Me and Mark go roadtripping Part 2

When I was a kid, hanging around with most of my cousins meant it was either the school holidays or the festive season. During the school holidays it was common for some of us to be shipped out to spend a week or so at a cousin’s, or for one of the other 38 n my generation (yes, we’re a big family!) to stay over with us.

Sometimes too we would go away for a few days - Port Dickson being a particular favourite in those days.

My Mum’s and Dad’s families were spread mostly through the PJ and KL areas though we had aunts and uncles in Perak, Melaka, Penang, Pahang and Terengganu too at one point. I guess I was close to a handful of cousins but even then we didn’t see each other that often so the holidays or festive occasions were great fun.

When Mark, Megan and Michael were younger we used to bring them up to PJ where they could hang around with Rosemary’s kids, James and Joanna. Generally a splendid time was had by all, as the Beatles would sing, and I like to think that my own fond memories of the PD trips were echoed by the PJ trips for my kids.

The kids now have more ways to stay in contact with each other now - Facebook being a primary point of contact - but I think it’s still rather a fun time when Mark, Megan and Michael go up and spend some time with their cousins, James and Joanna. Time moves on as do people, and James and Joanna are now studying overseas so it’s much rarer for them all to meet up. Still, we were fortunate that both were back and that Mark managed to get the leave necessary to do this trip just then.

My Mum’s battle with Dementia and Parkinson’s continues and she gets sufficient care for the most part. She has good days and not so good days and when we were there she was a little tired but reasonably alert. At least she had a pretty good appetite and that’s always a reassuring sign.

My Mum having dinner.

An appetite was what we needed and we displayed it in ample quantity over the next two days.

A trip with Mark to get my favourite Jackson’s Burgers ended fruitless but chendolled… Jackson’s was closed but a Chendol stall down the road wasn’t so Mark and I indulged. The chendol was so-so but it was nice once again to be able to sit under a tree next to a mobile hawker stall. It’s little things like this that can be so pleasurable.

If there’s one thing that identifies Malaysians, it is our ability to almost immediately be at ease with a stranger, and to make friends. I found this out with the numerous people I met at various gerais all down the west coast of the Peninsula, and although I find cities to be more rushed and aggressive, you can still set yourself down at a chendol stall and make friends within minutes.

 Yes I know the spoon looks large but that's because I shot it from close up and it distorted it. You can see there's stuff in the chendol which isn't normally there and which I think detracts form the taste. Still, it was not too bad.

Mark is into board games now, as are his cousins, apparently so they whipped out something called Munchkin Quest which Mark had brought up form Singapore and were at it that evening. I stayed clear - these things confuse me…

The next day passed in a blur of food (wantan mee, yong tau fu, roti chanai, Ipoh-style chicken rice) and some board games. The kids ditched Munchkin Quest to include me in Risk - a game I do like - and we promptly had a lesson in politics. First we manoeuvred so James destroyed his sister, then Mark and I ganged up and whalloped James after which I kicked my son’s butt. Champion of the world! ha ha!

 I like this shop in PJ New Town for breakfast, not because the food here is the best but because it's a very pleasant mix of decent service, variety and ambience. Cool, shady trees give you shelter not just form the heat but from the hustle and bustle too.

 Wantan & Pai Kuat Mee the way I like it.

Yong Tau Fu

Oh, we did get our helping of Jackson’s Burgers and mmmmmm they were too… More in part 3...

Day 19 - 21 Nov 2 - 4 Teluk Intan Part 1

Teluk Intan is not a very large town. It is also a few kilometres off the route to Lumut/Pantai Remis which meant I would have to backtrack when I left. No matter - although I'd only been once previously, I'd liked the town immediately.

I found my way in with no problem, and rode around town looking for a hotel. I saw a couple of walk-ups in the mould of the Kim Heng in Pontian and the Hotel Kingdom in Muar. I knew I could find better and continued to roam the streets.

There are a number of one way streets in Teluk Intan and all the streets are wide and well trafficked by motorbikes, bicycles and cars in equal measure. Still, I found the roads easy to navigate - it seemed perhaps that traffic was going more slowly than I'd expect.

Having circumnavigated almost the entire town, I finally saw a large building in the distance, with tall letters facing the other way, spelling 'Hotel'. I made for it and that's how I found myself at the Anson Hotel. A well-designed lobby was visible through the glass frontage and I parked the bike at the front, noted there was no doorman a la Legend Water Chalets in PD, walked and asked if they had a room. Not only did they, they also said my bike would fit in the lift, no problem.

