West Malaysia loop ride

The plan for today was for us to take a long ride of almost 480km of a combination of mountain and plantation roads towards Tanjung Kling in Melaka. However, as we had some bike problems over the last few days, and the fact that we had late arrivals over the first three days, I thought it was a good idea to simplify the route so we could get to Tanjung Kling with daylight to spare for a day of exploring in Melaka. The rest of the gang agreed to this and we headed off!

The route for the day would take us about 350km via the main North-South Highway (E2) cutting through Kuala Lumpur. We would be passing through five states: Pahang, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Melaka! While 350km is not short, the fact that we could do it at highway speeds meant we should be able to cover the distance in fewer number of hours. I was eager to get going!

So off we went down the Cameron Highlands, stopping at the town of Ringlet for our breakfast. Ringlet is the first town on the way up to the highlands if you ascend via Tapah. There are a few blocks of shop houses along the main street and we stopped at one of them for breakfast. It was simple Chinese fare and I had…

…yup…Dry Curry Chicken Hor Fun for my breakfast. Hahaha! I was really having a curry fixation for this trip! Actually, I found that I was having more curry than usual…I wonder why. Hmmm…

Anyway, we got going soon after breakfast as we had quite a lot of miles to cover. Going down the highlands proved to be extremely fun…though we were going a little slowly for the sake of safety as we were trying to avoid the same problem as yesterday at Gunung Brinchang. It still made for a fun ride though. The curves and bends were inviting and each one was a thrill for me! We Eventually made it to the bottom and I stopped for a breather. As we chatted a little during the break, we realized that I had stopped right across the road from a Gurkha Camp! Wow!

The rest of the journey for the day would be made on the North-South Highway. So it would be a day of rather boring riding given that the highway is a series of relatively straight and flat and wide roads. So I amused myself by mounting my GoPro to point towards the rear and left of my bike and tried to take some photographs of the gang riding…again…hahaha!!!

So this is Karl on his Kymco.

It sure looks like Karl was enjoying his ride today! He had a smile on his face…hehehe…

Here is SA on her XL.

Sometimes a lighter bike can be difficult to handle on an expressway with a speed limit of 110kph. Most of the trucks were going by so quickly that they created huge wind blasts which can throw a rider off their line now and then. So it was a handful to handle.

Here is LPG on his Shadow.

It does not matter from which angle a photograph was taken. A big bike is a big bike and the Shadow was the biggest and heaviest bike of the bunch. While this made for great stability at speed, it also meant that there will be a struggle on acceleration for overtaking. Still…I thought LPG had great fun!

Here is Alex on his Steed.

It took me quite awhile to catch up to Alex on his Steed…and I was not going slowly! He must have been having such a great time he forgot to look at his speedometer! I think that Alex secretly likes to open it up and get his groove going at speed! More power to ya!

Since the camera was mounted on my bike, it would be tough to get a picture of me on the bike…so here is a compromise…

I took this picture a little later from the rest actually…but hey…I did enjoy my ride…especially with all that power on tap with Anker…it was great fun!

So anyway…we were riding down the North-South Highway for quite awhile and I thought it was time for us to have our lunch break. It was a sunny day…just like so many of the other days…but now that we had just descended from the highlands…it felt a lot hotter than it did before! So a break was definitely in order. We stopped at the rest stop near Tanjung Malim for lunch. It was one of those places where you could sit very close to where you parked your bikes…to top it off…they had these fans that blow out a spray mist to cool the place down! Super!!!

I had a simple lunch of Nasi Lemak Bungkus (pre-packed coconut rice Malay style) and some Kueh (cakes). It was a kampung style lunch…and it was yummy!!!

And if you were wondering what is inside that Nasi Lemak Bungkus…well…wonder no more!!!

It was not much…but what it was…was FANTASTIC! That chili was super spicy…the rice had a light aroma of coconut…and the texture was superb! Lunch was dispensed with relatively quickly and we started getting ready to move on. At this point, the rest had to fuel up so we could get to Kuala Lumpur as our next fuel stop. Anker, on the other hand, had more than enough. So we waited while the rest had their fill.

From here, it was going to be a quick dash down to Kuala Lumpur. I gave instructions that we would meet at the toll booth as we entered Kuala Lumpur and that we would have one rider taking up the rear at all times. This would usually be Karl or Alex. So I was up ahead to start. I stopped at a place near Rawang as I saw this very nice landscape.

