Day 3 Pontian - Batu Pahat

Distance: 75.72 km
Max Speed: 37.8 km/h
Forget the average - I took hours!

What a day! If Day 2 taught me not to ride in the midday sun, Day 3 taught me to rethink my definition of 'early start'.

I had breakfast at a little after 6 at a 24-hour Indian shop a few streets away. I ordered a Roti Telur Bawang which the guy had to specially make. I sat down and had my teh but could not eat much of the roti. I suspected it was a simple case of my stomach waking a little later than the rest of me. This has been the case for most of my life but this time I anticipated the owner would ask me why I hadn't finished the food he'd had to prepare just for me. I had a pat answer and when I got up to pay, true enough he saw 2/3 of the roti left untouched and asked why. I thought he would laugh when I said 'My stomach is still sleeping I think'. But he didn't. He gave me my change and didn't even look me in the eye. What the heck, I'm not likely to eat there again anyway!

Now let me reveal something very personal. I do have mild Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Sparing you the details, I will admit that I may, during the course of the day, have to avail myself of the conveniences more than most people. If I'm at work this isn't a problem of course, but on a bike it can be. So this morning, I decided to make sure I'd got that well taken care of before I set out.

When I finally got the bike downstairs and packed up, and said my goodbyes to the Makcik, it was just getting on 8am. I headed out of Pontian and for the first 15 kms it was good riding. Cool air, decent average speed - I was feeling good! After that, things started heating up a bit and at about 10:30 I began to feel a bit warm again. Careful not to push too hard, I still felt compelled to get as far as I could in what I began to realise would be a two-stage ride in to Batu Pahat. It became clear, what with my frequent stops (first at 15 kms, thereafter every 10 km or so) to take in water and rest up a bit, that I would not make the 75 kms in 4 hours.

Once again I was astonished at how many people waved or smiled or called out. One kid ran across the road from his bunch of friends on the other side, shouting something at me. He stuck his arm out and I thought he wanted to yank me off the bike or something so swerved around him to his great disappointment. It was then that I realised he just wanted to high-five me. Oops...

There was a dearth of Air Tebu stalls. In fact, there was a dearth of any stalls open at all. The Hari Raya holidays are still in full swing apparently. So I stopped often at bus stops, sheltering from the increasingly hot sun.

Close to lunch time and I'd only got as far as Rengit (yup - no hotel) where I decided to stop at a coffee shop just before the turnoff to Punggur Beach. Gan wasn't far off and he turned up less than an hour later having driven down from KL to pass me the Maxis broadband wireless modem which now means I have some connection to the net. Hurray!

There was an old Pakcik at the shop with his daughter and I chatted briefly with him. Remarkably, he worked for 40 years in Singapore, not far from where my office is. As if that wasn't enough, he also lived in the Bedok area, just a few minutes from where Mei and I live now!

We left the bike locked up at the shop, packed my bags in the car and drove back to Rengit to have lunch. Two orders of Nasi Ayam and a couple of drinks for RM12. Not bad at all. I decided to wait until past 4 to head off, thereby avoiding most of the glare and heat of that sweltering afternoon. See? I do learn. Usually...

After Gan left to head back to KL, I stayed around a bit at the coffee shop, reading. At 4 pm, I said my goodbyes to the coffeeshop owner who had been kind and patient. I bought a couple of bread rolls just so he'd have a bit more business out of us and got back on the bike to head towards Batu Pahat, about 32 km away.

During lunch we'd remarked how this part of Johor is quite flat. Well, after travelling quite a distance, and not within 10 kms of Batu Pahat, I discovered it isn't flat. At all. Looking at the map now, I realise there is a 427m hill on the east and a 250m hill on the west of the road in. I think I went up both.

I came to the first climb, realised I wasn't going to make it up, despite going all the way down the gears and travelling at less than 8 km/h. A short litany of expletives and I decided enough was enough I was going to get off the bike and push. Mustering all the dignity I could I did just that. The stream of traffic going by did remarkably offer the occasional toot of encouragement. When I got to the top, I stopped for a couple of minutes to catch my breath then got back on the bike and zoomed down the hill, round a corner only to see another climb ahead of me.

I tried. I really did, but I just couldn't make it up. I'm shuddering, just thinking of the hills in Perak as I type this! The irony of it is that on the left of the road was a Chinese cemetery... Well, I got up by pushing the bike then stopped by the roadside again to have a drink and splash my, by now, extremely hot body with squirts from the fast-emptying water bottle.

The third hill almost wiped me out but I sat down at the top, on a kerb, and rested for a good 15 minutes. Traffic going the opposite way was struggling too - they were changing down to a low gear to make the grade. Around the bend ahead of me I could just make out traffic swinging up another hill so I steeled myself for that by sitting quietly on that kerb, panting and cursing. As if the lack of hotels in the 3 towns I passed wasn't bad enough, the fact I had to do a 75 km ride on only my third day was quite sapping. Then factor in the heat of the day, and you begin to get some idea of my increasingly fragile mental state. And now, the hills....

I finally got back on the bike, and zoomed down the steep slope. The hill on the other side wasn't as bad as I'd thought and I managed to get all the way up and zoomed down a beautiful stretch after that. There was a long gentle climb after that so I decided to rest again outside a large supermarket. At this point I began to think it would be wise to mark on a map specially for cyclists 'Here be hills'. No make that 'Here be big bloody mountains'.

Sitting there in this empty carpark, I cooled down considerably and started feeling a little refreshed. I even felt a sense of some achievement for having weathered whatever circumstance had thrown at me. Then I heard thunder... a few drops of rain splattered me... I fought down an urge to look up to the heavens and say 'Look, do you mind?'.

The drizzle didn't get worse however so I eventually got back on and cycled up the long road. That was the last of the dramas though as just after that crest was one long slope down after another. It was amazing - my speeds were hitting 35 km/h or more at this stage and that's how I came into the outskirts of Batu Pahat. When I saw the first rows of shophouses I couldn't restrain myself and let out a whoop of delight. Cruising in to town at over 25 km/h I saw a sign indicating the Rest House up ahead and on a whim thought 'why not?' and swung in.

Now, rest houses were common in the old days of trunk road driving and I had thought they'd died out long ago. Well, I'm glad they didn't. The Batu Pahat Rest House was at the end of a short lane bordered by bushes and trees. As suddenly as I'd turned off the main road, the traffic noise ceased and it seemed a gentle breeze carried me up the slight slope to the driveway.

A chap at reception said there were rooms and I could even park my bike in mine. So I did.

Post to del.icio.us