If you've been using the Internet for more than 3 minutes, you've probably noticed that not everything is always true there. For example, from time to time I get an email from my relative in Nigeria, informing me that I have almost a billion dollars in inheritance. You know it's a lie, but there's always a chance that it might not be. After all, if you don't take risks, you don't drink champagne. In my ranking of improbable things, this email takes second place. The ranking is opened by the Air France website, which showed information about a flight from Warsaw to Singapore. The ticket in the basket suggested that 55 minutes for a transfer at the famous CDG airport in Paris is enough time for both us and the bikes in the bag from the IKEA store. In practice, 55 minutes means that boarding for the second flight starts 15 minutes after the wheels of the first plane touch down on the runway, and on the way you still have to go to another terminal, show someone your passport, and give someone else your bags to be X-rayed in search of illegal water.
I accepted the fact that we would arrive without bikes and I even liked the idea. It sounded like a vacation, rest and spending part of the vacation like people. But you can never count on AirFrance. They were supposed to do one thing – lose our luggage. They didn’t manage to do that and we checked in at the Singapore airport with all our luggage. Did the fact that our first plane was delayed by 30 minutes and the next one by almost an hour and a half help? Probably not, because the delay caught up with us when we were already sitting on it.
Very big shortcut
I turn off my computer on Friday afternoon – a moment later we fly to Singapore. We run through the airport in Paris. In Singapore we hit a monsoon. We go north to walk in the jungle. We get soaked all day. The city is so-so. We decide to fly to Langkawi. We go on an eagle. We drive around the island. We take a ferry back to the mainland. The Chinese soup almost kills me. We travel south for two days. Sylwia almost runs over a cobra. We get caught in another downpour. I get photophobia. We take a train to Ipoh. The downpour delays the train and we miss the bus. We take a taxi to the mountains: to Cameron Highlands. We spend the day walking through tea plantations. We take a bus to Kuala Lumpur. You can't ride a bike in Kuala Lumpur. We climb a tower. We get soaked again. We sleep like astronauts. We return by bus to Singapore. We spend the day trying to get to one store. We visit the Pope. We return to the airport in a Grab and fly home. We pick up the dog, I go to bed, I turn on my computer at work. I smile.
If a ring were added to this story, Tolkien would be forgotten.
Why?!
Why are we flying to Singapore? Well, it's not easy to find a reasonable destination in January, when you don't necessarily want to visit the Canary Islands. I once thought that it would be great to travel from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur by folding car. I bought tickets with that in mind. Only later, on Facebook, did I realize that it wasn't the best idea, because:
- leaving Singapore is not great either
– the route between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur is not great (due to the busy road and the views are mostly bananas)
– nor is entering Kuala Lumpur great. I’ll say more, it’s probably the only city I’ve ever seen in my life that you can’t possibly enter by bike without seriously preparing the route… but more on that later.
Because as I wrote in the report from Lesotho – every idea in the world has its own dedicated Facebook group. In this case it was: Cycling SG to Malaysia, which is exactly the idea. The group currently has some 19,000 members.
Singapore is generally humid and hot. The rains are short and intense, unless the monsoon comes – I've heard there are 3 to 5 of them a year. We hit two weekends when the monsoon is forecast. And not just any monsoon, the newspapers say it's the biggest in years. In my head, however, the rain doesn't bother me at all when it's 30 degrees outside. It turned out that this wasn't entirely true. It's true that clothes can dry in 10 minutes, but that doesn't matter.
Travel agency "Hurry"
It's Friday, we run straight from work to the airport for a taxi. If my coworkers weren't reading this, I'd say we're even running a little ahead of schedule. We pack our bikes like people in suitcases, but they fly as regular checked-in. In Paris, we have almost an hour to transfer, so we've got our running quota. We check in at the Singapore airport on Saturday afternoon. I'm old and lazy now, so we go straight to the hotel that was booked while we were waiting for our luggage. We're very well prepared for the trip: the only thing that was fixed in the whole trip was the plane tickets, and the travel plan consists of a few rough maps in my head.
I can't describe what happens there during vacation. Ever since I learned to draw decision diagrams in the "Magic Blocks" program in elementary school, the amount of cause-effect relationships and "depending on" plans seems to have no end. For your convenience, I'm attaching a professional map that demonstrates how we spent a week in Singapore. This plan was as complicated and long as this entry.
Singapore is expensive, although it's been many years since I paid for a hotel in Poland, and I've never paid in Warsaw, so maybe it's not more expensive than here - I don't know. It's definitely cheaper in Malaysia, so maybe there's something to it. Especially when we discover that the currency is different and doesn't multiply x3 anymore, but x1.1. If you're as ignorant as I am, let me inform you: Singapore hasn't been Malaysia for nearly 60 years. Before that, it was Malaysia for just two years - laughable.
