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The east coast of Malaysia is known as the very traditional ‘Muslim’ face of Malaysia, which is sparsely populated and rarely visited by tourists. Perhaps, this was why I was so looking forward to the few weeks that it would take me to cycle south to Singapore. 

I had arrived on the east coast the previous night and after spending an excellent evening in the company of Amri it was time to go and check out what the east coast had to offer.  My only real plan when I set out from Kuantan that morning was to cycle for an hour or so to find a nice beach and take it from there.

Once I crossed the bridge out of Kuantan, and cycled south away from the city, the road followed the coastline and I was soon passing deserted white sand beaches with absolutely no development anywhere in sight.  This part of the coast is known for winds which blow off the sea and you can see the effects it has on the trees, some of which had grown at crazy angles as they were pushed over by the wind.

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The beaches along this part of the coastline are stunning and after about 10km I pulled over for a swim and decided then and there that I was not going to be spending much time on the bike and just have a very relaxed day on the beach.

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I have no idea why there is no development down this coastline as the beaches are stunning, and my only real company was a constant stream of goats that wandered through the tree line and the occasional herd of cattle which were being sheperded (is this a word???) down the beach.

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Around noon I was getting peckish and had to pack up to cycle in search of food as I had not restocked my porridge/pot noodle supplies before heading out on the bike that morning.  As the coast is so sparsely populated it was nearly an hour before I found a restaurant that was open and serving food.  After lunch it was time to head out in search of another beach to have a siesta and would remain here for the rest of the day.

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I have been completely lucky with the monsoon weather as I have found myself about a month ahead of it throughout my cycle through south east Asia; I left Vietnam where the rainy season had already started and I was through Thailand before the monsoon had set in. In Malaysia,the rains start around October and in Indonesia around November so all the way through I will be about a month ahead of the worst of the monsoon downpours.  This doesn’t mean that there is no rain though and on this particular day I was woken on the beach by an afternoon downpour.

By the time I had packed up and gotten back on the road the heavens had opened and the rain was lashing down.  All of the goats had found shelter from the rain, and it was only the crazy westerner who rode through the downpour.

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I really don’t mind cycling in warm rain as I’m normally soaked in sweat and the rain cools the air temperature so that you are cycling in more of a cool shower rather than a hot sauna.

The map showed that about 10 km ahead of me was the town of Pekan where I decided to spend the night.  That day I had only covered 47 km, which although not the ‘smallest’ ride of the tour in itself, was exactly what I needed after a few weeks cycling through the highlands – small distances, flat coastal roads and beaches would be a welcome change.

After arriving in Pekan and cycling around I was struggling to find somewhere to sleep and thought that I would have to cycle out of town and sleep on the beach even though it was still raining.  Eventually I came across an Indian run hotel called The Pekan Budget Hotel, and it certainly was that.  I think that the term ‘budget’ referred more to the amount of investment that had been put into the place rather than the price I paid.  The ‘hotel’ consisted of one corridor that was split into 15 rooms by plywood walls. Still, it had a shower, bed and fan.

A quick search on the internet for entertainment options showed that Pekan was the state capital and my joy was short lived as on further reading the ‘state capital’ seemed to exist in name only rather than in things to see or do.  I didn’t mind though as I knew that the Olympic triathlon race was on at 10pm Malay time and I had already checked with the owner that the wifi was working.

I went out for food and came back for 10pm to watch the Brownlee brothers ‘live’ on the internet.  When I turned on the laptop in my room I found that the wifi signal was not strong enough at my end of the corridor to stream the programme and so I went in search of the owner for a change of rooms.  By then all of the rooms were occupied and so I ‘camped’ out in his office where the wifi signal was strongest to watch the race.

Around 11pm he wanted to go to bed and close the office but they had only just started the the bike leg.  I explained that I wanted to see the end of the race but that it would not finish for another hour or so.  As a compromise he went and woke his nephew who would lock up after the race while he went to bed.

For those of you who are not aware of the outcome of the race the result was that the Brownlees smashed the opposition to claim the gold and silver medals by a huge margin over the rest of the field.  At Rio, Alistair Brownlee became the first athlete in Olympic triathlon history to not only become the first person to win two gold medals but the first to do so at successive Olympic Games.

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I had really enjoyed my time at the beach the previous day and could have easily spent a week or so just pottering down the coastline but I had a friend driving over from the east coast in a couple of days and I still had a good 150km to cover to get to our pre-arranged meeting point.  The wind was earning its reputation and blowing fairly hard against me for the next couple of days but I didn’t mind as the road was flat and the beaches picture perfect where I could stop to cool off with a dip in the sea.

