20-21 June 2009

I bet David could not sleep well prior to this ride. He been waiting for slightly over a year to return to ride in Malaysia again. Myself would be taking my new bike on her longest ride yet. Although we have ridden this route many times, it was still exciting enough to do it again. After all, it is one the best route in my book.  David managed to get a F650GS for the trip. At least he would not be complaining about spongy brakes and wooden handling as experienced in his last ride with Sunny's rented bike.

Newcomer Rashidi over-slept and we ended waited for him for more than 1/2 hour and we only get to fire up our bikes at around 735am to head to Raub for breakfast at Rata Curry House. The morning warmed up fairly fast and furious with most of us taking advantage of the fine weather and relatively clear traffic to hit some serious speeds around the curvy Karak stretch to Bentong. Joannie  got her camcorder to video the ride. We never video our rides before and it would be interesting to see ourselves in the video later today.

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David was fast gel-ling up to his borrowed bike. The parallel twin engined F650GS with a friendly ergonomic and a relatively light weight was fairly easy to ride.  Compared to its sibling, the F800GS, the street oriented F650GS was also nimble and zippy judging by David's at-will easy riding tossing the baby GS into turns with reckless abandon.  I suspected David's inner self is a hooligan.. after all, he rides a Moto Guzzi Grislo back in Australia. 

With the fast pace set by everyone, we got into Raub fairly early. Our stomach would have protest if we arrived later as we did not take any breakfast at the meet-up point. A round of teh tariks, kopi tariks with mee goreng and roti chanai at our favourite curry house set everyone's mood up for the ride to Gua Musang.  With the current dry spell, we did not anticipate any rain to dampen our riding.  It was a beautiful so far and the 150 odd km trunk road from Raub to Gua Musang we were riding offered a combination of fast long stretch and curvy bends. The sweeping curves cutting through palm-oil estates gave everyone a good satisfying workout with their bikes. My bike been doing an excellent job of soaking up the road bumps with Anne not complaining a bit about the ride.

Mohan's bike was running low with fuel prompting him to stop by the road side to buy two bottles of petrol. We ended stopping by a road side stall for refreshments and durains. We later learnt from the stall owner that the closest petrol station was just a few clicks away.. so much for the bottled petrol with dodgy content. David was game enough to drink the local brewed soda in funny bottle.. He commented that the place would had been sealed up by the health authority in Australia. Never less, we are fearless Malaysians with equally tough tummys.. We continued our ride to Gua Musang after refuelling.

We motored into Irdina's Nasi Kukus for lunch. Another one of our favourite place for lunch, they serves excellent marinated fried chicken, fish curry and sambal (chilli) calamari with individually steamed rice. Despite the good spread of choices, David was very cautious about what he was eating. I could understand as any complications resulted from wrong food intake could ruin his much anticipated ride.  I would be doing the same thing if I was in his shoes.

Leaving the road side diner with another heartily filled belly, we stopped at the train station which was an important stop of the once very busy Jungle Railway for some photography. It was worth a visit as the little station with the surrounding picturesque limestone hills offered good photographic opportunity. The railway line serves the East Coast states of Pahang and Kelantan  Officially the KTM (Kereta Tanah Melayu) East Coast Railway line, it branches of the West Coast Trunk line at Gemas on the border of Johor and Negeri Sembilan and goes through the forested heart (hence the nickname "Jungle Railway") of Peninsular Malaysia to Tumpat, a small town on the East Coast near Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Although not an epic train journey like the Oriental Express, it nevertheless offers an insight to the life of the rural East Coast states. For many years, people in little kampungs along the railway relied on the train to get to bigger towns like Pasir Mas or Gua Musang in Kelantan as no roads were able to reach such remote areas. However, the once busy and important railway line has been negated into obscurity as modern motorcycling-friendly roads have taken over as primary links amongst the remote towns.

