West Malaysia loop ride

After two days of riding long distances, we now have a chance to explore the town of Kuala Krai and her surroundings. This would be our rest day so we can start out fresh on our next leg as well. I have been looking forward to exploring this area a bit more…especially the river and the railway.

We started the day early as usual and decided to head into town for some seriously local breakfast. It wasn’t too long before we scouted out a place that looked promising.

After parking our bikes, we headed to find a table and made our way to where the food is.

As usual, the local breakfast is a good and generous variety of dishes accompanied with rice.

It was definitely simple food…but yummy food. I spied this very interesting looking rice dish that was a rich blue colour and could not resist ordering it. It was Nasi Kerabu, a North Eastern Malaysian speciality.

Just look at the fantastic dish! There is rice and a combination of raw sprouts, chili, herbs and that granulated mix of fish, shallots, ginger, coconut and sugar! A strange mix to the uninitiated…but a super delicious mix it was! I added the fried chicken and egg…I like my proteins!

As usual, a picture for Facebook before we tucked in.

One drink is never enough for our merry gang…so here is Eric enjoying his second!

The first order of business after breakfast was to search for the river cruise to Dabong that I read so much about. After extensive searching online, I found a telephone number and proceeded to make the call. I made many calls but they were all in vain. There was nobody there to answer the phone. So we decided in the end to do a physical search by riding to where the river was.

It was not too difficult to find the river. It as not too difficult as well to find the boatmen once we saw the boat houses.

What proved to be difficult was making a U-turn with our big heavy bikes along that very narrow path which ended in a dead end.

We attracted a lot of attention in the process of making the U-turn…attention that did not help our negotiations with the boatmen for taking us along the river. I began to think that it was a big mistake bringing our big bikes down that path. It would have been a lot easier to negotiate the price to a more meaningful amount if we had walked down there instead. We eventually decided they were asking for way too much to bring us along the river. It was just a river taxi service and they wanted to charge us all our arms and legs!

At that point, we decided to see if there were boats in other places that we could find. So we rode along the small roads that meandeared along the river. It turned out to be a very relaxing ride. Too bad we did not find any other places where there were boatmen! We did manage to find some time to take some pictures though.

There was even time for this one of Chris!

I decided then that I should give that place one last try so we started heading back. Along the way we got distracted (actually I got distracted) by a very unexpected sight!

While this should not be an unfamiliar sight to people living in Malaysia and Singapore, it came as a surprise because it was the end of April…and Thaipusam was already over in January! Still, I was not going to miss the opportunity to take some closer pictures of this colourful procession. I rode forward to find a suitable spot and waited until they walked pass. The first person that I simply had to photograph was this man.

He had so many sharp pins on his body weighed down by those objects…and that huge double-ended fork pierced through both of his cheeks! I think he enjoyed my attention because he stopped abruptly and gave me a little bit of a show. How cool is that!

Then came this group of drummers providing a continuous stream of infectious rhythms to cheer the kavadi carriers on. They were an energetic and youthful bunch of boys and had pretty good rhythm too!

I had thought that this was the end of the procession…but what came after was a little more spectacular. See this man? He has even more sharp objects pierced all over his body…and many of those on his back had long strings attached to them! I sure hope nobody steps on those!

It looked like he was pulling something along…but what he was pulling was a complete surprise to me as I have never seen anything quite like this!

Yes…there is a man there pulling those strings…and he did pull them very tightly! Now I sure hope he does not trip! Can you imagine what would happen if he did?

I turned around to head back to my bike as this was the end of the procession of people and I saw this bunch of boys huddled around Big V. I guess he has a real presence and they were certainly drawn in by his stature and good looks!

This proved to be a very nice distraction in the end. It was getting late so I hustled back to the river with the rest of the gang. I went down this set of stairs and found a little jetty there and there was this boat coming into let someone off. I thought this was my chance.

So as he came to shore, I asked if he would take us to Dabong and back and how much he would charge. The kicker is that he told me to negotiate with the same people that we spoke with earlier! Oh well…so much for the river cruise!

In case you were wondering, this is a really big river and is completely yellow that day. The cruise up river would bring us all the way to Dabong and there are a lot of wild life along the way so it would have been a perfect outing for the gang if we managed to do it. I guess I need to do more research so we can actually do something like this with a guide the next time round.

To make myself feel like this return trip was not a waste of time, I took this picture!

It was late morning by the time we were done with the river cruise idea. So we wanted to head over to the railway station to try the train ride on the jungle railway instead. One of the good things about this jetty that we were at is that the Police Station – and it sure looked like the main police station in this town – was right next to it which really gave a sense of security when parking our bikes. I do not know what Eric was doing but here is a picture of him with Big V.

In any case, we decided to push off and I got onto my bike all ready to move. Paul, however, had some problems and looked a little perplexed on his bike which was right in front of mine. I decided to go over and see what the matter was. Thinking that I had my side stand down, I started putting Big V down on his left side. Unfortunately, I was wrong…the side stand was NOT down. Now, even with the side panniers off and a practically empty top box, Big V proved to be too heavy for me to keep from going down. So down he went and he broke his fall with the bonnet of the little Perodua Kelisa that was parked next to him…right in front of the biggest police station in town.

