3 DAYS EAST COAST MALAYSIA TRIP

Day 2 – Full Gerik [18 Apr 2009]

After a day of 15 hours riding and a night of well rested body and soul, we started our journey to Gerik at 6am in the morning because we do not want to be caught up as Day1 with the dark and foggy weather. We timed that by the time we reached Gerik, it will be bright and shine in the morning.

We loaded up our stuffs to our bikes and prepared to set-off. Suddenly I heard a ‘thud’ sound of bike fallen and saw Eugene’s bike on the ground. I helped him to lift up the bike and saw his right footrest has broken off. The cause of bike fallen was due to Eugene forgotten to remove his lock from the front wheel disc brake.

Eugene's bike footrest GONE...but not his spirits

With no alternatives of fixing or swapping his rear footrest, we rode off to Gerik town with Eugene riding with no footrest to hold on his feet. The front brake also came in contact when riding making Eugene uncomfortable with his bike. But what to do, still need to ride it. Suggest to him if he felt uneasy and wanted to U-turn back home, I’ll be with him…my thought ‘We came together, we back together’.

The morning ride was good, weather cooling and road condition clear with not many traffic. We went through Rantau Panjang checkpoint and to Gerik town via the close border of Betong next to it.

Nice scenery along the road to Gerik town. Reached Gerik town and we settled down for breakfast of rice with veggy, chicken drumstick and squid for me. It’s a self-serving meaning we just took how much we want.


Route to Gerik; Grik 155Km - Eugene start to ride off; Riding off



Nice scenery; Cold in the morning - nice weather; Mist and the many many insects on my visor

Well I just took moderate portion as I’m not a big eater. After a few mouthfuls, what a nasty and disgusting sight I’ve…a black cricket below my veggy. It immediately caused me to lose my appetite and spoiled my day. What the hell I’m cursing inside but still I finished the rice, drumstick and squid as I still need to fill up my stomach for the long journey ahead. As for the cricket and veggy, I’m not into fear-factor and left those 2 untouched.

The cricket, arghhhh + yuck yuck yuck + pui pui pui!!!

After breakfast, Daniel checked with a local, as he is more conversant in Malay, is there any bike shop around to fix Eugene’s bike footrest. Lucky there was a bike shop around the corner and Eugene got his bike fixed with RXZ’s footrest, damaged RM20 for a pair.

Without much ado, we proceeded to Gerik as we’re behind time. We’ve fun riding the trunk road of Gerik with many up and down turns and the nice scenery of mountains, greenery and lake. It also improved our skills.

Singapore road is kind of monotonous and is a big difference if one ever rode on Malaysia soil. We reached 3 quarters of Gerik and hit upon Gerik town and have our lunch at KFC. It was hot and Eugene’s camera memory was full.

Eugene's bike fixed with RXZ footrest, damaged RM20...

After lunch, we rode around the town as Eugene wanted to buy new memory card but it cost RM60 for a 1GB memory card. End up he burnt all his photos into a CD for RM5 and clear his memory card for more photos to be taken.

While waiting for Eugene in a coffeeshop, I dosed off again under the hot weather. And feeling bored, I went opposite to look see look see and bought a few stickers as souvenir.

We started to proceed again with the remaining quarter of Gerik which I lasted went through when going to Betong. Reached the Gerik icon signage, this time Eugene and me climbed further up the GERIK sign and from there I took some pictures that were awesome.


GERIK icon signage; Daniel below; An elated Eugene


Top view from GERIK signage

Feeling great with the Gerik trip, we went to Rawang for a night stay to prepare for day3. Reached Rawang at night, there was no street light and traffic was busy. It made our riding tough. And as the going gets tough, the tough gets going.....our spirits was still high!

Couldn’t found a place to stay, we took our dinner at 10pm in Uma Yam, 10 minutes ride after Rawang as we’re famished and tired before deciding where to stay put. During dinner, Daniel remembered he saw a budget hotel at Rawang, so back to Rawang we booked a budget hotel for the night. Eugene and me again shared a room [we're NOT gay!!!, LOL] and as usual Daniel has his own room.

While parking our bikes with Daniel checking the hotel price, a lady told us that Rawang here have bikes stolen almost every night and suggested to us to park opposite inside the police station.

The budget inn hotel

It made us worried and we went to ask for permission to park our bikes INSIDE the police station. The policemen were friendly and agreed to our request. While parking inside the police station and chained and locked our bikes, I joked with Eugene ‘Aren’t we ‘insulting/belittle’ them that we have to chain and locked our bikes INSIDE their premises'.



Rawang polis station - Eugene; Kup kia with thick chain and locked

Well is always better be safe than sorry as we saw a kup kia with chained and locked much tighter than ours. Went to our room and took our bath and rested to prepare for day3….

* to be continue. My camera battery went flat with no photos for day3, pending Eugene to post his photos…