Day 16 - Wed 27 Nov: Segamat to Keluang

At 9pm last night it was 27 deg (feels like 31) while today went from 24 to 33 deg with 85 % humidity. It felt hotter around midday the reflection off the road sucked the water out of you as quickly as you could drink it.
Ride: 90km; total: 785km

Out for an early walk just on dawn; best part of the day. Called in to the 24 hour 7 Eleven for a real coffee in case I didn’t get any at breakfast. No brekky at the hotel again so Ramish organized some at a Muslim restaurant about 200m from the hotel. The food was fresh and delicious, I particularly enjoyed the roti bread and watching it being made. There were also some nice little sweet cakes which were made with rice and tapioca in the main that went down well with the cup of tea.

Rode away from the restaurant about 8:30am into an already warm and humid day. Ended up just short of 90km, most of which was like a roller coaster again, either uphill or downhill, very rarely flat. Then we hit a dirt road detour that was 8 to 10km of rough, sometimes muddy, hilly, and bumpy goat track. Dogan came off his bike on a downhill dirt section just about immediately and put a nasty gash in his knee. (Later stitched at Paloh Clinic). It was a relief to see the end of the track and head to a nearby town, Paloh for lunch at an Indian restaurant. It was great, especially the rather hot curry dishes. Poppadums again, like that crunchy treat with the curries. While we waited for Dogan to come back from the clinic the sky opened up at the normal time with lots of rain falling quickly. Wish I could send it home.

Once Dogan returned from the clinic we were driven to our hotel, Anika. He’s going to be fine, but I’m sure he won’t get back on the bike this tour, which finishes up this Friday.

Dinner was Chinese 100m down the road, beautiful and clean. My favourite out of the seven dishes was the duck. Some of the guys went out for an ale but I was a little tired so went back to my room.

For a predominantly Muslim country, they go all-out on the Xmas stuff

Modern Malaysia: Starbucks, 7/11, and bright lights

Well appointed sign to our hotel

Our hotel in the early morning

Hotel street, early morning

Breakfast

Breakfast venue

Drink stop: Kev, Simon and BJ

Me and a rather large, dead, carpet snake

Poor goanna also got killed by a vehicle not far from the snake

Chinese cemetery

Oil palms everywhere

BJ on the detour dirt road

Ken with the road to himself; it was closed but they let us sue it

It got a bit rough here

Street art at Polah

Lunch, some great curry dishes

Lunch venue at Polah

A really heavy downpour

My room tonight

Footpath outside a material shop

Local government building at Keluang

Dinner, or what's left of it

Dinner venue


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