All posts by Julie Glynn

I am a Podiatrist and a mother of two boys (12 and 9 yrs old). We live in the idyllic town of Denmark in Western Australia. I have always wanted to take my family on a challenging character building adventure. I believe that there is only a small window of opportunity where your children and old enough to enjoy and remember the adventure but young enough that missing 6 months of school will not be too detrimental to their educations. This is that window. We are taking our two Bike Friday tandems to Singapore and we are planning on cycling to South Korea.
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Epic day

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87km

 I don’t know how we did it but we did. 

It all started this morning from Simpang. We left after an interrupted nights sleep. Two men were sitting in the reception area having a loud conversation.  Our room was just down the hall and their voices echoed down to our room. At 3am I lost my cool and yelled at them. I had to yell at them 4 times and go out into the corridor and stare at them before they stopped talking. The most annoying part was that the two men talking were the hotel night staff. 

We hit the road and had a good ride to the next town of Selama. When we arrived we realised that it was not really a town, more like a collection of building with the highlight being a 7/11. We found a Chinese restaurant were the waitress spoke pretty good English.  We had a nice lunch of mee ayam sup and orange juice ice. 

At lunch we checked out the hotel situation on Google.  The hotel situation was not good. We started looking further afield for a place to stay the night. We talked it out with the boys and it was decided that we would venture on to the next town of Kulim, 30km away. We broke the cycle up into 10km chunks and at around the 19km mark it started raining.  It was lovely and cool.  None of us cared that we were getting covered in mud and grit. There was one beautiful hill that we had to cycle up along the way.  It was so steep and remote, the jungle was beautiful and there was a clean babbling brook flowing along the road side. 

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Another storm. 

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After a fairly easy 50km cycle we arrived at the Potato Hotel. We don’t know why it is called Potato but it was the cleanest we could find in the area. We showered and relaxed for a while until the kids started to revolt.  They wanted out of the hotel room and were bursting with energy. (I’m beginning to think 50km is not long enough to wear out the kids) We checked out TripAdvisor to see what there was to do around the area. Mini golf won out over the charcoal factor, coffee factory or the local zoo. 

The mini golf was 5km away from our hotel so we decided to get back on our bikes and ride there.  As we left the hotel and headed east we saw dark ominous clouds over the highlands. About half way there, large drops started to fall. Lightning and thunder followed. Luckily for us we were just going under a freeway.  We stopped to shelter from the rain. Amazingly there was a large roadside food stall under the freeway. We ordered drinks and the kids joined in a bizarre game of cricket with the local kids involving a piece of 4×2 and rocks. 

After an hour the rain stopped and we all decided to head back to the hotel and not worry about playing mini golf.  

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Food, glorious food.

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This morning we woke to a storm. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain. It started around 3am with a hugh clap of thunder. The alarm went off at 6am but we stayed in bed until 7am, waiting for the rain to decrease.  When we go on the road it was lovely and cool. Probably the coolest we have felt in three weeks.

During the first hours of cycling every morning, the boys have got into a routine of looking out for a roadside Roti restaurant. Without fail we have discover one every morning for the past few days. Roti for breakfast is our favorite.  The one that we discovered this morning was amazing.  Huge selection of food and the roti was the best so far.


Julie

The things monkeys do in public. 

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We had a lovely night staying with a friends dad in Lumut. Thanks Mike for your hospitality. 


When we left Mike’s we had a short ride of 35km onto the next town, Pantai Remis. The ride had two memorable moments.  One was that we were joined on the road by three other cycling. We cycled with them for a while but in the end we could not keep up.  They were on faster bikes with no panniers.  

The other memorable event happened while we cycling over a remote bridge surrounded by jungle.  There was a troup of monkeys hanging about on the guard railing on the side of the bridge.  Most of them were just monkeying about but two of them were shagging. We were all impressed with their acrobatic skill but the boys were embarrassed for the monkeys.  I personally don’t think the monkey’s cared that we caught them at it. I didn’t get a photo because I was cycling and typically it was all over very quickly.  

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Best rest day so far!

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We booked two nights on Pangkor Island so that we could have a rest day. When we chose a hotel on Pangkor, we did not consider the elevation of the road to it. Because it was on the coast we assume the road would be flat. We were wrong.  There were two small hills along the coast, the only problem with them was their gradient.  The warning signs said 10% gradient but Allister and I both agree that it was more like 14%. Needless to say we made it up and over them but there was a little bit of swearing and sweating. 

When we got to our hotel it was beautiful. White sandy beaches with blue water and hardly anyone else around.  We played on the beach and drank fruit smoothies all day long. 


Julie

Two boats in one day

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Yesterday we arrived in the remote town of Bagan Datoh. It is an old town that was originally settled by Hindu’s from India. The people where friendly but they were very surprised to see tourists as the road stops at Bagan Datoh. It is a dead end town due to the Perak River. We had discussed with the kids all of the cycling options and they chose to cycle into Bagan Datoh and take the risk that we would not be able to get a boat across the river and would therefore have to cycle back 62 km to go around the only river crossing.

