Run to the Hills

Yesterday morning I decided to start my bike for the first time in a week and go for a ride through the hills near Kuala Lumpur.

I'd seen a couple of lakes on google maps that looked close by with some minorish roads that ran between them in a nice loop. I had no idea what was out there except the lakes, so I went to explore! Here is a brief map of the route I intended to take (and stuck with it I think).

I tried to leave early enough to get out on the roads before most of the traffic. Like Australia people don't really get moving here until 10-11am.

First place I stopped at was Kampung Kuala Pangsun. I think. I went through it up towards the lake I'd seen on the map, but I think it's a town water reserve, so you can't get in. Just outside of Kuala Pangsun were a few reserves, with a Malay word that looked roughly like 'recreation'. My GPS said they were parks also, but they had little huts built on them.

These huts!

They were all vacant, but they all had phone numbers and a small dollar figure and a word that I think means rent:

RM25 to rent. About $8.

They were all in front of this part of the creek:

Huts were on the right here. I was standing in the water to cool down my boots!

Swimmin hole!

Then it was off to explore more. I took this video along the way:

It's a long video. But now you can get a better look at the villages landscape out here. You can use the playback speed option in youtube to make it go faster. I've also realised with the camera on the right you see more of the road and front tyre than anything so I'll have to move it somewhere else.

I darted in to Sungai Gabai Falls, as you can see from the video, I didn't see the sign until quite late! It costs 1RM to get in (32cents), and because I was on a bike, someone waved me through past all the cars to a large area just for bikes, right near the water and shop! It was quite popular yesterday, there's a swimming hole at the bottom of the falls and another at the top with a large amount of stairs between them.

Looking down.

Looking up. More stairs... [Just noticed how blurry that one was. So I replaced it with a less blurry one....]

Picnic spots!

On the way up there are several little huts next to the falls for people to set up picnic's in, and a small space to start a fire outside for cooking.

Big groups were walking up to the top carrying bags of cockles, rice, and cooking equipment, most of them complaining about the number of stairs. I just didn't complain loudly.

Another hut, down from the main walkway up.

Some obscured water.

The top!

I didn't get any photos of the full falls, I'm not sure that I could, they were on a slight curve and there were lots of people in the way anyway.

I headed back out for another run and saw these things also:

Hmm... I don't remember either of these town names from the map. Time for a google maps check.

After I hit the above intersection The road turned into this awesome windy road along the edge of a lake. It still had it's usual potholes in places but it was mostly a good surface and hardly any traffic, I had fun. And there's no video to prove it.

Looking out over the lake

Fun road!

Lots of cemeteries out here, but before long it was back to the populated areas for the ride back to the middle of Kuala Lumpur. Not so fun now it was in the early afternoon heat. I'd also finally figured out I'd set my GPS to avoid tolls while in Singapore which is why it was giving me all these odd directions here, wish I'd know that before all the rain on the way in.

Two nights left in Kuala Lumpur, bike still hasn't been serviced because of the holidays. I'll do a run to the East coast and then probably come back through KL to get that done.