Day 1 - Carey Island

Monday morning. Perfect weather if a bit hot, slightly short on sleep, but excited and a bit nervous as to what was ahead. Waved the wife and kids off to school, checked that I had all I needed, and hit the road, Jack.

This time, as I was headed into parts mostly unknown, I decided not to do the adventurer paper map thing and relied a bit more on technology. Google Maps, with the offline map of the day downloaded and used sparingly along the way as a checkpoint. The sparing usage was for two reasons; the first to conserve battery life and the second was because the phone got incredibly hot sitting in the enclosed see-through waterproof compartment of my tank bag. I didn’t want a Lithium ion fire - which is apparently as hot as the sun - start that close to my groin.

No venturing off the beaten path, either. As I was doing a much more distance in a day, I decided to stick to main roads. This meant boring highways and trunk roads on the west coast, but once I hit the north and east, it would be beautiful riding.

Music for this trip is the soundtrack from the Netflix documentary The Vietnam War. Besides being an excellent soundtrack, this was the period that I feel brought motorcycle clubs/gang culture to prominence, at least for my generation. Around the same time as I watched this documentary, I also watched Detroit, Easy Rider and Sons of Anarchy, all of which reference that war and motorcycle culture in some way. All those long-hairs with their Harleys struck a chord. Also watched First Blood, with its own bike scene.

First stop, Carey Island, which is off the coast of Klang and reached by a bridge. As far as I could tell, it consisted of oil palm plantations, a tribal village and museum, the resort I was staying at and - very little else. Why Carey Island? I liked the name. And a golf resort on an island promised relaxing views by the pool as I drank a cold beer after a half-day’s ride.

The trip was fairly easy and uneventful, following Google’s recommended route, it was up the North-South highway to the KLIA/Cyberjaya exit then toward Ipoh/Banting. As I came off the highway I put on Google Maps and remember very little else.

The resort was Amverton Cove Golf & Island Resort. Beautiful setting, and a fairly nice room. Only problem was, the golf club is closed on a Monday. And so was the Spa. And with nothing to do there, I was pretty much the only guest at the resort. The restaurant actually called me at 7pm to check if I wanted anything to eat before they closed for the night.

I didn’t mind having the pool to myself, or the restaurant. Quite enjoyed it, actually. But if you’re the kind of person who gets freaked out by NORMAN Bates, Motel, and oil palm plantation ghost stories, don’t stay here on Monday nights.

Total trip from Johor to Carey Island took me 4.5 hours, this was with three petrol stops (I overdid the petrol stops) and one butt rest. Distance, slightly under 350kms.

End of Day 1.

The view from breakfast at Amverton Cove Golf & Island Resort