West Malaysia loop ride

I don’t know about Tony but I had a really nice rest last night. The Knight Alley Hotel room had many beds and the one I chose to sleep on was really nice and comfortable. In fact, I think I dozed off a few times while going through the photos of the ride. I suppose having a mega riding day covering 653 kilometres would do that to anyone. All I know is that I felt rather accomplished having completed day one of riding and cannot wait to start day two!

Remember that phone case that I bought from GadgetX yesterday? Well, I spent some time last night using some 3M VHB tape to stick the mount onto it so that I could use mount my phone onto the bike today. The tape seemed to have done a good job sticking the mount onto the case. This was a mount that works with a super strong neodymium magnet to facilitate easy attachment and removal. I suppose it could also mean too sudden a bump might cause it to detach involuntarily. I bought this mount when I purchased the WunderLINQ unit from Black Box Media. At that time, they were the only ones who manufactured a box that allowed for control of a mobile phone through the handlebar wheel of the BMW GS motorcycle.

They did provide a lanyard with the mount so you will not lose your phone in the event of an accidental detaching but I chose not to use it as it looked dubious when installed inside this particular phone case. My reasoning was that I have used this before with my old phone and never once had it accidentally detach. So that is that.

We woke up to a rather beautiful day. The view out the window was very promising with blue skies and very little cloud cover. This could mean a dry riding day for us and that feels really good.

I woke up a bit earlier because I like to spend my morning doing some writing. In order not to disturb Tony’s slumber, I opted to do my writing outside. This hotel was rather well appointed. On this floor, there was plenty of space for writing and even a mini kitchen.

Tony was ready just as I was about done with my writing and we ventured out to look for breakfast. I usually do not have breakfast nor lunch but will make an exception when on a holiday so I was really looking forward to this. Tony remembered a place nearby that had nice local street food so we took a walk over.

We skipped these ones because we wanted to try something from the place Tony was thinking about. We found it about five minutes away from where we were. The place was called Pusat Hiburan Larut Matang (Larut Matang Entertainment Centre) and that complex housed an entire food centre on the ground level.

This was a most satisfying breakfast. A simple meal that felt so complete. Every ingredient was there for a purpose, there was no excess, no pretence, just simple, delicious food that was impossible to resist. After breakfast, we took a walk outside and saw this cat enjoying her breakfast!

It was soon time for us to check out and get going. We decided to visit a nearby fishing village this morning that was just about 25 minutes away by motorcycle. So we packed up, checked out and rode out to Kuala Sepetang. The ride out was pleasant and without any incident. The weather at this time was rather pleasant though sunny, very enjoyable.

The first order of business upon arriving at Kuala Sepetang was to check out a place that eluded Tony the last time he was there. I was personally a little puzzled why we were stopping by this place.

Turns out this place was actually a central kitchen cooking up batches of delicious pau (dumplings). Unfortunately, it was still early and they have yet to finish making the paus. So we decided to take a bit of a bike tour of the place and come back later when the paus are ready.

This sign marked the location of the old railway station that linked Port Weld (Kuala Sepetang) to the main trunk. I do really like these old signs and was pleasantly surprised they kept it here. After our short ride around the village, we decided to take a boat tour, visit a fish farm and then check out the eagles before heading back for the paus.

These is a factory that manufactured these boats that they used in the village. A simple one would cost a few hundred thousand Malaysian Ringgit. He shared that fishing in Malaysia was highly regulated. They could only fish within the vicinity of their state. All the boats from Perak (the state that Kuala Sepetang was in) have yellow boathouses so they were easily identified. There were three classes of boats. Class A were small boats that mainly does shellfish like clams and mussels. Class B were middle size boats that use a trawl net for prawns and small fish. Both class A & B boats usually fish in the day time. Class C boats were the biggest kind and they go out to sea for a few days. Those are the boats that are licensed to catch the larger fish. It was fascinating!

