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.

Getting to Malacca

Thursday 20/11

As we had not cycled much the previous day only about 37km, today we had to get going and get some kilometers done.
We ready to leave Pulai at around 8 in the morning. The sun was long up and we had a quick breakfast at the hotel. Pedro, as usual, navigated us to the right roads.
We spent the day cycling until we stopped for a rest in a park. Pedro hanged one hammock up in a tree. While I slept on a bench in a a wooden shelter near by. While we were resting some schoolboys stopped on their scooters and popped some petards of some sort. 

Later on we stopped for dinner, we had some rice with chicken. After we continued to cycle until we found a nice looking Home-stay, we knocked on the doors and rang our bells, but it seemed like nobody was home. So we sat down to wait hoping that who ever run the place would show up soon. While we waited, the sun set, and from a nearby mosque we heard people praying. Some while later we finally saw some people there, seemed like a son and his mother. We arranged a decent price of 45 ringgit. As we settled into the room it started to really rain outside, we were truly glad that we had a roof over our heads at this time.

Friday 21/11

Morning came sooner than expected, we woke up not very early, the sun was already up! Yesterday we had cycled close to 90 km, and today we were up for another decent day of cycling. For breakfast we stopped at one of the only places that was open at an early hour. We had a Indian dish served with curry sauce. Pedro loved the dish, and it was very nice, so we both asked for another one. This time for the brake we stopped in a coconut plantation and hanged the hammocks on some trees we found there.

It was a good place far away from the road, so we had a quite time while relaxing. Once we continued cycling two cyclists passed us! At first they did not stop, they flew passed us at a very impressive speed. Later on we met them as they had stopped for a quick stop. We found out that the two girls were from the UK. One of them, Katherine, is cycling all the way from Australia to UK. And the other girl is a friend of hers who joined her on cycling adventures for the distance from Singapore to Bangkok.
After getting to know each other it was time to keep rolling. We stopped for the day in a city called Muar. We went about looking for a guesthouse that was not expensive, and meanwhile we saw that the two British girls were also in the same town. They stopped at a hotel, and so did we. We got a double room for 45 ringgit. 

This was a special cyclist discount. After settling in the room and having a shower we went our for some well deserved dinner. The city was full with life and open market. We sat in a nice looking place and the lady working there helped us with understanding the menu. The food was good!!! :D
Once we got back to the hotel we went straight to sleep!

Saturday 22/11

We got up at around seven, got ready, but on our way down to our bikes we stopped on the second floor where the hotel had it's WiFi area. So you can imagine that there we wasted a lot of time. While we were sitting there, the two girls passed us as they were going downstairs. We greeted them, and wished a good ride! When online things were finally somewhat done it was again late to begin a cycling day.

Yesterday we had cycled about 84 km, so we had not far to go to get to Malacca, only roughly 50 km. We got to the city in a good time cycling all the 50 in one stretch. We found our hotel that Pedro had booked online and checked in. The place was cosy. Near the reception there was a world map with pins in many countries. As there was no pin placed in Latvia, later on I put one in there. So I was their first guest from Latvia. We were feeling very lazy so we took a lot of time doing nothing but resting! The hot midday passed and we got our lazy asses out to the city. We agreed to meet up with Vaidas, the guy who surfed the same guys couch as us back in Dubai! We went to the hostel where he said we would find him, but as he was taking a nap, we decided to drop by again later. As we wondered the streets of the city, it started to rain. It was refreshing at first, so we kept walking about. We were in China-town area, and there was a market of some sort with people selling all sorts of things, including street food. We were forced to stop under one of the shelters because the rain grew in power, and now it was truly pouring!

It was most likely the wildest rain the two of us had seen. The sky turned from white to completely black in a matter of minutes. The thunder roared so loudly you'd think it was a war field, and the lightning was so bright it light up the entire sky when it struck. The water came like a river that had lost its direction. It was truly wild rainfall for at least an hour. The street vendors tried their best to save their things, but much of that was too late. Once the rain had finally calmed down a bit, we decided to keep moving. We went again to Vaidas hostel where he was playing chess with some local man. It was great meeting him! After he won his game he took us to a very cheap Indian restaurant where we ate roti. Roti are pancakes made from dough ball that is stretched out and folded and cooked on big pan surfaces that they have. If you take one that has something inside, it will be placed there after the stretching and before the folding. That evening we fell in love with roti, especially roti pisan (roti with banana)! After dinner Vaidas headed back to his hostel where he had to entertain some guests. Meanwhile we walked about the nice city. The cities streets were full of people, probably because it was a Saturday and that week some festival was taking place there. We did not manager to catch anything from the festival, but nevertheless we had a lovely walk around. While walking along the river, we saw a street musician who was playing his guitar and next to him he had a dancing donkey toy. We chatted to the man a bit, and then I even danced alongside the donkey a bit while bystanders had a good laugh.
Vaidas had invited us to join him at the hostel, it sounded like a nice idea, but as we decided not to stay another day in the city, it was time to head back to our place and get some good rest.