After a little commotion, the owner of the little Kelisa showed up to inspect the damage. She was a very nice lady and I felt genuinely bad about the dent on her bonnet. In the end, I agreed to compensate her so she can get it knocked back out and we moved on. The good news here was that there were no signs of any scratch or dent on Big V. Go figure!

We got to the railway station and parked our bikes outside. There was no real way to secure the bikes but Kuala Krai felt safe enough.

There were many vehicles in the parking area that morning! In any case, we inspected the railway schedule and saw that we had a total of 10 minutes to get our tickets in order to make the train. So we lined up and was fourth in line. Unfortunately, a slow paced sleepy town is made up of slow paced sleepy service personnel. They were not rude or anything…just very relaxed. To the point where we saw the train pull in while we were still second in line.

By the time we were at the service window, the train started pulling away to our dismay! Thank goodness the ticketing person told us the train was just switching tracks as another train was approaching to go up north. Phew! So we managed to get our round trip tickets to Gua Musang and still had time to look around the station. Here is our commuter train on the second track.

I always liked the signs in a railway station…

…especial these signs that tell you where you were and what the up and down stream terminal stations would be.

Anybody knows what this little locomotive is meant for?

Before long, the express train pulled into the station. This was a much longer train compared to our little commuter. Too bad I do not have a picture of it but I think you get the idea. I had the opportunity to speak with one of the railway officers who told me we should ride our bikes to Dabong and look out for Gua Ikan along the way. I filed it in my mind as a place we will explore tomorrow!

Eventually, it was time for the express to move off. The Station Master waved his green flag and soon the express started pulling out of the station.

As we crossed over the tracks to our train, I took the opportunity to take a shot that I had always wanted to.

It always amazes me how a train can accelerate and stop so reliably when the only contact with the track were these metallic wheels! Our train started moving off and I positioned myself at one of the doors so I could look outside unimpeded by windows. I just love looking out!

This looked like a building that could have been the old railway station. After all, it was right next to the one we were at! I really liked how nature has slowly taken over.

Here is a picture of what I could see from where I stood…right at the door of the train. Can you see now why this is called the jungle railway?

Tracks always need some kind of maintenance I suppose.

I thought I would experiment a little and see if I could give you a sense of the speed of the train…because it really was going quite fast!

We stopped at all the stations in between…even the tiny ones like this and I just love it!

This being a diesel powered locomotive, I had to be careful when the train accelerates if I wanted to avoid being surrounded by diesel fumes. But I gotta say the fumes do look dramatic!

We went on quite a number of bridges…some of them look like this. It looked like it is possible to walk on this along with the train!

I enjoy looking at the canopy of the forest and how there would be a lone tall tree sticking out now and then. I could not resist taking a picture of this one with that beautifully rich blue sky!

And if you thought that earlier station was small…you will be bowled over with this one!

I was not kidding about enjoying the canopy and trees sticking out…

I was not really able to take a shot of the rivers we passed by because the train was moving so quickly and I kept getting blocked by the metallic trusses of the bridges. So I prepared myself and made my best effort to bring you this…it was more a stream than a river though.

I saw this little boy walking along the platform at one of the stations and called out to him. I love his smile!

It was a really hot day…the cabins of our train were air-conditioned…but I still preferred standing by the open door because I could see everything…like Paul sticking out at the door on the other end of the carriage!

Since we were stopped, I decided to run over and take a picture of him now that I had the opportunity.

We also passed through quite a number of tunnels as we made our way around the mountains. I like how mysterious these tunnels look!

It amazes me how simple things that we take for granted can be used to decorate and make a place more lively!

Going to get onto another bridge…this one looked like the one at the Rail Mall on Upper Bukit Timah Road back in Singapore!

We were passing through some plantations and I saw this lady having a relaxing afternoon snack!

Everybody likes railway bridges…well…maybe not everybody…but I do. I was trying to get a good picture of one. This one was my best attempt.

Or maybe this one…I cannot quite decide…

It was late afternoon by the time we got back to the Kuala Krai station and we were all a little tired. So we stopped by a shop for some snacks before heading back to the guest house for a shower before dinner. I saw this on my mirror as we turned off the main road to our guest house. I had to stop to take a picture.

We took our time with our showers and had a good rest. I packed in a little game of darts too while waiting for the rest to get ready. Eventually, we decided to head to a place that was closer to our guest house for dinner. I saw this row of shops the night before and thought it might be a good place to try especially since I remember the aroma of barbeque as we passed by last night!

Hey…I just realized Big V is as tall as that Kelisa! Wow!!! Anyway, there would be no barbeque tonight. This place served traditional Malay style dishes with different rice dishes which looked yummy to me!

As usual, one for Facebook!

I had to take another one for Facebook when the food arrived…this looked so much better!

You would think we must have tried everything there is to try on the traditional Malay menu by now…but you would be wrong! We had a few interesting dishes tonight that we never had before. One was the Rojak Mee…and the other was the Sup Gearbox. Yup…we had Gearbox Soup for dinner! Can you spot them?

  

  

I am sure you would agree with me that with such a magnificent spread, it would not be difficult for us to be completely filled up…and you would be right! This was a fantastic way to end a fantastic day in Kuala Krai!