I had a nice bit of downhill to start the day, which took me down to the town of Gerik where I needed to find some water. In this peaceful little town all of the bottled water was surprisingly very expensive and nobody that I asked could tell me how I could find affordable water, only that I shouldn’t drink the tap water. In fact I was so frustrated by this and so stoutly determined not to spend 35 pence a litre that I made my way to leave Gerik and head on to the next mountain pass without any water, a resolute stance that I almost certainly would have lived to regret, if I could have avoided the inevitable fact that I almost certainly would die. But on my way out of town I noticed one of those water-dispensing vending machines that had been so useful in Thailand. For a few pennies I could fill up all of my water bottles. Hurrah! But first I needed to get some change for the machine, so I went to a nearby Indian restaurant that was surprisingly busy considering it was nine in the morning. “Hello sir,” greeted one of the many members of staff, “What would you like? Curry?”

I’d never eaten curry for breakfast before and decided not to start now, instead finding something a bit more suitable for the time of day. Change in hand I went back to the water-dispenser and dispensed some water, and then I was off back to the mountains. I had two big passes on my hands. The first one, which I’d guessed would be the easiest, turned out to be extremely tough. There was really quite a lot of traffic and no shoulder, but fortunately the road was wide enough for cars to pass me even when there was something coming the other way, and if any trucks came I just moved onto the grass verge. But once again the toughest part of the climb was the relentless sun and the heat supplied from it. As I’d only been cycling for a year and a half I wasn’t really in physical condition for such a steep road either. My legs were absolutely not in the mood for it - they complained continuously and actually made a compelling case against my continuing to cycle with a level of eloquence not usually associated with lower body limbs. I responded in kind. “Oh, shut up legs!” I said.

I finally made it over the first pass and descended down to a very picturesque large lake/reservoir that actually had to be crossed via an island and two bridges. On the island there was a turn-off signposted towards a jetty and I took it with the idea that there might be somewhere that I could get down to the lake and swim. As it turned out I could not, because the bed of the lake was mud that my feet quickly sank into. I didn’t want to give up on the tantalizing goal of a refreshing swim, however, and I tried to continue forward, but when my ankles disappeared and my legs started screaming things like “We can’t breathe!” I thought it best to give it up.

“Goodness, we nearly suffocated” they whinged.

“Oh, shut up legs!” I said again. This was quickly becoming a bit of a catchphrase.

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There were lots of fishermen on boats and people around by the jetty, and there was also a restaurant, which was useful for getting food because this whole stretch of road passed through protected rainforest reserves and there was essentially nothing else along it. The only other things at the lake were a couple of resorts and a rainforest interpretive research centre, which proved really rather interesting as it had information boards that explained about the area. I learnt all about the reserve and how the rainforest here had some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world, with a long list of exotic species including the Malayan sun bear, the Malayan tiger, and the Malayan great many other things to give me a sleepless night in my tent. I also read about the indigenous people of the area who once lived in harmony amongst the rainforest, but who were ‘reclocated’ when the river was dammed to make the reservoir. There was a photo of them before they were moved; a black and white image of a group of men naked except for thin slivers of animal skins around their waste, painted faces looking confused by the camera. Photographs of them now showed them with new state-funded wooden homes, solar panels providing them with electricity, and under each was a caption which included the word ‘healthy’. ‘Healthy’ indigenous tribe. ‘Healthy’ indigenous children going to school. ‘Healthy’ indigenous man beating a lizard to death with a solar panel. And so on and so forth. You can’t stop progress.

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The next climb was the big one and unfortunately I didn’t even see any elephants to make the ascent more tolerable. There may well have been some elephants, I just didn’t see them because I was too busy grimacing in pain and my eyes were too filled with sweat to see anything. Up and up and up I climbed, hundreds of cars passing me in waves. Aside from the traffic the natural rainforest was indeed a charming place to be, although this positive was balanced out by the negative of the constant moaning that was coming from my lower limbs, centered primarily around how jolly well unfair life is.

It was so hot I was beginning to worry that I’d not brought enough water with me to get me all the way over the pass. Sweating buckets and already rationing the water that I had, it was with some relief that I stumbled upon an unexpected shop placed randomly in a layby on one of the switchbacks. I leant the bike down and staggered into it, ragged, exhausted, and desperate for something cold and wet. Being the only shop for miles it was quite busy, but a man of Indian descent who appeared to be the owner immediately spotted me and said hello and asked how he could help me in a booming voice that was so loud that it made everyone else in the shop stop in their tracks and stare at me. “Well this is awkward” I felt like saying, as all the eyes were trained on me. But instead I said I wanted a drink, and squeezed myself away towards a shelf of cold beverages. Yet the old man followed and, continuing on in his unnecessarily loud voice, began to tell me about how he had lived in England, at Sandhurst, in 1974.

“People judged me” he went on, “Because of the colour of my skin. People judged me, as a little man.”

Oh dear, now I felt like I had to apologise for the actions of my fellow countrymen a decade before my birth. I put aside the fact that he was very annoying and did my best to be nice to him, and tried to enter into a pleasant conversation, even though it delayed my drink buying still further.

“What are you doing anyway?” he shouted, “Are you here to work, or just to cycle.”

“I’m just cycling”

“Around the world?” he rather surprisingly guessed correctly.

“Yes.”

“Then you are rich! You are very rich! You must have a rich family!”

He’d gone beyond shouting now. Everyone in the shop was looking at him. They weren’t looking at me anymore, because I’d walked out of the shop and got back on my bike and started cycling again.

This had happened several times already in Malaysia, people assuming that I must be rich just because of where I was from and what I was doing. I don’t know why it annoyed me so much. Maybe because the balance of my current account was 29 pence, or maybe because I had a hole in my shoe, but mostly because Malaysia was clearly one of the most developed countries I’d been to in all of Asia, and certainly one where most people could afford a car, as my very stressful afternoon could testify.

“And you still didn’t buy us a sodding drink did you?”

“OH, SHUT… UP… LEGS!!!”

The road went on climbing and climbing, until eventually I called it a day and found a little clearing behind a big rock where I could pitch the tent. As the sun set a glorious pink over the mountains and the insects began their chorus I realized life really wan’t so bad at all, and the stresses involved in getting up here faded away. I even managed to forgive the shouty man, on the assumption that I would never have to meet him again. The night air grew cool, and for once I didn’t have to endure an hour of lying in my tent in a pool of my own sweat before I could sleep. But in the middle of the night I woke up needing to pee, and risked encountering sun bears and tigers to go out and relieve myself. Stepping out into the cool night air I was taken aback by what I saw. The night sky was filled with more stars than I had ever seen. It was almost more white than black. It was an astonishing, mesmerising sight. Life, even my legs had to concede, was good.