The Star: Celebrate Malaysia! Part 2: The North

The second article appeared in The Star today (18 December 2007). Here is the unabridged version.
Back on the road again After a break of a few days in PJ, I returned by car to Pulau Carey to set off from Kampung Sg Judah, an Orang Asli kampung. After setting up the bike, I had a cup of Teh-O at a stall by a school. The Malay Lady who ran the stall was busy but we chatted as she worked, watched by her 3 kids.

Her modest stall served the usual menu of gerai fare but I noted with surprise an XBox connected to large speakers and a TV. 'The kids like to play on it in the evenings' she smiled. I made a mental note not to presume that kampungs are bereft of such modernities. When I eventually got up to pay she refused to accept money, saying it was a small thing - she'd obviously enjoyed our little chat.

The same thing happened when I was later caught in a heavy squall and had to shelter in another gerai. Despite enjoying yet another Teh-O and some exquisite thinly sliced Goreng Pisang, the owner refused to accept my money. What's with these Pulau Carey people? Their generosity and kindness was indeed heartwarming.

Not just a lot of hot air
I stayed a night in Kelang and another in the Nature Park in Kuala Selangor. Leaving very early that morning, I elected to avoid the mosquitoes and made the mistake of not checking the tyres. A heavy bike, insufficient air in the rear and a few kilometres from Sungai Besar, on the way to Sabak Bernam, the sidewall tore and the rear tyre blew. I had spare tubes and patches but no replacement tyre so pushed the bike to a motorcycle bengkel up the road where I met two very kind souls who made a tremendous impression on me.

Supriani is a simple man who has been through some tough times. A failed partnership in a motor workshop left him bankrupt. He worked for someone else while paying off his debts, and honing his skills, then eventually set up his little workshop beside his house. He kindly drove me around to find new tyres and I was touched by his patience and selflessness.

His brother in law, Hamzah, turned out to be one of the most profound people I've had the pleasure to meet. We spoke for hours - by the time the bike was fixed, it was too hot to ride so I hung around for awhile. Hamzah has an honest outlook on life. In his trade he has turned down work when he felt he didn't have the skills or experience to complete the job satisfactorily. He feels that if he is paid to do something, he should do it well.

He spoke evenly of how he feels the values in kampungs are slowly being supplanted by less honourable ones. 'When kampungs become pekans and pekans become bandars, the people change too'. I agreed totally with his idea that in kampungs, there is a sense of 'Us' which slowly mutates into a self-serving sense of 'Me' in larger towns.

We both lamented the gradual loss of that easy going togetherness which underpins kampung life. His stories filled me with hope - here, away from the 'me first' mentality of the towns and cities was a moral, principled way of life we would do well to revive.

Sabak Bernam was the last town in Selangor and I had the pleasure of meeting yet another principled character: Ridzwan who played club football for PKNS. He once played for a state team, stayed 3 months then left when he realised some of his teammates were not chosen just on merit. After retiring through injury, he now worked at his father's gerai where I met him.

And so I left Selangor, my home state, bedazzling in its modernity, yet almost rotting at the core through disrepair and poor maintenance. Still, I discovered there is much to admire in the people. Just perhaps not so much in the cities.

Teluk Intan is one of my favourite towns in Malaysia and my 3 days there were pleasurable ones. The Anson Hotel was cheap, clean and cheerful. And I met Amir who ran a bike shop. I was lucky to meet him on Friday when he normally shut the shop and he opened it specially for me after his Friday prayers. I got proper tyres fitted (the ones we found in Sg Besar being a temporary measure) and felt more confident about the tyres lasting the rest of the journey.

I like the easy pace of Teluk Intan. A town almost bypassed by progress with the construction of the highway, it has since found some resurgence in tourism. Not too much to spoil it though.

Malaysia's Tourism Ambassador
In Parit Buntar I met David Munusamy who wold get my vote as Tourism Ambassador if there were such a post. I'd come across David on the internet. Near retirement age, he now hosts cyclists and backpackers from all around the world. A kind, affable character, it would seem he knew anyone and everyone in the area. And what an area! We visited prawn farms, fishing villages, dried fish factories, toddy plantations, shipyards, even a herbal sauna set in a padi field! And through it all, the kind hospitality of a genial host. Oh did I mention his wife's food is delicious too?

