Cycling Alone at High Altitude, July 15, 2007

I inched closer to the window and pulled the curtain to look outside. It was misty and cold down the valley and made me had a second thought of cycling alone. Since the apartment was on higher ground looking down was really a pleasure creating nice feeling in me. I knew I made the right decision to come up here to rest after a week bout of on and off fever. That actually gave me more reason why I shouldn’t be out there cycling alone. My wife and Mar were still in deep sleep cuddled under the heated comforter as if announcing silently not to disturb them. I envied them for that as it was supposed to be me under the sheet but I was awake staring out. It was not really a complain though as I was really enjoying the view with nice feeling building up inside me even more after each minutes. Then, all of a sudden I decided to go down cycling. I do not know but at that time I just thought it would be a waste not to do it. I put on my gear, woke my wife to let me out and drove down to the park. The small parking area was empty but I saw few people walking in the park already. I immediately took out my bike form the back of the Ranger and cycled towards the hospital passing Mardi as a warm-up run. At that point I have not decided where to go but I figured the climbed to the hospital would be a good warm up to acclimatize with the thin air at that altitude. As I was climbing towards the hospital I only saw a lady and an Indian gentleman joggers.

Probably it was a Sunday morning or probably no body really gets sick in this nice cool place. The hospital was not like any other hospital that I had been to not only the architecture was like and English cottage it was really quiet with hardly any activities. I circled the lobby and sped down with cold air breaking on my face. While enjoying the speed down from the hospital I decided to cycle around the small town to check out all the nooks and crannies of the place. I started by turning right towards the new Century Pine Hotel to cycle around the field next to the school where I met a couple jogging. When I cycled out I saw a group of ladies sitting, I thought firstly were exercising, around reading. That was nice I thought the morning cool condition was indeed pleasant enough for them to do that. I wondered what they were reading. My eyes caught the clock tower in the park and it said 0815 but the morning was hardly breaking it seemed. I was beginning to really love the ride. I proceeded towards the heart of the small town. Wanting to absorb the nice feeling that was constantly growing inside me that I did not understand I cruised in enjoying the town. I turned left at the end and circle around the block where Maybank was and came out of the other side where I saw a small Sunday market was in progress. It was a small Sunday market but I knew I would check it out later. I entered the main road after that and turned left immediately to climb towards Heritage Hotel. Although most people I met ignored me as if I was a normal occurrence I still guessed I was the only one doing it in this town. From there on I kept on cycling in and out of corners and turns to explore part of the town that I took for granted before. In the end I found myself cruising down to where I started off and undecided for a while. I knew at that point it was about 5-6 kilometres from Tanah Rata to Brinchang and it was not the distance that I was worried about as I had covered more than that before. It was not the steep non-stop climb that bothered me really but whether my body was ready to cross the pain barrier after a week of uncertain sickness. To top it off doing it at the altitude of thin air. I was genuinely concern on how my body going to react. In the end I decided to do a Nike, just do it.

I began slowly as I had lost the momentum while I was on the thinking mode and got the bike to lower gear. It was not bad and I managed the first steep corner without difficulty. I looked up and in front of me was another steep corner that forced me to continue climbing without any let-up to stabilize my momentum. Cycling alone with that kind of condition was indeed a challenge as you do not have anybody to push or pull you up. I was perspiring inside but the cool high altitude air suppressed the flow of my sweat. I pressed on with my head up looking ahead and my confident grew after each corner and climb. It was really a wonderful feeling as well as relieve when I reached the top of the climb. I knew it was then steep down hill in front of me that coiled until the Smokehouse. I sped down breaking cool breeze along the way until I got to the edge of the golf course. It was then a long stretch of decent gradual incline interval but a short downhill before the steep climb into Brinchang town. I managed enough to turn left to checkout the unexplored part of the town. Still it was not an easy ride as Brinchang was built of a slope. The thought of pushing up further towards Equatorial Hotel crossed my mind as I harbour ambition to go off road within Sg Palas tea plantation. I knew and confident I could do it but I decided to turn back.

Based on the sign board at the golf course I realized there was an alternative road to bypass the major part of the climb going back to Tanah Rata. So just before the Smokehouse I turned left towards Kg Sg Sedia. Following my instinct I cycled through the kampong and emerged at the second steep corner on my initial climb. By all means it was not that easy going through the kampong as I had to negotiate a decent and the steepest climb towards the end. However it was a pleasant ride through as I discovered a couple of homestay places. Judging from the atmosphere and aura of the area I assumed it was a nice kampong. I even passed a kenduri in progress. After the steepest climb I cruised into Tanah Rata and did not want to stop.

