"You're mad!"
My mother was a schoolteacher who was rather used to the antics of little boys, and hence understood perfectly what her 5 sons could get up to. As such, a short length of rotan was occasionally employed to keep us in check. With drastic bottom-numbing effect.
As we, and she, got older, her manner softened and when we had committed some transgression or other, we were no longer subject to her blood-suffused visage and the short silence that preceded violent physical punishment. Instead she would just shrug her shoulders and mutter two words "You're mad!"
Had my ears pierced? "You're mad!"
Wore a Baju Melayu on Friday and got called up to the headmaster's office? "You're mad!"
Borrowed a friend's motorbike and crashed it with painful personal injury? "You're mad!"
And so on.
In time, well last year in fact, I married a woman who shared one important thing with my mother: I love her dearly. And when after just 8 months of marriage, I mentioned I was thinking of cycling from one end of the peninsular to the other, she said to her friends "He's mad!" Some things go around in circles it would seem...
I've lived away from Malaysia the last 18 years. In that time, my links have become a little tenuous. Still, my trips up for family gatherings, my getogethers with old friends, my correspondence with fellow alumni of SM La Salle PJ and simple reading of the news online give me a perspective of Malaysian life that often saddens me.
Let's not kid ourselves - we know there's rising crime, corruption, questionable use of public funds and so on. Hearing all this from afar, I feel more than a little helpless and impotent.
When I was growing up, I had friends of all racial and religious backgrounds. In many ways we failed to see the differences, but instead revelled in the similarities. We played football, hockey and badminton, flew kites, made catapults and used them devastatingly on the local bird population, played marbles... We were kids doing kid things, and we didn't care too much what our surnames were.
Things don't look quite so rosy now. I see us losing touch with the values our founding fathers envisioned. And this simple bloke with a great love for his country of birth feels helpless. The conundrum is that I have as much influence as a gnat on an elephant's back, and yet to do nothing in unconscionable.
And so the idea took shape. Like that little gnat on an elephant's back, I planned to ride a bicycle from the south to the north, meeting and interacting with ordinary Malaysians, scratching at the surface of this country. A micro-observer I would be, recording my encounters in my blog and searching for the values Malaysia was founded upon: warmth, kindness, honesty, a moral sense of right and wrong and a brotherhood that cuts right through the bigotry and racism we now read about all too often.
I declared that the heart of Malaysia must surely beat strong and healthy and I wanted to feel that pulse.
From Melaka to Melbourne, Singapore to Stuttgart, my idea was warmly received by friends and family. All voiced their support and a number generously made the ride financially possible. And so on October 15th, 2007, I set off from Tanjung Piai at the southernmost point of the peninsular. My target: Padang Besar in the far north. My journey would take me along the west coast road, through kampungs and villages and the towns that dot the 'old road'.
This article covering my ride up to PJ, and a second covering PJ to Padang Besar, recount some of the people I met along the way, and how I managed eventually to ride over 1200kms and see a side of the country that is both heartwarming and inspiring.
Off I go!
It was the height of the Hari Raya festivities. As I cycled past kampungs on the first few days, people in their Raya best turned and waved at me. Kids ran out to give me high-fives, men in coffeeshops and gerais looked up and smiled: I could not have asked for a more encouraging start.
I could have asked for a little more common sense though and it took a few days to learn a couple of basic lessons: start early and ride at noon at your peril. That was to come though.
My first night, after a deliberately very short ride, was in Kukup and I stayed at Oliver Lee's Floating Chalet. 'Gemuk' is undeserving a nickname for Oliver, unless chubby equals happy, for Oliver is a contented and easy-going man indeed. He confidently gave me the keys to the house on stilts I would stay in and declared Kukup to be very safe. When I wandered around, I did note that many houses remained unlocked. A far cry from the remote-controlled gates and multiple locks I'm used to in PJ.
Habits die hard, and despite Oliver's assurances and my own observations, I kept my bike locked - my planning and training would be ultimately futile should my bike be stolen on the very first day...
Oliver told me about growing up in nearby Pekan Nenas, spending 5 years in KL during the late 60s, and coming to Kukup when he got married to a local girl. He's lived here ever since, and loves the peaceful, honest nature of the place. He told me the various races, even the Orang Laut, all mixed freely and my observations did not dispel that.
Kukup is popular with visitors from Singapore and many southern Malaysian towns and it's easy to see why. The lure of seafood, the novel spectacle of a town on stilts and the generally slow pace all give the place a genial and welcoming air.
Sunburn Country
Travelling on the trunk road to Pontian and then to Batu Pahat, I continued to get a warm reception. People on the roadside would wave, and truck drivers going in the opposite direction would toot their horns in encouragement too. I needed it...
I learnt the hard way that riding at 1pm is not recommended and got sunburnt as a reminder. As a salve of sorts, everywhere I stopped, I was greeted with warm smiles and a sincere friendliness I rarely find nowadays. My arrival at the numerous gerais I would visit over the next 5 weeks were almost always greeted with smiles and a warm 'Dari mana?' - a prelude to a cordial conversation.
One particularly inspiring morning was spent in Pekan Seri Menanti between Batu Pahat and Muar in Johor where I had breakfast with a Chinese DAP and an UMNO man. The exact nature of their party affiliation was not told to me, but they certainly had a good laugh about the fact that despite their differences, they considered each other a good, old friend and often met up for breakfast or a coffee. Our conversation came around to the current state of the country and it became apparent both had similar concerns - increasing racial polarisation among them.