We decide on network "Ibis", because we plan to leave our suitcases for the entire 1.5-week trip. To make life a bit more difficult, there are 5 Ibises, all next to each other. As it turns out, they differ mainly in price.
In Singapore, don't show your genitals, or you'll get hit with a stick.
I have a theory that you can quickly judge a country by its taxis. Of course, we're driving an electric car, and the driver won't move until we've fastened our seatbelts, because it's illegal. This really gives a full, honest view of a city where chewing gum is illegal and you get a cap for big drugs. In general, the plan for the vacation is simple - we plan to avoid the following things: a flogging, life in prison, the death penalty, a fine that we won't pay off for the rest of our lives. Here's one of the lists of things you can and can't do (a stretch, because it probably involves sales): https://gsp.lazada.com/gsp/helpcenter/prohibited-and-controlled-policy-in-sg-13352.html
So if you are planning to go bikepacking in shorts without suspenders, I would pay attention to this point:
Visibility of gluteal cleft on human model (not allowed unless there is material between gluteal cleft and body)
And if you're bringing your tight PAS clothes, here they are:
Erection or outline of genitals visible through clothing(…)
According to Wikipedia, Singapore is 3/4 Chinese and 8% Indian. If I had to guess the structure myself, I would say the opposite. We see mostly Indians. I have the distinct impression that this is not quite what Sylwia had in mind when she said "let's go to Asia". This is not Korea or Japan.
At the outset, two important notes:
- As you can see from the photos and their colors, these are not color-friendly conditions for capturing the area.
- I've been reading Kahneman's "Thinking Traps" recently - it was clearly stated that "strained verbal wit" is the perfect stereotype of a computer scientist. I took that to heart, but I'll warn you it might be dry - just the thing to dry out the Malaysian weather.
Day zero.
For the first two nights at the "ibis budget Singapore Pearl" we pay 775 PLN - it's OK, and you can get to the city center by bike easily and pleasantly. I would like to say that this was the main criterion, and not the fact that the district has a funny name Geylang (I always associate it with Gaylord Fockerfrom a comedy). The first Google result after typing it in is: "Geylang is the cheapest area in Singapore for accommodation. It's full of prostitutes, but it has the best food in…” – I found out about it at that exact moment, of course. It’s interesting, because we see mostly “Chinese” type restaurants there, and Indians (in the ratio of 99 men to 1 woman – btw, don’t type that phrase into the search engine).
In general, the area (near and far) consists of barefoot Hindus sitting on curbs, walls, grass, and sometimes in the middle of the bike path. It looks like they spilled out of Santa's basket, which happened to be flying over the city. I think that if you are not a fan of barefoot Hindu feet, then you can deduct one point from the city right from the start.
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Indian feet. They are a bit darker and smell a bit more like curry than ours (although that day and the next, I would consider that an advantage) - it's just not an everyday sight. Especially since I didn't see any women's feet.
In the evening we go for a drive because of jetlag and besides, it's a waste of time to sleep. I'll honestly say this: Singapore probably makes an impression, but not on people who have seen cities like Hong Kong. For me, it's "another world metropolis full of tourists and business". What sets the city apart from others, however, is its vegetation. The city looks as if there were additional fees (or in this case, tax breaks) for every palm tree or bamboo. We drive for about 3 hours, mainly driving around the Marina, the famous hotel and the famous gardens. Of course, we drive along the F1 street race route, where I think a big go-kart race took place just a moment earlier. Around 10 p.m. we get sleepy and rainy, which is a good excuse to end the day in a restaurant and at 7-eleven, which unfortunately turn out to be a big disappointment there.
First day of real rain.
One day it started raining and didn't stop for 4 months. We experienced every kind of rain imaginable. There were little drizzles and heavy downpours. Rain that lashed from the side and rain that seemed to come from the bottom up. Man, it even poured at night.
Forrest Gump
It was raining in the morning, and it was supposed to rain more later. We have one goal for this day, and in retrospect it may sound a bit abstract. On the other hand, it sounds better in my head (for me) than driving 15x Coll de Rates or spending the day staring at the screen at work. We intend to continue one of many strange traditions, namely bringing a Maneki-neko figurine from another Asian country. ChatGPT finds us some showroom that looks exceptionally impressive. The plan is simple, we go to the store, take the kitten, go back to the hotel, go see the famous gardens Gardens by the Bay and in sleep. The first part of the plan ends after covering less than 65 kilometers in 6.5 hours from leaving the hotel.
