Mandarin Ride...

Ride to Malacca, done it a few times already.....ride to Port Dickson...mmm..nothing much to do there...breakfast at Karak...what's new....how about...RIDE AROUND PENINSULA MALAYSIA?? Yeah! Lets!

30 Jan 2014 is the date, me and 6 other friends set to start the new year to ride around the Peninsula Malaysia. First,  we are going to head south to Johor Bahru then we are going to take the east coast routes to Kuala Terengganu and lastly to cross west via Kelantan to Ipoh, Perak before heading home to Kuala Lumpur. We gave a name to this ride... "Mandarin Ride'...why? First, it was because the dates were on Chinese New Year....secondly, that's the only name we could think of! (hahaha)

Day 1, KL-Port Dickson-Melaka-Muar-Tg Piai-Johor Bahru.

After a quick breakfast, we rolled out at 8.30am from Dengkil rest area, we set to Port Dickson via Sepang. We used the inner ring roads just to make it less boring compared to going on highways. Inner roads bring more action and more places to swing by and visit.

It took us roughly around 45 minutes to reach our first stop, Port Dickson (PD). We didn't do much here, just stop by the beach and took some photos. PD is the closest nice beach town from Kuala Lumpur so on most weekends, this place is pretty crowded. Although, it's too bad to see abandoned buildings/projects that became an eyesaw to tourists.

After Port Dickson, we continued our journey to Tanjung Piai in Johor. It is the southernmost tip of the Asia continent. From the ticket counter, one has to walk about 1.5km through a reserve forest to get to the tip.

Next we headed to our homestay in Johor Bahru where we were going to spend the nite. It was a double-storey house with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and it was all for MYR250 per nite. Cheap, huh?!

We had our dinner at a restaurant called Salsabilah in Johor Bahru. There we met a group of friends from the Johor Ducati Riders Club and also the Ducati Club Singapore . It was great to meet the guys!

Day 2, the ride continued on to Kuala Terengganu. From Johor Bahru we took da east coast routes via Mersing-Rompin-Pekan-Dungun-Kuala Terengganu. And of course, we stopped at every photo-opp there was!

We reached Kuala Terengganu quite late, around 11.30pm and we were greeted by fellow biker from the Desmo Society Terengganu (DST). They took us around for a short ride to some tourist spots and we went for a quick teh tarik. Afterwards, DST showed us the way to our homestay. This time it's a single-storey terrace house, MYR250/nite with 3 bedrooms. Each bedroom has one queen size and one single beds.

Day 3, we were set to cover about 520km that is from Kuala Terengganu(KT)-Kota Bahru-Pasir Mas-Jeli-Gerik-Kuala Kangsar-Ipoh. 

Before we left KT, one of our friends, Chaya Juhan invited us to her home for breakfast. Lots of food, small tummies to fill! Whacking is still a must!

Once done with a very good heavy breakfast, we hit the road. Thanks Chaya! All set to Kota Bahru, Kelantan before we turn towards the west side of the Peninsula. About 60km away from Kota Bahru, the traffic started to build up and it was quite massive. We had to stop for a breather.

Continuing on to Kota Bahru will be a disaster as the traffic was terrible hence, we decided to detour. So we skipped Kota Bahru and Pasir Mas and went straight to Jeli via Machang.

We stop at Jeli for a quick refuel and head straight to Banjaran Titiwangsa. The road was winding and it was awesome! However, do take note that the condition was quite bad at some parts of the road, but other than that...weeehoooo!! The scenery at the top of the Mountains was breathtaking. Loved it!

Too bad we had  a time constraint, after a few minutes we continued our journey on a yet another set of winding road leading to Banding Lake. The lake was huge. Its a dam actually. There are boathouses and some resorts in that area.

We had a good time here. Next, we moved on to Ipoh, Perak where we were going to put up the night. It took us like another two hours to reach Ipoh only to find out that there we no vacancies. Everyone was exhausted. We held ourselves together and took our dinner while searching for a hotel on the net. Finally, we found a small hotel in Chemor called, Chemor Inn. Thank God! Its a shoplot turned hotel. Comfy and the hospitality was satisfying. Once we all got our rooms....it was nappy time!

Day 4, time to go home but our expedition was far from over. From Chemor we headed to Kuala Lumpur via Batu Gajah-Teluk Intan-Kuala Kangsar. Since the distance was not too far, we took our sweet time and rolled out a little bit later than usual.

Our first stop was at Kellie's Castle , Batu Gajah, Perak. The castle was built by a British named William Kellie Smith for his lover, Agnes, in 1915.  Kellie, sadly, died during the construction period and the castle was never finished.

Next stop was at Teluk Intan, Perak and its famous leaning tower.

The tower is at the centre of Teluk Intan town and you will not miss it.

After a quick lunch, we continued to Kuala Selangor, our final destination for this expedition.  We went passed a padi field and stopped for a quick photo session.

 

The traffic to Kuala Selangor was pretty bad. Took us at least three hours and truly exhausted but the scenery revived us. We went up a historical Bukit Melawati (Melawati Hill). In its days, it was a heavily fortified stronghold and administrative centre of the Selangor Sultanate in the 18th and 19th centuries.

So..Bukit Melawati was our last destination for the ride before we parted. All of us had a great time...and we are planning to have another ride together and this time we are going to cross border to Thailand. But for now....PENINSULA MALAYSIA....CONQUERED!