Penang, Buttwerworth, Sungai Petani, Alor Setar all passed quickly. I'd spent a few days with my wife, Mei, in Penang (she'd flown up to join me as we attended a friend's wedding in Batu Feringghi) then continued relentlessly up north. I stopped at the Lembah Bujang Archeological Museum and marvelled at how an empire was here as much as 1500 years before. I survived the steep hills around Gunung Jerai and was constantly wowed by the beauty of morning light playing on verdant green padi fields.

And in the end...
Then, finally, Kangar. And a day trip out to Padang Besar. On the way, I stopped at a yet another gerai, this one opposite the Pusat Serenti Bukit Chabang, a drug rehab centre. The stall owner lamented the fact we have more of these than we do universities and that insightful remark once again reinforced my marvelling at the wisdom I was encountering.

A 14-hour bus ride home from Kangar allowed me time to ponder what I'd seen in the previous 5 weeks. I'd seen some stunning scenery of course. But more importantly, I'd met some stunning people too. Honest in their philosophies. Wise in their observations. Thought provoking in their insights.

And always, warm and kind. The heart of Malaysia still beats strongly and proudly. But it's not in the centre, it's in the edges, the periphery. In the kampungs and villages. And it had been my pleasure and honour to feel that pulse.

My mum who often greets my misadventures and transgressions with the exclamation 'You're mad!' was right not to question my mental state when I turned up in PJ. This ride wasn't mad. It was necessary. And the results were spectacular.

(Celebrate Malaysia! is not quite done. More is being planned to give fellow Malaysians a chance to feel that pulse for themselves. Log in to John's blog at www.john-budakkampung.blogspot.com to ride along.)

Day 16 Oct 30 Klang - Kuala Selangor

Distance: 52.65 km
Max Speed: 27.2 km/h
Average while moving: 17.7 km/h

When I started on this ride, I struggled to make 35 km. Now, 50+ is not a problem at all. I'm also quite adept now at estimating distances on one of my maps - it turns out the width of the fingernail on my little finger is about 10 km on the map and I've sometimes been as accurate as within 2 km in a 50 km distance.

My little fingernail said it would be about 55 km to Kuala Selangor and so I was confident enough to start out a little later than usual - about 7 am. Getting out of Klang wasn't too difficult although I needed to stop and ask directions from a group of men sitting outside a factory waiting for their shift to start. They all gave me the thumbs up and big smiles and waved as I rode away.

I'd only had a few hours in Klang (and I've just realised I've been spelling it both Kelang and Klang...), enough to walk around a bit last night and not much more. I did note that I was probably in the best part of town to fall sick in. The few blocks around the Hotel B had more clinics in one place than I've seen anywhere. I even saw 3 clinics in a row, followed by an Optometrist and then a 4th clinic. When I turned the corner of that row, I spied even more clinics. Are Klangites frequently ill or what? It might be they've all cycled from Klang to Pulai Indah often enough to ingest way too much sand, grime and tar for their own good...

It turned out to be a windy day, with much traffic on the road. The weather remained cool and dry for quite awhile and the cycling was comfortable. As such I stopped a few times to put on or adjust the video camera on the neat mount that Johann had given me.

I stopped at Kapar for breakfast at chinese shop and then as the day steadily got warmer, decided to stop just after Kg Asam Jawa for lunch. This was at an Indian shop right next to a large temple. As I sat there, the sky suddenly clouded over and it stormed with a vengeance for 15 minutes then slowly cleared. Remarkable.

I was the only patron as it was still rather early, maybe about 11:30, so I sat around for awhile and chatted a little with the owner and his wife. The shop was remarkably clean and I was genuinely surprised to hear they'd been there 4 years.

I reached Kuala Selangor, rode through the town and checked out the De Palma Hotel which I'd read about in an online tourism review of Kuala Selangor. As I rode in to the place, I realised from the signboard that it wasn't named in tribute to the film director, but instead referenced palm trees. It is run by PKNS, the state development board and I was grateful that they were full. I had no wish to meet anymore relatives of the booming programme leader from PD or Morib...

