December 25, 2005
Have Mersing! Today was a rough one, especially on Christmas Day but more on that in a minute, I need to provide some details about what we have done and how we arrived here.
Singapore was great, it provided a nice opportunity to take a break from third world living. Flush toilets, air conditioning, great food, subways and people who speak English were all plentiful in the shining big city. We found a great hotel called the Hotel Tekka (01-22 Belilios Lane Singapore 219962, Tel 65-6225 3378) for about $30USD per night. We spent four nights there enjoying some good downtime and some attractions around Singapore.
Since we had visited the botanical gardens everywhere else we thought it only fitting that we visit the one in Singapore also. It was a very hot day and we thought we could walk but after about a mile we were so drenched by our perspiration we decided to ride a bus. The buses whiz so quickly down the streets we missed our stop without knowing. Fortunately an English woman who worked at the gardens offered to show us in through the back entrance. The three of us walked about a 1km to the gardens and during that time it was interesting to hear her perspective on Singapore. I had always heard that it is a very sterile city without personality and everyone moving around like a robot. She pointed out that she feels more free there than in her home country of England because she feels safe. Hearing that I began to think of all the near miss stories of the women in my life and began to understand how liberating it would be to move about at any time of day without fear. Maybe public caneings and the highest number of executions per capita in the world has some benefits.
We arrived at the back entrance said our goodbyes and we made our way to the evolution garden (or the intelligent design garden depending on your beliefs). I found it very informative and well done in its portrayal of the different stages of plant development on the earth. Next we visited the ginger garden which was also very informative. I thought ginger was the stuff you get with sushi that looks a little bit like ham but it is so much more. I found that ginger is a classification and included many thousands of plants ranging from bamboo to wheat grass. Next we visited my favorite part of the gardens and probably the trip so far, the National Orchid Garden. This was the only part of the garden that charged admission but it was well worth it once inside. I don’t know much about orchids but I was impressed with the numbers of different types, all the different colors and the number of different hybrids created there. The curators have become proficient in cross pollinating orchid plants creating what is called a hybrid or a new plant. Since it is something that has never existed before they get to name it and they often name them in honor of visiting dignitaries or famous people. They had orchids for Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, Ricky Martin, Princess Dianna, Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan to name a few. Some were prettier than others but each was unique and thus a very special honor from the Singapore Government.
Next we grabbed a bite to eat and made our way to our next attraction the Night Safari at the zoo. Jodi and I do not like zoos but we had heard so much about the Night Safari we thought we should make it happen. We followed the directions in the Lonely Planet and arrived soon after dark. Once there I realized we had probably made a mistake because of the Walt Disney World like appearance. We purchased tickets anyway and gave it a go. Granted the animals are more active than what are seen during the day at regular zoos, but we both felt it was still a zoo and not something we would do again. We left early and went to bed.
The next day we rested a bit, Jodi saw a doctor about a rash on her leg and we went to a book store to find a good map of Malaysia. We went to bed early because the next day we were going to do the border crossing and begin our adventures in Malaysia. Since most of the directions we have found describing the border crossing are fairly weak in detail I want to provide a description of what we did to help anyone wanting to do the same crossing in the future.
We started in Little India where we took "Race Course Rd" south to "Owen St." and onto "Thomson Rd." We followed "Thomson Rd." for over 10km until we arrived at "West Admiralty Rd." and headed west until the road ended at "Woodlands Center". We did not follow the signs telling motorcycles to turn left on "Woodlands Center" because that would have taken us on to the BCE expressway and to certain death in the fast moving traffic. Instead we turned right and followed it around the woodlands center shopping mall where the road connected to another that went up to the causeway. We turned right into the "cars only lane" and stayed to the left until the top of the ramp. Once on top we lifted our bikes over the guard rail into the motorcycle lane and through the border checkpoint.
