06/12: Teluk intan

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Yesterday we had a slow day on Pulau Pangkor. Some swimming, eating, drinking, cards playing...garmin software swearing ;-)

Anyway, today left the island after breakfast. Did the 2 hills to the ferry pier smoothly, so we were ready to depart from Lumut at something before noon. Weather was getting better so we quickly slapped on some sunblock (read; quickly)
Andries noticed he destroyed one of his (plastic) pedals while pushing himself across the island probably...Lumut doesn't have a bike shop: we had to hope finding something on the road or in Teluk Intan.

Biking (total of 70km) was certainly better for Andries today, he didn't feel so destroyed as the first time. It also really felt to go faster. Refueled with some great food from a roadside shack. Potentially even the best dish we had until now....not bad for a roadshack...After that it got ***** hot at some point, pedalling & baking through a flat open strech we crossed a large bridge that pops out of the earth as a moles heap to reveal palm plantations as far as the eye could see on the otherside of the river.

Found a bikeshop at the entries of town, the friendly guys there quickly updated Andries his broken pedal for some metal ones.
Tried the only clearly posted hotel we could find (Anson) which was a bit expensive...tried another one after asking around (Aun How Home)...found it, to see it was just some houses in a residential area with a phone# posted outside...why not? Called them, somebody came, showed us a (what looked like) brandnew room, paid, got a key and thats that. The guy asked us how we found him, even he seemed surprised, locals only I guess? (or he has a freaky fetish, Some collects cars...others hotels?)

Settled down, all feeling a bit baked...some more than others...read the previously "quickly" slabbed on sunscreen?...Andries joined the club and has clear foot/arm/leg bike-tan seperation lines! Burn baby burn.

6/12...St Nicolas in Belgium...so we got the open a present from home. Had to sing a song though to deserve it!
Youtube video of us singing Thanks for the treat...mmm, speculoos tastes so good.

04/12: Ipoh to Pulau Pangkor

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Left Charles appartment this morning at eight. (Thanks again for the great 3 days: you were a great couchsurfer-host and we hope to see you next weekend!) We had a at least a solid 90 km ahead to get to the island. The weather wasn't all that great (gray and raindrops once and a while), but that turned out to be great biking weather.

After a good 90km ride we managed to arrive in Lumut to take the ferry to the island. Andries his arse is shattered on the first day! Hehehe, we are of to a good start, thats for sure. The island was super busy, it's school holiday + weekend + long weekend...oeps, all hotels are booked solid...struggled a bit to find a place to sleep, found a spot that we took (but it was shit actually) so biked back into town looking for a potential other place and with some luck found it! Back to the first place, get all our stuff, wave quickly at the guy and disappear. Now we have a relatively nice bungalow and wifi in the area. Good enough. Time to rest.

I do have to make 1 more note, Garmin Software SUCKS!! The hardware gps is fine, but there software is the worst piece of ******* ever to be developed by mankind. Especially their Training Center to use with Edge 205/305 is total crap. Maybe thats the only real crap they have, but thats what I have...anyway, ventilated again...pffff.
 

03/12: Ipoh

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Na ons ontbijt zijn Andries en ik naar een waterval gaan kijken in de jungle om de hoek. We wisten dat er bloedzuigers waren dus een lange broek aan en een aansteker mee om ze er af te branden (je mag ze er blijkbaar niet aftrekken want dan blijft mond steken). Met een bang hartje de junglestrook in. Op het einde toch maar eens checken, had ik toch wel geen bloedzuiger op mijn kous zeker?!!

Bebloede kous en flippende Line (en Andries!) als gevolg :) Kous uitgesmeten en bloedzuiger er willen afbranden. Dit werkt dus niet he mensen! Andries ook maar gecheckt, die had ook prijs. Ik heb het dus op een lopen uit de jungle gezet en Andries moest mij dus wel achterna :) Eens er uit en op een open stuk hebben we dan gestript tot op ons ondergoed om te checken dat we geen bloedzuigers meer hadden... van banden smeden gesproken ;)

Totaal bezweet en nog beetje schrik dat er nog ergens bloedzuigers zaten (maar ook wel lachen met onze reactie over zo'n klein -maar toch zeer vies- beestje) snel terug naar huis gestapt waar we het verhaal aan een lachende Ardan vertelden :)
Meteen nog eens alles gecheckt, zwemkleren aan en in het zwembad van onze Charles zijn compound gedoken!
Dat was het avontuur voor de voormiddag.

Tot bedaren en afkoelen gekomen zijn we dan naar Ipoh centrum gegaan om Andries zijn fiets op te halen. Daarna wat rondgefietst naar een grottempel om de fiets te testen. Hij rijdt verbazingwekkend goed volgens Andries.

Toch hebben we besloten om de Cameron Highlands te laten voor wat ze zijn. Op googlemaps gezien dat de hoogtelijnen toch een beetje te ambitieus zijn voor Andries en mij. Ardan zou het misschien wel aankunnen. (al is het wel verdomd zwaar werk! Continue 5% tot stukken rond de 10% voor een dikke 40km...stevige kost)

Morgen vertrekken we dan met zijn drieën zuidwaarts zodat we 13 december Karolien in Kuala Lumpur kunnen verwelkomen.

2/12: Ipoh temples + getting andries a bike!

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Our couchhoster Charles had to go to Kuala Lumpur for business so he proposed to ride andries back to Ipoh. What a guy! Andries tried to arrange a bike while in KL, but it proved to be unsuccesful...:-( We didn't think too much about the fact that andries is relatively tall, so all asian bikes available are too small. Would we find something?? Awch, imagine we can't? Luckily he decided to go to 1 more shop in Kuala where he found the best bike he found until now. He just got it to have a bike.

  

No seriously, he didn't go for this option. We figured we had to find a bike in Ipoh instead.

Anyway, while andries was on his way to Ipoh, Me & Line biked around town to visit 1 of the surrounding cave temples. Perak Tong cave temple, a big limstone cave turned into a chinese temple with 415 stairs leading to the top of the hill from where you can look over ipoh city and beyond. Rewarding views for the exercise.  Had lunch at a local restaurant where the owner-chef, Andy, was a biker as well. He was very interested in talking to us, warning us about the steep climbs to go into the cameron highlands. Is it a good plan to bike up there and down again? Time will tell, finally we spend about 2 hours sitting together in his restaurant until Andries & Charles arrived.

Andries still didn't have a bike so we went to the nearby (80y old) bikeshop in Ipoh...asked for a "big" frame and we found our way up to an oldstock stashed away in the attic, had some discussions on the price, hesitations if this was ok, but this is going to be the best deal we can find. 400rm = about 100€ and there aren't any bigger bikes around anywhere :-)
The bikeshop is building the bike up as we speak...we all can't wait to wee it tomorrow...

     oldskool!

01/12: Ipoh Town

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Took an early train down to Ipoh (get up at 5:30am, ough) where we meet up with andries in a day. He is in Kuala Lumpur since today and is trying to score a bike...cross our fingers! Also the national malaysian train company KTMB have a quite solid theme tune that is played on the train...and loud during the intro film on the onboard screen...video with the party tune

Using couchsurfing today & tomorrow. Charles, an ipoh local who just moved back to ipoh after 10y of living in New Zealand is taking us into his brandnew house (just living there for 2weeks!). Great guy, took us out for drinks, food, get malay sim cards (check column for our new nr.) and we get a personal room! Waw, couldn't ask for more.

He even has to go down to KL tomorrow, so he will pickup andries and get him back to Ipoh. Are we (he) lucky or what?