The Mullah woke me up by blasting his prayer of the day at me, once awake the incessant pounding of the rain kept me up. I met Sabine loading up her bike at daylight downstairs and we agreed to hang on for the rain to clear, since it was only a 30 mile day. It cleared just before 8. I checked my tyres before loading up and all seemed OK.
I had only been on the bike a few minutes and I got that sinking feeling 🙁 a few minutes later and it was a total flat with the tyre coming of the rim 🙁 Fortunately the Madras Cafe was next door so after changing the inner tube (and not finding any nail etc 🙁 ) I had a wash and enjoyable breakfast chatting to an ex bank manager who trades derivatives on his own account. Interesting talk on risks etc
Then we started on Highway 5 which has a split personality, a new version that makes a loop, wide & boring or the old 5 more interesting but narrower through the villages. We discovered a couple of side roads which made it quieter and more interesting for a while.
Whilst having a drink in Kampung Pengkalan two French cyclists stopped for a chat, Guy & Noèmie have been biking for almost a year covering about 8,000km in Russia, Japan, China & SE Asia, their blog is at Escapade En Velo
We soon arrived in Muar past the huge semiconductor plants to find a very pleasant provincial town totally non touristy & really very pleasant. We bumped into Guy & Noèmie again whilst searching for a hotel eventually homing in on the Hotel Kingdom where the two old men were going to put all 4 of us in one room at 45 Ringgits (£9) a night for the room! Eventually we got through to him we wanted 3 separate rooms. The restaurant opposite, The Soup house is really excellent too.
Here is the Strava for today
Here are a few pictures
Finally a cooler riding day after the rain ?? which must have been nice 🙂
Sure was but soon warms up again