How Many Times did you Pee?

Judy's hot coffee arrived with ice floating on top.

The question comes up in the evening, as we relax after our day’s riding.  The answer varies but after three days on the humid roads of Malaysia we know it won’t be many – once when we get up, perhaps once in the early afternoon and then maybe, just maybe, once more.

Another roadside stall and another cold drink.

An ABC - shaved ice, sweet
corn, red beans, fruit juice, colouring,
peanuts and lychees.

It’s astonishing when we add up the litres of fluid we put away – input is not matching output. We each begin with a 650 ml bottle of water before we set out, followed by two cups of tea each after an hour or two on the road.

 

 At lunchtime we often have fresh lime or lemon juice and we make several stops during the day at roadside stalls to guzzle on fresh coconut milk, soya, mango and watermelon juice and something called pingo. Add to that the three and a quarter litres of water (spiked with hydrating salts) that we carry on the bike, plus the three litres we tend to buy around mid-afternoon. It’s an awful lot of fluid.

This time it's a soya drink.

Sometimes after the first question comes another – what colour is it? We’ll spare you the details, but you can probably guess. The only solution seems to be to drink more.



Monsoon, Ipoh, Nov 2012

TANDOIDS

Current Location: Ipoh, Malaysia

Total Distance: 5,518 km

Longest day’s ride: 109.6 km (Malaysia)

State of Backsides: Raw and sore –

too long out of the saddle, and too much humid weather.

Road Kill Sightings (snakes): 8

 NORTH FROM KUALA LUMPUR



Sheltering from the rain on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Judy's in the centre wearing the yellow high viz vest.

We set out from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s largest city, in trepidation but as is so often the way the reality was better than we had dared hope. It was a public holiday so the roads were relatively quiet. We managed to avoid the motorways and found shelter under an overpass when the monsoon rains arrived mid-morning. The most difficult part was avoiding the traffic in the exit lanes on the six lane highway (with median strip) that took us north from the suburb of Ampang, past the Batu Caves and west to Kuala Selangor, where we stayed the night. Day One – 78 km.

The Beast of Burden gets pride of place
in the foyer of the Anson Hotel, Teluk Intan.

In Kuala Selangor, the Beast shared
our bedroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We covered more than a hundred kilometres on each of the next two days as we cycled on flat roads from Kuala Selangor to Teluk Intan (overnight stop) and on to Ipoh in Perak State. One stretch of road from Bota Kanan to Parit deserves special mention – it was particularly pretty as it ran alongside the Perak River.

Removed from its thick skin, the Durian looks even less
attractive but we had to give it a try. One man told us that
Durian is like eating apple pie in a public toilet. He was
overrating it.

Durian fruit - almost the size
of a soccer ball and difficult
to get into..