The first problem is that cycling around Singapore is not particularly pleasant. If someone ever tells me that it is a wonderful, modern city of the future with low curbs, excellent infrastructure and generally "life is not to die", I promise: I will come and put a hedgehog on their doormat (in this version with toothpicks). Maybe it is, if you stick to the routes called "Park Connector Network", i.e. connecting subsequent city parks, usually along rivers. Although they are also like our paths - "we are doing renovations, there is no detour, so what will you do to us?". Drivers may be cool, but there is no pleasure in riding on wide streets and standing at endless red lights. This probably explains why the only cyclists we see are road cyclists escaping the city early in the morning.
The second problem is that it is raining. Although this is a bad term, it is raining in Poland. To find out what the rain is doing in Singapore, I invite you to solve the riddle. RAIN IN SINGAPORE: NAP _ _ R _ _ LA. Like 15 minutes, and then it stops, and then it starts again. I thought that if it's warm but raining it's cool, but it's not. We have the best rain ponchos in the world, but that doesn't really help, because you'd have to take them off and put them on several times an hour. Because it's so warm that if it's not raining outside the poncho, it's raining inside.
By some inner force of will we ride 15 kilometers in over 1.5 hours, only to discover that we are a bit too early in the shop. It is strange, because believe me, navigating in a downpour, on large streets and with small bikes is not particularly easy. We go to the nearby park for a walk. We leave the bikes attached with a rope that could be bitten with your teeth by the toilet (i.e. the bikes by the toilet, not your teeth) and head for the suspension bridge marked on Google Maps. Not for a moment does a warning light go on in our heads, seeing that the shortest routes on the signposts are 4 hours long. It does not make things easier that once we get to the bridge, it is impossible to turn around on it. There is even a special booth with a man watching over it. The walk in the park turns into over 2 hours of walking through the mud in the jungle, accompanied by downpours every now and then.
Finding a store is also not obvious and requires reading online comments. It turns out that a store may be a store, but not really. If 15 years ago you bought, for example, the cheapest CD recorder on Allegro with collection "in our warehouse", this is it. 7th floor of some building, third door on the left, a small card with the company name. To make it funnier, at the entrance, as befits a store with a Japanese atmosphere, you have to take off your shoes. You don't want to know what our feet looked like after a few hours of getting wet and walking in mud. The saleswoman probably didn't want to either, but we treated it as a punishment for having to walk around the block for half an hour looking for this place. I spend the next few hours trying to deliver a large, ceramic Daruma figurine to the hotel.
In the evening we ride our bikes to see the famous Gardens by the Bay. As an amateur gardener, my expectations are more than high. We pay 60 dollars a head, which is about 180 PLN. Maybe it's because it's Saturday night and there are so many people. Maybe there are a lot of Indian company trips, but... no. Sure, the buildings are impressive, especially in the "Cloud Forest" part, but I feel like I'm in a shopping mall where plants are on display. The Flower Dome is even less impressive. I have the impression that I've seen almost all the plants there, and their level of refinement is so good that it's hard for me to believe that they're not artificial. I mean, I know they're not, but they look like they are. I admit that I feel more gardening excitement when I visit Flora Point near Otwock - even when it's the end of the month in my wallet. But I've been there, I've seen it, I can say that it's so-so. Will you call me blasé? Nothing could be further from the truth. The jungle we had walked through a few hours earlier had made a much bigger impression on me. The Langkawi forests, with eagles flying overhead, had a much bigger effect on me.
Well, in the evening I have an epiphany. It's not about an epiphany caused by eating at the Old Airport Road Food Centre (I recommend it, the building is full of 1-2 person delicatessens). It's more about an epiphany that we probably don't like cities, because most large and rich cities are, contrary to appearances, very similar, with very similar people, similar attractions, shops and everything in general. Rain pouring down on your head is not a special attraction on a holiday either. In the evening I find flights to Langkawi at a price similar to the entrance ticket for Gardens by the Bay. Singapore borders only Malaysia by land. Langkawi is probably the furthest Malaysian point from Singapore as possible. Trying to get back from there will sound like an adventure.
So we pack our bikes in Ikea bags and get into a taxi to the airport early in the morning. More precisely, in Grab – the local equivalent of Uber. I thought it would be cheaper than a taxi, but it wasn't at all. On the other hand, it has an impressive app, where you can order almost anything, including a bus. Before leaving, I try to leave our semi-rigid suitcases, in which the Bromptons arrived. The guy at the reception says that it's fine – but only if I book a place to stay for the day I pick them up. Fine, I go to booking, choose Saturday (because we're flying out on Sunday morning and it seems reasonable), and it's almost empty. The cheap hotels have disappeared, and ours has disappeared completely. A few phone calls and a few visits to the reception later, we manage to reach an agreement: I booked a place to stay in another Ibis (more expensive, of course, but not any better). A week later, we find out that it's because of the proximity of the stadium and the fact that a South Korean team is playing that day. Seventeen. Too bad we didn't know. This had the potential to be the most powerful experience of my life.