This was a dual purpose fish farm. On the one hand they farmed fish for the restaurants, on the other hand, they were a tourist attraction. In a typical fish farm, one would have up to 10000 fish in a fish pen. In this case, they reduced the number to 2000 fish per pen so the tourist could actually see the fish. They had many varieties and the fish seem to have an idyllic, albeit short, life. We learnt that the biggest challenge with a fish farm in Malaysia was the tide rising too high during the rainy season. In some seasons, an entire farm of fish could be wiped out because of this.

They had some horseshoe crabs there and I could not resist picking one up. It seems the horseshoe crab is not really a crab and were actually closer in relation to the spider and scorpion than the crab. They are also not eaten generally and in the past their blood was harvested for the manufacturing of a chemical to detect bacterial endotoxins in medical applications. Today, even though the demand for their blood has dropped off, they are listed as an endangered species due to habitat destruction. That long rod that we see also has an interesting shape, it is a three-sided shape and not completely round. The horseshoe crab uses this rod to turn itself upright when a wave washes them over. So cool!

That small puffer fish was a part of a larger group of puffers they kept in the farm. I am not sure they really understand the reason for puffers to puff up and the stress that doing that puts on the puffer. I learnt from my scuba diving days that the puffer fish only puffs up when it detects danger and undergoes a stressful transformation. I feel a little conflicted having this little one on my palm. I cannot help but be reminded of the giant puffers that I saw while scuba diving at Pulau Redang…perhaps the sea is calling me back for another diving adventure.

We then proceeded to see the eagles. They would throw out morsels of food onto the water and sound the horn of the boat to call the eagles who would then fly out from the trees. There were many of them and it was a majestic sight to behold. To my delight, I realised they were not really eagles but my favourite bird, the Brahminy Kite! I love these birds and remember how I felt the first time I saw them in Pulau Langkawi. They were beautiful birds, graceful and powerful, perfectly proportioned, intelligent and concise with their motion. I loved watching them and was properly enthralled.

The boat tour was soon over and we decided to have a walk around the village instead of taking the motorcycles. The first place we went to was the pau factory…clearly!

The village was sprawled across an inlet of water. One side of the village was accessible by all sorts of vehicles and the other side was only accessible via this bridge. This also meant that the people living on the other side had to come over to this side for all their daily needs. They would either walk across this bridge or take their motorcycle cubs across the bridge. While we were there we saw many ladies riding across this bridge to fetch their kids to and from school.

We took a walk through the village and went to the very end where we found this temple right next to the water. There was this big tortoise sculpture there in front of the temple and many live tortoises in what looked like a well of water inside.

Soon it was time for lunch and we made our way back to the main side of the island to savour a dish that Tony missed out on the first time he was here with his family. It seems he missed out on quite a lot, isn’t it? Well, today he was in for a treat and so was I as the shop was open for business!

This place also served some interesting drinks. One of them was called Lion Bites Horse and the other was called Horse Bites Lion. We ordered both drinks to try them out. It turns out that one of them was a Milo mixed with Horlicks and the other one was Coffee mixed with Milo. Both were yummy! Sorry we did not take pictures as we were super thirsty on a super hot day.

One of our discussions during lunch was where we would head off to for the next leg of our ride. I proposed we head up to Penang state but to finish our ride at Bukit Mertajam instead of Butterworth or Georgetown. Then we started looking for a hotel and eventually found one that looked nice called the Be Right Back Loft. So we booked it and then headed off.

We rode up primarily along Route 1 at a relaxed pace, enjoying the sunshine and low traffic roads. Route 1 led us through many smaller towns along the way, and while each one looked a little similar to the last one, there was also a different feel to them. We decided to take a water break at Simpang Ampat at a place called Restoran Hao Hao.

After this break we locked in the address for the Be Right Back Loft and continued on our journey north. We arrived in Bukit Mertajam not long after that as it was really a very short ride up from Taiping and soon made the final turn into the parking compound of the address we locked in. What we saw was rather bewildering.

The address led us to this J&T Express office, not quite what we were looking for. Thinking that maybe we got the exact spot wrong, we rode around the block several times just to confirm this was indeed the right address. Eventually, we parked up and I called the number on the reservation to check. Thankfully, they were rather quick to pickup and explain that we were indeed in the right place. The Be Right Back Loft sat directly above that J&T Express office and we were sent the passcode to the lock that would lead us up to where we would be staying for the night.

