Distance: 84.42 km
Max Speed: 45.8 km/h (steep and long hill! And I was using the brakes!)
Average while moving: 18.7 km/h
I had way too little sleep last night. I just couldn't get any shut eye and was up past midnight. Not a good idea when you want to get some miles in the next day.
As it was I woke up feeling a little lethargic. There are essentially two parallel routes to Alor Setar - one being the main trunk road, and the other the coast road which ends at Kuala Kedah and then cuts back to Alor Setar. I opted to take the scenic route - though this was a last minute decision.
I had noticed a note on my maps marking the Archeological Museum near Gunung Jerai and had considered checking it out. As I cycled along the main trunk road to Alor Setar, with every intention of taking that shorter route, I saw a sign pointing west to the Museum, in the Bujang Valley. It claimed the museum to be less than 20km away but by the time I considered it, I had passed the junction - bicycles do go so very fast, don't they?
At the next junction, there was another sign again so I figured what the heck, maybe I was meant to get there so I took the turn off and headed west.
I cycled in, and used my instinct to guide me as there were no more meaningful signs after that. At one stage, I saw the sign for Butterworth and got concerned so I stopped and backtracked 400m to the previous junction and true enough, I had taken the wrong turn off. Phew!
While crossing a bridge, I heard the familiar whirring of bicycle gears coming up behind me. I usually check my mirror quite regularly but had been distracted by the scene below me so failed to notice the cyclist until he was abreast of me. Decked out in cycling gear and riding a racer, he seemed to be out for a pleasure ride - he had no other bags on him. We said 'Hi' to each other he went past. I sensed he slowed down to let me catch up, but laden with all my stuff and struggling with my lethargy, I was going at a very sedate 20 km/h and he slowly distanced himself.
By this time, there were no more signboards pointing to the museum so I gave up on that idea and decided to just continue on to get to the coast road and take that way up north instead.
I made a couple of turns by instinct and eventually found myself in Merbok, with Gunung Jerai looming large on my right. I rode through town saw a Malay stall, went past that, saw a Chinese stall and nothing else, then opted to go back to the Malay stall. Something about a good sambal in the morning...
I sat down facing the main road and as I looked up what should I see but the signboard to the museum, pointed straight up a little road that ran off the main road. I was, in effect, sitting across from the entrance to the museum I'd given up hope of seeing...
After breakfast, I rode in. The sign said 2km and I got as far as 1.4 when the rode became much too steep to ride up. I pushed the bike up a couple of hundred metres to the corner, expecting to see the road taper off. This was supposed to be the Bujang Valley after all wasn't it?
Apparently not - I rounded the corner and saw that the road got even steeper. The gradient got so steep I was leaning into the bike, my head almost level with the seat. I even had to stop a couple of times to rest, such was the effort needed to push!
Well, I got up to the guard post and the entire episode mocked me with two speed humps I struggled the bike over before I could get to the museum itself. Which turned out to be a small affair, opened in 1980. This was a large Hindu trading post 1600 years ago and it was interesting seeing the various artifacts unearthed in the area.
The gallery entrance was dominated by a large 3D model of the surrounding area and the first thing I noticed was that the museum was actually located in a cutting in Gunung Jerai. Hence the steep climb.
The next thing I noticed was that the road along the coast went steeply up a hillock. My blood ran cold for a moment. It seemed my earlier declaration that hills were no big deal now were coming back to haunt me...
I had come across a blog by someone from the area and he'd referred to the Singkir kampung area as hilly. Well, the maps didn't really indicate that, and besides, wasn't this area the Bujang Valley? OK so every valley needs a couple of mountains to define it...
The staff at the museum warned me that there were 3 hills on the way up the coast but he said I should be OK if I took it slow.
I wasn't OK. If the climb in to the museum was the mother of all hills, I met her 3 offspring on the way up the coast. The peak of one of the hills turned out to be Tanjung Jaga which had some very elevated views of the sea below.
