Day 4 – Lenggong to Ipoh

Morning mist covering the mountains

Cooking wonton mee the traditional way

Headed back to the inn to start our yet another day’s ride. Mich was telling us that it would be a hill and everything would be flat kindda remarks. Well, we believed her though, it’s her hometown. It was a shaddy kampong road until we need to turn out to the highway. Before turning out, we feared the guys would miss the turn and we waited for them. A long wait indeed! 20mins later and they had yet to surface, all of us were baking under the hot sun waiting for them. Finally the van arrived. “Oh, we are having coffee.” The guys! -.-

Passing by a lake before the highway

Highway slopes not as terrible as the second day. It was like one major long climb and the rest were considered soothing (to my standard lah). We kept in a pack almost the first half. Could see some tired faces. We soon turned into another 20km of kampong road. I do enjoyed the kampong road, at least it was shaddy than the highway. Rest outside a school and it was another 20km over to Sungei Siput. That 20km proved fatal to me. It was around the 50km distance mark and normally at that point, I needed real food. Lunch to be precise. The road started to get winding and more climbs surfaced. “Michelle, whatever happened to your one hill and that’s it kindda theory!”

Resting in style

I managed to keep up with Michelle along the way with her occasionally slowing down to let me catch on. Boy, was I glad to see the town. “Where’s the food!!!” we all growled as Mich led us into the back lanes again. Frankly speaking I couldn’t care less of what was famous in town, I just needed to fill up my stomach. Ordered a plate of chicken rice (not that nice though) and finished it off within minutes. I ordered a second round of noodles after seeing Mich’s bowl. Finished that up too. I’m good! The gang slacked at the coffeeshop longer than before. Mich was going about the “one hill and that’s it” theory again. By then, I think most of us were skeptical about it.

Riding towards Sungei Siput

With refilled energy, we moved on, but it was not long before we rode into the storm. The sky ahead of us gloomed. We cycled past the gigantic cement factory which Mich was telling us on the first day, all of us couldn’t help but kept staring at it as we rode past. It was so enormous that it looked like a brown alien standing over the plains emitting the homing sound. Just as we were being distraught by the huge monster, we were blasted by a strong gust of wind as we rode up a bridge. Seriously I was nearly blown away (my bike is so light the force sways me back). The rain poured heavily. We abandoned our bikes along the roadside and took shelter in the van.

Holy shucks, rain!

When the rain finally got lighter, we rode on. The rain started pouring on us again but we decided not to stop. We soon reached Mich’s new hometown, but the van was no where to be found. I looked at Mich: “Ey, you tell them the place in Chinese name, but the signboard is in Malay name.” Realizing that, the gang called on them. Waited for a while before we saw a tiny white van tooting towards us. They went past the turn without knowing.

Taking shelter at Mich bro's home

Took shelter at Mich’s brother house for the rain to stop. The neighborhood sure looked like it belongs to wealthy families. Looks almost like the Bukit Timah landed property distict. As we cycled out to the main road, cars were zooming past us at fast speed. Right in front of us, wide-eyed, we saw a car drove thru’ a deep pool of water on the road, sending a wave of brown milky water to the side. “Oh man, I don’t need a shower right now!!” I shouted to SH who was furiously pedaling to clear away from the pool of water before the next car splash it to us. In front, Mich and Val were trying to sieve to the left of the road avoiding the splash. We managed to steer clear. Hengz ah!

“One more hill, and it would be flat all the way!” Mich encouraging us. “We don’t believe you anymore lah!” exclaimed all of us. After countless of climbs and more to come, who would believe M’sia road to be flat like SIN. The traffic getting heavier with trucks, motorcyclists and cars, we were squeezed to a single file. “Oh shit!” “What’s that stuff!” “What the heck!” We all rode thru’ a stretch of white powdery stuff on the lane. Our black tyres immediately turned white. Mich led us to an illegal crossing and into the carpark. All of us thot it was another rest point. “Oh, we are here.” Mich pointing to a yellow wall shophouse that says Ipoh Times Inn. Anticlimax, we all asked: “Erm, we reached Ipoh town already?” “Err, yah.” It took us quite long before we leaped in joy of completing our 270km ride. First of all, we needed to cheok a parking space for the van. Mich, our garang woman, single-handedly prevent a car from taking our reserved parking slot by using herself to block the lot. The car gave up and we had the lot. Power lady.

Oh!We reached our final destination!

We were quite happy with the rooms. It was a new hotel and so everything looked new. Well, we were at the country town filled with good food, off we went to the old town for good ol’ Ipoh hor fun. It was drizzling and our van kept going round the town because it was a complicated place. Took quite long before we found the place! Shopped around for snacks to bring back to SIN as well as cheap DVDs. :p The town was complicated, so much so that Collin drove into the oncoming traffic lane! Erm, 3 days of cycling and my auto first reaction was to hit the rear brake, I had unknowingly crushed Collin’s pack of cigerattes that I held for him during my panic moment. We managed to get out of the situation. Along the way, we decided to have a pint of beer for our celebration. Went to a ‘pub’ for drinks and slideshow of the photos. The gang got hungry and supper time before we headed back to the hotel for the long awaited good sleep. PS. I din have a good sleep at all despite the clean and cosy bed. :(