I stopped at the parked Ranger and called my wife to ask whether they wanted to go out for breakfast or for me to buy for them. They decided it was still cold, it was already 0930, to get out and instead of putting the bike in the Ranger and drive I cycled into Tanah Rata to get breakfast. Getting a decent healthy breakfast at Tanah Rata was really a challenge for me. People in Cameron Highland either have Nasi Lemak or Roti Canai for breakfast. I stopped at the mini Pasar Minggu and bought a few kueh, stopped at the sundry shop to get newspapers and cycled back to the Ranger. This time I packed the bike in and considering what I had just bought would not be enough I drove back to town to buy Roti Telor and several nasi lemak. As soon as I got to the apartment it started to rain heavily.

On the Road (Boh Tea Plantation, Breakdown), April 2, 2006

I overslept and woke up with a bit of daylights already. I immediately said my suboh. Tariq, Intan and their baby girl were already on the yard taking photos by the time I was finished. It was cold but I took my bath the same. I went down for breakfast with my laptop, obviously there wasn’t any breakfast ready so I decided to start on a couple of toasts and fruits, and sat silently eating at the end of the big dinner table. Soon everyone up and Traiq and Intan decided to cook western breakfast. Eventually everyone was at the breakfast table we ate like one big family. Some of them, I knew, were wondering where would we be going or doing that day. I did not mention anything yet about the day’s plan and they were waiting for me to say something. I kept the suspense going and suddenly a quarter to nine I said loudly that we were going out at 0900. Immediately like an army drill everyone got up and hurriedly got ready. They knew I hate to have them late for something. Only when we were in the truck I mentioned to my wife that we were going to the Boh Tea Plantation down below. I chose Boh because that was the only plantation that we had not been to. The other car at the back of course did not have a clue as to where we were going. But they knew me enough it would be somewhere very interesting.

As I turned right towards the Boh Plantation from the main road I did not really know how far it was but the road was bigger than the usual plantation road. I started to drive through various vegetable farms. So close were some of the vegetable beds to the road that I felt like driving onto one. Since it was a little bit early in the morning I sped along a little bit. It was a pleasant drive that I enjoyed very much. Not long suddenly we came to the perimeter of the tea plantation and immediately the road became very tight and acute. Just like the old days when I was on the Bentong KL bus going through tight winding road I blasted the horn hard to let any cars on the opposite direction know that I am coming through the bend. Once in a while playfully I made music out of the horn. Nevertheless the tea plants around us created a nice scenic drive through. In no time we were at the gate to the tea processing plant.

When I saw some kids were yelling from the top of the hill I knew straight away I had to be there as well. Since they were kids I figured there must be an easy way up. True enough there was a foot path with steps going up. First, we checked out the souvenir shop and my daughter told me they have films there, yes I am still using films, so I bought a roll for her and one a spare for me. I made my intention known to the rest by making a short announcement that I am going to the top. Four year old Mar just knew what I was saying so I took her along. If Mar could climb the hill to the top you know that the climb was not that difficult. In fact we enjoyed it, stopping now and then to take photographs. Eventually the rest followed us up. It was flat at the top, well again enough to play football, and the grass had just been trimmed. Together with the cool breeze and the morning sun it was a wonderful feeling to be there. We explored the area from one edge to another freely taking photographs as we want. All of us agreed that if we had a day we’d just stayed there the whole day. The views, surrounding, weather and atmosphere were very pleasant. Comparatively though I love Kundasang better. I sat at the edge looking down at the workers quarters down below and started to imagine about the life in the plantation. In a way I envy them but then I knew as well the kind of hard work they put up to climb the terrain to harvest the tea leaves. The kids and their cousins were really enjoying the place and hardly anyone would want to be the first to go down or even mentioned about going down. In the end I had to be party pooper announcing that I was going down and with that automatically everyone followed.