To me the differences between Singapore and Malaysia were very similar to those between the U.S. and Mexico. One side hosts wealth and the conveniences of the west and the other filled with the smells of industry and people trying desperately to make a buck. Realizing we were no longer in the same world we stopped for lunch to study our map, read the Lonely Planet and tried to get our bearings so we could find a place to sleep that night. Jodi did not want to stay near downtown because it would be noisy so we rode up Highway three into the burbs. We noticed several high rise hotels and because we thought they were outside our price range we didn’t stop. I found a row of "budget" hotels and began my search. The first I entered and asked for a price and noticed they rent by the hour. I asked to see the room anyway and was surprised to find one of the worst hotel rooms I had ever seen. Then when I walked downstairs I discovered that it was a massage parlor and doing the math in my head I began to understand things here were not what they seemed and we "B lined" it to one of the high rise joints. The New York Hotel was very nice and cost only $37 USD per night, a little high for our budget but it beat listening to "wild kingdom" in the room next door. They had a lovely breakfast and the security were very diligent in making sure our bikes were safe for the night.
The thing that really surprised us in Malaysia was how popular "Kristmas" is. Everyone it seemed was in the Christmas spirit and everywhere we looked we saw decorations. The most bazar was a giant Santa Claus on skis at our hotel that made Jodi and I take a second look and made us wonder when anyone here has ever seen snow.
The next morning was a real "pisser." It was Christmas Eve and we had decided we did not want to spend Christmas in Johor Baruh but we would make our way to Kota Tinggi for several days. Lonely Planet indicated there was a nice 30m water fall with little pools where one could sit and enjoy things for an afternoon. It all sounded very nice and preferable to the busy city we were currently stuck in. In the morning we visited the free buffet breakfast where I exercised the kayakers mantra before paddling, "to eat until the spray skirt is snapped firmly in place on the boat." I am sure the 4 plates of food I ate surprised and maybe offended some but then again they were not going to have the same day I was going to have. Once outside we loaded our bikes and discovered Jodi’s bike had a flat so I fixed the flat and began to get annoyed that it was well after 10 in the morning, getting very hot and highway three was much to busy for my liking. This trip has been full of firsts, first ride through a tunnel, first touring experience and now first "full on" highway riding. The highway was very simple at first since there were many traffic lights to keep speeds in check but eventually we rode into the burbs where the lights became interchanges, the lanes went from three to six and highway speeds were in excess of 60km/hr. We stuck to the shoulder, when there was one, and when lanes would peel off to the left for exits we would somehow make our way across without getting killed. Jodi took things much better than I did, and I nearly cracked on several occasions when I would look back to see if she was ok and see a wall of traffic moving rapidly from behind. At one point she said to me "I want you to hold your right hand out like this, don’t look back and just pedal to that point over there." I did as she told me and the traffic yielded and slowed to let this slow moving bicycle out into traffic around lanes exiting the highway on my left. I could not believe it." It continued on like that for nearly 20km and we just took it bit by bit until we came upon a traffic jam where we were able to ride the lines to the front and around the traffic that was holding things up. When we arrived in Kota Tinggi our faces were black from the diesel soot and again I thought of Zoolander’s black lung bit.
Things in Kota Tinggi were not better than Johor Barhu, in fact they might have been worse. The one good hotel was booked so we spent several hours going from hotel to hotel looking for a room. Eventually we settled on the "Executive Suite" at the Seri Kota Hotel. What a dump, the toilet didn’t flush, so we spent the first part of our evening trying to figure out how to dump buckets of water into the bowl to wash things down stream. Then the TV didn’t work and neither did the fridge. I asked the manager about the problems and he said "I am so sorry" but nothing else. Executive Suite my ass! Early in the evening we decided we would not layover there but would move on to Mersing the next day. It would be a 90km ride, so we tried to power up on a big dinner and go to bed early so we would be ready. In the morning we did not get the early start I had hoped for but were on the road by 9am. The good news is we had overcast skies so things didn’t get too hot until about 2 in the afternoon. The road was wide with a really good shoulder and I felt safe most of the day. Periodically cars full of children and scarf clad women would pass honking and waving. To me the whole seen seemed very strange in that if I were to see a couple of bicyclists on the side of the road I would think nothing of it but for some reason some people here feel compelled to honk and wave in an effort to say hi. I am sure Jodi and I must look like a couple of space aliens to them.
