Biking Archives - Page 66 of 99

Around Melaka

Posted on April 1, 2014December 16, 2015

Today I was playing at been a tourist again by joining the free 2 hour walking tour of the old city. Organised by The Melaka Museum Corporation & Melaka Tourism Promotion. Not free enterprise as in my tours of Bucharest & Ljubljana

I could only understand about 1 word in 3 that the guide spoke & to be quite honest he rambled of topic quite considerably eg In Christ Church we had a diatribe about Dengue fever in Singapore! Then in the Buddhist Temple it was plain that he disapproved of all the offerings and ‘lucky’ charms etc. So disappointing compared to my previous city tours. For myself I was fascinated by the Dunlop building, Bastion House, now the Malay & Islamic World Museum! Obviously Mr Dunlop was very powerful out here in 1910 as it’s on a prime site.

After a recovery shake I ventured down the river to what will be Melaka’s tallest building with 42 floors which will have views over the straits.

An interesting sort of day but sad to say that the original small factories, blacksmiths are all getting priced out by T shirt shops, & cafe’s like in Cambridge.

Tomorrow it’s back on the bike to get closer to Singapore which at a push is only 3 days away.

Photos of the day are here

Sabine’s take on the day is here

Port Dickson to Malacca on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

Posted on March 31, 2014October 3, 2016

I’ve been looking forward to visiting Malacca as it has a fascinating history and lots of good reviews from other travellers.

We left at 7.20 at the crack of dawn not because of the distance but just to get biking in the cool. The traffic on the road soon thinned out and became quite pleasant, following the Google bike layer we headed on a real country road to a small fishing village ,all very pleasant with lots of cheery waves and no traffic. In fact at one place we even had a free drink with a family at their beach bungalow with tremendous ocean views if you looked right, looking left you saw all the offshore gas & oil platforms 🙁

At Kem Terendak, Google maps screwed up big time by trying to take us through a military base, the soldiers with the rifles were less than impressed! making us do a circuit back onto Highway 5 and round their base. How do you tell Gmaps about this mistake? I easily edited Open Street Map using the Go Map! app (whilst a Burmese waiter was giving his story about escaping from the Muslim/Buddhist conflict their.

Malacca was every bit of good as folks suggested, it has a real nice arty vibe with a more mature type of person so all very civilised. Cafe 1511 is a very grand stylish place to stay although the loo & shower are a floor below and the staircase up to my room would fail any UK building inspection, being very steep & narrow with no balustrade

So another short 50 miler but given the heat more than enough! The Strava is here

The photos are here.

Selena’s write up of the day is here

Banting to Port Dickson on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

Posted on March 30, 2014April 6, 2014

Today started of on a trip skirting Kuala Lumpur airport and the FI track at Sepang, where in fact a meeting was on so the roads were quite busy. There was a shortage of places to eat so I ended up getting breakfast 25 miles into the day at Pekan Sapang.

I decided to try a short cut to Port Dickson which involved getting a ferry to cross the Sungai Lukul Besar Unfortunately the tide was out so to get the bike onto the boat & off was a huge struggle, especially crossing the mud flat! The resorceful ferryman went back to collect two planks. All in all it would have been a lot quicker to bike upto the bridge and back down the other side.

My new Lightning iPhone connector broke today so that is two down on this trip and probably about 5 in total. The connector is a totally rubbish design and if anything makes me change to Android it will be that dumb connector. I managed to get another one for £2 which as yet doesn’t seem to get the ridiculous error message.

Port Dickson proved a struggle to get an hotel as they have all ramped their prices for the school holidays plus they all along a busy road spread over several miles. Total nightmare when on the bike. Eventually the Sozzi Hotel gave me a room for 120 ringgits a night (£24) but only wifi in the lobby.

Here is the Strava with a low average speed due to the ferry and trying to find an hotel room A few pics are here

Here is Sabine’s take on the day

Kuala Selangor to Banting on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

Posted on March 29, 2014April 13, 2021

Today was another of those days that started of poorly but turned out well:-)

After been woken by my neighbours and the totally rubbish plumbing in The Apps Hotel (I don’t think I’ve ever heard such noisy pipes). I strapped everything on the bike sat on the saddle to discover the back tyre was partially flat! Of it all came I flipped the bike over , couldn’t find any damage so pumped it up and hoped for the best. In the process discovering the front wheel was binding on the brakes due to the quick release being loose.

Of I set on a cool morning, a few miles down the road the tyre suddenly went totally flat 🙁 I wheeled it across to a tyre fitting place, closed of course on Saturdays but they had conveniently left a big bowl of water out 🙂 so stripping the wheel, in the process discovering the axle was pretty seized up. No wonder it’s been hard going! I discovered a staple had punctured the tube, wheeling it across the road had caused the staple to make a hole on the other side:-(. I swapped it for the repaired tube & continued on my merry way finding a shop that sold a can of thin sewing machine oil, which I poured into the rear axle plus a place to get another spare tube.

Looking at the Google cycle map layer on Gaia I found some good back runs & even a pleasant track not even marked so I kept of the dreaded Highway 5 all the way into Klang. Interestingly I’m wondering if Google are using bridges as Easter Eggs, since they seem to be misplaced quite often. Certainly made for a more pleasant ride and i found a great seafood place for breakfast the folks even thought I was like 55 🙂

I made it into Banting at 56 miles and discovered the rather pleasant Hotel Garden, decent internet (until it fell over) & shower. However, my room seems to vibrate with the lift motor 🙁 but hopefully it will stop during the night!

Rather amazingly another cyclist, Sabine, is staying in the hotel tonight she is pedalling from Bangkok to Singapore. Very interesting to compare notes although some motor bike made her fall off leaving a nasty scrape, so her leg is covered in tape & gauze 🙁

Here is todays Strava:

and some pictures here