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As I cycle I often see strange things that I don’t understand and would rather find out ‘naturally’ rather than googling the answer.  I think that if no mystery remains in the place that I am cycling through then the place is slightly less enjoyable, and hence the reason I often don’t want to ask or ‘google’ for explanations.  I still have no idea which team won the recent football world cup as I was cycling through Cambodia at the time with no internet connection, and will now wait until somebody brings it up in conversation or I read about it by chance (it’s now turned into a bit of a mystery to how I will find out ‘naturally’ and to see exactly how long it will be, so if you are reading this don’t tell me and ruin my fun)

One of the main mysteries that I had seen whilst cycling through Malaysia and Thailand was that I kept passing 3 storey ‘abandoned’ warehouses with no windows and normally had have wire fences around them.  Each one was accompanied by the sound of birds chirping away although I only saw birds flying around them as the sun went down.

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On this particular day I saw a huge ‘chinese’ man sat outside one of the ‘warehouses’ so decided to investigate. I cycled up to him to discover that he was asleep in the chair and when I woke him he started to talk into a walkie talkie that he had hidden in a towel on his lap and his mates came piling out of the building.

Have you ever had one of those moments when something happens and for 5 seconds you think to yourself that I could be in a spot of bother here.  This was one of those especially as 3 shirtless ‘Chinese’ men came piling out of the building.  For a few seconds I thought that I may be in real trouble here, but once they knew what I wanted they turned out to be great guys.

One of the men spoke good english and explained that the warehouses were ‘bird houses’ for swallows to nest and can hold up to 10000 birds. The nests the birds build are harvested and sold for around 600 USD per kilo. These nests are processed and eaten, apparently mainly by Chinese people, as eating them are thought to regenerate your skin to keep you looking young.

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Here is a video I shot while they took me on a tour of the building.

With the price the nests sell for it is big business, and hence all of the security that you see around the buildings.  At the end the guys stood to pose with me for a photo, and just before the photo was taken they realised that they were all still shirtless so went to get changed for the picture which made me chuckle.

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That evening after another mammoth day of well over 100km on the bike I reached Endau where I would spend the night.  After my late night watching the Brownlee’s the previous day I was ready for food and an early night so after a quick shower I cycled into town to find some food.  The further south that I have ridden the more Indian people and restaurants I encountered.  One of these that I cycled past on my quest for food was rammed and so I stopped to join them for something to eat.

The ‘indian’ food specialty in the area is called Murtabak and the place where I stopped had its own ‘chef’ who would personally make your order.  This sounds more fancy than it was in reality as the restaurant was a typical street food place where you could either help yourself from the ‘buffet’ selection or order a la carte from the waitress.

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The only downside to ordering ‘a la carte’ is that in most restaurants there is no menu which makes ordering ‘a la carte’ dependent on either the amount of english the staff have or the number of diners around you whose meals you can point at.  In Malaysia, ordering ‘a la carte’ is not too hard as most people have a good grasp of english, less so on the east coast when compared to the west though.

The waitress recommended that I ordered the Murtabak which I did.  I’m not sure how to describe it but here goes – imagine a gooey bolognese sauce toasted sandwich with a dusting of curry powder that had then been lightly fried on the outside to finish it off.

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It tasted fantastic and you ate it with a hot sauce and dal pips. Again, I have deliberately not googled the ingredients as there has to still be some mystery the next time I come across it on the road.

In most restaurants there is a telly on the wall and on TV was the Olympic women 10m diving final.  Everybody was glued to the TV and I’m not sure whether it was the girls amazing contortions as they flew through the air to execute perfect dives or the very very skimpy aerodynamic outfits that they wore – I will let you make up your own minds on this one.

The next day it was time to catch up with Ramzul and Diana who were driving across from Kuala Lumpur with their family to join me for a bit of cycling and a BBQ at the beach.  Ramzul is also an ironman and Diana is in training for her first full course triathlon this November in Langkawi.

The plan for the day was that I would cycle with Ramzul to a beach where we would spend the day and then I would cycle onto Mersing with Diana where I would spend the night and they would drive back to the west coast.

I stopped at a house just outside of Endau and had a late breakfast whilst waiting for the guys to arrive.  The lady of the house made me a coffee which instead of being thick as tar was just like an ‘americano’.  This was a surprise as the place that I had stopped at was a typical Malaysian house come restaurant – a few tables in the garden next to the main road that served a few food dishes.

It turned out that the coffee was brewed from the equivalent of a tea bag but filled with freshly ground coffee and then vacuum packed to keep the freshness.  My coffee dilemma was now solved as the lady gave me a pack of 20 bags for free.

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Ramzul and his family turned up just after midday and after putting his bike together we rode off with Diana following us with the kids in the car.

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We were cycling towards Air Papan beach which had been recommended by the people at the ‘cafe’ where I had met Ramzul and boy did it not disappoint.

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They had brought a BBQ with them and we spent a great day at the beach.

