Day 30 / 28th Feb 2013
Kanthan Baru to Slim River
Yesterday we did 154 kms. On this trip, most of the days
we have been doing 100+ kms, as the distance we had chosen and the time we had allotted was pretty tight. The roads are mostly flat but weather is
hot and humid. Our advantage is we are riding light. We could ride light as weather
in all these countries is warm barring north Vietnam, we are eating out as food
is reasonably cheap and available at every nook and corner, we are not camping.
So we have very little clothes to carry, no food at all neither the camping gear.
After a month on the road we feel nothing at all after a 100+ kms ride. The problem
is the heat and high humidity. It becomes virtually impossible to ride between 12.30 to 3.00 in the afternoon.
Today we started at 7 am. In Malaysia the time is GMT +8:00
where as it is GMT +7:00 in Thailand though both the countries are at same longitude.
So even at 7 am it is dark these days and we cannot start earlier than 7:00. We
had stayed just 18 kms before Ipoh and at these early hours all the roads were busy
with people going for work. Within no time we reached Ipoh, which is a big city.
We bypassed it and took a road to Kuala Lumpur, but whatever we saw of Ipoh was
impressive. Good broad roads, nice buildings, especially the area which has golf
course was very nice. After crossing Ipoh we stopped for breakfast.The people at
the food stall were friendly and generally every were in Malaysia when people ask
us where we come from and we answer Pune, near Mumbai, they are pleased and always
ask about bollywood and about Shahrookh Khan. They like to watch hindi movies and
love Shahrookh.
By lunch time we had covered 96 kms and then it started
raining. We stopped for a while in a shade, then as rain subsided started off again.
At km 114 we completed 2000 kms of our cycle ride. So we stopped, clicked photographs,
and celebrated the completion of 2000 kms by eating hand full of dry fruits.
At km 128 we saw a sign of home stay and as there were all
the signs of heavy downpour, decided to stop for the night. The concept "Home
Stay" seems different here. People rent out there furnished houses for theweek
end. Our home was nice, but it lacked the cultural experience that we get in home
stays at Ladakh. The landlord got us bottled water, fish curry and rice for dinner. Kedar said the fish was not at all 'fishy' :-)
At one of our tea stops we met a girl who volunteered to be our translator as the folks at the stall were finding it difficult to understand that we needed water with ice. She was studying Chemical Engineering as her father wanted her to be an engineer, she was the eldest among 6 sisters and 3 brothers. Her father had worked in the army till his retirement and was now a farmer with just about an acre of land. She was expected to support her siblings through school and college. She was also complaining that preference was given to boys when it came to jobs. We told her that since we all had much smaller families it was much easier to plan and the expenses were much lower.
