THAMES IRONWORKS - COYI: Day 1: Touring From Butterworth To Grik

Yeap, it's the day. It's the day I'm torturing myself. It's 2.30am. Me and Nas already woke up. Nas took his shower 1st then it was me later on. Andy woke up as well because of the noises we made. We're sorry Andy! He had to go to Malacca by 5am. It's 2 hours earlier than he should. Yada, yada, yada, we're both up and ready by 3am and we cycled at 3.05am from Andy's apartment. While cycling towards the highway, all the kampung bois who haven't had their sleep and still lepak-ing, gave their "Go,go,go!", "Malaysia Boleh!" and etc. I accept that as motivation. We got to the highway, it was bloody dark! You know highways, they only have lampposts near junctions only and not the main roads. We took the motorcycle road on the highway to ensure our safety. We just cycled until Kulim and had our 1st stop because I felt that my tire pressure wasn't enough. So I pumped my rear tire for the 1st time of this touring. We had our short sips of drinks and we're off to the highway again. We maintained the speed of 20 - 25kmh. Nearby the kelapa sawit plantations, there's this "pig sound" scrambling around the bushes, i fully accelerated to like 35kmh! It was like chasing us for a while and got back. I was like WTF! Wild boar tried to chase us! Couldn't imagine how it would have been if the boar actually attacked us. Hehe. Might be the end of the touring session. Haha. After all the cycling, we finally reached to a junction going to Grik via Baling 10km. We had our stop there for a breakfast drink. We do not dare to stuff ourself with morning usual breakfast or it will create problems to our stomachs. So then we started to ask locals about which way is shorter and this and that. Nas paid for the drinks and started to cycle again towards Baling. It was about 7.30am. We cycled up to 7 eleven to get our drinks topped up. Nas "bancuh" me and him the special drink for fast hydration which is ACCELERADE! I will never ever forget that name. Haha. Okay, now is the best part. The stupid part I did on this touring! I saw a jump section. So, I said to Nas, "eee, geram! aku nak jump!" I cycle as fast as I can, jumped and land safely. Okay, that wasn't the best part. We continue to cycle up to a Petronas in Baling where I realised that my rear tire was punctured! Fuck! It must have been after the jump! How stupid was that? Okay, at petronas, there was this local who fascinated by us who cycles. He thinks that it's great that Malays are able to do something like this. Usually, they only see white people does these kind of things. So, I just pumped my tire before changing the tube just to make sure that it is actually puncture. After the pump, I cycle a bit and it's already flatten. Haha! So, we couldn't do much and just change to new tube at this "gerai". Nas had his teh o' ais while waiting for me to change the tube and pump the tire back. It was very time wasting! ARGH! This is a big lesson for me! Later on, I realise that my SPOKE broke! One of them is broken! My tire is now "gelong"! We urgently need to find a bike shop to repair this. The next stop is Pengkalan Hulu! The only place we hope that a bike shop will manage to put new spoke in and re-align it back. So I cycled with the brakes scratching against the rim. I climb and climb and climb and feeling heavier as ever. There haven't been any downhilling for the past 1-2 hrs of cycling uphill. Finally we reached Gunung Inas. WTF? Gunung? I thought it was just bukit. But then it's GUNUNG!!!! I've cycled up a gunung!! Anyways, had our rest there. For couple of minutes of resting we had our drinks refilled as well and I got myself a sweet drink of Teh O' Ais! There's only few more kms till Pengkalan Hulu. Hehe! Thank god! There's a bit of downhilling after reaching the top of Gunung Inas and some of climbing. We just actually got used to climb and immune to it. At last we reached Pengkalan Hulu! Then, we quickly looked for a bike shop to repair the bloody rim. We arrived there in the middle of the day. Sent the bike to repair the rim. Then, left it to look for a restaurant to lunch. Had our "nasi campur" for the next 30 mins. I was damned to be smelling like a fish. A real stinking fish! So finished our meal head back to the bike shop. He was still doing the