Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Port Dickson to Malacca on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

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

1-IMG_1560We 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 🙁

Port_Dickson_to_Malacca___Strava_RideAt 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.

1-IMG_1564Malacca 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

Port_Dickson_to_Malacca___Strava_Ride_and_Picasa_3

 

The photos are here.

Selena’s write up of the day is here

Banting to Port Dickson on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

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

Banting_to_Port_Dickson___Strava_RideHere is Sabine’s take on the day

 

Kuala Selangor to Banting on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

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.

1-IMG_1514Of 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.

1-IMG_1518Looking 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:

to_Banting___Strava_Rideand some pictures here

 

SE Asia bike tour – Simpang Empat to Kuala Selangor

I’m afraid these posts are going to get a bit repetitive with regard to the heat, humidity, plantations & I strongly suspect how busy the road is. Although, today, I did manage to escape for a few miles on a side road.

1-IMG_1504I gave up today after 50 miles as I was feeling totally wrecked, I laid on the bed at The Hotel Apps and fell asleep for 3 hours. I’m drinking prodigious amounts of water, coconuts, isotonic drinks etc etc In fact I can drink a whole 1.5litre bottle without really noticing that I have! Although I think I need to start drinking a lot more earlier. The first 25 miles is usually a cinch light traffic at 7.30 a bit cooler etc after that the next 25 miles is really hard as I just run out of energy

Hotel Apps is very modern, but ill designed, the first bedroom (1303) the A/C couldn’t cope with the heat from the large window above a reflecting shiny surface, my new bedroom (1312) sounds as if you are in a waterworks if any of the adjacent occupants turn on the taps! and no internet, obviously the Telecom outfit here is part of BT as they can’t get the connection fixed. The room wasn’t cheap at  88 Ringgits

here is the Strava:

to_KualaSelangor___Strava_Rideand the pics are here