05-071210 Kuala Kangsar - Pangkor, Day 3

Day 03 - Tuesday, 071210

 

Followers must be wondering what happened to ManCIOCC aka Gman. Praise to Allah S.W.T I’m “Alive & Kicking” (Simple Mind’s song of the 80's).

Like the old saying “Better be late than never” & better to finish off where we started - end the Pangkor Island adventure but never stop the blog ever again even if it’s a week, a month, a year or years late. Don’t keep it hanging like lost love...

Lemme restart by continuing where we left-off, exactly 10 years ago on 7 December 2010 - the ol’ tale about three blokes, ages years apart = Hj Ahmad Faridun, Zul Lumut & yours faithful, about our last escapades in Pangkor Island.

The  screenshot of the edited story on 29 October 2015 - 5 years & 2 months ago, which didn’t see the light of day, ha ha ha....To make matters more complicated, I had to rummage thru tons of folders in the PC just to find photos - I scratched my already bald head...Hope my rusty blogging won’t bore you to death like waiting for the paint to dry. Luckily I could recall vividly the last episode without the need to smash my head against the wall to remember what happened. Jogging in the park is much easier than trying to jog this dated grey old mass/mess.
Get ready and count backwards from 10 to Zero... here we go again. 

Hj Farid, can't remember, Zulkifi, Che Ad "Azhar", Toki Manjung, Hj. Zulkaflee, Hestima, Hj Shafie, Kamaruzaman TNB, Azman TNB, Khizaifah, Isa, Nasron & Isa TNB (Very sorry if I had missed any of the names, been such a long time)

By the break of dawn, we sprang up & loaded. Had a heavy breakfast in Li Katun’s restaurant and bid farewell to Lumut. The peloton braved the splattering rain & bunched by a restaurant. Had some simple breakfast & after much noise making, we rode-off triggering a steady drizzle & huge droplets of water which splashed our warm sweaty bodies. What a welcome relief. From Manjung till the junction of Beruas, there was just too much traffic made worse by the splattering rain laced with sand.

We rolled-on stopping at the 25^th km or so to “put out some fires” in a Masjid en-route to our lunch. Such a well-paced peloton, making sure no one is left behind. We arrived in Kak Farida’s footstall at almot 11am. Luckily I had pre-warned Kak Faridah to get ready. As soon as the cute helper took our orders, she rushed over to buy some fresh greens while we gluttony clobbered the biscuits & kampong sweet cakes. Obviously the rowdy group of men in tights are a bit too overwhelming.
Hot & spicy fried noodles came next and it just disappeared as a hurricane had wiped the plate clean!

We bid adieu to the guys who had chaperoned us till Beruas.

I would like to thank everyone in Manjung for the spirit of camaraderie/one cycling nation. That’s what cycling is all about, learn from the Manjung blokes. Making friends regardless of where u come from. Not about what bike you ride (Frankly I don’t give a damn!)

I "Give a damn/Care" about friendly people. That's what Manjung cycling folks are all about...

Especially Tn. Azhar & our tour guide, Zul a native of Manjung, who himself hasn't been to Pangkor! Even Though Pangkor is just a few paddles away from the mainland. Zul, thank you very much from Uncle Azman & Atuk Hj. Farid for being such a nice boy. A person who respects the elders is a cultured person. He's been brought up well by his parents.

 

My tyres seems to be wobbly-jelly like, so we pumped it up at the local Beruas motorcycle shop. To our surprise, this bearded slim old man is one hellova creative dude. Janggut is no mechanic. He is one wonderful sculptor! Some sort of a weirdo actually who cannibalized old trusty Raleigh, Hercules & antique bikes – made them into Frankenstein freaks - unique hybrids. I did shed a tear or two but to my opinion, that’s plain gruesome but definitely out of this world. One needs to be a bit mad to be a little different & that’s how God created us – to explore the unthinkable. Then again, nothing last forever. Being a bit of a whacko myself, I just had to test them out. It was real balancing act. Felt like an acrobatic circus clown balancing on a tightrope. The extremely “High-Monkey Bars” two wheeler was a tuff animal to ride on.

