Day 2

Our plan was to have breakfast and hit the road earliest possible. We managed to find a road side stall just about from 1 km towards Mersing town. Look out for Kampung Sri Lalang signage. We parked our bikes at the opposite side of the road next to Masjid Jamek Sri Lalang as the ground was tarred and we do not want any 'tip-over' incidents. Food served was excellent. I had a big plate of nasi lemak with boiled quill eggs and sambal shrimps.

The plan to hit the road at 930am went down the drain as suspected earlier. Rashid discovered his bike’s muffler bracket was broken prompting a round of MacGyver on-the-site quick fix. We finally get to hit the road at about 1130am. Oonta and his ride mate Ismail in two Aprilia Pegesos continued their trek to Desaru while the rest of us would ride to Kota Tinggi using Route 3. Zain, apparently had enough of riding with Oonta’s iron-butt riding style on day 1, decided to join the leisurely paced group.

Route 3 again proved Johor does have interesting motorcycling roads. We were touching 130-140 on most stretches. The sky was mostly cloudy but thankfully dry though it did threaten to break loose at certain locations. The generally cloudy sky did an excellent job of masking the sun rays and making riding on the mid day very pleasant.  Incidentally, we passed by two funny looking structures flanking the road about 62km to Johor Bahru. These are WW2 relics built by the British as soldiers' bunkers presumably used to defend the only road at the time from Mersing to Johor Bahru. However, there are little documentations about the bunkers' actual roles and the local government is thinking about demolishing the structures as they are potential road hazards.  What a pity.

We reached Kota Tinggi town center after logging about 87 km of excellent road. We decided to shoot straight to Kota Tinggi waterfalls and perhaps catch a light lunch there. We were disappointed when we have to pay RM10 each for admission and bike entry to visit the waterfalls. Another case of a free public park been privatised. Sadly, we decided to give the park a miss and instead headed straight to Bandar Tenggara about 40 odd km away. We arrived Bandar Tenggara at about 130pm in good time for lunch

At Restaurant Maqbul Jaya along the main road, we were gulping isotonic drinks until we felt approximately ourselves again. Then we had a good lunch consisting of fried chicken, curry mutton and chicken, sambal cuttlefish and mixed vegetables. The big surprise was the local coffee served which was excellent proving a point that Johoreans do appreciate good coffee.

The weather was still kind to us with no hint of rain and the 47 km of road to Keluang was straight and well-paved for fast riding. We passed through Keluang town to head to Ayer Hitam. NS expressway was just a short hop away. The ongoing Op Sikap was in full swing and we were stopped for ID checks at the toll exit. A short 5 min delay by the friendly traffic cops and we were on our way again to Ayer Keroh. 

We reached Ayer Keroh toll at about 440pm. A quick regroup and we nodded straight to our hotel in Melaka. Again, we pre-booked our accommodation at Straits Meridian Hotel, an all suites hotel in Bukit Baru. Deng's brother Kamaruddin was already waiting for us at the hotel when we arrived. He had ridden alone from KL in his GS1100. It was almost 530pm when we got our keys to the one-bedroom suites. With a  couple of hours’ overdue with an appointment with a cool swimming pool, we finally get a well-deserved dip to chill out and relax before dinner.

After a few probing around for the best place to have good halal dinner, the pakcik manning the lobby security suggested that we go to Umbai for barbecue seafood. We made a couple of wrong turns before the mysterious floating restaurant complex was finally spotted. It is actually a government-built complex built over the seaside with many stalls offering cooked and barbecue seafood. We had trouble picking a stall as most of the stalls looked mighty tempting. We finally settled down at a joint named Shima Cafe. The seafood served was good albeit a little pricey. A kilo of barbecue clam cost RM13 though the price on the menu board says RM5. The prices of seafood were charged according to weight. We, as usual, had a sumptuous meal of fresh barbecue fish, fried and sambal sotong and nasi lemak. The small pre-packed nasi lemak oddly cost only 60 sen a pack.

We returned back to our hotel for another  round of drinks. If we would to continue the ride by another few days, we would not doubt gain a few extra kilos along the way. Our Batgurl would probably look like Alicia Silverstone in Batman&Robin movie