Holidays.
We get off the small plane at an even smaller airport on Langkawi Island. We are almost the first to get off the plane, and our luggage (bikes) are waiting in their Ikea bags right by the steps of the plane. That's what I call saving vacation time! We grab our bikes, run first to get a security stamp, because we've changed countries and we're ready to ride. I can't imagine there's a person in the world who'll get on their bike faster after an international flight than we do... unless, of course, if you have a private plane, you can ride your bike to it on the tarmac. That is, we're almost there. I forgot one very small detail. Before entering the country, you have to fill out an entry form, which, like in the case of Singapore, is only available 3 days before arrival, so you can't do it much in advance. So we bounce off the entry window with a slight dose of stress that we'll be living at the airport like Tom Hanks. Luckily, it's possible to catch up on formal matters on the phone... while watching as the entire mass of people from the plane overtakes us in the meantime.
Langkawi is probably known to two groups of people: holidaymakers who come here for the beach and cyclists, because there is something called the Tour de Langkawi. If there is a race, the roads must be super. However, if you look at the course of the race, it does not necessarily have much in common with the archipelago of 104 islands called Langkawi. Last year, exactly one stage took place on the island. It was 94 km long and you could say that it used almost all the reasonable roads on the island. So our goal is to drive around the island and visit the key tourist attraction. We skip the ride up the highest hill in the area, because riding a Brompton does not sound like a vacation. Thanks to this plan, although we set off at 1 p.m., we report to the town from which the ferry to the mainland departs late in the evening the same day.
There is a fundamental problem, however. As I am tall, I have to pull the saddle down to fit the Brompton into the Dimp bag. I use a magic key that hides in the Brompton frame. I don't know how it happened, but the bit used to unscrew it disappears from my tool. He is probably still on holiday at the Ibis in Singapore. So I ride with the saddle tightened with a flat spanner, which means that his position is very dynamic. This is me - a man who, having two metal balls, will lose one and break the other. However, using my "perk" chosen at birth as "more luck than sense", I manage to find a guy with an Allen key in one of the local workshops. I mean, I am still not sure if it was a workshop, because on the one hand every other house here looks like a workshop, and on the other hand - nothing does. This key also consisted more of rust than a proper key. Luckily, just after I thought that a shop with Allen keys would come in handy, a shop with everything, including Allen keys, appears. I buy one so good, for a staggering 13 PLN, that it falls apart on its own when I put it in my bag. However, it does not lose the function of tightening and unscrewing.
But back to Langkawi, and therefore Malaysia. We stop at the first shop we see, because it turns out that we are already in "warm countries". Our noses and ears will remind us of this painfully that same evening. We buy sunscreen, continuing the tradition of bringing home sunscreen from every country we have been to and forgetting to use it in the future. The prices are shocking, because most labels indicate exactly the same amount as in Singapore. A moment later we realize that it is a different currency, 3x cheaper - at that moment the world becomes beautiful, and we become the kings of life.
We head for the main attraction of the island, the Sky Bridge. We reach it after 15 kilometers, which are a bit surprising. Firstly, because it is really only 15 kilometers, and on the map it looked like a solid piece of the island. Secondly, because the world has changed completely and now we are accompanied by hills, forests, small, bends, and on one side the sea, and on the other quite significant elevations. It is somehow better than in Thailand - after all, it looks like a proper vacation. As for the Sky Bridge itself - it is quite nice. We do have a small problem with tickets - similar to the gardens of Singapore - supposedly one place, and next to each other are: Sky Bridge, Eagle's Nest Skywalk, Langkawi Skybridge Cable Car, Langkawi Sky Glide, and on top of that, going up the mountain consists of changing trains along the way. So we take the most expensive one (I think), but even it does not provide the whole (I think). You could also climb the trail up the mountain, but then you'd skip the SUPPOSEDLY steepest cable car in the world. I have my doubts every time I hear that something is "the steepest in the world." The fact is, for someone with my level (or maybe vertical) of fear of heights, it's not a comfortable adventure... but worth doing.
