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Since my last post I have caught up with Fraser and Trinh, left Malaysia, got pulled by the police, had the biggest breakfast in the world, crossed a country in 6 hours and arrived in Bali.  Not bad going for 4 days – let it never be said that life on a bike is dull !!!!


After a few weeks off the bike it was great to be finally on the road and cycling out of Mersing.  Ahead of me I had a hilly 90km to cover as that evening I wanted to get to Sedili which had been recommended to me by a friend.   It felt fantastic to be cycling through the countryside once again although it always felt like a bit of a push after so many beers and bacon and sausage sandwiches in Ireland.

On the way to Sedili I stopped for a swim at Temelah Beach which is one of the many beautiful deserted beaches which line the east coast.

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At Temelah beach I came across Asila and Matin who are living their own eco dream by living in a tent on the beach but have plans to build themselves a tree house in the near future.

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When I arrived Asila was in the middle of  building a new chair from bamboo but she stopped to join me for a swim and to show me the corals in the bay.

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A great couple and although I only spent a couple of hours with them they were so full of life that you couldn’t help to laugh and smile the whole time.  They invited me to join them at the beach for the night and if I hadn’t already had an offer of accommodation in Sedili I would have camped with them.

The guy who had offered me a place to stay was a warmshowers host called Bob (his name sounds english but he is Malay). My instructions were to phone him when I reached the only traffic lights in the town and he would come and meet me, which he did.  Bob is a retired bank manager and he has a lovely house with lots of chickens, fish and rabbits.  The picture below is of Bob feeding the fish.

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He even has a boat on stilts in his garden which is converted into a bedroom for guests to stay in.

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That evening Bob took me out for dinner with Wan (his maid) and as Wan is unmarried she cannot just go out for dinner with two men that she is not related to and so Esah, Wan’s mum, came too.    We ate traditional Malay food at a roadside restaurant before heading for Karaoke. It was lovely to see Esah singing away as the image she portrays is that of a traditional Malay lady but give her a microphone and she soon breaks loose.

That night I had a great nights sleep and slept for over 10 hours. Not sure if it was physical tiredness from the bike ride or an emotional one from the last 2 weeks. Either way, I woke up with a smile on my face and went for breakfast with my new foster family.  After breakfast Wan needed to do the shopping for their lunch that day which I assume was going to be fish:

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It was then time to head back to the ranch and pack before hitting the road once again:

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My original plan was to continue south to the very bottom of Malaysia and take a short ferry from Pengerang to Tanah Merah in Singapore.  From there it is just a 5km cycle to the airport.  However, Fraser and Trinh, who I set off with from Ho Chi Minh City, were stuck waiting for an Indonesian visa in Johor Bahru which was about 70km west of where I was.

I decided that it would be great to catch up with them and instead of cycling the direct route to Singapore I headed to meet up with them.  For the first time in a longtime the rains started very early that day and I pulled off the road to sit out the rain under a bus shelter.  Nearly two hours later I was still sat there as the rain continued to bounce off the road as lightening lit up the sky.  Even though it was early afternoon it was nearly dark and the cars driving past had their lights on.

Eventually, the hills in the distance could be seen which meant that the rain clouds were clearing and I knew that I would be on my way again in about 10 minutes.  For the rest of the afternoon light showers followed me all the way to Johor Bahru but not of the intensity that had made me spend a couple of hours sat by the side of the road.

I stopped for some food as I had missed lunch (check out the guys hat):

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The place where I stopped was just a roadside restaurant in the middle of an oil palm plantation but it was packed so I’m assuming that it has a very good reputation.  The warmth and love from the people of Malaysia continued even whilst eating lunch as a man offered me a place to stay for the night, and if I wasn’t meeting Fraser I would have stayed with the family.

I rolled into Johor Bahru around 6pm and as usual I had not booked anywhere to stay.  I passed a bike shop in the centre and asked if they had a cardboard bike box that I could have to pack my bike up ready to fly it to Bali.  Here I met Syed (not sure of spelling) who had already completed one solo cycle ride around Malaysia and was about to set off on his second.

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The reason that I needed the bike box was because as I have been off the bike for a few weeks in Europe I needed to change my route plans slightly and would now be heading for Bali after Malaysia/Singapore to make up the lost time.  The original plan had been to take a boat from Singapore to the island of Java in Indonesia. (a boat leaves Batam every Wednesday and takes 24 hours to reach Jakarta on the island of Java).  I would have then cycled through Java and onto the islands of Bali, Lombok, Sambawa and finish the Asian leg of my journey on the island of Komodo (the home of the dragons).

As it would have taken me roughly the same time that I lost by returning to Europe to cycle through Java I decided to skip Java completely and instead fly directly from Singapore to Bali, and hence the need for a box for the bike.

The owner of the bike shop gave me a bike box to use and I asked him if he knew of anywhere good to stay in the area.  The place that he recommended to me was the same place that I knew Fraser was staying at, which was already full.  Instead, I checked into The Baguss City Hotel which was in the city centre.  Fraser and Trinh had been staying nearby but when their visa got delayed they had moved out of the center to somewhere cheaper.  As they knew the area they came to meet me and we went to a hawker center nearby to get some food (if you are wondering what a hawker centre is check my earlier post for a full explanation – Terima Kasih Malaysia).

Interestingly, there were a fair few prostitutes hanging around the area where we were eating which surprised me as Malaysia is a Muslim country.  I know that many people who work in Singapore base themselves in Johor Bahru as accommodation is much cheaper and they commute across the border each day for work.  This must be who the prostitutes are ‘servicing’.

