With our arrival in Raub, we almost closed the Pahang loop, as we were was only about 35km from Bentong where the loop started. Raub was another rather uninspiring town, especially since the busy road no 8 runs through it. Nevertheless, we had good rain the past night and the morning was cool and foggy, perfect to start our ascent towards Fraser’s Hill. First, importantly, a nice breakfast in a Chinese coffee shop, great toast with tasty homemade kaya, and a cup of - you guessed it - kopi.
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| The Chinese coffee shop for breakfast |
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| Raub town in the early morning |
From Raub it was only a few km more on road no 8, and then we turned into a much smaller and very quiet road, all the way up to Fraser’s Hill. From the beginning we were surrounded by green, although for quite a while most of this green was plantation. Interesting detail: a lot of durian orchards!!! So this is where we should come during season... Also banana, rubber, some palm, and many other fruits.
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| View over the road with morning mist over the mountains, magical |
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| Met a Belgian happy cyclist |
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| Snapshot, it doesn’t get much better than this |
After a good 10km, there was a side road towards Bentong (which we obviously did not take), and from that point onwards our climb commenced - and it was all mostly through fantastic jungle. The climb itself was fine, first 20km up to the Gap, with an average incline of around 3.4% - very feasible. Midway we stopped for a break and met with a friendly and interesting French guy (Christian) on a motorbike. He was 70 (!) years old, had stopped working 15 years ago, looked like he was in his 50’s, was travelling most of the time with his wife on their sailing yacht (I know a guy like that) and in between travelled around, often on his motorbike. Wow, very inspiring!
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| Gently uphill through lush jungle and hardly any traffic |
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| The downside I was talking about a few days ago... This is during our stop at a small rest area midway on the climb, and again it was a rubbish dump. Are we the only ones who see this??? |
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| Almost at the Gap, with the obligatory picture |
From the Gap there was another 8 km to go to get to Fraser’s Hill (slightly steeper uphill now), where we had lunch, and then another nearly 3km to get to our place to stay:
Stephen’s Place. A place we had tried to stay at a few times before, it’s a small bed and breakfast, catering to nature lovers alike only, and often fully booked. So for people like us who tend to make last minute decisions where and when to go, no chance... This time we were lucky however to get a room for 2 nights, and we’re enjoying it enormously. Stephen is a nature cinematographer and photographer, he has worked years for the likes of BBC, National Geographic and so on. He’s incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about nature photography, and of course that’s very inspiring to me...
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| From the Gap this very small road leads to Fraser’s Hill. It used to be the only road connection to the hill station, a 1-way road, with traffic direction changing every hour; now there is another road coming down from the hill station. |
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| A fantastic ride up, just look at these giant ferns we’re riding along |
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| And the other obligatory picture at the Fraser’s Hill clock tower. We did it! Check! |
Tomorrow we’ll stay here for a day, sleep late, hang out, walk around, just enjoy the beauty, nature, peacefulness, and cool fresh air of Fraser’s Hill. Who knows, there might not even be a blog post tomorrow...
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| View over the cloudy valley |
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| Beautifully contrasting colours in the garden |