We continued our ride to Cameron Highlands with the blue sky filled with puffy clouds. I guessed David was enjoying himself tremendously with the guys ascending the great Titiwangsa Mountain Range together. We would be riding to some 1300 metres above sea level. Riding through the excellent D30 highway never ceased to put smirks into our faces. We could feel the fresh cool mountain air as we reached Kampung Raja. We finally reached Tanah Rata at about 3pm.  I made prior arrangement  to put up for the sole night at Royal Lily Holiday Apartment. The current dry spell season caused the ambient temperature in Cameron Highlands to rise considerably. A little warm but still comfortable.  We had refreshments at the cafe below the holiday apartment before checking into our respective units and rooms. Nice.

We had a couple of hours to laze around Tanah Rata before dinner. Moreover, we were expecting Chin who would be driving (instead of riding) up with his wife and youngest son. He took his car as his bike was still in the container on-route back to Port Klang from China. He just completed an epic adventure riding through the old Silk Road in China. Hence, taking his family along for a little get-together wasn't such an bad idea to earn future motorcycling-miles.

Eric, owner of Fern Nyoya Restaurant in Tanah Rata has prepared dinner for us. We had a hearty dinner together san Mohan as he took time off for his prayers at the local temple. We had a round of teh tariks at mamak shop nearby before walking back to our apartments. Mamak cafes are all plenty in Cameron Highlands and it does not take more than 50m walk to find one. We had a good time taking friendly swipes at each others. 

Back at the apartment, we had another round of good laugh at the video Joannie shot earlier. The 40 min odd video of us riding carelessly from Kuala Lumpur to Cameron Highlands was fun to see. Needless to say, I probably need to edit the video to some 5min only for David to show to his wife. Or else, David could probably loose his 'visa' to ride in Malaysia in the future. Chin took center-stage with his couple of hundreds of photos taken during his China adventure ride. We could not help feeling envy looking at photographs. However, as time passed beyond 11pm, we quietly dropped off like flies to our respective rooms leaving a visibly tired Phang to finish off the slide show..  

The next morning we had breakfast at Eric's younger brother cafeteria at downtown Tanah Rata. Good thing staying at the apartment at Taman Royal Lily, we could walk to nearby eateries. Meanwhile, Mohan decided to hit home early to celebrate father's day with his family. We saddled up at 10am to ride out of town. We stopped at the vegetable stalls at the Laketown of Habu to buy some vegetables. We took the opportunity to shoot some group pictures with the lake as the backdrop. 

The downhill ride along the tight old trunk road was different compared to the Kg Raja-Simpang Pulai wide-carriage road. To me, it was no less interesting especially having to overtake over-laden vegetables trucks with barely enough passing sight distances. We pitted at Lata Iskandar for David to take some pictures while the rest took the opportunity to visit the loos. We had our last stop as a group together at Tapah. We lunched at Restoran Satay Tapah which was located just left exit of the  town's main traffic junction. Contrary to the restaurant's name, they served traditional Malay food. Satay, however, is served in the evening.

All good rides must come to an end, and it was time to bade each other good bye. Zamin, Azmi and Rashidi decided to hit the highway home. Meanwhile, Joannie received some bad news about her cousin and decided to hit home asap with Ivan. The rest of us, David, Phang, Sam and myself with Anne continued our ride. We decided to use the old trunk road parallel to the N-S Expressway as we were not rushing to get home. On route home, we made a detour to Lata Kinjang, about 15km North of Tapah town. A fantastic cascading waterfalls with lush surrounding greens and good picnic facilities but somehow ruined by loads of trash left by typical Malaysian picnickers. What a shame.

Sam was leading the left over pack when he decided to serve to the toll exit. Apparently, he got tired and sleepy. We made another stop at Ulu Bernam RSA for Sam to take a quick nap. As luck has it, rain poured as we were ordering our drinks. Good timing or simply good luck. As we waited for the rain to cease, I started to dream up another good weekend route to ride. We already reserved the date which would be on Merdeka weekend. Riding along the east coast with a stop-over at Kenyir Lake?    

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