Day 2 – Jeli to Pulau Banding

Simple inn owned by a school

Group photo at the inn

Another grp shoot beside the slaughtering

Off we went, the road was a roller coaster ride. Mich leading the pack at a fast pace of 27-30km/hr. Too fast man! I dragged along as the last man of the pack and thought “You gals are gonna get it if you keep at this pace!” Soon enough we reached a long climb, immediately Mich fell behind. There you have it, told you not to chiong. Conserving my energy, I decided to be the last man, the three other ladies were moving fast ahead. Didn’t wanna leave Mich behind alone, I paced at her speed. It was along these moments that when I was pacing Mich, I learnt the true technique of climbing at a comfortable speed. I wasn’t even panting, I just took it nice and slow even if I was only riding at 3-5km/hr. My thighs were burning, “sucks, should have pull my seatpost a little higher”, other than that, there wasn’t any significant pain. We stopped a couple of time to refill our water and found out that the two guys were actually taking pointless photos of bugs to kill time!

Collin taking photos of the bugs

Riding into the mountainous area

Pit stop!

We rode in the mid of mountain ranges, the breeze was cooling, thank god the route was shaddy. I estimated that we were around 500m above sea level. Was telling Mich that it was such a cool day to cycle, but Mich thot otherwise as she was complaining the hot sun. Then the moment we had been waiting for, downhill! Mich dived down like she owned the road, Valerie swayed out of the road shoulder. Behind I was shouting at the top of my lungs telling them to keep left. Both of them turned deaf ears to my screams. Behind a lorry was horning us obviously quite irritated by our irate behaviours. I could have gone faster had not Valerie kept blocking me in front. Mich hit her max speed of 65kn/hr while I hit 58km/hr. It was a fast and furious 10mins down before we faced the upclimb again. Sok Hui came lecturing us on safety. Haha.

Coming thru!

Val stopped for a pose

The climbs started to take its toll on them all, I could see their speed dropped a lot. Well, obviously my conserving of energy made it looked easy. There were ways to help preserve strength, and I don’t mean drafting. Yes, use the white lines, it saves 20% of energy. Upon reaching a tunnel, we met a touring dude on a self-support ride. This Caucasian had rode like continents. We stopped for a chat and wowed at his achievements. Well you know what, someday I hope I have a chance to be like him. Everyone felt inspired and more motivated to continue our journey when we parted with him. It was almost 58km, I felt drained because it was lunch time already. I need food. “Michelle, any rest point??” Mich looked back: “Soon, we should be near.” Praise the lord when we saw the sign 2km to makan point. I was already downing myself with powergel. “500m more!” Michelle exclaimed, “yuff, yuff.” I was nearly the point to dying already. The guys whistled at us to go straight when we saw the makan place was on the right. “What the hell?” “Oh, I want to take photos of you guys mah, so ask you to ride on.” KNS, both Mich and I turned right straight away. We got longer journey to cover, why waste energy!

Pit stop at here

We are at 1000m!!!

The best photo of me

The rest point was a beautiful place overlooking the plains of mountains. “I feel so alive! The earth is shaking!” Erm, not. Actually it was my legs trembling! Killer climbs, but well rewarded. We rested quite long there. LCT said the downhill would be coming soon, I looked forward to that. Who knows, it was still climbs again. -.- But acceleration soon started. Wowy! The downhill that we were waiting for! Mich and I went for it. Yeah, we were the last two during climbs, but we were the first on downhill. I was riding at 62km/hr down, the wind was howling in my ears. It was exhilarating!

Lush greenery

We stopped halfway down when Mich received a call over the walkie that Pek Gnee suffered a puncture. Stopped quite long and Mich decided to pee at the drain. I guess that was the place the leeches hopped onto her. While waiting for them, the countless truck that drove past us all horned at us giving us the thumbs-up. Now this is what I called friendly strangers (you don’t get it in Singapore).