I made it up the first, pushed up the second, coasted along a short plateau then pulled up to rest when I saw the third. It seemed to reach for the sky and I appeared to be looking down on the roof of cars that went up the slope ahead. Well, I eventually sped down the slope, made it up about two-thirds of the way then got off the bike and pushed the rest of the way up. I had to stop once to rest - I really wasn't feeling very fit today!
After the hills I stopped for an iced tea at a little stall by a river. The stall had a little sheltered space beneath a large shady tree with a juke box, a few seats and a large TV. Seemed like a really nice place to watch football or hang out in the evenings.
A lady ran the stall and her son and his friend were lounging about when I sat down. The usual questions followed and the son declared he would never be able to cycle such a distance - he made a great pantomime of having to call a friend to come and pick him up.
It was here that I knew I was well and truly in the north. My iced tea didn't cost me 80 sen. It cost me 8 kupang... I was beginning to have problems with the dialect as well and often could not understand what was being said. It wasn't just the pronunciation - 'betoi' for 'betul' - but some of the slang was lost on me too.
I reached Alor Setar, roamed around a couple of streets before I found two hotels. So I checked into the Regent.
No, not that Regent... This one was built in 1967, and in fact the foundation stone was laid by none other than Tunku Abdul Rahman, our first prime minister. A much more modest hotel, a room cost me less than RM80 and was clean and comfortable. My bike was locked up downstairs, and they gave me a room on the 3rd floor. And the hotel had no lifts 'Ini hotel lama ni...' 'This is an old hotel...'
Ah well, I survived Jerai, I'll survive the Alor Setar Regent.
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Max Speed: 45.8 km/h (steep and long hill! And I was using the brakes!)
Average while moving: 18.7 km/h
I had way too little sleep last night. I just couldn't get any shut eye and was up past midnight. Not a good idea when you want to get some miles in the next day.
As it was I woke up feeling a little lethargic. There are essentially two parallel routes to Alor Setar - one being the main trunk road, and the other the coast road which ends at Kuala Kedah and then cuts back to Alor Setar. I opted to take the scenic route - though this was a last minute decision.
I had noticed a note on my maps marking the Archeological Museum near Gunung Jerai and had considered checking it out. As I cycled along the main trunk road to Alor Setar, with every intention of taking that shorter route, I saw a sign pointing west to the Museum, in the Bujang Valley. It claimed the museum to be less than 20km away but by the time I considered it, I had passed the junction - bicycles do go so very fast, don't they?
At the next junction, there was another sign again so I figured what the heck, maybe I was meant to get there so I took the turn off and headed west.
I cycled in, and used my instinct to guide me as there were no more meaningful signs after that. At one stage, I saw the sign for Butterworth and got concerned so I stopped and backtracked 400m to the previous junction and true enough, I had taken the wrong turn off. Phew!
While crossing a bridge, I heard the familiar whirring of bicycle gears coming up behind me. I usually check my mirror quite regularly but had been distracted by the scene below me so failed to notice the cyclist until he was abreast of me. Decked out in cycling gear and riding a racer, he seemed to be out for a pleasure ride - he had no other bags on him. We said 'Hi' to each other he went past. I sensed he slowed down to let me catch up, but laden with all my stuff and struggling with my lethargy, I was going at a very sedate 20 km/h and he slowly distanced himself.
By this time, there were no more signboards pointing to the museum so I gave up on that idea and decided to just continue on to get to the coast road and take that way up north instead.
I made a couple of turns by instinct and eventually found myself in Merbok, with Gunung Jerai looming large on my right. I rode through town saw a Malay stall, went past that, saw a Chinese stall and nothing else, then opted to go back to the Malay stall. Something about a good sambal in the morning...
I sat down facing the main road and as I looked up what should I see but the signboard to the museum, pointed straight up a little road that ran off the main road. I was, in effect, sitting across from the entrance to the museum I'd given up hope of seeing...