The climb to the top of the eagle is also quite good. It is also the furthest thing... in the world and has a glass floor. As a reward for not throwing up on the floor or in the carriage, we eat a durian dessert at the top. The first page of Google results strongly encourages us to try this local specialty: "It is said to have a repulsive smell, a specific taste and an unattractive appearance" or "It is undoubtedly the smelliest fruit in the world. Its taste and smell last a long time. You can smell durian even up to 100 meters away". Let me put it this way: if you like the taste of dust dipped in unleaded 95, you will be delighted; otherwise - not necessarily. I can think about the taste for the rest of the day and I will not change my mind. Sylwia even goes to ChataGPT with the question "why do people eat durian".
From this day forward, instead of "stick you in the eye" (or something else in something else), I will say "Durian in your mouth". That's probably even worse.
and I know what I'm talking about, because my eye was very red the next day. As for the second one, I'm not sure, but let me know in the comments
We spend the rest of the day trying to drive around the island. The route, although theoretically there is only one road, I would call pleasant. Especially when you stop for some tourist food or a beach. Of course, despite sticking to this one and only road, we manage to get a little lost, which means we add 10 km and end up in the dark. I book a hotel in the city from which the ferry departs. Why on the exact opposite side of the city from the port? I don't know, although the price probably played a role here. So we drive through in the evening to check on the subject of returning to the mainland, but despite our best intentions, we don't manage to do it, even though I can see the ferries in front of me. Even the lady at the ticket office, as soon as she sees me, hangs up a "closed" sign. Too bad.
The hotel itself deserves the title of one of the worst we've ever stayed in. The air conditioning makes us either sick or dissolve in the humidity. We also have a machine behind the wall that appeared in Monty Python and went "ping!". Only ours doesn't go "ping!", but rather "JEB!" and does it exceptionally regularly and meticulously throughout the night. A hamburger eaten at the nearest roadside stall doesn't help either. However, it must be admitted that on our entire Malaysian route, it's impossible to starve. The number of stalls suggests that there are no shops larger than a large "Żabka" in this country, because they probably aren't needed. A sausage on a stick is almost always available (let's say within a reasonable distance).
The evening ferry search turns out to be quite a challenge. Of course, the schedule looks different for each day and JUST ON TUESDAY, nothing leaves before noon. And since the arrival time is about 2 hours, it sounds like a wasted day. However, when I draw a morning, emergency loop, a point on Komoot catches my eye called "Langkawi Port", which is something completely different from the Google "Langkawi ferry port". It is also on the other side of the city, our side. The Internet even suggests that you can expect a departure around 10 am.
I don't see any obstacles.
After a 10-kilometer drive, during which we of course got a bit lost, we report to the port. If I hadn't seen it on the map, I wouldn't have found it beyond China. "Beyond China" is a good description - it looks like a Chinese terminal for transferring illegal containers. We surrender to the first guard and, like a corporate email, we are Forwarded between people until someone does “the needful”. I’m still not sure if we sailed as people or as a pallet, but it doesn’t really matter. We’re heading for Kuala Perlis – the last city on the Malaysian coast – beyond that is Thailand. Now, moving south for many, many kilometres along the water, we should get to Singapore. This is important because we’re travelling without a satnav and I don’t feel like taking my phone out of my pocket all the time.
An adventure happens on the ferry: my eyes start stinging. More so with each passing minute, until I reach a state in which, when asked “eye color,” I can safely say “blood red.” So I take out my contacts, and since I didn’t bring my glasses, I watch the rest of the trip mostly in photos. To make things even funnier, it starts to get very bright. More or less like I imagine being interrogated by an American “bad cop” shining a light in my face. I borrow dark glasses from Sylwia (because I travel in clear ones, so it’s easier to take photos) and I don’t take them off for the next 3 days. I start to worry that I’ll come back as an Asian because of all the squinting.
In Kuala Perlis, the first place to visit is the chemist's (the second, of course, is a sausage on a stick). Explaining to the chemist what I need is not particularly difficult. The visitor can see that either I've just watched Titanic and I'm very sad, or I've eaten ANY of the local Chinese soups, or it's simply an allergy and that's what I'm getting the drops for. Of course, it's not an allergy and the drops only help so much that at least my eye doesn't itch. But I now know why allergy sufferers often avoid allergy medication. Is it because, like a True Pole, I swallowed a True Polish dose of the medicine so that it would work better? Maybe. By the end of the day, however, I feel so dizzy that my main goal is to "not fall asleep". Fortunately, the road we're driving on that day is exceptionally empty and pleasant. The traffic has ended and basically everything else. All that's left are endless rice fields, the sea and, from time to time, a small fishing village. We reach the hotel, or rather the place to stay in someone's house (which doesn't make it easy to find) after 112 kilometers of driving. Of course, in the middle of the night.