Down at the teashop a group including the rest of my family was watching a video on the plantation which I decided to skip. I walked out to the teashop and ordered a cup of Sg Palas. It was the first on the menu I ordered it just to avoid spending to much time deciding what I wanted to drink. I thought my family had enough to drink or they do not want tea anymore how wrong I was. As soon as they came out of the viewing room the gathered themselves at the counter and started to order. Someone, at least I saw one, actually have had enough of tea and ordered Milo. Oh yeah, by the way the ‘teh tarik’ was brilliant as it was at Bharat teashop. The fly, however, spoiled my wife’s ‘teh tarik’ by deciding to take a swim in her mug. While having tea I urged everyone that we should as a group tour the processing plant. The plant was not that big I think as big as the one at Sg Palas. Since there was no guide we just toured the place on our own.

We left the place around 1130. As my wife and her sister wanted to buy some vege to take home I drove up towards Kea Farm and the place was packed with people when we got there. We parked by the roadside and walked to the place. It was the usual vege, fruits, trinkets and t shirts all over the place especially strawberry. When we had enough we went back to the bungalow to relax for the rest of the day before leaving for home. We eventually left at 1730 and stop at Bharat tea shop as I wanted to buy a souvenir, that much I thought. All came down and in the end we had our last tea drinking session before we left Cameron Highland.

The drive down was nothing special. As usual the highway way jammed with cars going down south. We had to endure almost a crawling pace at certain stretches. I decided not to stop at Tapah R&R as planned to avoid the congestion and proceeded instead towards Ulu Bernam. We rested a bit at Ulu Bernam and took our time by talking. At around ten something or so we left the please. The traffic a bit better but still heavy so I drove a bit careful especially when the driver in front of me loves his or her break so much. After about ten minutes of driving I felt hot and discovered that the aircon was not working and I started to fiddle with the knob and switches. Nothing happened and soon my wife nad I tried to identify something that we did not know about. Suddenly my wife gave a yell, ‘Abah, the temperature panas!’ Indeed the indicator was at the maximum instantaneously I signaled to the left and pulled over. My wife by then in her panic yelled at everyone to get down. I made sure everybody is ok and slowly open the hood and got down to check. I knew instantly that the radiator was empty as soon as I opened the hood. It was either the water pump, host or the radiator I thought. First thing first, I put the stress signal reflector at the distance to warn other traffics. My mind raced thinking about the most appropriate solution and Azizi’s name, my friend the mechanic, constantly on my mind. Not long after the Plus Highway petrol came and parked behind me. Inspecting the situation quickly they voiced their verdict. My water pump is jammed and they did not wait for the engine to cool off a little bit more before refilling the radiator with water. I was lucky as my mechanic friend told me the whole engine could crumble if sudden cold water was poured into the radiator. The Plus Highway guys were wrong on two counts it was not my water pump or the radiator. In any case I was really grateful to them for their help and as suggested by them I drove the truck slowly towards Lembah Beringin Tol Plaza that was 2 kilometers away. Once there I immediately called Azizi. I was really astonished when he said he was behind us before he made a turn at Tg Malim. Talk about a coincident. Trying to avoid the jam instead he got stuck in worse on the trunk road to KL. He said he would turn back as soon as he can. Luckily the rest of the party is in happy mood and seemed to enjoy themselves.

The vulture started to narrow in on us and one of them approached and waited together with us at the parking lot. Definitely they have a very good network and no doubt one of their ‘runners’ is the Plus Highway guys themselves. What’s interesting though I suspect this network is formed based on necessity. So life is about a series of socials networks. I of course ignored them. Farhan arrived first after braving the heavy traffic from Bangsar and Azizi finally arrived half an hour after that. Seeing Azizi at work the vultures left the scene. Azizi found out that one of the water hose cracked and immediately ‘McGyvered’ the live out of the Ranger. Eventually we slowly drove home and I sent the Ranger straight to Azizi’s workshop. BTW Azizi with his family was on the way home after sending his daughter in Taiping.

Lessons learned: I remembered one of my friends used to say, ‘If you genuinely help others in difficulties one day when you are in the trouble help will come from the unexpected’. What’s turn around will come around.

On the Road (Cameron Highland), April 1, 2006

I did not realize it has been four years since we last visited Cameron Highland. I realized this simply because Mar is four years old already and this is going to be her first trip there. This is not really a planned trip as one day in the office I was not busy doing something and just playing around checking our resort system. I made a booking for our Cameron Highland bungalow and within a week I got it. A lucky break and Cameron Highland we were going for a weekend.