After breakfast, I rode in. The sign said 2km and I got as far as 1.4 when the rode became much too steep to ride up. I pushed the bike up a couple of hundred metres to the corner, expecting to see the road taper off. This was supposed to be the Bujang Valley after all wasn't it?
Apparently not - I rounded the corner and saw that the road got even steeper. The gradient got so steep I was leaning into the bike, my head almost level with the seat. I even had to stop a couple of times to rest, such was the effort needed to push!
Well, I got up to the guard post and the entire episode mocked me with two speed humps I struggled the bike over before I could get to the museum itself. Which turned out to be a small affair, opened in 1980. This was a large Hindu trading post 1600 years ago and it was interesting seeing the various artifacts unearthed in the area.
The gallery entrance was dominated by a large 3D model of the surrounding area and the first thing I noticed was that the museum was actually located in a cutting in Gunung Jerai. Hence the steep climb.
The next thing I noticed was that the road along the coast went steeply up a hillock. My blood ran cold for a moment. It seemed my earlier declaration that hills were no big deal now were coming back to haunt me...
I had come across a blog by someone from the area and he'd referred to the Singkir kampung area as hilly. Well, the maps didn't really indicate that, and besides, wasn't this area the Bujang Valley? OK so every valley needs a couple of mountains to define it...
The staff at the museum warned me that there were 3 hills on the way up the coast but he said I should be OK if I took it slow.
I wasn't OK. If the climb in to the museum was the mother of all hills, I met her 3 offspring on the way up the coast. The peak of one of the hills turned out to be Tanjung Jaga which had some very elevated views of the sea below.
I made it up the first, pushed up the second, coasted along a short plateau then pulled up to rest when I saw the third. It seemed to reach for the sky and I appeared to be looking down on the roof of cars that went up the slope ahead. Well, I eventually sped down the slope, made it up about two-thirds of the way then got off the bike and pushed the rest of the way up. I had to stop once to rest - I really wasn't feeling very fit today!
After the hills I stopped for an iced tea at a little stall by a river. The stall had a little sheltered space beneath a large shady tree with a juke box, a few seats and a large TV. Seemed like a really nice place to watch football or hang out in the evenings.
A lady ran the stall and her son and his friend were lounging about when I sat down. The usual questions followed and the son declared he would never be able to cycle such a distance - he made a great pantomime of having to call a friend to come and pick him up.
It was here that I knew I was well and truly in the north. My iced tea didn't cost me 80 sen. It cost me 8 kupang... I was beginning to have problems with the dialect as well and often could not understand what was being said. It wasn't just the pronunciation - 'betoi' for 'betul' - but some of the slang was lost on me too.
I reached Alor Setar, roamed around a couple of streets before I found two hotels. So I checked into the Regent.
No, not that Regent... This one was built in 1967, and in fact the foundation stone was laid by none other than Tunku Abdul Rahman, our first prime minister. A much more modest hotel, a room cost me less than RM80 and was clean and comfortable. My bike was locked up downstairs, and they gave me a room on the 3rd floor. And the hotel had no lifts 'Ini hotel lama ni...' 'This is an old hotel...'
Ah well, I survived Jerai, I'll survive the Alor Setar Regent.
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2 comments:
err...sorry to seem like I'm always nitpicking, because I'm not trying to, but I just noticed the captions in your pics and those are not aloe vera plants, they are dragon fruit plants, aloe vera plants grow in the ground and their leaves are much...umm...stiffer. ;P
Ah so that's what they are... Singam and I first noticed them in Melaka and we thought at first they were Cacti. I couldn't fathom why anyone would grow Cacti that way and from a distance, the edges of the leaves reminded me of aloe vera, hence the assumption.
Thanks for the info! Have edited the slideshow.
I appreciate my mistakes being pointed out. :-)
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