Bicycle Touring to Australia: Malaysia, Gemas To Simpang Renggam

My latest bicycle touring to Australia update: cycling through Malaysia, Gemas to Simpang Renggam. 88 miles. I’ve found it pretty hard going today and have spent most of the day being chased along the road by a rain cloud. I was lucky enough to stay ahead of it, right up until the end of the day. But by then, I was checking into a hotel.

Lovely little hotel tonight, although I did have a little difficulty checking in. The girl on reception was struggling to understand me. I asked her if there was somewhere safe I could leave my bike. But she just couldn’t understand me, and she was trying so hard to understand. In the end, she went to get her manager. I liked the manager! She was a beautiful Malaysian girl who spoke near-perfect English. I might ask to talk to the manager more often if they all look like this! After explaining to her what I was trying to say, she directed me to an empty shop in the hotel and let me secure it in there.

People Are So Nice

I was given some chopsticks at last night’s restaurant. They were promotional items sponsored by Guinness! As much as I’m grateful for gifts, I am a little limited on space! I got talking to a Malay couple in the restaurant. They told me that both of their children were in the UK, going to university. One was in Liverpool and the other in Aberdeen, and they’d driven from Aberdeen to London and back whilst they were there! A lovely couple, who even paid for my meal, which was totally unexpected, but much appreciated! After they’d left, I stayed to have another drink (only Coke, unfortunately), and when I went to pay for that, they told me it was on the house! A very cheap evening indeed, I feel pretty guilty! I’m not very good at accepting free hospitality!

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page.

Bicycle Touring to Australia: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur to Gemas

My latest bicycle touring to Australia update: cycling through Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur to Gemas. 106 miles. Despite it being Valentine’s Day yesterday and loads of loved-up couples, I had quite a good evening in Chinatown. I ended up talking to a couple from Manchester. They were there on holiday and had just travelled up from Singapore. They were saying how expensive Singapore was, which  I’d already thought. A good evening with a lot of beer drunk!

There’s not much to say about today. Nothing has happened, or nothing that I can remember! It was, however, nice to ride along without having that annoying clicking pedal. I saw loads of monkeys, but they soon scurried away when they heard me coming.

I had Chinese for dinner again tonight. It’s the only place I can get a beer with my dinner. I tried to order the “special frog delight.” But they didn’t have any. They must have all hopped off! Sitting in the restaurant, they had a television on in the corner. And on it was a programme, which I remember from my childhood in the 70s. Monkey, a Japanese series they’d dubbed into English, very badly, I hastened to add! But that’s what made the series so funny. I think it was on BBC2, after 9 pm.

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page.

Bicycle Touring to Australia: Malaysia, In Kuala Lumpur

My latest bicycle touring update, cycling to Australia, in Kuala Lumpur. This cycling malarkey feels like a job sometimes! Especially when I’m not riding, all I seem to do is spend most of the day on the computer. It’s like being back home and spending the day in the office! Not that I can remember working very well! It’s been so long since I worked properly. The bike shop saved me early today from a few hours of computer work. Even though I know, I have to do it to continue my journey.

My bike was ready for collection. And I wasted no time in going to get it and jumped on the LRT to  Taman Bahagia. When I arrived at the shop, my bike was all ready for me. My Speedhub was all serviced with an oil change, and they’d tightened up my brakes. And they’d even sorted out my clicking pedal by taking it apart and regreasing it. If that had happened in England, they would have just thrown the pedal away and stuck a new one on. I chatted with the bike mechanic for a while. I was in no hurry to get back to the laptop!

Back To The Hotel

What a difference from yesterday. It took me fifty minutes to get back to the hotel! As opposed to five hours yesterday for the same journey! Not that I was in a rush to get back to the computer, but it has to be done!

I went to Chinatown for supper tonight and realised that it was Valentine’s Day today! Somebody find me a bucket! It’s as bad here, if not worse than it is at home.

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page.

Bicycle Touring to Australia: Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur

My latest bicycle touring update, cycling to Australia, in Kuala Lumpur. And the day started so well! Last night, the Rohloff distributors emailed me back and phoned me this morning. They had arranged for a shop to do the work and even texted me the directions! I think that’s where I went wrong!

The idea was that if I got lost, I could just show people the text, and they would point me in the right direction. Good idea, in theory, shame nobody read it properly! Or they didn’t know where it was and were too embarrassed to say. No matter who I asked, I got a different direction! The only consistent thing was that everybody kept saying it’s a long way away! What they meant by a long way was 10km! If only they knew how far I’d come!

After nearly four hours of trying to find the shop, I gave up asking anybody and found my own way. Maybe that’s what I should have done in the first place, but, hey, it is what it is. I eventually found the shop by following the railway line, as I knew it was next to a railway station. Because I arrived so late at the shop, I left my bike with them. I’ve also asked them to sort out an annoying click in one of my pedals. It took me five hours to find that shop! And half an hour to get back by train!

Back at the hotel, I sorted out my visa for Australia, another job out of the way. In the restaurant tonight, I was sitting next to a Chinese couple. It was so funny watching them trying to eat their food with a knife and fork! I probably looked just as awkward as them when I was eating with chopsticks!

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page.