I wish I could say the ride was perfect and we did it with little trouble but it was anything but easy. The road was undulating, my least favorite because the down hills were not big or steep enough to provide a good rest and the up hills were just enough to be annoying. It went on with one 1km up and another down for 90km and because I did not have much time out of the saddle my ass was so tender that I did not want to sit any longer. On a more positive note Jodi commented along the way that the ride was better than the night zoo. We saw wild pigs, snakes, a giant lizard, wild dogs and my favorite....monkeys. (One important note unlike Bali where the dogs pay no attention to passing bicycles the dogs here will chase us down the road. Yikes!)
When we arrived in Mersing we were both tired and cranky and had little patience for one another. I was thinking that we should find a place for one night and then find more comfortable digs, provided there were any the next day. Jodi had other ideas and we ended up working against one another and in talking about it later we decided we need to have business meetings at every stop to get an idea what the other is thinking so we can develop a plan and move forward productively.
Mersing is another dump! The accommodations are clogged with vacationing Malaysians and their kids run about early in the morning yelling and screaming. We can’t sleep in. The budget hotels suck and the more expensive ones are like the "executive suite" at the Kota Seri. I don’t necessarily believe the problem is Malaysian but ours because we are used to the standard of living that we had in Bali and here it is very different. If things do not improve soon, we are going to have to "B-line" it for Thailand because I have no interest in living like this on vacation. If I were to do it over I would never ride from Johor Barhu to Mersing but would have taken a bus to Mersing and saved myself two days of misery along the way.
Today we have to rest so at noon we are going to check out and ride 10km in a direction in a quest for better accommodations and hope we can find a nice quiet spot to lay down for a couple of days. Yesterdays ride zapped me pretty hard and every two hours I get hungry. Last night I awoke during the night so hungry I couldn’t sleep, fortunately we had a box of cookies and a bottle of lassie to sooth my pangs.
Looking at the map it appears that things get better farther north and from what we have heard from other people it’s a long coast of beaches and small bungalows. We sure hope that is true because this riding from shit hole to shit hole really makes the riding difficult and the stops unpleasant!
Singapore was great, it provided a nice opportunity to take a break from third world living. Flush toilets, air conditioning, great food, subways and people who speak English were all plentiful in the shining big city. We found a great hotel called the Hotel Tekka (01-22 Belilios Lane Singapore 219962, Tel 65-6225 3378) for about $30USD per night. We spent four nights there enjoying some good downtime and some attractions around Singapore.
Since we had visited the botanical gardens everywhere else we thought it only fitting that we visit the one in Singapore also. It was a very hot day and we thought we could walk but after about a mile we were so drenched by our perspiration we decided to ride a bus. The buses whiz so quickly down the streets we missed our stop without knowing. Fortunately an English woman who worked at the gardens offered to show us in through the back entrance. The three of us walked about a 1km to the gardens and during that time it was interesting to hear her perspective on Singapore. I had always heard that it is a very sterile city without personality and everyone moving around like a robot. She pointed out that she feels more free there than in her home country of England because she feels safe. Hearing that I began to think of all the near miss stories of the women in my life and began to understand how liberating it would be to move about at any time of day without fear. Maybe public caneings and the highest number of executions per capita in the world has some benefits.
We arrived at the back entrance said our goodbyes and we made our way to the evolution garden (or the intelligent design garden depending on your beliefs). I found it very informative and well done in its portrayal of the different stages of plant development on the earth. Next we visited the ginger garden which was also very informative. I thought ginger was the stuff you get with sushi that looks a little bit like ham but it is so much more. I found that ginger is a classification and included many thousands of plants ranging from bamboo to wheat grass. Next we visited my favorite part of the gardens and probably the trip so far, the National Orchid Garden. This was the only part of the garden that charged admission but it was well worth it once inside. I don’t know much about orchids but I was impressed with the numbers of different types, all the different colors and the number of different hybrids created there. The curators have become proficient in cross pollinating orchid plants creating what is called a hybrid or a new plant. Since it is something that has never existed before they get to name it and they often name them in honor of visiting dignitaries or famous people. They had orchids for Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, Ricky Martin, Princess Dianna, Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan to name a few. Some were prettier than others but each was unique and thus a very special honor from the Singapore Government.
