Cameron Highlands to the Thai Border: 333 miles

After days of climbing, I now blew everything on an almighty 80km descent to the city of Ipoh. This would cost me big at some point but at least the long straights and gentle curves made for an enjoyable ride (no frantic clinging to the brakes!).

It was National Day weekend and good timers were out in force heading the other way. Countless large groups went by on motorbikes, often with matching t-shirts or jackets. If you were really cool though, you could rest your leg on your friend’s bike making a kind of chain across the road.

I also passed my first group of cyclists, again making a fabulous effort with matching national gear.

It wasn’t long before I was in Ipoh.

Ipoh had clearly been dreamt up at Instagram HQ with street art on every corner, amazing food – there was an entire road dedicated to dessert (..and clams.. weirdly) – plus heaps of trendy cafes with spartan, sealed concrete decor. Needless to say I fitted in perfectly with my very practical rubberised Keen sandals.

Ipoh’s Chinatown, with its faded shophouses, stood as a kind of monument to the boom years of the tin trade. I’d passed several towns basking in the same faded glory but was a little self conscious taking photos. Here it was encouraged 🙂

My visit coincided with the city’s ‘Sama Sama’ festival. Sama sama is Malaysian for “you’re welcome”, but essentially means ‘the same’ and the festival was an effort to build understanding between Malaysia’s different ethnic and religious groups.

It’d been a surprise to see how monocultural small towns often were on the east coast. Where towns were mixed, Straits Chinese and Malay Muslims often ate in separate restaurants, sent their kids to separate schools and sometimes had separate neighbourhoods too.

With this in mind, it was great to see Malaysians of all backgrounds enjoying the festival and waving the flag together in Ipoh .

After Ipoh I continued vaguely north, detouring to a few fishing villages on the coast. The first, Kuala Sepetang, was baffling on arrival, the river hidden by the homes and shophouses that backed right onto it.

When I finally found the water a fellow visitor, Johnathon (up from KL), introduced himself. He was such an interesting guy (working for the Singaporean foreign service) and a super handy travel buddy with English, Malay, Mandarin and even the local Hokkien dialect at his disposal. It was great to hang out over drinks and dinner.

The village was so fun I forewent my usual early start on the bike to take some pictures of the local market the next day.

From one fishing village to the next, it was great seeing all the action on the water and fish drying right out on the roadside. There aren’t that many visitors out here but those that do come usually have one thing in mind: eating lots and lots of prawns! My ‘no shrimp’ allergy card was hard for some vendors to fathom…

Prawns avoided, I got moving to Penang, passing all kinds of factories on the way. The industrial route helped skip the expressway, but also brought some macabre roadkill, pretty mean looking dogs and gauntlets of aggressive monkeys that gathered on narrow bridges. It was good to get to the ferry.

Whilst Penang is much more commercial and tourist orientated than the rest of Malaysia, Georgetown was still a very ‘real’ city with all manner of obscure micro-industries taking place in its shophouses. I spent a nice afternoon dodging the rain and (unsuccessfully) hunting for various bits to clean the bike (powered on by three breakfasts… you’re only in Penang once!).

My goal from here was the border and I cooked up a plan to avoid a boring slog up the main highway north. I’d read (on one auto-translated blog) about a ferry, which (if working) would link up two backroads separated by a wide rivermouth and bay.

The blog was several years old and I arrived to find the beach deserted and the jetty part collapsed. After waiting around for an age, I folornly returned to the road to begin the 25km journey back to the turn off.

Then, as I hit the tarmac, the hum of an engine!

…The boat was running and a man with a movie star mustache helped me haul the bike aboard, linking me up with quiet roads all day on the other side. Success!

After a night in Alor Setar, I was in striking distance of Thailand, but Malaysia conspired to make me stay with several people hailing me down for long chats as I gunned for the border.

I met:
Yahala – having studied in LA in the 70s, he loved meeting foreigners and actually jumped on his motorbike from his house to come and find me. “You wouldn’t believe it”, he said, “a kampung (village) boy like me in America…”. We dropped into the local roti joint where he introduced me to all present.

I was then flagged down by a fellow cycle enthusiast – who ran a Muslim outreach service (Musallah on Wheels) – and pulled in for a chat at his depot. He had great stories about Malaysian families carrying out epic overland adventures, gave me book about one of them and said he’d dreamed about doing a long cycle tour of his own. There was much chat about gear 🙂

By this time it was late and I didn’t fancy sleeping out near the border so, after passing this very patriotic scarecrow…

..I pegged it up to the checkpoint (a monster climb), and after a bit of paperwork and money changing settled down for the night, camping at the conveniently located Thaleban National Park just a few km into the Thai side.

I’d grown fond of Malaysia and now found myself as something of a stranger in Thailand. The park’s mischievous monkeys, (which pinched my washing powder!), were a welcome distraction as I contemplated what lay ahead.