Left Simpang at about 8.30am after a cheap and good nasi lemak ayam, 3 half boiled eggs and teh o limau RM3.50 breakfast. Mad cheap.
Traffic starts building up right after Parit Buntar. 10 wheelers, trailers, high speed cement lorries and assholic vacous suckholery sundried pea brain W plate KL drivers that tend to drift towards me for no particular reason at all. Seriously whathefuckjoe?
Brilliant tailwind in Semenggol, tucked in mashed hard rode fast covering 20km+ in under 30 minutes which afterwards I pedaled easy steady while singing along to Mumford and Sons on my earphones. Tov!
The view was great, it was cooling and windy up there on the bridge. Brokeout into a 2 Sneakers bar, a bottle of isotonic drink and a handful of peanuts break whilst enjoying the blue sky the blue sea framed by the rotototototos of dainty tug boats. The fare for bicycle onto the ferry was RM1.20. Arrived in Georgetown at about 3pm.
Hello Penang!
Arrived in Penang and met up with my buddy Areep, cool ass dude plays in a post rock band called Damn Dirty Apes. Just so you know, Penang is famous for being a foodie tourist destination so every where that is touristy, it's steeply priced for out of town visitors. So Areep, took me to Padang Brown, pronounced as "Padang Brom", where the locals hang out and lepak. Mid meal, a wild ghost festival scantily clad ladies dancing troupe appears!
Since I'm already in Georgetown, I dont think it's an option to backtrack to mainland, to ride up north via Butterworth, Yan and Aloq Stak. So I decided to take the ferry to Langkawi. Where from Langkawi you can catch a connecting ferry out to Satun's Tam Malang jetty.
Day 5: Stranded in Penang
The next day I woke up at 10am, then jalan lenggang kangkung confidently assumed the availability of the Langkawi ferry after reading the alleged schedule on the net, where quickly I got shot down by the kakak counter that the Langkawi ferry departs at 730am and 830am - only 2 trips per day.
The lesson here is that, you fucking ferry people that provides services to the public please lah update your ferry details on the internet. Oh and also don't trust everything that you read on the net. But actually it would have made perfect sense for me to reconfirm the schedule and just walk the 500 meter distance to the ticket office the day before. But I did not. So this fault is my own.
So after some nonexistent hair pulling moment, colourful language directed to no one in particular and frantically looking, wondering at my map how would I reach Alor Setar by 5pm then I decided that stranded-in-Penang day is lepak malas chill the fuck out day.
Afterwards I did some routine bike maintenance, lepaked in Charbucks for a cup of overpriced iced coffee for their wifi to do some route research then I rode all over Georgetown for breakfast and lunch. Balik bilik switched on the AC to full blast and hid under the blanket while watching day time soap tv, wonderpets and Indonesian Sinetrons with pretty MILFS.
Day 6: Georgetown - Langkawi - Satun
Ticket was 60 clams, 8.30am from Georgetown and I reached Langkawi about 12 noon. The connecting ferry to Satun was at 1pm, ticket RM30 for a 90 minutes journey to Satun's Tam Malang jetty.
Thailand roads were awesome. They are very well maintained where pot holes are quite rare and you don't see those crackling pop going on that's everywhere along Malaysian roads. Theres even bicycles and motorbikes dedicated lane that's permanently etched all the way to Krabi. Although generally the Thais drives super fast but they're decent drivers too. The kids may look rowdy with their big silver chains, ivory earrings studs, modded over the top loud 4WD and k-pops faux-hawk side shaved hair-do but they constantly give ways to smaller vehicles and never seemed to be in a needless headless-chicken-rush.
Tam Malang was hot. That kinda heat that hurts the back of my neck and induced goosebumps all over my exposed arms. My eyes starts to hurt too because sweat drops were forming on my eyelashes. This is when vented sunglasses would be a pretty good investment. but it was a short journey into town. 15km out from the jetty, I reached Satun town and checked in at the artsy Ang Yee's Guesthouse. It came highly recommended by a fellow tourer and for 350b for a fan room that's pretty much ok by me. It's the same usual jig - budgety backpackers style place with shared loo and rustic looking. And with cats. Cats are cool.
The guesthouse is right in the middle of town opposite the green Kasikorn bank. But It's quite a distance to get to the night market, 20 minutes on foot. And no there's no tut tut here.
You see, the Thais have an age-old fascination with markets. Big cities like Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai have permanent big huge ones that sells everything anything under the sun that goes on all day sampai malam. Where as small towns like Satun have smaller ones that's segregated into multiple location that sells food, fruits, kueh, clothing, cars / bikes / lorries, meja, pinggan mangkok markets that only goes on half a day - either during the day or at night.
- Ride Preparation, Equipment and Notes
- Day 1 - 3. Kuala Selangor, Setiawan and Taiping
- Day 4 - 6: George Town and Satun
- Day 7 - 8: Trang
- Day 9: Krabi