West Malaysia loop ride

Oh my goodness how quickly time flies. Day five crept up on us in the blink of an eye! This would be the penultimate day of the WMLR2024. I woke up earlier than usual today largely because of the situation I had in my room. In fact, I could not wait to get up because of that. This did give me a lot more time to get ready, to write in my journal, to pack up my things and just to be ready for the day ahead.

We were ready to push off at the usual time, around 7am, while the air was fresh and the temperature was still low. Our journey today would be a relatively short one of around 150 kilometres so we were not in any kind of rush at all. Our first order of business would be to have our tanks filled up at a petrol station, then to find a spot for some coffee and head towards our breakfast destination at Tangkak.

We rode along Route 1 and found a petrol station nearby and filled up. It was refreshing that we have been filling up only every other day so far. Usually we would need to fill up at least once or twice every day. We continued on Route 1 and turned south (right) onto Route 61, then east (left) at Route M10. So far the ride was easy and relaxing. The we turned south (right) onto Route M131 and eventually east (left) at Route M8 till we got to Kampung Machap Baru where we stopped for coffee.

Nothing much to say about the coffee other than it hit the spot for the both of us and we set off again towards Tangkak. The route was relatively straightforward and we got there eventually just before 9am. If I was going to have breakfast, I would usually prefer to have it early. But in today’s case, I was willing to wait.

What a breakfast! I would happily have that breakfast over and over again. It was completely worth waiting for. I have missed a good Malaysian Bak Kut Teh for a long time now and it was awesome to have this one be the one to fill that empty hole.

Tangkak has always been a little bit special on a WMLR ride. We rode here on the very first WMLR back in 2010, late that night after dinner, to visit Tony’s grandmother at her home. She reminded me of my own grandmother in so many ways and I am glad to this day that we visited her that night because it would be the last time I had the opportunity as she passed away later that year. So this time round when we were at Tangkak Tony wanted to go visit her resting place especially as we were very close to the Chinese Ching Ming (Tomb Sweeping festival). The only problem was he did not really know where the actual location of the ashes.

In any case, we made our way down Route 23 and then turned off when Tony saw the entry to the crematorium and columbarium called the Tian An Tang.

It really was not easy to find where the actual location was. Tony had some confusing and conflicting information from his relatives and had to go searching the rooms one by one. Each room had several walls (I call them condos) that housed many ashes and he searched them one after another just to find that he was searching in the wrong room.

Eventually, he received the right instructions and went to the room on the left side of the structure and soon found where she was…together with his grandfather.

Getting out of this place was also rather interesting. Tony was following the signs which eventually led into a palm tree plantation on sandy double track trail. I suppose this would be very cool and epic if we were established off road riders but as a rider who rides primarily on asphalt this was something to negotiate at slow speeds and it took us about 10 minutes to negotiate this till the exit.

The rest of the ride to Batu Pahat were relatively uneventful. We passed through Muar and some smaller towns along the way. The roads were relatively straight and traffic was reasonably calm. We rode into Batu Pahat and found our hotel at noon.

We were way too early for check in. The staff at the counter was happy for us to park out bikes directly outside and to keep our belongings in the lobby area on one of the arm chairs.

So we left our stuff there and headed off to explore the area. After all, check in time was not till 2pm or 3pm.

That was a nice drink for sure but we still had plenty of time to kill before checking in. So we walked around trying to look for a proper cafe for a different kind of drink…and more importantly…for air conditioning.

We spent the time discussing what we would do for the rest of the day, generally searching through Google Maps for food options that we might want for an earlier dinner as we did not have lunch today. We decided to head back to the hotel to check if our rooms were ready and at about 230pm we were able to get to our rooms.

I was very impressed with the hotel in that the room was spacious, clean, well appointed, quiet…it had so much going for it. Unfortunately it did also come with a special kind of smell. I could not put my finger on what kind of smell it was for awhile, and then it dawned on me what it was. It was the smell of medicated oil that some older folks like to use. I remember as a young boy I had to go with my parents when they visited their friends. There was an aunty (not a relative) that we would visit quite regularly whenever we drove from Penang to Kuala Lumpur (or vice versa) and her home would smell like this. It is not exactly a bad smell but it also was not exactly a pleasant smell. Good thing Tony had a miracle spray that I could use and it almost completely neutralised the smell after awhile. I have to get that spray for the next WMLR!

We have completed our shower and chores by about 330pm and decided that we would head out to where our dinner place was to check the area out before dinner. We were hoping that it would be close to many other shops and maybe a shopping centre so we could kill some time. So we got ourselves a grab ride and got there relatively quickly. The first thing we noticed was a shop across the road.

Dinner was amazingly good. The soups were very yummy and that fish tail was rich and flavourful. It was very satisfying and we definitely felt happy with it. These very simple and humble food establishments make up the backbone of the Malaysian food scene. They are also our favourite kinds of places to visit as the food tends to be simply but delicious. These are the types of places that make the small towns (and even the big cities) in Malaysia so attractive to us.

We had a lot of time after dinner to do something else so we decided to get a grab ride to check out one of the malls there. Interestingly, the same driver picked us up again. What are the odds! So we headed over to check out the Batu Pahat Mall. It was a relatively standard shopping centre with four floor levels of shops. There were the usual food and beverage stores, fashion and apparel stores, optical stores, beauty & personal care stores, electronics & mobile stores, jewellery stores…all sorts that you would normally find in a shopping centre so it made for a good walk.

We also wanted to check out the area outside the mall as we saw what looked like a bazaar being setup when we were arriving earlier. It was a Ramadan Bazaar! We walked over from the shopping centre to explore it a bit more.

It was a pretty amazing bazaar! We do see some nice bazaars in Singapore as well though I am seeing a lot fewer stalls like these that offer traditional fare and more stalls that offer modern insta-foods which is innovative but a bit of a shame that the traditional ones are fading away. It was hot outside so we decided to head back to the shopping centre because we spotted a store that we liked earlier where we could get a cold drink and maybe do a bit of planning for tomorrow.

After planning for a little bit we decided to take a walk outside again. The bazaar, by this time, was closed as everyone headed off to break their day-long fast, so the street felt different from earlier. It was also darker now that the sun has set. We decided to have a hot drink this time here at the end of the row of shops where the bazaar was setup.

Then it was time to get a grab back to the hotel and call it a night. When we got back to the car park area of the hotel, we noticed that there was a stall setup at the corner that offered burgers. What is a WMLR ride without a burger from a burger stand? Obviously we had to go get a burger. We were really filled to the brim with food by then so we decided to share one.

We went back to the hotel to enjoy our burger since they had some tables outside that we could use. We learnt that it was incredibly difficult to tear a burger into halves to share so instead we decided to take one patty and bun each. Hahaha! It was pretty yummy for sure…I think a beef patty or rabbit patty would taste even better! Maybe next time. For now, it was time to enjoy the burger and then get ready for bed. It has been a really enjoyable day of simple riding and very different kind of exploring. See you tomorrow!