which we didn’t actually mind much. Great view, nice music and beer! I’m not a big fan of beer at home but cycling we get fed up with water and so come the evening a beer watered down with soda water is fabulous. Obviously it confuses the hell out of bar staff and here I ended up with two drinks at once for each order, both half beer and half soda. I looked like an alcoholic!

Our rest day consisted of a short walk to the beach – very warm sea, but plenty of jelly fish to deter us from venturing to far in, and then an afternoon by the pool before more bar time. I think I could get to quite like this!

The place was full of security guards who looked like UK police and patrol all the time. The hotel is miles from anywhere and it took us a while to realise they were there to protect the guests from the monkeys. They may look cute (the monkeys not the guards) but we’ve seen they can be quite vicious, and who can blame them really after us humans have trashed their habitat.  When we went for dinner we saw a monkey swinging into the hotel open corridors above us. We took the lift up and when the doors opened there was the monkey – the size of a 4 year old – who turned slowly to look at us about a meter away, his face was easy to understand and said “You stay there and nobody gets hurt.” Message conveyed and obviously obeyed we waited in the lift while he sauntered up to the bin, looked inside turned around and went back past us, giving us a another dismissive look and swung away.

Despite the lure of the relaxing hotel we decided to move on the next day a short hop to Sitiawan.  We first wanted to enjoy the fabulous brekky at the hotel and you can’t cycle after about 11.30 so after a leisurely breakfast we just  did a 25km hop on to an Airbnb in a 35 storey tower block.

And we found our return on those arduous hills leaving the hotel fine – cooler day, no sun and not knackered after 80km cycle..even on a full breakfast stomach!

We dropped in at Lotus to stock up as we have done many many times on this tour. There’s always a multi storey car park with a large section for motorbikes and we just abandon Tilly with all our panniers along with the motorbikes. We’ve never had any issues. Mind you our panniers  probably smell to high heaven! Fully stocked for the evening we headed to security at the tower block who were very well organised and expecting Tilly and found us a nice safe spot to leave her.

Our room appeared surprisingly good. The lounge area was nice with a comfy sofa and decor, the bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom on the other hand were just boxes with the minimum amount of effort from the cheapest place, grubby and weirdly designed – there were no sockets in the kitchen and none in the bedroom near the bed. The bathrooms are always a single room with everything in and it all gets soaked when you shower and then you have the added bonus of nearly slipping over on the wet floor for hours after. This was a luxury condo but lounge area aside, was pretty poor. And grubby, but still actually very good for some of what we’ve experienced in Malaysia. 

We’ve really liked bits of Malaysia and the cycling in the countryside has been lovely, but overall we’re not enamoured with the place. The accommodation has mostly been overwhelmingly disappointing, it’s such a difference to Thailand. There are some nice hotels, but these are usually the  international chains.

Normally cycling we love stopping for a drink and occasionally 🤥 a cake on a cycle and again in Thailand you’d so often find a gorgeous little coffee shop in the middle of nowhere along with coffee stalls almost every 500 meters all day!

Here there are nice coffee shops but they are all in bigger towns and there are  many fewer stalls and obviously with Ramadan these stalls are all closed anyway.

Shops, apart from 7 eleven and Family mart are an experience more than fun. They have cramped isles, poor lighting and often the fresh food is going off. There are flies all over the place and it’s so disorganised, smelly and usually a bit dirty too.

Ramadan certainly hasn’t helped with nothing being open apart from 7 eleven style shops and these we often pass only at the beginning and end of the day so we have to carry loads of drinks and food all the time as we prefer to be on the remote routes.

But having said that, about a third of the country is non Muslim and often Chinese / Indian and these areas are always busy, full of temples and everyone waves and shouts to us. It’s very much like Thailand, but the other areas are closed and the mosques often shut and locked up, looking drab compared to the gorgeous Buddhist and Hindu temples.

It’s like having two countries in one. One is awake and the others having a doze.  It’s also quite evident that the Islamic areas are poorer, some of the Chinese / Indian areas are very posh!

Our route south continued to take us on some lovely quiet lanes and tracks and we thoroughly enjoyed the cycling and arriving in Sekinchan went to visit the famous Temple wishing tree, which was the busiest place we’d seen in days with people writing their wishes on a weighted ribbons and throwing the ribbon onto the sacred tree..When we rolled up we got mobbed by people wanting to take a photo with us and there were a group of ladies who wanted more than just a photo and said they would ‘wish’ for me as their husband!  They hung on for dear life like limpets and even Linda telling them to be careful what they wished for didn’t deter them..eventually I broke free and we made a hasty escape wondering if this was how so many Asian woman snare their western husbands!

All through our trip we’ve passed thousands of large rectangular concrete buildings about 4 stories high that have pipe size holes all over them and play bird mating noises over speakers to attract birds. The nests are harvested for Birds nest soup which is highly sought after and a very lucrative business. You are almost never out of sight of multiple ones of these and our hotel that night was one that had been converted into a hotel, situated amongst others still surving their original purpose, where we had a gorgeous room  with views of miles of beautifully green paddy fields. 

