Let's try something different: a post with only pictures and captions... Here we go. Looking forward to your comments!
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| Seri Iskandar was a boring town with nothing to do, but the hotel was fine and more importantly, the road from Seri Iskandar to Parit was absolutely great. |
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| After Parit, in the direction of Kuala Kangsar, we chose the left side of the river again, and that was another hit! The scenery was magnificent, no traffic, and super friendly people everywhere. This picture is our coffee stop - yes of course we still do our mid morning coffee stops! That's an important tradition... |
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| Continuing on that road, with gently rolling hills, fantastic nature, good road and hardly any traffic. A real dream! Rolling hills, although tougher than flat roads of course, are also more interesting, there is more variation in cycling. |
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| We usually have some fruit with us, and banana's are excellent as they provide quick and healthy energy. We bought some banana's here for 1 ringgit (that's about 0,20 EUR) |
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| Final stop for the day: SukaSuka Lake Retreat near Lenggong; we found this homestay online, it looked great and the reviews were raving. So we tried it and were absolutely not disappointed. The homestay, near Lenggong, is on the way to Gerik. We had wanted to go to Gerik for many years already, and we thought this would be a good time for it! (more about that later). To get to this place however, we did not follow the main road N76 from Kuala Kangsar, but found small roads thereby mostly avoiding the busy, hot, noisy and smelly N76. Glad we did! |
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| Early morning, before leaving the SukaSuka, a picture with the owners. They were such amazingly friendly and welcoming people, and they treated us to a really delicious home cooked dinner (which we ate, as is the habit in Malaysia, with our hands and wearing a sarong!) and breakfast - all together with the family, sharing interesting stories. The SukaSuka sits at the edge of the lake (the oldest artificial lake in South East Asia apparently) with fantastic views (and a refreshing though muddy swim) and accommodation is in traditional wooden Malay houses. A highly recommended place! |
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| After a bit more than an hour on the N76 (less busy and noisy than the day before luckily) we found this gem of a place for our morning break. Shortly after this, we would leave the N76 and join a much smaller road. That also meant, we would not go to Gerik. When cycling, it's so much more about the journey than about the destination, and this small road - leading more west, so back in the direction of the coast rather than further up north - seemed much nicer (was also recommended by Aziz in the SukaSuka). So we followed our intuition and the recommendation. |
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| And that was a fantastic decision. The area was simply stunningly beautiful, all the way, and the road in good condition with no traffic to speak of. |
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| But... it was a serious climb, about 500m up with some steep sections of up to 10% incline, so quite a bit of push work. Still, that was so much worth it, and the good thing was that it cooled down a lot as we climbed - thanks to the elevation but also the mountains and forests surrounding us. |
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| After the climb, and the subsequent fantastic descent, it was the highest time for a meal. Laksa and a good ice tea, all you ever wanted! |
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| We've started to take breaks in the afternoon, because it simply is too hot to continue cycling for too long. So the past few days we stopped around 2-2.30pm for 1 to 1,5 hour, in a place in the shade, and just relax and enjoy. This is the view we were treated to when looking for our quiet and beautiful hideout. From here, it was another short hour to Selama, where we spend the night. |
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| By going via Selama and some other small towns, we stayed inland in Penang state, and avoided the bigger towns like Kulim or Bukit Mertajam. The roads remained mostly small and low traffic roads, only dotted with little villages from time to time. In between a lot of beautiful nature and plantations - mostly palm, but also rubber or various fruits. As you can see from my shadow, it's still early morning and the weather was nice and cool today (in the morning)! |
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| It does not always have to be in nature or plantations to find a good place to sit for the morning coffee. This football field, with a big patch of shade and overlooking an Indian temple was at least as nice. |
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| At some point our navigation pointed us into this small road, following an irrigation canal, that soon afterwards become a narrow unsealed road. We were not sure whether to continue or not, but luckily we did because... |
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| This is what we got for the next half hour or so. Unsealed but very rideable, rice paddies on the left, forests and plantations on the right, blue sky, no cars at all, no sounds other than the concert of the nature around us. And birds all over the place - although you don't see these on this picture unfortunately. |
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| There was another little road on our itinerary which we were not sure whether we could trust it or not, but again we were happy to follow it and ended up at this fascinating wooden bridge - for pedestrians, motorbikes and hey - bicycles! |
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| Our destination for the day: Sungai Petani. A bit bigger than other places we stayed at (well, it has almost half a million people!), but not too bad and we enjoyed a bit of strolling through town. We even have decent wifi in our room, something we haven't had that much on this trip so far... |