Malaysia - 1
Keroh (18-05-2002) till Johor Bahru (01-06-2002)
When we entered Malaysia we didnt really know what to expect. It was for both of us a new adventure, especially for Jeannette as it was her first border crossing with her own bike. In Thailand we had heard several contradictionary stories about Malaysia. We wanted to get a 60 day visa but the man of the Immigration surprised us with a 90 days visa! How do we spend 90 days in Malaysia? The next in line was Customs and after showing our carnets the officers were pointing us to a room where their big boss was sitting. The man started to ask us questions about our Malaysian insurance. We hadnt one but where could we get one? After a telephone call he told us that our Carnets were our insurances, which we refused to believe, but anyway one problem was solved. Where do we want to go? "To Penang". "Where do you leave Malaysia?" "At Johor Bahru." "Oh, but then you dont have to go to Penang, you have to drive to Ipoh. Yes, but first we go to Penang. No, no, Penang is in the wrong direction. Then we didnt bother him to tell him we wanted to visit the East coast as well as we never disagree with authority. Finally our Carnets were stamped and we could enter Malaysia.
Route through Malaysia; 18-05-2002 / 01-06-2002
For me entering Malaysia was a little exciting as everything was new for me. I just got used to the traffic in Thailand and now I had to get used to a new country. I quickly discovered that also in Malaysia they can't drive. The nature however is beautiful and so different with Thailand. Even more tropical and with different kinds of palm trees. We read that there were at least 200 different kinds.
Through nice secondary roads we drove to Georgetown where we spent our first night in Malaysia on the Island of Penang. We took the 15 kms. long bridge. When we were crossing the bridge we saw huge skyscrapers which reminded us of Hong Kong. The closer we got to Penang the busier the traffic got and now I really wished that I could get radio contact with Martin as I was struggling to follow him through the traffic and the only thing I did was staying close behind him as and I had absolutely no idea where we were going. Martin was like Mother Goose to me and I felt safe under his wings. With less than 2000 kms. driving experience on a motorbike its no wonder that I was not fond on driving into big cities. But we had a lunch break and after we got to our hotel and we walked around I had (finally) time to look around and then I found out that Penang wasnt too bad. In fact the Chinese area in Georgetown is really cozy.
We managed to get a third party insurance for our bikes here. It was not cheap at all but we had heard that it was impossible to enter Singapore without one, so we took a 3 month insurance.
The last four days I had terrible headache and it was really taking over control of me. So finally Martin decided to visit a hospital. First we paid was 2 Ringit (USD 0.50) registration fee and that was all. I had a brief check-up and some medicines we subscribed, all for free. The medication was really heavy stuff and you could keep a horse in a race with it but it did its job and almost directly I felt better.
How pineapples growing
We drove for a little tour around the Island the next day and it was really nice. North of Georgetown there were a lot of (boring) beach resorts but once these were passed the fun started. The road was curling through the hills with nice bends and we had splendid views over the west coast of the island. We found a idyllic beach with a private resort which was completely deserted, only us and the sound of the waves.
An idillic deserted beach
Another couple on a rented motorbike was making the same loop that day and we passed each other a few times. Back in Georgetown we were enjoying the sunset at the waterfront when we met the same couple again. I had said to Martin before: When we meet them again Im going to have a chat with them. So I did and we had a surprisingly nice chat with Colin (UK) and Nadine (Belgium). They were also overlanders is in a completely different way. They were traveling from the UK to Australia by a self-made airplane. A tiny thing which they built themselves during the last 5 years. Their trip was carefully planned as they could only travel 300 kms. at a time so figuring out their route was a crucial thing. With disbelieve we heard their stories about their problems of obtaining landing permits at embassies, made airport authorities believe they were crew-member in plain clothes (so they made their own suits) and limousine-services as they had arrived by private flight. Their website: http://fly.to/worldtour
We left Georgetown and we were following small roads with beautiful sceneries through a dense jungle and even a waterfall until we arrived in Gerik.