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Here is a video that I shot to remember the day:

Air Papan beach was so beautiful that I decided that I would not cycle to Mersing with them when they left but instead spend a couple of days camping at the beach.

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The view from my tent the following morning.

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Life living on the beach was pretty simple – breakfast was pot noodle and porridge and for lunch and dinner I ate the camping food packs which Diana had bought for me.  The other item that the guys had brought across for me is in the bottom left of the picture below – a new tyre to replace the rear one that had split on me a couple of hundred kilometres ago which I had repaired by stuffing the split with leaves and gluing them in place. (see earlier post – The road to Taman Negara)

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An ice cream man constantly rode up and down the road ringing his bell and so when the heat of the day got too much I would cool down with an ice cream cone.

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On the morning of my third day at the beach I received a message from my wife asking me to call her.  When I spoke to her she told me that her father had been taken to hospital and was not expected to survive the night.  She was flying back to Ireland that evening and I phoned my travel agent back in Vietnam to arrange a flight back to the UK for me.  As I still had a return flight ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to the UK I decided that it would be easiest if I took a hopper flight back to Vietnam and pick up an onward flight to the UK.

I had the additional problem of what I was to do with my bike.  I didn’t want to take it all the way back to Vietnam with me and this is where the Warmshowers cycling community really came through for me. For those who do not know what warmshowers is then check out one of my earlier posts which has an explanation – Bangkok to the coast (nearly).  I checked online and saw that there was a ‘host’ called Omar who lived about 15km away in Mersing and phoned him to see if he was around to help me out.  Without hesitation he said that if I cycled to Mersing he would come and meet me so that I could leave everything at his place for a few weeks.

As I was cycling the 15km from Air Papan beach to Mersing to meet Omar my wife phoned to say that her father had passed away which was devastating news.  When I reached Mersing 15 inutes later I wasn’t really in any real shape to have to deal with organising transport to the airport and when I met up with he Omar he took me to the bus station but as there were no buses which would get me directly to an airport that evening he instead organized everything for a taxi to take me to Singapore airport as it only lay a couple of hours drive away.  This gave me enough time during the drive to organize a flight back to Ho Chi Minh City where my travel agent had organized a flight for me back to the UK the following day.

The taxi that took me towards the border with Singapore was not licensed to cross and pulled into a petrol station on the outskirts of the border town of Johor Bahru.  Here I swapped vehicles into a Singapore plated car and headed for the border to complete my journey to Changi airport.  As we crossed the border we did not leave the vehicle and I just had to stick my head out of the window so the customs officer could see that I matched the photo in the passport.

I had booked the final flight of the day from Singapore as the border crossing from Malaysia could take up to two hours if the traffic was bad.  Luckily, there was little traffic as we had missed rush hour and I arrived at the airport in time to catch the 7pm flight rather than the 9pm flight which I had booked.  The airline allowed me to swap my ticket to the earlier plane without charge when I explained to the check-in girl why I was flying.

That night when I arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City I stayed with Nicola who was a friend as I didn’t fancy staying on my own in the new flat that my wife had rented.  It was great to see Nicola and the next morning before my flight back to the UK I managed to meet up with a few of the people that I used to work with.  I was fine as long as they didn’t ask questions about Deirbhle’s dad as then the reality hit home which was really upsetting.

My flight to the UK arrived at Heathrow the following morning  and then I had a few hours wait for an onward flight to Ireland.  Three days ago I had woken up in a tent on a beach in Malaysia without a care in the world and I was now back in Europe to attend my father in laws funeral.  Life really is precious and should never be taken for granted.

In Ireland, people really are buried within 48 hours of their passing, but thankfully the family had made the arrangements so that I would be back in time for the removal and burial.

Eamonn, Deirbhle’s father, was a great man who will be dearly missed by all who knew him. In Ireland, in many ways, he was a pioneer for the development of education programmes for students with learning difficulties, and as the head teacher of a special school he was instrumental in organising the first ever teacher conference for students with special needs within Ireland.

He was passionate that all young people should be able to play a full and active role in society and initiated work placements for the students in his care.  He encouraged his students to engage with sport by setting up inter school sports competitions for special schools.  A great man who will be sorely missed.

Although, I think that funerals should be a celebration of life I will not go into any detail here but just say that the respect that Eamonn was held by in the community where he lived was apparent from the hundreds of people who came to show their respects over the two days of services which were held to mark his passing.

Other than emotionally supporting those around me following the funeral I was the only person who had nothing to do – I did not need to go to work or sort out the legalities.  Instead, I got to be ‘chief’ childminder for Deirbhle’s niece and nephew which was the best job as I am undoubtedly still one of the biggest kids in the world even though I have reached the ripe old age of 47.  I took them swimming and out to their cousins farm for the day which was a welcome ‘escape’ that kept me busy from thinking about the real reason why I was in Ireland.