To make matters worse, Sylwia almost runs over a cobra on the way. In fact, Wikipedia suggests that if you’re looking for a snake like a cobra, this is exactly the place to expect it. The 2-meter beast was lying in the middle of the road in the middle of fields, and only the incredible braking power of the 16” wheel made everyone survive the encounter. I’d even dare say that the cobra was more scared of the encounter when it saw the Brompton speeding towards it with a locked wheel. Of course, it took us a moment to process the information that this was a real, wild cobra within reach, which is why my reporter’s sense failed me once again.
We all leave the place equally quickly and with similar thoughts. We say "damn, we were almost eaten by a cobra, no one will believe us", and the cobra says "damn, I was almost run over by Poles in folding cars, no one will believe me".
In the evening, I have a slightly bigger challenge ahead of me. We are sleeping with a seemingly classic Islamic family. When I go to ask the owner in a burka where the shit tape is late at night, something dawns on me, but after so many adventures, not really. I try to hide my bloodshot eyes so as not to look like someone who ran out of the bathroom with this question. So there is a lot of laughter and embarrassment, because toilet paper is not used and it is not obvious in the area either. Most toilets have a water hose. In general, bathrooms are probably of a higher standard than in the Czech Republic or Albania. They consist of a toilet with a shower above it, a hose next to it and another pipe connected to an electric heater, acting as a shower. This means that if you go to pee at night, you come back with wet feet. Especially since the fashion for washbasins has not reached everywhere either. For my part, before your vacation in Malaysia, I recommend taking a comfortable dump at home.
Memories burn me like the sun
Memories like hot lava
I run away from them every night
I spend the evening fighting with a Chinese soup – each evening is not an equal fight. It is not true that spicy food burns twice. Really spicy food burns once: it starts even before you put the spoon in your mouth and stops long after it leaves your body. I do not know what the Chinese have with these soups, in Hong Kong it was the same. Just as the weather here is divided into humid and very humid, soups are divided into hot and very hot.
Very good connection sir.
The route is roughly planned as we go, but I read some stuff before leaving. I read up on the details every evening. The initial plan in my head allowed for a trip to the island of Penang, which is about 60 km away from us. There is supposedly nothing special about it except for the large number of people and 2 bridges that you can't cross by bike to get there. With a bit of creativity, you can at most laugh at the name, for example "Penang is numb from all this riding". Reddit suggests that cycling on the island is generally a fight for survival. We head for the town of Butterworth - if something is worth butter, it can't be bad.
The “problem” solves itself, because after 50 km of driving, when we reach George Town, where the ferries sail, it starts to pour. Thanks to my infallible intuition, I knew this beforehand and I also knew that at 2 pm a train leaves the city… somewhere. On the way we still have to cross some strait by boat. It seems that we were the only people within sight and in the conceivable time who planned to cross it, so we go by boat alone, but I have the impression that we pay as if we were filling the whole thing. In any case, we reach the station at 1:40 pm and another 15 minutes pass after travelling through the corridors, when it turns out that the station is also a coach and ferry terminal. At 1:55 pm we run into a ticket machine and a nice gentleman helps us make a purchase… for a completely different train than we had planned – some regional one, which leaves over an hour later, instead of intercity. Maybe it’s better – there’s no problem bringing a bike.
The storm is, however, the perfect plan to catch the last coach to the mountains. A plan that I managed to put together while rushing to catch the 2 p.m. train. If you haven't already gotten lost in this complicated system of mirrors, I'll add that the storm is only theoretical. There is still a possibility - we should reach the destination station in Ipoh (read the other way around, it would be Hopi) 25 minutes before the departure of the last coach. So I devise a plan to cover half of the train route, how to travel 11 kilometers through the mining, Malaysian town in 25 minutes. That's how far the train station is from the bus station - a great idea. Luckily, I only spend half of the journey on these calculations, because then the train stops and doesn't move for a good half an hour. The downpour on the other side of the window probably helped a bit, because it's raining much harder than under Malaysian showers.
Who is shouting from mosques in Malaysia?
I think Cameron Highlands is one of the main attractions of Malaysia. At least that's what almost every "country sightseeing plan" suggests. So I was sure that if we got off at the main train station near the million-strong city, the only one in the immediate vicinity, there would be no problem getting to the local capital of tea and strawberries. However, it turned out to be not so easy and we had to ask for a taxi. So I booked a hotel near some walking trail and the local bus station (so we could get back from there), told the guy that the town of Tanah Rata is in Cameron Highlands and that it was 20 PLN less than he wanted (or something like that), and he said that he knew where Cameron Highlands was and that we could go there. To clarify, Tanah Rata is one of two towns on the hills. Of course, after an hour's drive, the guy stopped 20 km earlier and said that we had arrived. So I turned on the satnav and showed him that we hadn't. So we drove for another half an hour with the satnav on, even though it was literally the only road in the area. I can see how with every kilometer the price calculations in his head start to change. So in the end I still pay the amount given before the negotiations because I feel sorry for the guy.
