Day 11 Oct 25 PD - Morib Part 1

Distance: 80.55 km
Max Speed: 41.0 km/h
Average while moving: 17.5 km/h

Ah, I have so many memories of PD...

I fell in love for the first time in PD, at the tender and innocent age of 10. She was destined to be one of Malaysia's most famous models, but of course we didn't know it then. And our relationship lasted all of... oh, two days until it was time to go back to PJ again.

And then there were the family school-holiday trips to PD, a few of them at an old bungalow by the sea, Sandytide, and a few at the National Union of Banking Employees centre further up the coast. Those were fun times with my cousins and I seem to remember that tracking sand in or getting wet and dirty was never a problem with our parents then.

A few years on, in my early teens, I recall roaming the beaches with my cousin, two of us armed with our home made catapults. One day some kampung kids who were similarly armed trailed us then set up two targets as a challenge. Everyone failed to hit them with their first shots. Then I took aim and shot both the tin and the small rock behind it with the one shot and suddenly the kampung kids were swarming around us and inviting us to go with them to hunt some squirrels and so on. It made me feel pretty damn good...

Half a decade later, at the end of Lower 6, a large number of us attended the annual 6th Form Leadership Training Course at the De La Salle Brothers' Bungalow in PD. The bungalow is still there today and every time I go past, I remember that week that built up some lifelong relationships.

Here we are in 2007 and here I am on a slow bicycle ride past all these places. And building up two more clear memories of PD...

The first is of the Legend Water Chalets. It would certainly not have been my first choice but for the comedy of errors which saw me avoid or miss some very nice places, much more in keeping with the spirit of the ride, and instead cycling blindly on until I ran out of choices.

I must say that after a week and a half in the saddle, the comfort was most enticing and tempting. When I swung the door to the chalet open I had a moment of confusion. The first thing I saw ahead of me was a black marble vanity standing on a stone tile floor. On this floor was inset a 3 ft square sheet of glass which gave a view of the sea directly below. To my right was a sunken shower area with a nice, large overhead shower head and beyond that was a triangular bath tub sitting on a black marble pedestal.

I thought I'd somehow ended up renting a bathroom for the night...

A slight pause and then I saw the doorway ahead of me, which led into the bedroom and a small balcony beyond. The wall between the tub and the bedroom had windows with very stylish wooden venetian blinds letting light through.

Relieved I had a bed to sleep on for the night, not just a bathtub, I pushed the bike in, unloaded it and explored a little further.

The bedroom was very nicely lit, and the queen size bed with a very firm mattress was certainly a far cry from the Batu Pahat Rest house. It looked and felt so goooooooood.... The whole atmosphere was a pampering, comforting one. The only thing missing was my wife... sob sob... well, maybe on another trip.
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