March 14, 2015
A hot climb into the mountains: Country number 42
I was able to make fast progress first thing in the morning as I was still traveling across very flat farmland. After a quick fifty kilometres I stopped to eat in a roadside restaurant. Sita, the Austrian woman I met at Hat Yao, had told me that food in Malaysia was cheap, and boy was she right. Fifty pence got me a massive plateful of rice and a healthy portion of some spicy beansprout thing which was actually verrrrrry spicy. I sat there sweating and cursing trying to stomach it and got through a good few icy drinks in the process, which I suppose is how they make their money back.
Onwards I went, climbing out of the farmland now and towards the mountains. Rumour had it that the west coast of Malaysia was manic with traffic, and Sita had advised me to take a route through the mountains in the centre of the country. Now, I may not have let on about this, but I do hate traffic, so I’d decided to follow this advice. On the way I tried to get a photo, but waving my laptop around and trying to get a decent photo was proving rather a challenge. Having said that, I did succeed in getting one of my personal favourite ever country photos:
Soon I was climbing my first mountain pass, a steep one made more difficult by the scorching sun and the fact that I’d not cycled in any real mountains since Vietnam. Against what I’d been told the traffic remained busy and there was no real shoulder, but at least the people seemed friendly. Some of them tooted their horns in support and gave me a little wave. At least I chose to believe it was in support, they might have been trying to wave me off the road, who knows?
The climb went on and on, as they tend to, and there was almost nowhere to escape the sun. Although I managed to find one little waterfall to drench myself and my clothes in, almost as soon as I was back out in the sun they were bone dry again. On both sides of the road were steep slopes and there were almost no accessible shady spots. In fact I only found one place to sit in the shade on the whole climb, and I was so hot by that point that not even the most intimidating of signs was going to put me off taking a rest:
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Finally I reached the top of the pass and went down a little way. But I was not over the mountains, merely in them, and so I soon went up again. Up, down, up, down, down, up, up, up, down. The scenery was a mixture of forest, palm oil plantations, cars, and signs showing heavily armed men who might take me prisoner. Along with the unflat nature of the mountains this made for a slightly difficult location to wild camp, but as ever I found somewhere.
'Damn!' I thought, as I reviewed my day's photos in the tent, 'I forgot to peel off the 42!'
Today's ride: 114 km (71 miles)
Total: 38,981 km (24,207 miles)
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