Next we grabbed a bite to eat and made our way to our next attraction the Night Safari at the zoo. Jodi and I do not like zoos but we had heard so much about the Night Safari we thought we should make it happen. We followed the directions in the Lonely Planet and arrived soon after dark. Once there I realized we had probably made a mistake because of the Walt Disney World like appearance. We purchased tickets anyway and gave it a go. Granted the animals are more active than what are seen during the day at regular zoos, but we both felt it was still a zoo and not something we would do again. We left early and went to bed.
The next day we rested a bit, Jodi saw a doctor about a rash on her leg and we went to a book store to find a good map of Malaysia. We went to bed early because the next day we were going to do the border crossing and begin our adventures in Malaysia. Since most of the directions we have found describing the border crossing are fairly weak in detail I want to provide a description of what we did to help anyone wanting to do the same crossing in the future.
We started in Little India where we took "Race Course Rd" south to "Owen St." and onto "Thomson Rd." We followed "Thomson Rd." for over 10km until we arrived at "West Admiralty Rd." and headed west until the road ended at "Woodlands Center". We did not follow the signs telling motorcycles to turn left on "Woodlands Center" because that would have taken us on to the BCE expressway and to certain death in the fast moving traffic. Instead we turned right and followed it around the woodlands center shopping mall where the road connected to another that went up to the causeway. We turned right into the "cars only lane" and stayed to the left until the top of the ramp. Once on top we lifted our bikes over the guard rail into the motorcycle lane and through the border checkpoint.
To me the differences between Singapore and Malaysia were very similar to those between the U.S. and Mexico. One side hosts wealth and the conveniences of the west and the other filled with the smells of industry and people trying desperately to make a buck. Realizing we were no longer in the same world we stopped for lunch to study our map, read the Lonely Planet and tried to get our bearings so we could find a place to sleep that night. Jodi did not want to stay near downtown because it would be noisy so we rode up Highway three into the burbs. We noticed several high rise hotels and because we thought they were outside our price range we didn’t stop. I found a row of "budget" hotels and began my search. The first I entered and asked for a price and noticed they rent by the hour. I asked to see the room anyway and was surprised to find one of the worst hotel rooms I had ever seen. Then when I walked downstairs I discovered that it was a massage parlor and doing the math in my head I began to understand things here were not what they seemed and we "B lined" it to one of the high rise joints. The New York Hotel was very nice and cost only $37 USD per night, a little high for our budget but it beat listening to "wild kingdom" in the room next door. They had a lovely breakfast and the security were very diligent in making sure our bikes were safe for the night.
The thing that really surprised us in Malaysia was how popular "Kristmas" is. Everyone it seemed was in the Christmas spirit and everywhere we looked we saw decorations. The most bazar was a giant Santa Claus on skis at our hotel that made Jodi and I take a second look and made us wonder when anyone here has ever seen snow.
The next morning was a real "pisser." It was Christmas Eve and we had decided we did not want to spend Christmas in Johor Baruh but we would make our way to Kota Tinggi for several days. Lonely Planet indicated there was a nice 30m water fall with little pools where one could sit and enjoy things for an afternoon. It all sounded very nice and preferable to the busy city we were currently stuck in. In the morning we visited the free buffet breakfast where I exercised the kayakers mantra before paddling, "to eat until the spray skirt is snapped firmly in place on the boat." I am sure the 4 plates of food I ate surprised and maybe offended some but then again they were not going to have the same day I was going to have. Once outside we loaded our bikes and discovered Jodi’s bike had a flat so I fixed the flat and began to get annoyed that it was well after 10 in the morning, getting very hot and highway three was much to busy for my liking. This trip has been full of firsts, first ride through a tunnel, first touring experience and now first "full on" highway riding. The highway was very simple at first since there were many traffic lights to keep speeds in check but eventually we rode into the burbs where the lights became interchanges, the lanes went from three to six and highway speeds were in excess of 60km/hr. We stuck to the shoulder, when there was one, and when lanes would peel off to the left for exits we would somehow make our way across without getting killed. Jodi took things much better than I did, and I nearly cracked on several occasions when I would look back to see if she was ok and see a wall of traffic moving rapidly from behind. At one point she said to me "I want you to hold your right hand out like this, don’t look back and just pedal to that point over there." I did as she told me and the traffic yielded and slowed to let this slow moving bicycle out into traffic around lanes exiting the highway on my left. I could not believe it." It continued on like that for nearly 20km and we just took it bit by bit until we came upon a traffic jam where we were able to ride the lines to the front and around the traffic that was holding things up. When we arrived in Kota Tinggi our faces were black from the diesel soot and again I thought of Zoolander’s black lung bit.
