cycle – Adam Teale

Day 27: Batu Pahat to Singapore

Could this be it???

Yes.

WE MADE IT TO SINGAPORE!!!

But what a hell of day!

I was joking about having some contracted some kind of disease yesterday. But today I felt very ill all day. But it could just be fatigue combined with lots of mosquito bites. TIme will tell.

After working out what would possibly be our last route to take we said cheerio to Batu Pahat and headed to Pontian Kechil.

Luckily as we got into the ride my flu symptoms started to go away ad we were able to get some distance covered.

The road we should have taken

(The entrance to Singapore we think we should have taken).

After 100km or so we made it to the home stretch and everything was coming up roses. The guy at the toll booth / customs to exit Malaysia let us through without having to pay.

(free exit)

So here we are, passing into Singapore Immigration. Everything looked great. Until a couple of officials came running up to us and looked very worried.

We’d joked about how we’ll probably accidently break the law in Singapore.

Before we knew it we were inside explaining why we had ridden our bikes into Singapore.

Apparently it had been 20 years since the last time someone rode in through this bridge. Why?

Well it turns out …. IT IS ILLEGAL!

The Customs officials were going to send us back to Malaysia to reenter Singapore from the Jahor Bahru entrance. If I hadn’t just cycled 120km I’d have been ok with it but I was exhausted.

LUCKILY after a few phone calls to their superiors the Customs guys let us through and escorted us to the highway (which is also illegal to ride on).

(Tiger beer brewery!)

Awesome – Nicholas and I got flat tyres within 5 minutes of each other . It felt like we were never going to make it to Singapore!

So here we are. We made it to Singapore!

It feels weird. It’s been nearly a month on the road. We’ve ridden something like 2100km!

I have felt better.

Total KM: 150km

Day 26: Malacca to Batu Pahat

So close to Singapore! Nearly the home stretch! That’s if can make it…

I am covered in some sort of bites, assuming them to be mosquito bites, but yes I’m not a doctor. Fingers crossed I don’t have dengue, n1h1, malaria or any other excellent disease.

We said goodbye to Steven and the Shirah’s guesthouse and continued towards Singapore eventually stopping at a town called Batu Pahat.

Got some great vegetarian food here with ‘fake meat’ (why even bother?).

BP is a pretty decent sized town but was a bit of a struggle to find a place to sleep. Ended up in a brothel but the price for the room inc. girl for the night was too high. 🙂

Ended up at the cheapest place we could find called “Fairyland” – 30RM.

Total KM: 95km

Day 11 – Hay Yai (Thailand) to Langkawi Island (Malaysia)

We made it to Malaysia after 1200km+ !

Day 11: Hat Yai (Thailand) to Langkawi Island (Malaysia)

Day 12: Pantai Cenang (Cenang Beach), Langkawi Island

Day 12 began with an attempt to ride from Kuah over to Pantai Cenang (a.k.a Cenang Beach).
I think I must have got up out of the wrong side of bed today, or maybe the humidity is just annoying.
An attempt to ride over in the morning just ended up being hot and frustrating, with the tray on the back of my bike finally giving way – the single bracket that joins the frame to the bar under the seat snapped!

Grabbed some breakfast at a local place for about 14RM (2 people inc. 2 milk teas) and I asked the gentleman who served us if he knew where i could get my bike fixed. He got his son to take us up the street and show us the place!

2RM later I was back on the road thanks to the helpful guys at the local scooter/bike repair shop.

The middle of the day was pretty hot and humid so just killed that off catching up on web based cool stuff and then hot back on our bikes around 4pm – was a little cooler.

The ride over to Pantai Cenang must be about 20km or so maximum. It’s a really nice ride, a bit hilly but we were able to gun through it a bit without the weight of our bags to hold us back.
Good fun on the downhills

We got to Pantai Cenang after about 45 minutes just as the sun was starting to head home.
It’s a pretty spectacular view here and a nice beach too. The sun continued to set and created one of those amazing ‘matte-painting’ style vistas that looked kinda fake. 🙂

It’s nice here, but maybe the kind of nice that you use when you talk about someone who is nice. Not cool. Not crazy. Not unbelievable. Just nice, & clean.
Nice place, but i’ve got no problem staying in Kuah for 40RM/night at the Hotel Asia.

Leaving Pantai Cenang guess what happened?
NICHOLAS GOT A FLAT TYRE.
It was inevitable, funny we made it the whole was through Thailand without any troubles!
Fixed the tyre and rode back in the dark covered in grease – munching on millions of mosquitos on the way.

Total KM: 40?