Pulau Banding lake

Pek Gnee and Sok Hui rejoined us. This time round we slowed on our downhill. It was down all the way to Banding island. We stopped at the bridge and took lotsa photos. Came to a fork and we didn’t know where the resort was. The support vehicle was nowhere to be found. Mich spoke to the guy working on the road. “Rainforest Resort? There.” He pointed to our right which we came from. Sok Hui, Val and I spinned off to recce the area. We soon found a wall stating Rainforest. The three of us happily yelled: “Yes, we found it!” As we walked towards the building I wondered how come the resort was so small and empty. Sok Hui said: “Maybe it’s new.” It was awefully quiet and we found a man on duty there.

SH: “Bang, we need our rooms. Can you give us the room keys.”
Man: “?????”
SH: “We are supposed to stay here for the night.”
Man: “?????”
Val: “Wow, got library somemore….”
Man (blurred) trying to deny: “?????”
Me: “We made a reservation to stay here tonight.”
SH: “Can you call your management to verify!”
Man (picking up his handphone and make a call): “?????!!!!”
Val: “Hey, our bikes looks nice with the pillar. Can you take a picture?”
Me: “Sure…. (zooming in to take a good picture) Eh? RAINFOREST R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H C-E-N-T-E-R????!!!”
Val & SH: “!!!!!!”
(We quickly walked out as fast as we can.)
Val & SH: “We got the wrong place lah.”
All (to the man): “Eh, sorry ah Bang, we got the wrong place. Salah.”
Man: “!!!!!”

Wah lao, that was the joke of the day! The man looked at us disbelivingly. I bet he was thinking the 3 siao char bo just barge in like that demanding things and then realized they got the wrong place in the first place. Mich & Pek Gnee along with the vehicle finally arriving. The 3 of us quickly spinned off embarrassed. :p

We passed the guy on the road who gave us the wrong directions and into another ulu road. Saw a petrol station and I made an enquiry on the hotel. Yup, right directions. This time round, we found the correct place. Climbed up a very steep slope and yes, we made it. We stood at the hotel door to take video of our Day One triumph. A stranger also joined in to take photos and video of us! Somemore can ask us to pose! Later on, we found out that he was from the press. LCT: “Any chance of us appearing on the news?” Heehee.

Finally arrived at the resort

Warming down exercise

After resting in the café and having a big bowl of fries, we were given our room keys. When we explored our rooms, we were amazed at the 5-stars quality. Everything was so new. We were running all over the places looking at each fella’s rooms.

Me (at SH & Val’s room): “Wah! So nice, spa bathroom.”
SH & Val (running to our room): “Wah king size bed!!!”
Mich (after viewing SH & our room): “NOT FAIR, ours so small! I wanna change room.”
(Everyone runs to Mich & Pek Gnee’s room)
All (squeaks): “Aiyoh, so small!”
Mich: “Not fair….. Pek Gnee, our room so small.”
(squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak)
Collin to Pek Gnee: “Hey, next time don’t bring children along!”

After settling down, we head to the floating restaurant. It was a ulu turn from the main road into a trail. Saw some fireflies among the bushes. Collin switched off the headlights for us to see the lights from the bugs. Nice! Then the road got bumpier and heading a steep downhill.

All: “Hey, no lights!!!! Dangerous leh!!!!”
(squeak, wail, squeak, wail, squeak, wail)
Collin: “No worries, I got night vision!”
All: “Your head ah!!!!!” (O.o)
After the trauma, we reached the floating restaurant safely. Then came the challenge, we have to walk thru’ a 5m long floating plank bridge to the eating place. Naughty LCT purposely swayed the bridge. “Yikes!!!” I don’t wanna fall into the dark waters! Behind Sok Hui also froze.

At the eating place, SH was telling the lady to put less sugar to our Teh Tarik, she kept saying “manis” (sweet in malayu) while her hand signal showed adding. Val & I looked at her: “Hur, later she double the scoop of sugar for your teh!” Alamak, should say “tanpa gula or tak mau gula”.

After a sumptuous meal, we retreat to our hotel. Our first riding day officially completed and ended.

Total distance 90km