HC ride

17-18 Nov, Teluk Ramunia, Johor, Malaysia,125 km

Day 1

On a slow boat to Pengarang, I try to catch on some sleep. When I get off the boat, it's as if I've landed in another land. The last time I was here was in 2006. The place looks different now. Where we once gathered outside a little door to get passports stamped, there's now a big building where we queue inside. We ride to a hotel, lunch, and I chill out in the air-conditioned room, which feels a tad better than the burning outdoors. The rest chill out outdoors - they visit a barber and eat.

Evening comes, the plan is to cycle again when it's cooler. But it is not so; I'm told they have "no mood to cycle". What?! I don't get my passport stamped just to cycle 40 km. I grab my bike. I'm told that yonder is danger. OK, I'll cycle to the most peaceful place I know in the area, where tall grass bend in the wind and waves caress the shore. I even do some off-road, on a Mars-like landscape. After all, men are from Mars ...

As I cycle, they eat. And eat. Four more meals or more, I'm told, between 3-8 pm. I only have two, and I'm the one who's gone the extra mile! I tell them where I cycled, and it turns out where the tall grass bend in the wind, have lurked robbers. With big knives ...

So, the most peaceful place I know, turns out to be the most dangerous. "You're lucky," one of the eaters say. And to think I stopped a few times to shoot, not with a gun, but a camera. To think that the little picturesque road I was on ends in a cul-de-sac too. Ooh.

Nightstop: Sin Hin Hotel

Day 2
Uh, where shall we cycle today? To the jetty, after breakfast of course. On the way back to the jetty, we stop. For durians. So, this is an HC ride: Hair Cut, High Calories and (for me) a bit of Hazardous Cycling.

griefk