Almost 4 months after our previous short Malaysian tour, through Pahang, we have finally hit the road again! Hooray hooray, happy happy! Like Pahang, it's a ride of about a week and it's in Malaysia (although we'll end in Singapore; same same but different). There is an important difference however: this time we took a bus from Kuala Lumpur to Kuantan to start, and we'll end by (blush blush) flying back from Singapore - the carbon footprint story is definitely still active, not forgotten! More about that later...
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| Re-assembling the bikes in Kuantan bus station |
We had been informing ourselves about whether or not express buses in Malaysia would take the bicycles, and found quite a few sources saying that it's not usually done BUT it would probably be okay of we'd just ask the bus driver. In any case, I phoned a few companies, and most indeed said "unlikely", "have to check in the bus station", or just didn't know. Sani Express was clear however: yes, you can take your bicycles. And as they have a good reputation too, it was quickly decided.
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| Getting on the bikes, after a nice lunch and afternoon with Mei Mei and Michael in Kuantan |
Less smooth was our Grab ride to the bus station. We had packed our bikes properly, so taking them on the bus would be easy. We still had to get with them to the bus station of course, and that on a Monday morning during rush hour. So we pre-booked a big Grab car, already on Saturday, had a confirmation and... the driver cancelled on us 15' before he should have been there to pick us up this morning. Consequence: long wait to find another available car (that's alright) and DOUBLE the cost. In fact, the 30' taxi ride to the bus station was almost twice as expensive as the 2 bus tickets combined. So: bad points for Grab, good points for Sani Express!
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| Happy beach people |
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| The entire beach scenery, without people blocking the view |
The rest of the day went very smoothly. We arrived in Kuantan a bit past 1pm and met up with Mei Mei and Michael, hash friends who happened to be in Kuantan still for Chinese New Year. They picked us up from the bus station and we had a nice lunch together and a yummy cendol on top! After that long and very nice lunch/afternoon chill, they dropped us across the bridge from Kuantan, in Tanjung Lumpur and we started cycling from there. Easy cycling, flat terrain, slight cooling breeze, and less than 20km to do.
That brought us to Pantai (and that means: beach!) Sepat, and we stay in a nice homestay called Sepat Village House by the Beach - really, the name says it all. Tomorrow will be our first real day on the bike again, looking forward to it!
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| Arrival at the Sepat Village House on the Beach |
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| View from the back |
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| And a very typical east coast view |
