Midliferide: Malaysia

Distance: <330km Time: 7hrs Stops: 5 stops lessons learnt: 1) Route 5 is a horrible ride. 2) My maximum threshold for riding in difficult circumstances is about 5 hours. Then it becomes torturous. 5) I ride hunched over and tensed up like I am doing 230km/h around knee-down curves. I am doing a max of 80km/h. I need to improve my posture. So I watched the sunset last night sunset at avillion admiral cove then had a lovely sleep with the balcony doors open and just the fan on. I was high up enough not to have to worry about mosquitoes. Woke up at 0730 to this daybreak over the marina and was on the road by 0900, after savoring my last hotel buffet breakfast PT local delights. Today it was nasi goreng kampung and capati with dhal. I've decided to head home. Partly because there's nowhere feasible to stop between here and home unless I took an interior route and tried to stay on the edge of Taman Negara. Was not too impressed by the hotel selections, so gave it a pass. Decided ...

Distance: <360km Time: 7.5 hours Stops: Countless, mostly for directional checks Lessons learnt: 1) Malaysian signboard are crap, unless you know where you're going 2) Road names and route numbers will change with no apparent warning, even Google Maps and commercial cartographers will be wrong 3) There's still some beautiful stretches of road out there. 4) There's more roadkill along newly built roads. The animals don't understand cars yet. What a day, what a day! The hardest one yet, although I will be considered a road trip pansy by most riders. But it was a fantastic experience, and to top it off, here I sit, blogging at you: view from avillion admiral cove, port dickson I set the alarm this morning for the first time. Since I was on the east coast, I wanted to try and catch the sunrise. Since I've been asleep every night by 2230hrs and not waking up til 0730, I thought a 0650 alarm would be a small price to pay. I recall watching my first sunrise. The year wa...