Malacca 1-day-trip 051111

This was an extremely ad-hoc trip. It was only finalized 3days before the trip that Halim would be joining me for the ride to Malacca. On the actual day, I was woken up by Halim’s call. Azhari was supposed to give me a wake up call but guess who he called? The matrep. He was supposed to join in the morning ride to Woodlands but that’s another story altogether. Azhari went over to Halim’s place and they rode over to mine. At 0315, we then had a leisure ride to Old Woodlands for breakfast. It was the usual drinks. Halim had red bull and coffee-o, I had kopi c peng and Azhari had 100plus. About 0515, we split and Halim and I went through customs. I had forgotten the number of stupid humps at the motorbike lanes. It was an irritating way to start the trip. Just after clearing Malaysia customs, Halim had his first flat of the trip. He took his eyes off the road and hit the metallic drainage cover. There and then at the checkpoint, Halim fixed his flat. We stopped for Subuh at Masjid.

After that, I confidently said that we should follow the sign that says “Pasir Gudang”. That was matrep ah. Pasir Gudang, as I would later found out, was at the eastern part of Johor but ya. We stopped at Shell along the way to grab the map of Johor.

We had breakfast at Restaurant Sayed at Jalan Permai at 0730, when I had the first call from my Mum.
“Bang, kau da kat mana?”
“Kita da salah jalan ah mak. Sekarang tengah sarapan kat Taman Perling.”
“Tu masih jauh tau bang. Lagi jauh tau. Mak sekarang da kat Muar. Kalau kau tak sesat, kita da boleh sarapan sama2.” Taman Perling is 200km away from Muar. Baik ah my mum.
We did 30km/h constantly all the way till we went through a construction area. Disaster would be waiting cyclists with all the rocks. True enough, Halim had another flat there. That means, he’d used up both his spare tubes and canisters.

After the quick fix, we whacked all the way before stopping for a quick break at Bt Batu shell pump station. Then, we carried on to Ayer Hitam. 19km before Ayer Hitam, we passed by the first bike shop during our ride. Halim bought a spare tube. It’s not new from a box but an existing one from a bike. How convenient. It was RM14. The route to Ayer Hitam was bad. We had no water and the heat was relentless. Halim was damn happy to see the “Esso – 1km away” signboard. But kii, the station was not ready ah. Matrep sey. Had a quick drink at somewhere which sells damn expensive drinks (think of Yong Peng prices) and then had a big lunch at Ayer Hitam.

After 1 hour there, we carried on to Batu Pahat. Over there, we stopped for drinks at a stall selling authentic Mee Bakso. From Batu Pahat to Muar, the road was damn lousy. There were 2 road diversions along the way there. The road to Muar was crazy. Headwind and never-ending flat section. After Muar, hell started for us. The highway to Melacca was morale-crushing stretch of road. First, it was after Maghrib, thus damn dark. Secondly, cars were zooming past us.

We saw countless number of signboards that said “Pusat Bandaraya” Seriously, isap. God knows how many that we passed yet there was still no sign of the stupid Pusat Bandar.We reached Bandar only at 2230 after 270km. That was hell, especially in the dark.

Abeh, next year Port Dickson kepe..