Vanwa and the trail of dust.....: the lobster ride - sungei rengit (12th March 2006)

sorry for the long long delay..been busy with the Kruzer's AGM and a tribute for benny, our great friend whom we all dearly miss...without further adieu....

sungei rengit is especially famous for its "cheap" seafood, its proximity to desaru and the odd weekend cycling for hordes of singaporeans. this is also the place where we would come round, frolick at a quiet beach nearby and head for seafood and lobsters at the end of the day.

it would be no different for this ride with hungry anticiaption for the food to be consumed that day.

We were to meet at 730 but due to the non occurence of the expected jam, were in by 7. Nix was comfortably perched atop his goldwing while dear casted envious eyes on the ultra comfortable pillion seat. already brimming with a gleeful smile at the coming breakfast, i, or rather we, waited patiently for the rest to appear. two couples were down due to bad backs and fever and so the travelling party was down to 5 bikes with eden and partner accompanying us on this one as well.

the 5 bikes..eden too shy to show his...

kota tinggi is a pretty popular town partly due to its position as the gateway to desaru and that overused waterfall. eastern johor is spilt from the west due to the a long winding river that probably sourced from a little river further up... (www.waterfallsofmalaysia.com)

so instead of a comfortable 15 to 20km straight line flight to sungei rengit or penggarang, motorists have to take the long route up to kota tinggi and back down south again. all in all, somewhere ard 100km. i remember kota tinggi as the town with the cheap dim sum, something we singaporeans don't get very often. the cheapest i ever had was in hatyai, thailand costing only 50 cents per basket of 4 siew mai. thinking abt it makes me hungry....

the roads again

breakfast was a pleasant surprise. where is used to be a single kopitiam selling breakfast, now there are 3! the area has also developed with spinely looking stones masquerading as foot reflexology trail being the main attraction. with a hearty breakfast behind us, i was already looking forward to the lunch. the last time we went to the restaurant, i had such a good meal of beer and lobster that i wished i could go every week.

not for the weak hearted

the bridge might not make it....

the first stop was by a resort near the kota tinggi waterfalls called the kota rainforest resort. isaac seemed to have heard abt it and since we weren't in a hurry for lunch, decided to check out the space. a large lobby and a number of talking birds dot the way to the rooms and it's a joy to see the birds speaking in malay with all their little quirks. i especially love the vulgarities spewing ones.

into the resort

besides the resort, there was also an assortment of adventure training stuff similar to those you see in outward bound schools. a look at the rooms show a single storey with an attic, also filled with beds. they sure make good use of the space. a short while later, we left for more things to see.

the resort

kota rainforest resort

the flying fox

suspension bridge at the resort

my bird brained fren

the wide spaced lobby

resting outside the rooms

about an hour later, we stopped by sedili kechil, about 30 - 40km north of desaru, to tarry for a little while as we would have reached sungei rengit with still a quarter of our breakfast in our stomachs. instead, we quenched the unbearable thirst of the mid morning heat in a cool hut in sedili kechil town itself. A picturesque sight greets this quaint settlement and imagine our surprise when one of the kids went up to speak to dear in perfect English.

sedili kechil

reliving kampung childhood

relaxing by the beach

it is rare that one of the children speak in malaysia's rural population and it turned out that her grand-dad is an Englishman. that explains the some of the adults speak a splattering of malay and english in their conversations. one of the adults even have reggae styled hairdo. ya mun....

this time round, we could just feel the hunger pangs coming. eager to get there ard 1pm, we set off once again, having fun on the extremely bad roads of highway J173 with very little cars and the sea just to our left. den about 20km to sungei rengit, isaac slowed to a stop. indeed, when i pulled up at the rear, i could see the unmistakable slump of his rear tires. the worst thing is that they were tube tires! meaning, we had to remove the whole wheel, somehow try to tube out and fit a new one in or patch it up. something impossibe, given we have no new tube or patch. or even those emergency foam thingy. after pulling the nail out, there was another shock cos it aint no nail, but a bloody allen key!

the farking allen key!

wat a blister

stuck in nowhere

isaac went to a nearby petrol station to see if they stock the foam cannister while the rest hid under the shadow of my bike while Nix went into the foliage to hunt for a good resting place. it seems like its gonna be a very long wait when worse news was to follow. there aren't any cannisters ard and so we decided to remove the wheel and head to the nearest town to replace the tube. trouble is, tubes of such sizes are rare in malaysia and most of them would be for lorries. nonetheless, it was worth a shot, and miraculously, heaven sent us an oblong piece of wooden block that had no business being there but served the right height to prop the wheel-less bike up.

nix needs the shade

overdoing it a little

by now, the ladies were busy chatting away under the bike, eating crackers to stave off hunger pangs and downing cokes. the entire wheel was loaded onto nix's goldwing and i took the hornet 250 to escort him to sungei rengit town.

chilling in the sun

preparing to rest

the mean machine

the heaven sent block

20km later, we were greeted with news that there aren't tubes of those sizes for the rear tire. the biggest they had were for lorries with huge air valves that could hardly be fitted thru the mini hole of the bike rim. the nice uncles even scoured the entire town for tubes of that size but to no avail.

eventually, they got round to patching up the tube though it would be big trouble if it blew again as the L shaped allen key punctured 2 holes in close proximity to each other. by the time we have gotten back, it would have been 3 hours since the puncture. and there were more than a few hungry faces around. take how had also joined us, having to suffer the ignomony of a last minute work assignment in the morning. his girlfriend had to sit pillion on jocelyne's little bike, chalking up invaluable experience points for jo though.

finally, we reached the restaurant at approximately 5pm...just nice for an early dinner. well, we were only 4 hours late.....for these.........

finally....beer

takehow shows how thirsty he is

my supremely burnt nose

the wonderful lobsters

447Rm for 9 pple...

a nice evening by telok ramunia gives us some breathing space as the sun begins its hypnotic descent over the horizon while the moon takes up its position over the never ending sea.....

the breezy and howling winds concocts up a dreamy evening under the stars...