It Ain't Always Easy

Sunday 23/11

It was yet another morning. The alarm went off and and unwillingly we had to climb out of the bed. The hotel had some coffee and tea for breakfast. They also had toast, and we were wise enough to buy a nice chocolate-peanut butter spread the day before just so we would not have to have plain toast. After having some food in our systems we were ready to hit the road. When we begun to cycle the sun was already up, but most of the people were still asleep, so the cities streets were quite empty.
For me it was not such a good cycling day, I felt weak. The road was not wide, so some cars when passing were much to close, this made me feel unsafe. The road had some ups and downs, for me this was also a challenge as I'm not too experienced and my knees were beginning to hurt. The scenery was very beautiful but I was feeling too down to fully enjoy it. Meanwhile Pedro was on a good pace and he stopped often to wait for me. Along the way we passed some forests where monkeys lived. 

They were quite shy, so it was hard to get a good picture of them. However, we had a good look. Some of the monkeys had little ones in their arms. We kept cycling until about 11 o'clock when we turned off the main road to some hotel where we thought to have dinner. But they did not have a kitchen, however, we asked if we could cycle down to their beach area just to have a peak at the sea, the woman we were talking to did not mind at all. We cycled u a bit up and down passed the neat houses they had with rooms, at the edge where the sea was they even had a pool where people where busy enjoying the hot weather. One thing to note that local, Muslim people swim with their clothes on. For me this was strange because naturally I find that swimming with as little clothes as possible is more comfortable and less of a hassle than dealing with wet clothes. But religion is religion, and what ever makes them happy was fine with me. We went down to the beach, took some pictures, enjoyed the view but then headed back to the road to keep going. 

A few meters later we saw a sign for another hotel, we followed the sign deep in thorough the forest till we reached the place. The parking lot was full of cars, so this must be a really good place, I thought. We got there and asked if they had anything to eat, and they said that in an hours time they will have some lunch. So we set our bikes to the side and went for a walk along the beach. Once we reached some rocks we stopped and sat down in the sand for some rest. The view was nice and no people where around, so we sat there for more than an hour. Later on we went back to have lunch. We sat down and they bought us two plates of chicken rice, the most common dish in the entire South East Asia, I believe. Don't think I've mentioned this before, but they serve food with fork and spoon, very, very rarely will they have knives. And if you ask for one, there is a good chance they will not understand what you're asking for. But it's not so hard to get used to that, as a big majority of the dishes don't really require a knife. The food was nice, after the meal we just sat there enjoying the view to the sea. It was very peaceful. 

We were then joined by another cycler. He asked if he could join us, and of course we did not mind. Jeff is from England, he is also cycling a lot, he has a job that he can manage working for half a year roughly and the other half he spends travelling. He said that now he is on a five month journey. He has travelled a lot, so it was nice to heat about his experiences and tips and suggestions for our future trips. We chatted for quite some time. Jeff said that he would find a place to stay somewhere nearby, but we had decided to get to Port Dickson that day. So we all begun cycling, but parted soon after we reached the main road.
The sky had gotten very cloudy, and soon before we reached the city it started to rain a bit. Later on we actually met Jeff again, he said that in the area he could not find a decent priced place, so he had cycled to Port Dickson as well. It started raining more and more, we stopped at McDonalds got some food and hoped to get online and look for a place to stay. But their WiFi was down, so now we had to stay there and wait for the rain to pass. In a matter of minutes it got dark, but the rain did not stop.
After spending quite some time in the overly air conditioned cold "restaurant" the rain calmed down and we got out of the place in search for a WiFi or accommodation. We got internet and managed to book a nice looking place not far from where we were. The hotel had a pool, it was closed but the receptionist did not mind us using it for some minutes. So after getting our things to the room and having a nice shower we went to the pool for a swim. But then, of course, it was time to get to sleep and get some good rest. The following day we were going to arrive to Kuala Lumpur.