I have breakfast at the Orient Star Resort, where I was staying for the last two days, even Lumut has nothing to offer though besides the small ferry port, from where connections to the island Pangkor start and terminate. But the break was necessary and I also had to wash and dry some clothes. Here the laundry was getting dry on the clothesline and I was sitting on the balcony writing some sentences, while the muezzin of the nearby mosque not only was singing his call for the prayer with his beautiful voice out into the world several times a day, but also was singing all the surahs, his pieces of wisdom and admonition on the loudspeaker of the mosques.
Most things are already stowed into my bags before I have breakfast, but despite this I do not start before 10 o’clock onto this relatively short stage of today. At meanwhile chilly 24°C, I pull an additionally thin vest over my shirt. Meanwhile I really got adopted to the climate here, so while cycling I quickly sense the airstream as relatively cool.
The sky is densly clouded, but it doesn’t start to rain. After about 3 kilometers I see a group of local cyclists with mountain- and crossbikes that seems to meet each other at a filling station, while I’m passing. They quickly reach me a short while later, three guys and a man in my age, who is discussing a bit with me while the group is passing slowly. They go out for a drive, nothing special, it’s the weekend. Later on I meet a bigger group that is moving in the other direction, when I’m climbing the ascend of the bridge that crosses the river Sungai Lumut.
On the way to Taiping I’m following an alternative route of the NR 5 that guides over several bridges, passing the city Sitiawan and goes further on into the north direction. In the region of Damat Laut, some kilometers behind the longest bridge of today (with a length of about 1.5 km) that also leads directly into a construction area, I have a break under the flat roof of a street restaurant where I eat some noodles with vegetables and a fried egg and get an iced black tea with some milk for the sum of 7 RM. With my air-pump I can give some aid to a motorcyclist who needs some more pressure into the front wheel of his cross motorbike. The restaurant seems to be a meeting point of young people with their motorbikes, at least on this Sunday.
I move on along route 60 that is passing now a more ondulating region, a range that partly is covered with oil-palmtrees.
Also this more rural road seems to be widenend or renewed as every few hundred meters there’s contruction activity beside and on the road and siómetimes huge amounts of sand are place besides the road. At some sites houses near the road have to be re moved, at other places the neigbors may get the road right in front of their doors, where now is a wide enough gap between the surface of the road and their properties.
At the village of Segari I leave the NR60 to have a short detour down to the coast where I want to visit a seaturtle protection station, that is announced by signs already since several kilometers. The 7 km won’t take to much time, as I only have a short distance for today to my next destination Pantai Remis. The small protection station is located directly behind the beach and only a small fence is dividing it from the beach. In several small bassins turles of different size and age, from about 8“ up to 32“ or more, are presented and some information about their lifes can be found on display at this station.
It’s cute to see them, also the bigger animals, but with the view over the beach and over the ocean, I also can imagine that living there must be hard for these seaturtles. So many fishermen in their boats are spread over the horizon. Small boats though, but they all catch their fish with nets.
While I’m cycling back to the main road, it starts again to rain. But this doesn’t matter for the remaining 10 km. Sometimes it seems to me that this road really needs to be renewed, as there’s no longer a shoulder on the side and also the surface itself suffers a lack of material. The bicycle is hopping a bit from whole to whole, because it doesn’t has any cushioning elements as motor bikes have. But in general the roads in this part of the world are in good condition for the cyclist. About 5 km before I reach Pantai Remis the road construction terminates completely.
At the first houses of Pantai Remis I see some small restaurants, where people sit with a tea or coffee and talk to each other, and there are also some small shops where people offer their products and goods under their shelters very close to the road. Fresh fish is sold here directly from the cool boxes, and also fresh mussels.
I buy some bananas at a small shop of an elder woman who speaks English very well. Curious she wants to know where I’m coming from, a question that I’m meanwhile familiar with. I move slowly through this small town. It seems that there is a party on the other side of the road, a lot of people wear traditional clothes and someone is singing into a microfone. I’m wondering about the many old fashioned houses, made of wood, simple business- and living houses of an already gone period. Lately I see a hotel here in Pantai Remis and finally choose one in a small road, about 50 meters away from the through traffic. There I get a splendid room for 60 RM and the bicycle finds a place for the night inside the garage near the laundry machines.