job. Em, I saw an unwanted thing he did, that was putting grease into my HUB! FCK! I wanted to kill him but then I couldn't! I just didn't have the energy anymore to actually argue or anything. Paid for the spoke rm1.50 and we cycled towards Grik. Before that, we stopped at Shell to shit. Yes, we had stomach aches and we needed to shit. Haha. So we shitted 1st then started to cycle towards Grik. At the same time, we just wanna to get a ride on a lorry. It was just too "HOT" to handle! Haha. It was damn hot day. We've been trying to hitch hike a lorry or 4WD or even a van. No one stopped. They have just honk us to give moral support. Oh my, i feel like dying cycling uphill again. From Pengkalan Hulu, it was just uphill. Then we reached the top, we started to downhill. And downhill and downhill and downhill and downhill. We were just non-stop of downhilling the tarmac! Haha! At last! It was paid off! All the uphilling we made! I was just thanking god for my excellency in this 1st day of this touring. Then we reached a kampung few kms before Grik. We had to refill our drinks. Had 4 tins of cold drinks. I had cincau and wintermelon. Nas had chrysanthenum and wintermelon. It was very very very refreshing! The locals told us it's only 5 more kampungs before reaching Grik. A little of uphilling later. Just one hill and it's all done. Reached the last kampung, we stopped at a 'warung'. Refill our H2O again. Hehe. The owner of the warung told us that before us, there's someone else from Perlis cycled all the way to Ipoh. I was damn impressed with that guy. Well, there's a lot of other people tour as well other than me and Nas. Continue cycle all the way to Grik and we've been stopping at least every 2 gas stations to pump the air into my tube. Cuz of leakage somewhere. This is the 2nd tube and it's my last tube. I really screwed up in this tour the 1st day. Then we reached the edge of Grik! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Fck yeah! Haha! Then we was really near to the city. Then we reached the famous roundabout of Grik where it leads you to for main places of Peninsular Malaysia. So we went straight towards the small city of Grik. Suddenly, there were two dogs barking at us as we thought those dog was just going to bark at us to chase us out but then, they started to run for us and still barking. From 20kmh, i accelerated to 40kmh! I splitted ways with Nas, so that the dog will be confused to go for whom. I went the wrong side of the road and Nas went straight ahead. But the damn dog just had to chase me! I cycled till I cramped and my chain was stucked to the frame. I was just praying to god that the dog bite will not be as bad as it seems. But then suddenly, the dog didn't chase me and he went for Nas! Nas accelerated like fucking furious! And the dog chased him for a while and went back to the area where it was barking at us. We don't know what happened to the other dog. My leg was cramped to the max. I couldn't cycled! Pushed my bike to Nas where he stopped. We've been getting this chain stucked to the frame all the way from Butterworth. Started from Andy's house till Grik. Everytime Nas had to removed it and put it back where it belongs. Then we're all set and cycled slowly to look for a hotel. A real cheap hotel where we can stack out bikes as well. Checked in at Great Wall hotel in Grik. We pushed our bikes into our room. We reached at 5.30pm at Grik. We just lie down on the bed with the tiredness of all 14 hrs of cycling. Then we both took our turns of showering. We were refreshed with the shower taken. Watched the T.V. for a while. Then later, we had our dinner at in front of our hotel. We just eat and eat till we're maxed out. We've also discussed about tomorrow of getting a taxi from Grik to Jeli or Machang. The reason is because is Hari Raya Haji the next day. We didn't thought of that shops would be closed because of it. Really didn't came to our mind at all. Nas needs his H2O most of the time when cycling. So he needs shops to be opened for his H2O. Then we headed back to our hotel and watched about two movies on Starmovies. Nas wanted to wake up at 1130pm to have another meal for supper. We slept at around 930pm and the next thing we know we woke up at 7am. To be continued on my next post...

p/s: Cycled for about 130km today.