If I say that our hotel, although very good (price and quality wise), is located at the end of the steepest driveway in the area, it will not surprise anyone. The night is wonderful, because the hotel is kind of luxurious (for our conditions)... with one remark. The bells in the church at 6 a.m. in Ursynów are nothing compared to the local mosques. Or from the mosques, just before sunrise, the muezzins They are screaming They shout so loudly that you can't sleep? Yes. Do they do it for a very long time? Yes. Did I have to type "who shouts from mosques in Malaysia" into ChatGPT to write this? Absolutely.
A day without a bike.
We are around 1400m above sea level. My initial plan in my head was that we could take advantage of this situation and get on our bikes in the morning and ride through the jungle without pedaling, on an excellent, asphalt road to Ipoh, from where we came here. For unknown reasons, we change our plan. We simply go for a walk, like civilized, European tourists. A day of rest, you could say. Around the 15th kilometer, we realize that this will not be a rest, especially since we have planned some sightseeing by bike for the evening.
We climb the highest hill in the area, and our descent is planned to cross one of the most famous tea plantations in Malaysia. The trail doesn't quite look like we expected, but it is extremely popular. It is a very nice change, and for a plant fanatic, about 10 times better than the Singapore gardens. I mention them often because on the scale of expectation/reality/expense, they were in an exceptionally bad place.
The tea fields themselves are the height of tourism, but the Asian kind – fun. There are about as many phones on tripods to take a professional-looking photo as there are people themselves… or even more. We buy a supply of tea in the shop for visitors. It tastes and looks exactly the same as the tea I drink out of boredom in the office. Somewhere along the way we pass roads that look perfect for a photo with a bike, or just the opposite for my desire to ride them with a Brompton. I estimate it at about 20% of slight inclination. Which is probably half as much as our hotel vehicle. As we later find out, the hotel offers a free taxi that takes you up this hill, and I will point out that the length of the road is probably 100 meters.
Some travel far away to eat at a Michelin star restaurant, and others travel to eat at a two-star restaurant (out of 5 possible, on Google Maps). One of these groups then suffers.
In the evening we actually go for a bike ride before our legs hear that they have died. Before the negative consequences of Malaysian food (which is mostly Indian) catch up with us, we manage to see strawberry fields. Let's be honest, for a Pole this is not a particularly big attraction (both strawberries and local food starting with "masala", served on a banana leaf).
Boss of all bosses.
In the morning we go straight to the local bus station. Sometime after dawn there should be a bus to the central station in Kuala Lumpur – the capital of Malaysia. It is important that it is to the central station, because it is close to all the main attractions, and all the cycling tours from Kuala Lumpur agree: you cannot ride in this city. And as it turns out later, this is indeed the case.
The worst thing about Kuala Lumpur is that almost all photos have to be taken vertically because nothing fits in the lens
The bus we are travelling on is labelled as luxury and indeed: I feel like I am in business class. This is due to the fact that the seating arrangement is not 2+2 but 2+1. Instead of the classic armchairs, I feel like I am sitting in someone's large room. About a thousand bends, a hundred kilometres of motorway and half an hour of traffic jams, we check in in a completely different part of the capital than we would have liked. When I politely ask the driver "WTF?", we hear that this is where the journey ends. I look at the inscription on my ticket, then at the inscription above the bus terminal and it clearly appears to me that we are about 10 km as the crow flies too far south. The Internet was not lying and we are convinced of this quite painfully: after about two laps on a road that is probably a motorway. This city is intersected by motorways (or their equivalents), through which there is no reasonable way to travel. It looks as if the individual districts had no other connection with each other than three-lane roads built over bridges and viaducts. So we save ourselves by taxi. Of course, we could have taken the train, but as is usual on vacation, we are a bit pressed for time. Three days earlier, I had booked a visit to the country's calling card: the Petronas Towers, for 3:00 p.m. It wasn't a well-thought-out move – a free slot simply appeared that day. I have the distinct impression that a free slot is not an obvious situation and we can talk about a large dose of luck again.
So we rush to the hotel, anticipating that despite the short distance, getting there won't be particularly easy. And the overnight stay is very much worth mentioning, because it's a capsule hotel in the atmosphere of a space shuttle. The experience is funny, although astronauts probably have it a bit easier - mainly because they don't have a belly stuffed with Indian food. If you think it's hard to survive in space, I'll tell you that it's probably a lot easier than in my stomach, back then.