So I rode out, took out my mobile and called the Malaysian Nature Society. They had chalets available (it took her a few seconds to check) and booked me in. When I arrived a few minutes later, I discovered I would be the only guest tonight so could not quite figure out why she needed to check in the first place...

Ah... Cold water showers. I know you get used to it after awhile. And to be honest, it helps when you're hot and sweaty. I sure felt much better after I'd cleaned up. Good enough to take off for a walk around the hill, amply coated (or so I thought) with mosquito repellant. Incidentally, if you're looking for some, may I recommend Moz Away. My rationale is simple - buy local stuff as you're dealing with local mosquitoes. Forget the 'Off' and whatever. This stuff works.

There is a set of steps up the hill from the road in to the Nature Park and I had to use muscles that have not been used in a few weeks... There is a Chinese cemetery on the hillside which I'd never noticed before. The monkeys, however, are still about.

Ever since a bad encounter in Ulluwatu in Bali, I've been a bit wary of monkeys. The monkeys in that part of Bali have obviously been trained to snatch things from visitors and I was extremely agitated at being extorted in that way. Twice...

The monkeys on Bukit Melawati are of a different breed though - much more docile. You can feed them, as one person was doing. His familiarity with them was clear - eavesdropping on his conversation with some touring schoolkids, I gathered he came up every other day or so to feed them. I didn't like how he began to show off though and had to fight the urge to tell him off. When one monkey became a little greedy at the expense of other monkeys, the man grabbed it by the tail and swung it around to teach it a lesson. It seemed to work as the guilty monkey kept away for a little while. I didn't find this treatment at all amusing though - it is so easy to apply human rules and dynamics to animals who resemble us in some way. And yet so wrong too.

The hill is actually a very pleasant place to spend some time. You get such a panoramic view of the area and every time I visit I can't help standing at one of the old cannons and wonder what it must have been like to see pirate ships gathered off the coast, expecting them to mount a raid at any time...

Unbeknownst to me, I had not properly sprayed the repellant on and had missed a band around my left ankle. When I went down and decided to walk through the Nature Park instead, I was savagely attacked by a dozen or more mosquitoes. All at a 3 inch band around my left ankle and nowhere else... And these mosquitoes were savage! Their bites/stings were like sharp jabs with a needle so I hurried on, cursing myself for not bring the spray along.

I didn't stay long, as every time I paused, the damn mosquitoes would smell the blood coursing through the veins of my left ankle and form a mean, dark, vicious cloud around that space, jostling for air space like, well like mosquitoes after a hunger strike. OK this metaphor is breaking down big time, but I think you know what I mean.

If there's one thing I hate more than hills, it's leeches. Fortunately there weren't any. But I didn't know that. I kept looking out for them and that, combined with my rushing about avoiding the dark cloud of mosquitoes chasing my left ankle meant I didn't really have a good time in the park. Sad, I know, but so it was.

I went for a walk around town instead and eventually had dinner at a Malay restaurant. It was the air-conditioning that tempted me I must admit, but it turned out to be a great decision. A very good Nasi Goreng with some excellent Sambal Tumis left me full and happy.

Back at the park office, I wandered around and chatted for awhile with Kayli who'd been working there for 3 years or so. The information gallery is quite comprehensive though I was more than a little intrigued by two pale blue fabric objects hanging on a panel. They looked like large bra cups with oval holes cut in the top and I couldn't figure them out. Kayli laughed when I asked her what they were - insect traps or something? Turns out they were just containers they used to hold models of insects. Kids who visit the centre have itchy fingers - and not from insect bites. It seems they had pilfered the lot of model insects in the containers and Kayli had not bothered to replace them, nor remove the containers, leaving 42-year old men with overly imaginative sexual thoughts to ponder on the purpose of the strange cup-shaped fabric objects...

I had learnt my lesson again and had kept a mosquito coil lit in the chalet. I also lit one in the bathroom, and when the first one went out that night before I went to bed, I lit a fresh one.

Two days later I discovered that the clothes and towel I had hung up to dry had a mosquito coil ash smell... But that was later.
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