Just after suboh we left BSP and I floored the accelerator with the intention of having breakfast at Tapah R&R. My target was 0800 which I missed by 4 minutes. The other car, my other relatives, arrived at the rest area 15 minutes before 0900. At the rest area I met my friend Ibrahim who owned the outdoor training centre/resort Nur Lembah Pangsun. He just started a new one in Lenggung, Perak as well. He was on his way to Kulim where the state government or somebody asked him to take over the operation or a training/resort area at Bukit Hijau. We actually left around 0930 to start our climb up Cameron Highland. I always have this thing with ‘a long and winding roads’ I just love driving on one and this one still intact like it used to be. I swerved and turned and stop at Lata Iskandar I thought at first just for photography sake that ended up with me and Fatah enjoying our swim. I really really enjoyed it and the ‘pool’ was not that big but the water was so clear. So much so I felt like I was snorkeling as there were a lot of fish, Sebarau, Seluang and Ikan Putih. Slightly after 1100 we continued with our climb and stopped at Bharat Tea shop and plantation just to savor the environment while drinking tea. I tried their scone but since I am not really a scone fan I did not know how to rate it. One bad thing about the tea shop was there were a lot of flies.

After tea I took the ‘kids’ (there were at least one kid in his early 20’s and two in their late 20’s) down to discover the plantation. They enjoyed both the discovery as well as the photography.

I knew that the Bungalow was not ready yet so I took everyone around the strawberry farms and t shirt shops. One of them was Kasimanis Strawberry Farm and I got more ten I bargain for. When I was about to reach the end of the climb towards Kasimanis Farm I saw Bodger (SDARA78) standing leaning against on of the shop’s ‘tiang’ scrutinizing my every moves as if saying to himself ‘what is this joker doing here’. LOL. So Bodger was on short family holiday as well and staying at Equatorial Hotel. We chatted for a while and went on our own way. For me there isn’t anything interesting anymore about the strawberry farms or for that matter other farms as well. Cameron now is just another highland resort area that I want to be doing nothing. Staying two nights here would already overkill for me. One thing for sure I would come here to write. We checked out the Bungalow after we done with the Kasimanis Farm and all. It was not ready as expected but everyone got a sense of how big it was. Five rooms with two on the ground floor that have three beds in one and two in another. The next level there were three rooms with one master bedroom on top of the stairs and two more with two single beds each. So, all in all the whole place could accommodate 11 people. The kitchen and family areas are also huge with one big dining table at the end. The area around the bungalow was also spaces. The yard over looking the golf course is big enough for a small organized football game. The view from there in the morning and evening could be breathtaking. The caretaker informed me the place would be ready around 1730 and to kill time we went to Tanah Rata. We visited the Mardi research centre where they have agro tourist attractions like the strawberry garden, fish ponds, tea museum and plantation, etc. It was not so impressive and I was not impressed at all. By now my standard is quite high already maybe to ordinary Malaysia the place is a must place to visit but to me they could have done better. In any case my family enjoyed touring the area. Exactly at 1730 we left Mardi for the bungalow. Straight away my wife and her sister went into the kitchen to cook a late lunch for us. In the end we had our lunch at 1700 but the lunch although simple was nice and fulfilling. Especially the vegetables cooked by Kakak.

We rested a bit by mostly taking advantage of the cool weather by sitting outside in the courtyard. I after awhile picked up the ping pong bat and started to hit the ball with Fatah until 1730 when I decided to take everyone out to the ‘pasar malam’. We were out of the bungalow at 1800 and headed for Brinchang.

The pasar malam was not like our pasar malam. Yes, they have kuih muih and the likes but the whole place was more like pasar tani where a lot of produce was being sold. The other majority was t shirts vendors but the quality was not so good. In fact most of the t shirts sold in Cameron were not good. There wasn’t any fish, meat or chicken being sold that made my daughters so annoyed as they wanted to have a BBQ that night. After one round we had enough of the pasar malam. It was getting dark by then and I took them further up exploring the vegetable valley around Kae Farm. Somehow I went further and turned back when I thought I’d gone too far. We headed back to the dark bungalow that created certain eerie feeling to some of us. Even without them mentioning it I knew some of them were pretty nervous about staying the night there. I did not feel anything and knew everything would be ok. What made them felt uneasy was the fact that there were any curtains in certain places like the kitchen. I decided to stay in my room and watched The New World using my laptop. While watching I heard a commotion coming from down below and I discovered later they were playing hide and seek. At least I knew they are occupying themselves with something which is good. The movie was a bit boring and when I am done I went down to look for something to eat. After I had my dinner all the girls decided to sleep in front of the TV. I went up and slept like a log that night.