Malaysian jungle
This was a nice place were we had a nice time surrounded by local people. Our intentional stay of one night was extended to three nights as we liked it there very much. The surrounding area was beautiful with jungle, lakes and hills, the perfect conditions for exploring by motorbike.
A waterfall in the jungle
One night a guy we met in a restaurant took us to the fire brigade station where they had caught a 15 foot python at the local graveyard. It was a female and she had just finished a big diner. It was a fascinating animal to see and Martin was taking the pictures of this beauty queen. Only her fairy tale had no happy end as we found out the next day when we were told that they cut her into pieces and inside they found a small calf! We felt sorry for the snake for there was so much jungle around to set her free at a remote spot. But apparently the local people wanted to have their own "Circus".
The phyton caught at the cementary
We continued following Highway 4 to the east coast and the road was really so beautiful. There were signs warning for (wild?) elephants but we did not see one and we arrived in Kota Bahru. This was the dirtiest town so far. The place were we stayed had a garden and that was the only nice place as the hotel seemed to fall apart (except the nice stairway in the guesthouse). The room was filthy and needed desperate maintenance but the only thing they did was asking a lot of money for it. In Holland we call this a "milk house".
During a small afternoon stroll through town we both had the same idea: "Lets continue first thing tomorrow morning". So we followed the coastline down south and spent two nights in Ranbau Abang where you could see the turtles going ashore to burry their eggs into the sand at night. We walked along the beach several times but didnt see a single turtle, but it was still early in the season. We didnt want to stay any longer here as both nights we had neighbors, local people, and we found out that Malay people can make even more noise than Indian people although this is hard to imagine.
Stop or I'll shoot you!
Our next stop was Cherating were we desperately tried to find a quiet place to have some undisturbed nights of sleep. Steven gave us the GPS coordinates of a place here and so we arrived at the Coconut Inn. The landlady was Dutch and her husband from Malaysia. Here we had a nice bungalow and as there was hardly any tourist around it was quiet as well with a lot of nature around. While sitting at the balcony we saw beautiful birds close by and we even saw a big varane. And what to think about monkeys? When we went out for breakfast we saw them and I thought: Oh, how nice and wanted to take some pictures. Wrong! These monkeys appeared to be very aggressive that they scared me and started to behave and scream as idiots. Martin came in between to protect me but wasnt really feeling comfortable when he saw the big teeth of their leader. The landlady and her son came out with a catapult while her man lighted some fire-crackers which worked really well and the monkeys ran away immediately.
Cherating was deserted and we did a lot of walking along the beach and so we found a nice spot were we could see the sun disappearing behind the trees and once more we understood the phrase: Every cloud has a silver lining.
Every cloud has a silver lining
We enjoyed the peaceful time here which was only interrupted when Abdullah was encouraging the Muslims to pray. On our way back to the hotel we met on the beach two cyclists from Germany, Ria and Marcus, looking for a nice place to put up their tent. We told them of our nice place and the next morning we had breakfast with them before we left for our trip towards Singapore. We made a stop-over at Mersing. The hotel here was a jungle garden with huts in between. The usual bargaining took place first, but I was getting really good in it by now. While Martin stays behind with the bikes I always check out the accommodation as I have more demands than Martin. The elevated huts were very basic and the mosquitoes were for free, but the view over the (wave less) beach was nice and we could park the motorbikes underneath the hut. Through the floor we could even see our bikes. At night they played guitar in front of our hut so we had tune to fall asleep with.
Nevertheless we didnt had the intention to stay longer than one night so the next day we drove to the border.
When we entered the border town of Johor Bahru the traffic jammed completely and compared to this Georgetown was a piece of cake. Everyone tried to pass each other and soon I lost Martin. But fortunately he was stuck as well and he kept an eye on me. We assumed that on Saturdays the border crossing traffic was less than during weekdays but the total opposite was true as during the weekend people dont have to pay toll-fee and also the entry costs are much less. So we struggled for a while to get through and finally we made it to the lane for motorcycles who has separate border crossing booths. An exit stamp was easy but before we knew we had passed Customs as well and Martin returned with our carnets to get them both stamped out which took a while so in the meantime I had some time to rest from all the adrenaline shots the traffic gave me.