Melaka to Port Dickson to Kuala Lumpur!

I've moved again, now I'm in Kuala Lumpur for a week, but I think I'll extend that another few days to escape the following weekend after the Malaysia National day. All this week is mostly public holidays and festivals for the end of Ramadan (from what I understand anyway, there's no clear answer on this because of the moon (although, my GPS tells me where the moon will be, but this has to be sighted apparently)).

First off, leaving Melaka!

Here are Luc and Kent. Luc is staying at the hostel until he can find work here, and Kent and family run the place! Also proof it's me! And my bike!

Police were getting people off the road so they could transport this thing, whatever that is. Of course, this being Malaysia most poeple just kept trying to go around it, and people following were trying to overtake.

The beach just off the road from before. I tried to follow the road along the coast as much as possible, a lot of it looked like this, and smoggy.

Another example of beach further North.

From what I understood of the sign, this was a fish market out over the water. I think.

Hmm, maybe I should ride on the beach!

Oh that's not allowed? What else isn't allowed? How about that bottom right one.

So after this small run of 80km or so I ended up at Cocobay Resort in (near) Port Dickson. I had booked the cheapest hotel I could because everywhere else was in the $50-400 range and just wanted to have a quick look at the area. The resort comfort roughly matched the price though. Outside it looked very run down, but there were staff all over doing whatever. There were security gates around it which I guess is comforting that they're there, but it also means I'm in an area where they are needed. About 10 other people seemed to be staying at this place and by my rough guess there should have been about 200 rooms. Only three of the lights worked inside the room, and by the second night that was only two. The hose next to the toilet was constantly dripping (the poo cleaning hose...) and I noticed later on that the pipe from the room above was dripping into the sink. But I've stayed in worse. 


The only thing that really annoyed me was the constant loud bangs I could hear through the day and night. I think it was something to scare away birds, but because the birds fly back it kept going off every 15 minutes or so. It was loud enough to rattle the door occasionally, so then sleeping was a problem.

I had a quick look around Tanjung Tuan while I was there. They charge 1RM to go in, and then it's a 400m walk to the top, but it's steep, and it was very humid. I was in my full motorbike gear of course, and once I got to the top it looked like I had been swimming in it. I only got a few photos up there because I was broken after walking up in the heat. From the top you can sort of make out Indonesia, but it's still very smoggy. Other than that you can see ships and oil rigs. I think it would have been better to go down to one of the beaches but that was another 400m down, and then back up, and then down again.

The way down, from the smaller camera.

The way up, from the big camera!

And this is what's at the top! This is a stop for birds migrating to Australia too (some that end up in Melbourne!). Also in this photo you can see what happens when  the Malaysians unload bricks. They just dump them out of a truck and then sort through for the unbroken ones, which might be close to half of what's there.

This is Tanjung Tuan, from the beach out the front of the resort (well, out the gate, down a road, down some steps, then leap off the wall onto the sand).

After Port Dickson it was time to go to Kuala Lumpur! Unfortunately the rain had also started and I had 150km to cover. I left when I saw a small break in the rain but I was riding through this unfamiliar place struggling to follow my GPS's directions for about 30 km. Then finally! It stopped for a bit and my jacket dried out a little (I was still dry inside it). Riding through palm plantations until I got to the Sepang Formula 1 track which is right next to the airport!

They have a museum and a tour at the track but I was still very damp, so I had a quick ride around to see what I could see of the track (not much). I might go back later in the week if it fines up a bit, or maybe I'll come back for the Motogp in October, I'll need to do a visa run from Thailand around that time! 

I found some fuel near the airport and managed to get to a petrol station with a McDonalds JUST as the heavy rain started again! So looks like lunch was decided for me. After giving up on the rain easing any time soon, I headed out for the run into Kuala Lumpur. Little did I know I'd be heading right to the busy part of KL in this rain. The GPS didn't seem to know about some expressways and kept trying to direct me onto others that didn't exist. Traffic, rain, and possibly outdated maps made this very difficult (that's some whitepeopleproblems of course!).

But here's the time-lapsed video of getting lost several times on the way in, and the rain:

Note the motoribke bypasses for the tolls. Awesome!

I have to fit in a motorbike service, a camera service (the little one isn't focusing properly) while I'm here, and next week is holiday week.