August 2, 2017
Alor Setar to Kangar Perlis: Last full day in Malaysia
I woke up at about four o'clock this morning with the rain chucking down. Leigh woke up about half an hour later and we put a broad plan in place for the day - this is how most days start except she usually wakes up before me. The weather forecast (thanks for wunderground.com) suggested the rain would clear after eight o'clock and the rest of the day would be cloudy, we felt in no need to rush.
I had basically run out of Malaysian Ringgit - I had only RM14 left - so the first thing we needed to do, if breakfast didn't get in the way, was to find an ATM. Maybank accepts MasterCard/Sirrus branded cards and so when we found a Maybank branch about three kilometers on the route to Kangar Perlis I drew what is hopefully the last MR that we need. We found a roti stall a few hundred meters down the road and had what may be our last roti canai for a while. By this stage it was already after nine o'clock. Then we struggled with the traffic and huge pools of water - Leigh got a good splashing from a passing truck - and made our way out of town. after about seven kilometers we turned off the route seven onto a regional road and from there onto the one vehicular width roads that pass through the rice paddies similar to what we are used to in Thailand.
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The route was as flat as it could be and there was no headwind so we had a very easy cycle. We made frequent stops to bird watch. We didn't pick up anything new but it was great to find a Stork-billed Kingfisher breaking the monotony of all the White-throated Kingfishers that hunt from the overhead wires leading along the canals.
Lunch was a bit different today. We picked up a take-away rice and fried chicken from a very busy roadside stall and ate in in our hotel room after we had checked in. The rice had the most amazing smokey flavour, something we have not yet experienced.
We're going to take it easy this afternoon and probably cross into Thailand tomorrow morning.
Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 3,732 km (2,318 miles)
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