Me and Mark go roadtripping Part 1

I had looked forward to taking Mark on a short trip around Malaysia before he went off to do his National Service. It didn’t quite happen that way as I was overseas at the time. Then early this July we finally managed to get away together for a few days. Not the full-blown trip I had wanted but it was close enough.

As is my wont, I chose a circuitous route through Johor that went around Kota Tinggi and we found ourselves in Kluang at lunch time. We stopped at the railway station and had a simple nasi lemak meal at the stall next tot he station. After lunch we wandered around the station itself and found the Kluang Rail Coffee outlet.

The staff were really friendly and invited me step behind if I wanted to take pictures - an offer I took them up on. Stuck in the hustle and bustle of Singapore, the slower pace of life and the natural warmth and friendliness of Malaysians is always such a welcome contrast and relief. Despite not patronising the outlet, the staff were never less than friendly.

 They sell their own brand of coffee too if you like.

Kluang isn’t such a small town of course though my contact with the town has been limited to my brother Francis living here some years ago when he worked at  Endau Rompin National Park, and my meetings with Kimberley Clark whose 26-acre factory nearby once contemplated buying my LED lights.

In many ways Kluang is the kind of Malaysian town I like - busy enough in the town centre but quieter in the adjoining residential areas. And of course, just a few minutes’ drive and you’re in rural Malaysia.

If we walked along the tracks to the left, we'd eventually reach Singapore. And to the right would be KL, assuming we took the right track at Gemas which is the main junction for the west-coast and east-coast tracks. 

The old ticket office sign - The sign remains although there is now an air-conditioned area just around the corner.

Mark on the Kluang platform.

From Kluang we got back on the highway (which I usually dislike, but the need to be speedy was becoming more pressing). The PJ house was as it has been these last few years, though the missing garden wall was puzzling… As were dislodged slate tiles form the driveway… Hmmm had there been some calamity in the months I had not visited? Turns out it was just repairs and refurbishments.
The garden fence, mounted on a low concrete base, had begun to lean so was being replaced with something sturdier. Meanwhile some of the slate tiles had, as slate is inclined to do, cracked or sloughed off layers and were also being replaced.

What hadn’t changed was the reception my old dog, Cookie, gave me. She is all of 9 now but still greets me like she used to when she was a pup - by trying to jump on me and lick me to death. Her tail whipped up a little whirlwind of dust and shed dog fur as she excitedly strained against her chain. To be honest I was as happy to see her as she to see me.

I adopted her from the SPCA in 2003 when living alone had begun to wear me down a little and they say the ones you adopt know you’ve saved them from a potentially nasty fate and have a strong bond with you. Whoever ‘they’ are, they know what they’re talking about. Even though she’s now lived longer with my sister, Rosemary, in PJ than she did with me in Singapore, Cookie still gets all excited when I drop by. In fact, Rosemary remarked that she doesn’t wag her tail when Cookie greets the PJ House residents, but she does for me when I visit.

Good dog… heh heh

Next: Eating our way through PJ...

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.

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