I’m sorry Fraser but this story is priceless and makes me chuckle when I think about it. Fraser had the same idea as many of the people who work in Singapore which was to apply for the visa in Singapore and then travel back to Malaysia to wait for it to be processed.  Armed with all of the paperwork they headed across the border into Singapore and went to the Indonesian embassy and handed their passports and documents over and were told that they should come back in 2 days to collect their visa and passports.  They then left the embassy to head back to Malaysia to wait for the visa to be processed as it was cheaper.  Have you spotted the flaw in their plan yet?

On the way out of the embassy Fraser realized that they wouldn’t be able to cross back into Malaysia where all of their stuff was still at the hotel, and had to go back into the embassy to ask for their passports back.   The further complication was that it was a holiday weekend the following day and so they would need to wait in Malaysia for another 4 days before moving across to Singapore to wait for their visa application to be processed.

To be fair the more you travel the more blasé you get about things and it’s not like Fraser is a novice at this as he has already been cycling around the world for a couple of years now.  And as every cloud has a silver lining the delay in their visa application meant that I would be able to catch up with them for a couple of days in Johor Bahru which was fantastic.

After having dinner at the hawker center we went in search of beer, or should I say that I did as Fraser and Trinh do not drink.
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We found a Chinese restaurant that was licensed to sell alcohol and stayed there until the early hours of the morning catching up on the highlights of our cycle trips so far.

The next day was very lazy and I did nothing during the day except pop out to buy some cling film and parcel tape which I would use to pack my bike up ready to fly once I got to the airport the following day. My plan was to cycle across the border to the airport and pack the bike there but once again people following my journey had come through for me.

I had been in touch with Fay Prescott, who was the parent of a former student at the school I taught in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as she had been following my journey on Facebook.  As she was currently living in Singapore the plan we conjured up was that I would cycle across the border to her house for breakfast, pack my bike up and then they would drive me to the airport. Another example of the brilliant help that I have had from people on this trip.

For my last night in Malaysia I once again met Fraser and Trinh at an ‘Indian’ restaurant in Johor Bahru for a final meal together on mainland Asia.

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The night was not a repeat of the 3am finish the previous day as I had to be up in the morning to cycle across the border to Singapore and around 9pm we parted ways as I headed back to the hotel to pack.  This would not be the last time that I will see them though as we will both be in Bali in mid October – they are meeting their parents there and I am meeting my wife.  Joyous reasons to meet up in Bali.

The following morning I was up early and out of the hotel by 8am to cycle to the border.  I knew that it could take a couple of hours to cross the border and had told Fay that I would be with them around 11 ish but it could be as late as 1pm.  It was only a 20 minute cycle to the immigration post and when I arrived there were no queues at all.

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Within 5 minutes I was through Malaysian immigration and out onto the causeway which forms a ‘bridge’ between the two countries.  Behind me was Malaysia (first photo) and in front was Singapore. (second photo)

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The additional package on the back of the bike was the cardboard bike box that I had earlier picked up from the bike shop in Johor Bahru.  I had ‘folded’ it by standing on it and had put it in a plastic bag just in case it rained.

It was the same story at the Singapore immigration post

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Within a couple of minutes I was through and as I cycled out of the customs area I followed the road onto the dual carriageway.  I didn’t realize that I had inadvertently started cycling on the expressway until 15 minutes later when a policeman on a motorbike pulled me over to ask what I was doing. (it looked like a dual carriageway to me)

I don’t think that there is that much crime in Singapore as even when we had left the  expressway he stayed with me and I had my own personal police escort as he showed me the way to the city center where I needed to go.

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As there was no delay at the border and I had a police escort into the city I arrived ahead of schedule at Fay and John’s house in the heart of the city.  Their house is just off Orchard Road which is the main shopping street which runs through the downtown area.

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When I arrived at their house John ( or Johnie Oliver as he is apparently known) and Fay were busy in the kitchen preparing a full fry up, and after I took a quick shower we all sat down for a Sunday brunch.

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After breakfast it was time to pack up the bike ready for the airport.  I had booked 35 kg of baggage but had no real idea how much the bike weighed so John got the scales out and we weighed the bike and luggage.  The total weight was around 42 kg – the bike weighed 18kg (with racks and butterfly bars) and the luggage 24kg.   This was fine as I could take some of it on as hand luggage.

Once everything was packed it was time to say goodbye to this amazing family who would soon be packing up themselves as they head to Thailand to live.

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The third member of the family is Clayton who used to attend the school I worked at but left before I arrived there and so I never taught him.  The stop at their house had made my journey to the airport so much easier and meant that I did not have to fly to Bali all sweaty and covered in grease from taking the bike apart.

John drove me to the airport which is located on the east coast and was a 20 minute drive from their house which is bang in the middle of the city centre (Singapore really is that small).

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The flight left on time and I arrived in Bali around 8pm and decided that I would put my bike together in the arrivals hall where you collect the luggage at the airport and then cycle for an hour before finding a hotel room for the night.

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Everything went smoothly and after an hour of cycling I had arrived at Sanur which is an upmarket beach resort on Bali that seems to attract the more gentile middle aged holiday maker who are after a nice glass of wine with their food rather than the hedonistic crowd that make their way to Kuta to party the night away.  This would certainly do for a couple of days relaxation on the beach.

My wife would be flying into Bali in just over a months time and as I was going to be back in Bali to meet her then I would only be staying for a couple of days before getting a ferry to the next island which is Lombok.   There my Indonesian adventures would begin in earnest but more about that in my next update.

Cheers

Stewart

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The run to Bali
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