They bade me look around the shop. I swept my eyes around this modest single-storey establishment and I saw another couple of men just like my two companions - a Chinese and a Malay man having their breakfast and chatting like old friends. I saw new arrivals greeted warmly with a call and a handshake - my own hand was taken in a warm clasp many times. All around, there were Chinese men sitting with Malay men sitting with Indian men, sipping their Kopi-Os, eating their rotis, talking, laughing... comfortable in the way old friends are.
My companions asked if this was a likely scene in the big cities and I shrugged a 'probably not'. But here, in this little coffeeshop in the middle of nowhere, and in just the first few days of my ride, were the ideals I had come searching for.
Learnings in an old place
I dropped by to see old friends in Melaka and found more. I've always liked Melaka but never really figured out why. Perhaps it was because the old was not cast callously aside in the name of development, but existed side-by-side with the new. Or perhaps it was that many religions did so too. Temples near mosques near churches.
As my friend Singam and I roamed around the town and the nearby environs, it slowly dawned on me that I rarely see this proximity of faiths anywhere else in the peninsular.
Or perhaps it's the casualness about Melaka that I do enjoy. In the Baba House where I typically stay, I don't get a 5-star vacation. Instead, I get a warm welcome, a charmingly comfortable room that is a good substitute for home for a few days, and people who remember me by name and greet me like an old friend.
In nearby Pantai Kemunting, I discovered another reason to like the state. I spent an afternoon with 3 of the 4 WWF people working hard to save the Hawksbill Turtle. Young and passionate, Min Min, Arvind, Grace and Hafiz work hard against the odds, educating the local fishermen and kampung folk while collecting eggs and managing the hatchery, beside the myriad of administrative tasks that come with a conservation project of this nature.
The outlook is bleak indeed - out of 14000 eggs collected last year, only 7 are expected to reach adulthood. But they battle on, and even have to deal with threats of physical harm from poachers. Arvind did say he wished they had more resources so they could also help the Painted Terrapin, a critically endangered species.
The team apply themselves with passion and a sincere desire to do good despite the odds. Certainly a great deal to admire. I was told they will introduce a one- or two-week volunteer programme so I am looking forward to the possibility of contributing more than just a few words in a newspaper to their very honourable cause.
The little cyclist who could. Just.
I have never cycled long distances before this ride. And I've never been very good at climbing hills. I'd planned this route so that I would avoid most of the hilly areas (inland areas of Perak for example) while going through as many kampung areas as possible.
One thing I learnt is that many road maps don't mark hills properly and so it was that on only my third day, I had to contend with having nowhere to stay and thus had to ride further than I'd planned and I had to deal with a few steep hills near the end of a 75km ride too. The hills around Batu Pahat cemented my belief that the higher powers (no, not JKR) have a sense of humour - there I was struggling, pushing my bike up a hill I'd conceded defeat to when I looked to my left and saw a Chinese cemetery...
Having 20 kgs on your bike adds to the effort considerably and although I got fitter as the ride progressed, the Batu Pahat hills were just an introduction to the rigours of travelling by bicycle.
They taught me a couple of other things too - that Malaysians who travel the trunk roads are warm, friendly people who are ever ready to offer a shout or toot of encouragement. Once a passenger in a car passing me frantically wound down his window just so he could clap his hands in encouragement. I grew to like truck drivers too - almost without exception, they gave me plenty of room as they passed, and often with a friendly toot of the horn as well.
The next time you pass a cyclist laden down with bags, give him some encouragement - it helps!
The other thing I learnt is that many placenames are misnomers. Can someone change Bukit Pelandok near PD to Gunung Pelandok please? I huffed, puffed, panted and swore my way up to one curve after another along that windy road, running the 'Yes I can' mantra over and over in my head, hoping that around each curve would be the end of the hill, only to find a further climb up to the next bend. For what seemed like many kilometres...
My home state and the state of my home
PD was nice, but Morib less so. A general air of disrepair was the mood of my homecoming to my home state. From cracked and sunken concrete steps to pavilions sitting in pools of stagnant water, from shelters missing roof tiles to two-storey wooden lookouts with broken steps and railings, Morib did its best to dampen the good feelings I'd picked up thus far.
I had not told my mother about my trip and when she realised I'd come by bike she surprised me not with her usual 'You're mad!' but instead offered a happy 'Oh!'. Some things had changed it seemed.
What had not was the mood I picked up in Morib. In PJ, I found less affability than I had become used to: it seemed that friendliness and cities were mutually exclusive. I was reminded sorely of the question the two Pekan Seri Menanti gentlemen had posed - and it pained me to realise my answer was spot on.
Despite a happy reunion with some of the La Sallians who'd voiced their support for the ride, I found a few days later that I was glad to be leaving the dust, pollution, curtness, hustle and bustle of PJ to get back on the road again. I longed for the more open spaces, the fresher air of the coast and the warm smiles that always greeted me when I stopped at a gerai for a Teh-O.
Things would indeed greatly improve, but when I set out along the roads of Pulau Carey at the end of October, I was not yet to know that.
(John encounters kindness and warmth in abundance in part 2 of this account. You can also read his exploits in greater detail on his blog at www.john-budakkampung.blogspot.com)
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