I must say my first impression upon entering the hallway was not a great one because it was super hot and stuffy. The air conditioning was not switched on, the place looked sparse, the rooms did not have attached bathrooms and everything felt so spartan. On the positive side, this place was very clean, the place was private even though we had to share the bathrooms and toilets, the place felt secure, and the air conditioning in the rooms worked really well and cooled the rooms down very quickly.

We quickly settled down to do what we always do when get to our hotel and that is to take a shower and to wash our riding clothes. After that, it was time to go exploring!

We decided to go to the tealive shop next door because it was nearby and it was very well cooled with the air conditioning. We were craving for some hydration and found out that they offered several beverages with zero added sugar which was a real surprise. The staff there were also very friendly and helpful. So we dived in and got ourselves settled onto the seats at the back and enjoyed our drinks. I think we must have spent 45 minutes there just to cool ourselves down from the heat.

When the sun got lower we decided it was time to venture out from this air conditioned comfort onto the streets of Bukit Mertajam. We scouted around on Google Maps for possible places for dinner and found a few interesting ones that were close enough to walk to.

Bukit Mertajam had so much to offer that it was surprising we have not gone there earlier. So many interesting stores and quaint buildings. We had a really enjoyable walk and eventually found a place that we wanted to check out called Wei Seng but unfortunately it was closed.

We decided to order a medium sized plate to share because we had another place in mind to visit after this. After all, it could hardly be called a dinner adventure if we only had one dish, could it? This dish was an umami bomb. The taste of crab was evident but not overpowering, the pork was succulent and provided a good contrast and the sauce just tied it all up into a cohesive dish that made for a mouth watering starter leaving us wanting more!

We continued our walk after that first dish towards our next stop and discovered many interesting places along the way. This town has many of the older style shophouses that we do not see much of anymore in Singapore. We were also thinking what the shops were selling previously, who were the people running them and how they ended up where they were. This made for a very interesting walk for sure and I would recommend this to everyone who has an interest in the heritage of Malaysian/Singaporean towns.

We all know that we can get some of the best Nasi Kandar in Georgetown, Penang. Having said that, Nash Kandar as a dish has travelled quite far down the Malaysia peninsula and we can get this now as far down as Johor Bahru. Still, Bukit Mertajam is in Penang State and we were wondering if this shop serves as good Nasi Kandar as those on Penang Island. This place has a very popular dish called Ayam Negro or Chargrilled Chicken so we really wanted to try that.

So how was the Nasi Kandar? We were in agreement with our assessment of the dish. The Ayam Negro was spectacular. It had a good mix of charred caramel flavour and tender, juicy meat. The fish eggs had a subtle flavour and was a little stiff. The curry mix on the rice was a heady mix of curry flavours we have come to expect for Nasi Kandar. All in all, a very nice dish…but we still prefer the ones in Georgetown. Having said that, this would be a place for a repeat visit should we be in Bukit Mertajam.

Our dinner adventure was at an end and we really needed that walk back to the hotel. We stopped by a 99 Speedmart shop along the way and found it to be very well stocked up. This was just across the street from the hotel and would be an ideal place to get sundries should we be staying longer than one night. After that, we moved our bikes so that we could park directly in front of the J&T Express. We parked our bikes further away earlier in the day because there was no shade here and it was really hot and sunny. Now that it was night, this made for a good parking place and would be easier for us to depart in the morning as well.

After this, it was time for us to think about what we wanted to do tomorrow. So…we went to one of our favourite places on the WMLR2024 for our discussion.

We looked at a number of options for tomorrow and eventually decided on a destination and a route. We also looked at hotels that we might want to stay in and decided to just book one on the spot. I really liked this kind of trip planning, just decide, book and ride. Where will we be going? Well…I will leave that for tomorrow.

So day 2 has now come to a conclusion and I must say it was an eventful day. We visited so many different places and had a nice day of simple riding. It was really nice to not have full riding days consecutively. This was the kind of balance that makes a riding vacation fun. See you all tomorrow!