It was another early morning start for our route onto the outskirts of Kuala Lumpar which was very winding as we criss crossed the main roads into the city which were heaving and the busiest we’d seen in Malaysia. We actually arrived at the hotel in the metropolis without having been on too many apart from a small section when we had to cross a river and Linda was flaberghasted we had got into KL on such a quiet route.

We were again sent to the bar for dinner as there was an enormous Ramadan Buffet in the main dining hall with seating for maybe a thousand or more people with live music… We were on our way to bed by the time they waited with full plates for the gong and could start their food!

Our final cycle down to KL airport was more difficult to plan. It’s a purpose built airport in the middle of nowhere serviced by two motorways.  All the big roads are hectic here and we opted to go through the marshes on tiny tracks instead of using them. We had some fabulous views of the sun rise and did have to push Tilly for about 1500m on the narrowest parts. But we avoided the main roads!

We eventually came out on a builders track with huge ruts and puddles onto our preferred small lanes to continue towards the airport.

Once near the airport we dived off onto more forestry sandy tracks, eventually popping out 7km from our Hotel.

We had 1km to do on the main road, which wasn’t fun despite our flag and then turned off onto a quieter dual carriageway with the occasional shoulder to hide in.

We rolled up at the Sama Sama hotel – a 5 star jobby no less – a bit puffed and hot, but the staff were great and helped get Tilly washed, cleaned and parked up for the night and escorted us to our room.

The hotel itself was lovely. We’d chosen it as it is joined to the airport with a walkway so once we had packed Tilly up we didn’t need to get a huge Taxi to take us to the terminal. They even have a golf car buggy shuttle which, sadly,  they wouldn’t let me drive …

We had a leisurely start the next day and got a taxi to pick up some bicycle boxes we had reserved at a nearby bike shop and then got Tilly boxed up for her journey home. A day doing nothing was heaven and then a trip into KL to see the sites followed.

Everyone says there’s not much to see in KL, but the old Colonial buildings are extremely impressive even though some are falling down – which is criminal really. Theres a nice walk around the centre and we took a trip out to Batu Caves to see our last temple at the top of 250 steps, lined with monkeys looking to steal any food, backpacks or bags people take their eyes off.

We finished our day with a great Indian meal then nipped over to the lake infront of the Petronas towers for the evening water show. They are spectacular buildings and we loved them.

And with that we were done. A couple of days doing nothing and eating far too much then a quick stop in Dubai and we would be home neatly sidestepping all the chaos from Heathrow fire closure by flying to Stansted!

Though obviously that didn’t go to plan!

KL airport is new, flashy and even had a jungle boardwalk in it. The arrivals and departures concourse is very nice, with plenty of restaurants for us to get the shuttle buggy from our hotel to for meals, though we mainly ate in the hotel bar!

But once you check in and head to departures it all becomes a bit muddled. Signposts are confusing and once you figure it out you have to get a bus to another terminal and then go through the customs x-ray machine which is manned by two people watching you tube. You could have put an elephant through and they’d not have noticed. Then you’ve got the shops to wander round and finally you get called to your gate. All quite normal up to there.

But at the boarding gate there is also the security – X ray machines  etc that you usually find once you enter the departure area. What this means is that 45 minutes before they close the gate there are 350 passengers trying to get through two X ray machines and everyone ends up a bit frazzled.

Obviously that doesn’t work and though we got through about 5 minutes before the gate should have closed, there were still about a third of the passengers waiting to clear security and the plane had to wait for them so we were about an hour late leaving.

Whoever dreamed that system up needs a good talking to!  We then took off into turbulence, not quite the turbulence of lockers falling open and bags falling out, but enough for the hosties to remark it was the worst they’d had and it went on for a solid 90 minutes and then on and off throughout the flight.  We bounced around, banged jumped and dropped which was fun if you like roller coasters but not so much for others.

They turned the temperature down in the plane to bloody cold, presumably to stop it becoming a vomit comet and then passengers started getting angry they couldn’t go to the loo because it had frozen. Ok..,because the seat belt light remained on!

Some ignored it and one then got into a row with a hosty, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yelled at him, all the while bouncing around like a beach ball.

The hosty kept calm really well and order was restored though the captain was informed of the incident and also the security – presumably at Dubai.

I’d have told the nob that he could use the outside loo…

We landed in Dubai to a lovely 25C and were bloody freezing. People were lolling around the pool and we huddled under our towels! We’re going to be cold when we get home!

Our hotel was again a short hop away from the airport and as usual there were half a dozen men on reception to welcome us who all passed us on to the only woman to do the work…

So the next morning we headed to Dubai airport to complete our return to the UK – what a fab tour, 4300km 4 and a half months and 4 countries.  We had hoped to make it to Singapore, but like every other cyclist we met along the way, we didn’t like Malaysia anywhere near as much as Thailand and Cambodia and that combined with the heat and the fact that we were actually getting exhausted meant we bailed out early.

No regrets though, apart from having to say a final farewell to my beloved sandals which hung on till the end… and obviously the moment we’d booked our airline tickets the hot humid weather changed and had became cooler. 🙈