After my brief stop, I decided to take up the rear and told Karl (who was riding at the back at that time) that he could move ahead and meet up at the toll booth just outside Kuala Lumpur. So I was riding with SA from here on. The ride was nice and smooth…very pleasant and relaxing.

We caught up to the point where we saw Alex and LPG stopped at the side of the expressway just before the exit into Jalan Kuala Selangor. To my horror, SA turned into the exit and proceeded all the way down till the end. She told us later that she turned because she thought Alex and LPG were acting as “markers”…unfortunately…they just chose a less than ideal place to stop. Hahaha!!! Anyway, at this point it was impossible for SA to turn back. She was at the wrong end of the exit, Karl was way ahead, probably close to Kuala Lumpur, and Alex, LPG and me were stuck here at the other end of the exit. I instructed Alex and LPG to catch up with Karl while I helped SA get back onto the North-South Highway. So we split up at that point…thank goodness we had our Sena Bluetooth Headsets!!!

So while the other three were heading towards their rendezvous point, SA and I were trying to look for our way back to the North-South Highway. Unfortunately, this was no easy task as there was no simple place to make a U-turn. So we kept going until we found a suitable place to stop and try to make plans with the rest. We were already half and hour or so into riding when we found a place to stop. So I made alternative plans with the other three to meet at the Restoran Jejantas near Ayer Keroh instead. This would give us time to catch up with them as we found an alternative route towards the North-South Highway. I tried using the Papago GPS system on my iPhone 4 to guide me back to the highway. Unfortunately, it died less than five minutes into the ride. So I had to rely on road signs and luck. Thankfully, we eventually made it back onto the highway…woohooo!!!

We had to stop for fuel near Sungai Besi so that we had enough fuel to get to Tanjung Kling. So we fueled up there. At this time, I had a call with Alex and they were a little confused as to where the Restoran Jejantas were…so they stopped at the rest stop alongside Seremban. We agreed to meet up there instead since it was a lot closer than Ayer Keroh. So we pushed off. I received a call from the Shah’s Beach Resort where will be putting up for the night not long after this. I thought they just wanted to confirm if we were going to be there…but no…the call was to inform us that a water supply pipe had burst and that the water pressure was very low. They wanted to know if we were still interested to get there. Hahahaha!!! Bummer indeed!!! Since the group was separated at that time, I could not give an answer immediately. I agreed to return their call an hour later. After a bit of riding, we met up with the rest at Seremban. At that point, we all agreed that we would stick with the plan as long as we had water to shower tonight and tomorrow morning, regardless if it was from a pail or a shower head. so we headed on towards Melaka. From here on, it was a smooth ride all the way until we exited the highway at the Ayer Keroh exit and had a break at the Petronas just after the toll booth.

The good news was that it was still bright at this time…so in a way…we achieved our objective even with all the detours! However, everyone was feeling the effects of the long highway ride and the heat. We decided to head for dinner before we get to the hotel for the night. So we headed to Capitol Satay for some Satay Celup. This place served the best Satay Celup in town and there were many photographs of celebrities on their wall. Alex had a field day joking with the staff too! And we all had a merry time!

We had another one of our feasts that night. Did you know that you could eat for free if you beat the record for the most number of satay sticks eaten in one sitting? The current record holder ate 201 sticks of satay there!!! My goodness!!! Our combined total did not even come close at just below 170 sticks…and we still had leftover food on some of those sticks!!!

You can see that the street is practically empty except for this store…and there is even a small queue…on a Monday night!

It was a good dinner and everyone had a good time. Even the staff enjoyed serving us and laughing along with Alex’s jokes. So we walked back to our bikes and headed for the resort. This last 17km of riding for the day turned out to be another really pleasant one. Riding in the night air along the coast was quite special…and I really liked Melaka too! We eventually got to the resort and were assigned our rooms.

We were assigned rooms that were pretty close together. They gave each of us a pail in case we had problems with the water. Hahaha! It was really nice that they gave us a discount though…so we all felt pretty good about it. The rooms were modeled after a traditional Malay village house…and I really liked it!

As you can see, I could park my bike right outside my front door! My apologies for the weird colour cast!!!

My very favourite feature of the rooms were the veranda at the back. Each room had one…and each one had two easy chairs and a coffee table. I sat outside with the gang that night and had a great time chatting, debriefing…and finally eating that corn from the highlands. It was a nice time.

I had a great shower that night. The water pressure was not that bad after all. I took a walk around the resort and sat out on the veranda after my shower and enjoyed the sea breeze! All in all…it was a fantastic day of riding…great adventure…and a perfect end to the day!