Leaving Pulau Sibu was not easy, it was such a paradise! We had a day of real "dolce far niente", on our balcony overlooking the sea. OK, we did make a short walk and went a few times to the restaurants for the meals. But that was about it! We had an early boat out, and were on our bikes at 9.30am. The sun had already gathered good strength, and with the same spicy hills as on the way in, the sweat started to stream down quickly. God, it was hot already!
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| Late afternoon view from our balcony. The island is Pulau Tinggi, an old volcano. |
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| Still from the balcony, this time the view to the right. |
Once we arrived back to the road which we came from 2 days before, we now turned to the other direction, and continued for kms and kms through palm plantation. We also made a wrong turn at some point, which cost us a few extra kms - until the friendly people in a village told us we were going to a dead end... We turned back and continued, over the rolling hills, through palm. As we had set out a bit late, we had a late morning break in a nice shady spot in the plantation, then continued a little more until lunch. At lunch we met 12 cyclists from Singapore who were on a 2-day trip, nice; they had good road bikes and a sweeper car with all the luggage, obviously going much faster than us.
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| Coffee stop in the palm plantation |
Mid afternoon we found a nice place to stay in Sedili Kechil, after 56km; we could have continued for another 20+ km to the next town, but it was too hot and we would have enough time the last day to get to the ferry anyway. So we stopped a bit early, found ourselves in a nice resort and with us: the 12 Singaporean cyclists. We spent some time in our AC room to cool down and rest, after a heavenly shower, did some reading and later in the afternoon went for a nice walk on the beach.
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| Late afternoon at the low tide beach in Sedili Kechil |
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| The low sun and the ripples in the wet sand make for beautiful patterns |
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| Aaaahhhhhh |
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| These are the remains of some mangrove vegetation, washed away and then again on shore on the beach. Quite beautiful... |
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| A fish farm near the river mouth |
The last day then, we left early again, as we wanted to take full advantage of the cooler part of the day. It was a very nice start of the day, beautiful and cool, and we made good progress along the small coastal road south. The group of Singaporean cyclists left a bit later, but soon overtook us. We had the road mostly to ourselves, to a large extent still surrounded by palm but now also sometimes with some other vegetation. I'm sure we cycled more than 100km through palm on this trip, incredible; it's everywhere, it's huge!
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| Fantastic early morning scenery, and no car to be seen |
The day went very smoothly, and we arrived 2 hours before the ferry departure in Kampung Belungkor, where we would take the ferry to Singapore. No problem, just enjoyed the rest, it rained so it cooled down a bit, we had a nice cold drink, ... Taking this ferry with the bicycles was very easy, just rolled them onto the boat after immigration and that was that. Also in Singapore, we went through the small immigration building with the bikes and after the entry stamp was in the passport, rolled out on the other side! Our friend, Koen, had come to meet us on the bicycle and together with him we rode the last 20-something kms to his place. But, before getting there, we had a short stop for a quick late (second) lunch at the East Coast food court, with of course: chili stingray!!! You can't go to Singapore without having that delicious dish!
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| Almost at the ferry, time for a last long break |
We finished that day's ride, clocked 98km for the day, another beautiful day, and that was the end of our east coast trip - around 450km all together! It was so nice again, very different from the other 2 rides in Malaysia (
west coast up to Langkawi, and
Pahang round), nice roads, great to follow the coast and stay near the beach each night, fantastic to have the nights at Pulau Sibu, encountered such nice people, had great food, ... We also sweat a lot, it was hot as usual and on top of that, the sun was out all day with hardly any cloud cover, every day. The result: both of us had quite a bit of sunburn, despite a lot of protection...
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| Waiting for the (Limbongan) ferry, then a 30' ferry ride to Singapore |
We're back home now since 4 days - finally time to make that last blog post - and now will be home for a couple of weeks. The next trip is coming up soon: Melbourne and Tasmania! Leaving early April... Looking forward!!!