To illustrate our travel: we cycle 45 km that day and it takes us almost 9 hours. Because although the beginning of the trip goes well and we even manage to park our bikes by Petronas, then it starts raining. So the ride looks like this: we ride for 5 minutes, then we sit under a roof for 40 minutes. Then we ride for 10 minutes, then we sit under a roof for 2 hours. And so on and so forth. It's not good to ride on the streets or on the sidewalk. We do pass a few bike paths here and there, but I don't know if we see more than 3 cyclists throughout the day.
As for the towers themselves: interesting. It would be stupid to have the opportunity and not take advantage. A bit next door stands a slightly lower observation tower (but cheaper and with a 360-degree view), and on the other side, the tallest building in Malaysia. Yes, next to those famous, 88-storey towers, a taller building was built... 30 storeys taller. Iks de. It is currently the second tallest building in the world. Just to give you a sense of scale, I will just say that the Petronas Towers have, for example, 76 elevators and 32,000 windows. The impression from the outside is strong, but the real highlight is at night.
Due to the popularity of the attraction, the tour is planned down to the minute. It is quite an attraction to sit next to the queue and watch people being kicked off without a prior reservation. Negation, anger, sadness – all in one place. During our visit, we hear that the first free slot is in 5 days.
We don't get to the hotel until around 11pm, because that's when the longer weather windows appear. It's not that it's not raining, but you can just see where you're going.
Shopaholism.
We spend most of Saturday's weather window in transit. Sometime after 7 a.m. we board a bus to Singapore. It's just a few hours of driving with one break and a border crossing along the way. We cross the border a bit like in this meme "Peter Griffin color". The staff looks at us and tells us to skip the queue. On the way they ask if the bags are for bikes and after confirming we don't even have to put them through the machine with a view. A bit awkward. Sometime after noon we get off at the shopping centre. A few minutes later we are already standing under a roof in the Little India district watching the downpour. I have the impression that if we took the right route, it would be possible not to get wet in Singapore - many pavements have roofs above them. Unfortunately, we don't know such a route. We don't have any destination for this day, we just want to make sure that this city is not cool. We have this strange tradition of visiting Rapha cafes in various places around the world. Since it's in Singapore, we can't miss it here either. I'm almost certain that this is the last Rapha in Asia that we haven't been to. We spend about 40 seconds in the shop itself - that's enough time to find out that they don't have a cap with the city's name on it.
Okay, I lied a bit – we have one, very serious goal. A week earlier, on the plane, leaving Singapore, I got a message from papieże.na.bicykle. We have our papa in Singapore! As True Poles, we can't pass up such an opportunity. We're going to pay our respects. I'd like to say that the Pope protects us from the downpour with his walking stick, but it's exactly the opposite. We're hiding under the church, like many other people. If only they knew that there's a monument to a Pole there!
On the way we also pass store, living room, Pas Normal Studios showroom. We don't go inside, but Sylwia notices something on the shelf that (from that moment on) we absolutely want to have. It's a Shiba dressed as a Daruma doll, built from blocks. We launch Google, launch the chat, find 4 stores that sell it in Singapore. Each in a different, extreme point of the city, and we're right in the middle. In this clever way, we find the answer to the question "what to do all day long". Namely, we fight our way through all of Singapore to buy a Shiba dressed up from blocks. What don't you understand? :)
Sometimes I feel like the exaggerated number of happiness points at birth was too exaggerated. By pushing through the city, we discover its other side. Almost the entire return route we ride through one of the Park Connectors. This means that we almost constantly travel through something that looks like a botanical garden in the middle of the city. If I came to the city for a day and happened to bike to this part, I would say that it is the most wonderful city I have ever been to. Fortunately, it is not. We ride this way to the very center, which, as it turns out - when it is not raining and it is getting dark, is exceptionally beautiful. Despite a billion tourists on this Saturday evening.
On Sunday, all that's left is to catch a Grab to the airport to see the world's largest (of course) indoor waterfall and the garden (also indoor) around it. Our flight is at 10:30 – who could have guessed that the waterfall starts at 10:00…
Why do we go on vacation to such places?
Because it is so pleasant to return from them.
Then just a dozen or so hours of flight, a layover in Paris, a two-hour flight, a taxi, picking up the dog and you can go to sleep, so that in the morning you can sit down with a smile in front of your computer. That it's not raining, that you can live without air conditioning, that I'm not glued to the seat, that bread is crunchy, that people have dogs, that I can get to work from home on a bike path, that no one will beat me up for something and generally everything is wonderful. At least for the next month.
