Day 14 - Mon 25 Nov: Kuala Lumpur to Bahau

Fine but partly cloudy in the morning and early afternoon, 23 to 33 deg, although it seemed hotter than that when in direct sunshine. A thunderstorm about 4pm.
Ride: 112km; total: 620km

Up early, exercises, cuppa tea in my room then out for a walk just on dawn. Enjoy seeing all the little “restaurants”, which are really street food stalls, selling their fair to the early risers going to work. Food is so cheap that I’d guess some people would hardly eat at home. Some nice street art around too.

Back at the hotel we got away fairly well on time at 7:37am. About an hour to the ride start point today, where our breakfast is waiting. The Maccas egg and meat patty wasn’t too bad. A cold coffee in a can was ok too; for a change. Hope that’s the last time we have to resort to Maccas.

The hills started fairly soon after we took off and that was pretty much the theme for the whole day. Not much (read nothing) to see except jungle either side of the road for most of the day. The day we rode into KL I was feeling a bit drained, two big days in a row, but today I felt a million bucks and it didn’t feel like I’d done 112 very hilly km. Unfortunately, the crew did it again, they managed to lose two of our blokes along with a guide. Didn’t think it could happen again; six crew, two vehicles (1 at the front 1 at the back), a motorcycle (riding around checking) and the last three riders missed a left turn. The front vehicle was supposed to wait at the turn till he saw that the back guide turned. After the first six turned (I was in this bunch) we saw the vehicle go past and assumed that we all turned. It wasn’t till we were waiting at the lunch stop for far too long that we realized something was wrong. Baz, Sean and Heng had missed the turn and were now 23km off course. The sweep vehicle went and picked them up. This should never happen at all but to happen twice is inexcusable.

We had a lovely lunch of fried small fish, chicken soup with rice. Some skipped food altogether as it was too hot for eating. The main thing most of us enjoyed was the iced tea. It’s hard to drink enough water, it comes out in sweat as fast as you can drink it.

Although the last 10km was the flattest we’d seen since starting the trip; an indication of things to come ..... maybe. Doesn’t matter hills are my friends. We had steady rain on the last 10km, nice and cooling but it makes all the riding gear muddy and that’s hard to get out without a washing machine or powder. I just throw all mine on the floor of the shower and give it a good stomping.

Dinner was an in-house affair, on the roof of the hotel. You would think there were 20 of us the amount of food that came out. We started with a seafood steamboat and then they served us another six or seven dishes. The steamboat alone would have been enough. All very fresh and tasty.

Street art KL

Early morning KL

Ride start point

Lunch venue

Ramish, our Malaysian guide; I think it's better if the guide rides a bicycle not a motorbike

My room at Riverview Hotel, Bahau

Our Hotel

Anyone would think there were 20 of us for the amount of food presented. The steamboat would have been sufficient, but they trotted out 6-7 other dishes




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