Great! I checked in, unpacked and hit the shower. Only to find there were no towels... Nevermind, I used my mosquito-coil smelling one and was happy enough. There was also a flask in the room, but no water in it and no kettle to be seen. Hmmmm... Still, the room was neat and comfortable and I noticed 3.5G on my mobile phone so my hopes for good internet access were raised significantly. All in all I was in pretty good cheer.

When I'd done, I popped downstairs and asked about towels - turned out they'd forgotten to pass them to me when I checked in. As for the flask, there was filtered water available in the lobby and I could help myself. The staff were extremely polite and friendly and I was still in good cheer when I went upstairs to try getting online.

Laptop on, mobile hooked up, connected, no problem. Email downloaded, blog logged into, then I tried to send an email reply. No go. Hmmm... Strange... And the blog's stopped responding too. Nevermind, I'll check it out later.

Back downstairs and out the front to look for dinner. Right next door to the hotel are two old double-storey bungalows with signboards marking them as hotels. The further one might well be, but the one next door is a restaurant with a number of stalls downstairs. I wandered over to this one.

Part of the area on the ground floor was a seating area and more tables and chairs were placed outdoors and this is where I sat. It was a cool evening, and to celebrate, I ordered a Carlsberg (I know, what you're going to say, Tony...) and from the same gentleman, a Curry Mee. He seemed to be one of the owners of the place.

The noodles were very nice indeed and the beer refreshing.

Back at the hotel, I tried getting online again. It needed a restart of both the phone and the laptop, and when I started getting into the intensive stuff - the blog and slide.com - things went into a hang again. I couldn't even make or receive calls on the phone.

I'd noticed a Celcom shop across the road so decided to check that out the next day. Meanwhile, I used the room phone for dialup - at 16,800 kbps! Still, things were working...

The next morning I went down to look for breakfast, walked quite a distance but failed to find any Chinese shops of note. It was not until the next day that I realised there was a Chinese part of town. So I walked back to the hotel and cross the road to where I'd noticed a small shop set back aways. This turned out to be a nice little place and I had a wanton mee. The style is unusual as they give you all the stuff you;d normally have to order as separate dishes - the roast pork, the wanton, the shredded chicken. It was very nice and I washed it down with a Teh O (less sugar, please) which the waitress seemed to find amusing.

Celcom was open and I tried to get my problem sorted out. A bit of useless questioning almost resulted in me getting upset, but I held myself in check. They had no 3G phone I could try my SIM on so I could not verify if the phone was the problem. I had tried to surf the net using the phone and it was fine - until I logged on to heavy sites like this blog. Then the phone hanged.

Well, Celcom had a 3G phone but the battery was flat apparently. I borrowed a 3G SIM, put that in my phone and it worked great. Now I reckon the SIM was not a 3G SIM as when I put it in, the phone didn't have '3G' in the display, just the normal GPRS. The staff insisted it was though and said they used it for demos. Now just how they do demos without a 3G phone is beyond me, but I let that go.

Celcom changed the SIM for me (after a lot of hassle) and I went off hoping that would have solved the problem. Well, hours later, it obviously hadn't and I had to visit the shop again the next morning. I even reset the phone, but to no avail. I think there really is an issue with the phone but I have no way of verifying this without a doubt.

So it was to be dialup for the next day.

I asked at the hotel if they knew of a laundry nearby as I had quite a bit to wash. They offered to send it out for me and to collect it that evening as I told them I needed to leave the next day at 6. Well, as things turned out, they forgot. I guess the earlier episode with the towels and the flask should have warned me. As a result, I had no choice but to stay another night. To their credit, when the receptionist realised they'd forgotten, she despatched one of the staff to the shop but it was already closed.

Anyway, as things were, I was beginning to enjoy myself in Teluk Intan so the extra day, although putting a bit of pressure on me to get as far as possible in the next cycling day, was really not such a problem.

At about lunch time, I wandered out again and walked around the leaning tower. Teluk Intan is really quite a pretty town with many old buildings and in generally decent shape. The Swallows' Nesting areas were all over - including right next door to the hotel though on the opposite side from my room - and one old building was even converted in its entirety for that purpose. The strange thing is that there actually seemed to be quite a few of the birds about. In other towns, I could hear the bird song (from speakers, mainly, as I discovered) but could hardly see any. Here, I could see them flinging themselves around the sky in carefree loops and swirls and spirals.

I asked at a bike shop if they had any tyres and he referred me to one further up the road so I walked over and found that the shop in question was indeed a stockist of better bikes. There were a couple of people inside, just readying to go off to the mosque so I arranged to come back later. Strange thing is that they were actually closed on Fridays, but he'd come in specially to wait for a particular customer. My good luck then...
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