Things in Kota Tinggi were not better than Johor Barhu, in fact they might have been worse. The one good hotel was booked so we spent several hours going from hotel to hotel looking for a room. Eventually we settled on the "Executive Suite" at the Seri Kota Hotel. What a dump, the toilet didn’t flush, so we spent the first part of our evening trying to figure out how to dump buckets of water into the bowl to wash things down stream. Then the TV didn’t work and neither did the fridge. I asked the manager about the problems and he said "I am so sorry" but nothing else. Executive Suite my ass! Early in the evening we decided we would not layover there but would move on to Mersing the next day. It would be a 90km ride, so we tried to power up on a big dinner and go to bed early so we would be ready. In the morning we did not get the early start I had hoped for but were on the road by 9am. The good news is we had overcast skies so things didn’t get too hot until about 2 in the afternoon. The road was wide with a really good shoulder and I felt safe most of the day. Periodically cars full of children and scarf clad women would pass honking and waving. To me the whole seen seemed very strange in that if I were to see a couple of bicyclists on the side of the road I would think nothing of it but for some reason some people here feel compelled to honk and wave in an effort to say hi. I am sure Jodi and I must look like a couple of space aliens to them.
I wish I could say the ride was perfect and we did it with little trouble but it was anything but easy. The road was undulating, my least favorite because the down hills were not big or steep enough to provide a good rest and the up hills were just enough to be annoying. It went on with one 1km up and another down for 90km and because I did not have much time out of the saddle my ass was so tender that I did not want to sit any longer. On a more positive note Jodi commented along the way that the ride was better than the night zoo. We saw wild pigs, snakes, a giant lizard, wild dogs and my favorite....monkeys. (One important note unlike Bali where the dogs pay no attention to passing bicycles the dogs here will chase us down the road. Yikes!)
When we arrived in Mersing we were both tired and cranky and had little patience for one another. I was thinking that we should find a place for one night and then find more comfortable digs, provided there were any the next day. Jodi had other ideas and we ended up working against one another and in talking about it later we decided we need to have business meetings at every stop to get an idea what the other is thinking so we can develop a plan and move forward productively.
Mersing is another dump! The accommodations are clogged with vacationing Malaysians and their kids run about early in the morning yelling and screaming. We can’t sleep in. The budget hotels suck and the more expensive ones are like the "executive suite" at the Kota Seri. I don’t necessarily believe the problem is Malaysian but ours because we are used to the standard of living that we had in Bali and here it is very different. If things do not improve soon, we are going to have to "B-line" it for Thailand because I have no interest in living like this on vacation. If I were to do it over I would never ride from Johor Barhu to Mersing but would have taken a bus to Mersing and saved myself two days of misery along the way.
Today we have to rest so at noon we are going to check out and ride 10km in a direction in a quest for better accommodations and hope we can find a nice quiet spot to lay down for a couple of days. Yesterdays ride zapped me pretty hard and every two hours I get hungry. Last night I awoke during the night so hungry I couldn’t sleep, fortunately we had a box of cookies and a bottle of lassie to sooth my pangs.
Looking at the map it appears that things get better farther north and from what we have heard from other people it’s a long coast of beaches and small bungalows. We sure hope that is true because this riding from shit hole to shit hole really makes the riding difficult and the stops unpleasant!
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 11:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home