Encounter

DAY FIVE (Kuala Kangsar - Alor Setar 205km)

Yes, it seems quite likely that I will reach Hat Yai tomorrow. Today was well, hyped in my mind as a hard day, but turned out easy-yet hard.... Due to unforseen circumstances. Simply put, the route turned out to be very straight forward, and the terrain very flat, but something went wrong inside, which made the journey difficult....

Well, I woke today at 5am (miracle...) after having slept at 9pm the previous night. I think the root of my problems started here, when I ate the breakfast I bought from the previous night... I ate a sardine puff, kaya bun but when I came to the chicken bun and hotdog bun.... Well, I can only say something tasted wrong. Well, most who know me know that I'm hardly ever picky with food, but for the first time, I spat out what I ate... Yikes. On closer inspection, the packaging looked to have 'water droplets' condensed on the insides. Great. Well, anyways I ate my left over Frosties night snack instead (yeah,. I failed to finish previously cos too much).

I left at 630am and reached Butterworth in speed, at 1045am, 112km. There, I ate lunch, which consisted of Nasi Briyani Ayam and 2 ice milos. And when I left, it started raining.... And then came the problem. My stomach was in pain, and I needed the toilet right away.

As you can see I was not very enthusiastic about my breakfast, nor the sleepiness and the camera flash in my eyes.

It was really dark and quite empty when I left Kuala Kangsar.

The top of the 10 mins 13kmh climb at the start of the day, just before the descent.

An interesting bridge. It looks kinda crooked doesn't it?

A toll station when I went from the state of Perak to Kedah

Empty roads behind.

Some train service docks.

Bridge to Butterworth.

That bridge in the distance is none other than Penang bridge.

Empty expressways are great =)

An example of the road markers which guide me along the way. Well, this particular one is wrong. Alor Setar was still 94km away, not 64...

Butterworth looked like this.

I can only say it was debilitating. I just started getting weaker and weaker as the pain increased, and I could not move faster than 24kmh. There was no petrol kiosk in sight too. I was thinking: 'I've come 120km with such ease, and it's only 80 km left but... 3-4 hours in this state? No way" I only finally found one 10 mins later. I think the motorists who passed would have been wondering why this slow moving cyclist was putting on such a fierce expression.... Well, I shall not describe what happened but it was bad. I hate squatting toilets, and well, as I was in kind of a desperate frame of mind, I did the bike in cubicle trick again. But well, I survived.

When I got back on the bike about 30 mins later, I was kind of in a weakened state. Body had cooled down and it was still raining. Oh yah, I realised over the days that my body takes somewhere between 30min-1hr to warm up. And if you wondering I actually don't do stretches at all.... Somehow I I just believe in slowly easing into the action. There's no fast twitch involved in this anyway, and it's nearly totally aerobic. Yeah, so it took me about 30 mins to settle back into rhythm.

Good things only lasted for a while, and 40km later, I needed to go again. There was still 30km, so I had no hope of reaching the hotel.... There was that much toxins in my body to purge... In retrospect, I think other factors besides the spoilt food might have caused this bout of stomach problems. I had 2 ice milos and spicy stuff the previous night, then drank 500ml of milk at night, and had more spicy stuff and 2 ice milos again for lunch today, so perhaps that is why also. Perhaps a cumulative effect. Yeah, so that summarised my problems for the day. Sort of.

Well, due to the rain and the sandy malaysian roads, everything was just so dirty and full of grime. I spent more than an hour doing the laundry etc. And to top things off I noticed a hissing sound as I wheeled my bike into the lift and to my room... Yeah, it was coming from my rear wheel. So that leaves 15mins of homework later. But anyways I'm staying in an RM118 hotel now, which means I enjoyed the bathe tub and had lots of room to do the laundry.

My hotel for the night. My most ex one at 118RM.

Messy streets of Alor Setar.

Well, so that about sums up my day today. It wasn't that exciting, and I'm sorry but I decided to generalise all the small towns and villages I passed through today. They have been about the same as those I passed before, and since I was late I just passed them asap.

Oh yah, have I mentioned about how malaysians in general are friendly to cyclists like myself? Nearly all the kids you pass will say hi and cheer you on, and the teenagers and youngsters alike give you the thumbs up etc... I guess for the kids is somethings fresh and interesting, and for the young adults they realise that I'm but a traveller passing through with a long way top go.... Yeah, in Singapore people will just ignore cyclists, since they are just paddling in circles. But in malaysia you have cyclists who actually travel. I saw one ang moh with full bike panniers today. Well, it made me realise, comparatively, how light I was actually travelling. I only had a 9kg bag attached. Those guys are lugging about 30kg along. I wonder why though.... i certainly would not have survived those climbs, and might have washed out on the descents....

Speaking of which, there was 1 descent earlier on today, after a 10 min 13kmh climb. I think this one might have been the fastest, not for the fact that I was afraid of crashing and braked.... The car behind wasn't showing me much respect even at 55kmh he stilll decided ot overtake me, which gave me no confidence to use the whole road to negotiate the downhill corners... In the event the front vehicle slowed there would be no way I could decelerate in time either, so my speed did not exceed 62kmh today.

Ok, enough talk. I shall go refuel etc. The next time I blog shall be in Hat Yai, Thailand =)