After two weeks in Ireland I flew with my wife back to Ho Chi Minh City and spent a few days there catching up with friends before completing my trek back to Mersing.

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This stop in Vietnam also gave me time to arrange for a 60 day visa for Indonesia which would make my life so much easier once I returned to Malaysia.  In Vietnam, the visa is processed in 1 day but in Malaysia and Singapore it can take much longer and be way more expensive to arrange if you want to reduce the waiting time by paying an agent to get the visa for you.

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After a few days catching up with friends and popping in to see former colleagues at BIS where I used to work it was time to say a very teary goodbye to my wife and head off to complete the final leg of my trek back to the bike. (still unnamed).

Both Omar, the guy in Mersing who was looking after my bike, and myself had looked into transfers from Singapore Airport back to Mersing in Malaysia but had given up as there were no direct connections, and the easy ‘taxi’ option was too expensive from Singapore.  In the end I decided I would just arrive and see.

When I landed in Singapore and cleared immigration I went to the bus station and a bus pulled in that would take me to the Malaysian border. This may not sound like to much of a big thing but I later found out that the buses only run every 2 or 3 hours and the only reason I was able to catch this bus was that it was running 20 minutes late which is unheard of in Singapore.  The bus took me to the Singapore checkpoint where it waited 15 minutes for passengers to clear immigration before driving us across the causeway to the Malaysian immigration point in the city of Johor Bahru .

Once I cleared the Malaysian immigration I jumped back on the bus which took passengers to the main bus terminal in Johor Bahru – Larkin bus station.  As I got off at the station there was a bus for Mersing just setting off and one of the ‘touts’ who works for the ticket kiosks at the bus station flagged it down for me to jump on. Either I was just damn lucky or, just perhaps, somebody was watching out for me.

When I arrived Omar who was looking after my bike for me messaged to say that he was working late so had left the keys for the house above the door so I could let myself in.  As I had a couple of hours to kill I decided to take the bike for a little TLC at one of the many bike shops that I had passed in the center of Mersing.

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While waiting for the bike cables to be changed I took a walk around town and I think that I have found where Banksy is hiding as his pictures adorn a fair few walls in town.

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I collected the bike which was now oiled and greased and headed back to Omar’s.  He had finished work and was waiting for me when I got back to his house.

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I am sure that I could have knocked on any front door in Malaysia and asked them to look after my bike for me and it would have been fine, but as a tour cyclist it is so reassuring that there are people like Omar around the world that can be called on at short notice if you are in need of help.  Thanks Omar for helping me out and I will always remember your kindness.

I would urge anybody who is thinking of starting a cycle trip to sign up to the warmshowers community – www.warmshowers.com  This site only really works though if you are willing to be a host too, and so before I set off on this cycle ride I hosted cyclists from all over the world; in a way ‘paying it forward’, which is a great film based on the same principle of paying favours ahead.

The following morning Omar took me to one of his favourite breakfast places for Roti Canai:

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It was then time to get back on the bike and continue my cycle south towards Indonesia which would be the final country on the Asian leg of my round the world cycle.

And that is all I have time for today as I need to get on the road and do some cycling.  There will be another update in the next couple of days as I need to get back on track with my blog posts.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading and watching my adventures as I continue my cycing adventures around the world.  If so, then please drop me a line to say hi every now and again.

Cheers

Stewart

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Cycling the east coast of Malaysia
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6 thoughts on “Cycling the east coast of Malaysia

  • January 2, 2020 at 4:16 pm
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    Thank you for your great newsletter.
    I am especially grateful for your curiosity about the swift/swallow birds’ nest houses.
    I visit Malaysia a lot as I used to work there for their Marine Customs Department. I knew what they were for but you’ve captured the details.
    A couple of years ago, for my 70th birthday I rode my bicycle from Singapore up to Selangor to stay with friends in the kamping area. You’ve inspired me to carry on as I have several friends in Vietnam. I’ve sailed the world in my sailing boat, over half of it solo, but really don’t want to sail solo any more though I do live aboard my boat in Sydney Harbour. If perchance you come this way, please let me know and I shall be glad to host you or show you around.

    Thank you, and thank you again for the inspiration.
    Best wishes
    Peter.

    Reply
  • December 11, 2019 at 2:42 pm
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    I was searching for the same coastal ride.I am happy that u explained very detailed.Thanks for sharing.

    Regards,
    Gunasindhu

    Reply
  • December 29, 2017 at 2:49 am
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    I really enjoyed, this as I’m planning on riding up the west coast from Singapore, staying a wek in KL then bussing it to Pahang and riding back to Singapore. Where are you headed to next?

    Reply
  • December 18, 2017 at 7:26 am
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    Great write up! I will be cycling this same route this coming weekend. Wish you are here again!

    Reply

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