Allister spent 2 hours walking around asking about a boat with no luck. When he got back to the hotel he was hot and bothered and had reached a point were he was happy to cycle the extra 62 km. I on the other hand love cycling but hate backtracking. I convinced him to come out for another walk with me to see if we could find someone to help us. As we were walking along the fishermans road an old Chinese man called out to us, asking what we wanted. I walked over to him and asked about a boat across the river. At the time I could not have predicted how involved this process was going to be.

The Chinese man called out to a friend near by and explained to him what we wanted. The friend phoned anther man who must have  jumped on his motorbike straight away because he turned up about 5 minutes later. He then called someone else and so on until we were in a group of about 6 old Chinese men all talking at each other. After about 30 minutes of discussions the original man asked us how much we were willing to pay. Allister offered half of what he and I had discussed earlier. We obviously offered way too much because the 6 men did not have good poker faces. They were delighted at the offer (~$70 AUS). We were told to meet them at their fishing shack at 8am the following morning to catch our boat.

Best adventure so far.

Bike being lifted on a fishing hoist.

Bike being lowered in the boat View from the fishing shack.

Once we reached the other side of the river we had a lovely cycle to Lumut. We then jumped on a much bigger boat for the 20 ride to the Island of Pangkor.

Julie

Cycling to Kuala Selangor

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The day started out like a normal cycling day. Up early and on the road by 7.30am . We waved goodbye to our Warm Showers host, Chung and headed out of Port Klang. The roads were not too busy being a Sunday but there were no clouds and the sun was beating down hard.

Using maps.me, we were able to travel on side roads most of the day. I was the lead for the first half of the day. This means that Robert and I are at the front and we are responsible for the directions. So, we cruised along quite nicely until I started to get a headache and Allister took the lead. The sun was really high in the sky and there was no shade so we chose to stay as close to the coast as possible with the hope of a sea breeze.

We did get a sea breeze but we also got gravel, sand patches, deep, deep black and smelly mud. We also had close encounters dogs, lizards, Komodo Dragons, snakes and a horde of monkeys.  When I say horde, I’m talking around 30 of all different size monkeys crossing the path about 3 meters in front of us. Luckily all of the animals have been more scared of us than we are of them but I must admit that when I cycled within 10 cm of the snake I nearly did number 2’s in my knicks. 

 

 

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Curry Puffs

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Cycling today on some back roads. We went through palm plantations on gravel roads and it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We had a long stretch of no villages so we were in need of a rest stop but there was no good place other than the side of the road.  We decided that we would stop at the first place we came to. Eventually we reached a little food stall on the side of a road.  It seemed to be run by an Indian guy.  He did not speak any English so he made one of his other customers, who spoke English, serve us. We had ice tea and the best curry puffs I have ever had.  They were perfect. Tasty but not too hot. The filling was a really nice texture and the pastry was amazing.  He only had 6 and we eat them all. The other customers were laughing at us. I can only assume they were laughing because we demolished his supply of curry puffs in about 5 minutes flat.

Julie

Port Dickson

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Had a great afternoon in Port Dickson.  Our small unit had a great view over the ocean and the boys had a wonderful time in the pool. I find it amazing how there can hate each other one minute and then be the best of friends the next. 

The boys also had a game of soccer with some local kids. It was lovely to watch them playing.  They ever had a group of girls cheering for them on the sidelines. 

Had a great ride today.  It felt like we rode up hill for the first half then down hill for the second half. The 50km just flew by. I think we are all getting fitter and acclimatizating to the heat and humidity.  

Julie

Rain, puddles, grit and heat stroke.

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We have not had WiFi for a couple of days so there is a lot of stories to tell. 

Yesterday it rained and rained and rained. We were all soaked through, and I am talking about every nook and cranny was wet. Due to all of the puddles, we were also covered in grit. For 35km it rained, then suddenly it stopped and the sun came out with avengeance. It was hot. Really really hot. The black bitumen was like a stove top. The boys were going strong but I developed a headache that made me nauseated. I pushed through but with only 5km from our destination, I started to not be able to see properly.  The boys were great.  They poured water on my head while Allister rode ahead to get a cold drink for me.  I had to stop three times in the last 5km but we finally made it to the most beautiful spot so far. Umang-Umang Chalet  (baby turtle chalet). Right on the beach with mangrove trees all around.  Really lovely. I floated in the ocean until my headache subsided. 


During our ride yesterday we also tried another short cut. It was all looking really good until we were stopped by soldiers with guns.  We were told that we were not allowed to proceed because it was a military base. We had to ride all the way back to the main road. This time it was my fault.  Maps.me advised us to not go that way but I could see that the road went through. It did, but it was a no go zone. 

One thing I have noticed is that the further we get away from Johor, the friendlier people have become.  People are constantly waving, smiling and calling out greatings. It is really nice. 

Malacca was an interesting city with a rich history and welcoming to tourists.  The river running through the center of town is like a canal in Europe with building foundations defining the banks of the river.  We had a rest day in Malacca and rather than rest the boys wanted to do something. We talked about the different touristy things to do but in the end we decided on ten pin bowling. We caught an Uber for the first time and travelled 12km out of the city to have two games of bowls. What fun!!

Until our next WiFi. 

Julie