Kuala Lumpur to Penang

As I said in my previous post, I ended up spending four days in Kuala Lumpur. It's a nice enough place but I'm not sure it merits that much. Still, as the Chinese New Year Celebrations were still going on there was plenty to gawp at.

After a evenings drinking with Dave, I was more than ready to go (no reflection on you Dave!), hangover and dodgy tummy be damned. I say ready to go, I mean pretty certain I wouldn't expire on the road but not 100% certain as the first days cycling wore on. This wasn't just because it was my first time on the bike for a month and half. No, the main reason was it was hot and humid, with my thermometer read 41C and the humidity was apparently around 80%. Yowser.

The cycling started well, with KL proving to be an OK city to get out of and on Highway 1 north. To my shame I stopped at a Tesco's on the way to pick up a baguette and some cheese for lunch, although in the end the weather proved to be too hot for eating in. I slogged on constantly having to replenish my liquids. Water that was in a bottle for an hour was just about hot enough to make a cup of tea with. I made it to the town of Tanjong Malim, which although only some 80km north was good enough for me. Found the first hotel, checked in and flopped out in air con comfort! Always a bad sign when you speak to the locals and they complain about the weather.

Next day it proved to be more of the same, although setting off earlier let me get a couple of hours of easy cycling before it got too hot. Reckon the humidity had dropped a bit as well. The scenery was quite stunning in places, lots of limestone formations and jungle.



Still, an arduous day, this time around 130km. By the time I got to my destination, Ipoh, I was finding I couldn't actually drink any more, even though I was dehydrated. Slammed down some re-hydration solution which helped somewhat and resolved to take more breaks in future. Next day it was on to Taiping, a nice little place. It promised to rain for much of the time but unfortunately never did.

The next day, last day of cycling I tried to continue to adapt. Start early. It being too hot to eat during the day, have a big breakfast (noodles, soup, tofu, veggies with chili sauce, breakfast of champions!. Plenty of breaks. Worked well to start with but again by time I arrived in Penang I was a wreck. Maybe not as much of a wreck as I'd been previously though...



The plan was to spend a day in Georgetown on Penang Island then head north towards Thailand. However, as I cycled into the backpacker district from the ferry terminal I noticed quite a few signs up advertising a Thai visa service. Thai visa service did you say? Why would I need that? After all, I can get a 30 day visa on arrival, no? Ah. No. It would appear not, only a 15 day visa exemption if I travel by land. Bugger. And Friday, when I arrived, was a public holiday, so I'm waiting until Monday to get my visa. Still, Penang is a great place to stop and my hostel has a house band that plays every night. Shame about the beer though, it's damaging my wallet!

David Banks I presume?

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur quite tired from the days travelling from India. Not because it was particularly arduous more only getting a couple of hours sleep. Ah well. All I had to do was get my over boxed bike from the airport to the city. Taxi! What, £40? F...orget about that! Stuffed it onto a bus for £1.60 instead and humped it to a local taxi rank. Well, started to then remembered that Malaysia is pretty down on things like that and decided to carry it instead.

The plan was to spend a day and half in KL then head northwards but unfortunately a dodgy stomach intervened, turning this into a four day wait. I used the time to apply for a couple of jobs and organise various things. On the last evening, I got an email from an old colleague, Dave Morten, who I'd asked for a LinkedIn recommendation. In my previous email I'd mentioned that I couldn't get in touch with my old manager, Dave Banks, which was a shame. Oh, and that I was in KL. In the email Dave M passed on a contact number for Banksie who is now in KL teaching English... :o

Forty minutes later we were meeting for beers and catching up. Great fun! At the same bar was another guy I noticed, from years back in Stafford. Damned if I could put a name to him at the time. Asked him if he was from Stafford, and he said yes, then I named the people I knew he knew. Nope to all of them. His name came back to me later, I'm sure it was Aiden. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, here's to old friends, may we continue to bump into them randomly! Although hopefully somewhere with cheaper beer than Malaysia...

Finishing off India

After returning from the Andaman Islands I've spent the last three weeks with Helen in Southern India. She flew into Trivandrum and acclimatised at Varkala beach. She also brought news that a couple of Friends were in Goa, so we trained it some 1000km up there to go see them. Treated Helen to a AC1 sleeping berth (Air Conditioned First Class) which was quite nice. Can't quite see where all the extra money goes and Helen's asthma was aggravated by the smell of the cleaning but still, all in all a nice way to travel.



There then followed a whole lot of nothing in Arambol in the north of Goa. Nice place, easy to while away the time although it's not very Indian. Well, OK, aside from the tummy bugs and cows on the beach I mean! We had intended to head up to Hampi but a combination of apathy and Indian transport served to confound us. In the end it was hard enough to get a train back down to Kerala! I did enjoy my interlude in Goa though. Interesting mix, fairly well summed up in the graffiti below.



Then it was just a matter of getting ready to fly over to Malaysia. I say "just a matter" but I got the heebie jeebies real bad over this, and all over getting the bike boxed. I was mostly worried that if the airline told me the packaging wasn't OK I was the very edge of my visa. Got it packed by a parcel packing place and as it turned out the airline were only to eager for the chance to take it and charge me extra for the privilege! Ah yes, money money money.

That brings an end to my travels in India (for now) but it may mean much more frequent blogs now I'm back on the bike again! We'll see on that front, I broke my phone a few days ago so I can't blog straight from that, although hopefully internet cafes will be easy to find.