 

Fatigue came at the last 17 km or so. When you start looking @ the milestone & counting them, u know you're in a rut. Manong was still far from sight. Merciless wind slapping your tanned cheeks. Pushed on like a drone without a mission.

What a sign of relief when we saw a stall by the roadside. Idyllically perched under a huge rambutan tree, a retired husband & wife served us the best cendol & laksa. Being chatty old me, I asked the couple where were they actually from. Judging from their thick northern slang, I bet they’d be from either Kedah or Penang.

To my surprise, they had worked in Penang island for almost their entire lives (over 20 years) & returned back to where they belong to settle down in Kuala towards the end of their life journey.
Since we’re not rushing. I had another helping of laksa (rice noodles with thick spicy fish soup) & ice kacang (Sweet-tasting shaved ice dessert, with numerous toppings such as red beans, creamy sweet corn, grass jelly, attap chee (palm nuts), etc. 

Surprisingly the laksa tasted very Penang unlike the regular Laksa Kuale which is slightly more watery. They had spent so many years in Penang - taste buds do change - for the better. We chatted like long lost relatives rekindling long lost memories, like me who had spent quite an amount of years away from Penang. 24 years in total & 34 years to be exact if you’re living “Waswas 2020”, not Wawasan 2020 ya.

All this fear about COV19 id driving me nuts!
We have gone so “Waswas” (Caution) & let’s hope our “Wawasan” (Vision) for the future stays intact regardless of our obstacles....
The former coined this concept almost 30 years ago but the pandemic had better plans. It would have been a proud year of celebration for the nation’s achievements but God had other plans.
Moral of the story - Don’t be too overzealous & thump your chest as if you own the world.... HE can destroy whatever HE deems necessary. So don’t be too proud, for nothing belongs to us, we’re merely on borrowed time.

For those who don’t know what the idea meant, you can surf the net. Not gonna elaborate some "far-fetched dreams" in here. Somewhere along the line we have veered into darkness - we have lost it for the sake of our own selfishness, we didn’t check, we did not "Get the balance right" (Depeche Mode), we left it to rot - you decide. 
Are “WE” not men? We are DEVO....Devolution - the idea that instead of evolving, mankind has actually regressed, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of human society.

 

And now let’s get back to the story.

We finally arrived in Royal town of Kuala Kangsar 22 minutes past 3pm. Before heading back to Kampung Jamuan, we toured a bit around the old Malay College and visited one of the the oldest rubber tree in Malaysia, prolly planted in 1877 and then rolled back to Kg Jamuan

Washed up & packed all my belongings & slept awhile in Hj Farid’s house to refresh and left for KL before dark, cruising on the highway in the small mouse-deer car while singing along Depeche Mode’s “Stripped” song. Thought provoking lyrics “... let me see you stripped down to the bone” it’s not about wanting someone to get naked but delve deeper and you know that we need to strip ourselves from the necessaries & get back to the basics. In life you need to be simple. No more no less.

Before I left the Royal Town of Kuala Kangsar, Tn Aji’s wife insisted that I have tea before leaving for KL & I gobbled up a handful of Chokodok / Kuih Kodok (Frog’s cake) and downed them with iced lemon tea - I’m now ready to hit the highway. Not much traffic on a weekday & arrived in Bangi an hour before midnight.
Woke up the next morning feeling refreshed but dreaded the morning traffic & the endless wait for the KTMB service to my workplace.

You meet a lot of people along the way when you bike but if you're driving you tend to ignore all those simple little things in life. That's the beauty of touring, you encounter more things than you drive or scooter around.

Hope there will be another escape out of the hustle & bustle soon. Travelling isn’t about reaching a destination it’s about one’s sense of achievement. (The idea of travel is not about moving from one place to the other, it also should invoke the sense of achievement - no matter how big or small it is / in any big or small way.)

My "SCHWINN SIERRA" Circa 1988. Trusty ol' horse but she performed well, far beyond my expectations. OLD is definitely GOLD & STEEL is obviously REAL. 

Bold text – penned 10 years ago
Regular text – written 10 years later

Yours truly
Gman CIOCC