Meeting with Marcus from Canada

Last day in January 2019

I get up halv past eight, short shower and then breakfast. Packing the bike with my panniers and returns a small bag with remotecontrols för TV and aircondition. Had deported 50 ringgit for that.
09:40 I´m sitting on my SLHT heading south. The weather is quite cool for Southeast Asia, the sun is behinde some clouds, I have tailwind and the traffic is sparse.
After 20 km I see a touring biker coming from right, that he is a touring cyclist, I can tell from his bike and panniers. He has same model as my self, a Surley Long Haul Trucker.

We stop and starting a chat, his name is Marcus and his surname sound like he came from Finland…
– No, the name came from my father, he is an Estonian and my mom from UK and my self is canadian he said
We desided to do company to Mersing, a  medium-sized city smal around 130 km south.

The road is mostley flat and still the traffic is sparse.

Backpacker place with cheap and cosy room to rent

My selt in front of a wall painting in Kuala Rompin

We spent a night in a cheap 2 star hotel in Kuala Rompin

I wake up to the Huawei alarm that sounds at 06.15, outside it’s pitch black but the traffic and especially the motorcycles are on the way.
After the shower I’m a breakfast of yogurt, bread and sliced cheese.
Then I carry the stuff down and load the bike that is just as I had put it the night before among baskets with dirty laundry and hung and washed sheets.

After some km Marcus stops for his breakfast ata roadside bar. I order Roti Tellur and a coffe. We have tailwind most of the time and Marcus  keeping up the pace, 22-25 km/h. In Padang Endau we turn left and cycling after a small road closer to ocean, it´s winding but cozy to ride on.

In many places along the road small houses or cottages, often empty but signs says these are beach resorts, mostly for Malaysian. Foregin tourist prefer the island outside here.

We stops at one of these to refill our water bottles with ice and water. After another 10 -12 km Marcus stops at a top of a hill och pick up a little fun thing from his pannier, I want to get, a droner.

He configures it so that it automatically follows us when we later set off. The road is scenic, no plantations, just green rainforest and on the left side also large mountains that are also covered in green.

Marcus droner shows us cycling

 

 

The closer we got to Mersing, the more deforestation for oil plantations we saw.

Here will soon oil plantations starts

Few hours later, just after half past one we both cycling over river Sungai Mersing and entering Mersing and our routs will split. Marcus will visit a friend of his and I had planned for a ferry trip over to isle Puala Tioman. Before we split we shared a easy lunch at a bar middle of town. I order Fish and Chips andf Marcus Mongolian Lamb dish

The ferry departs at 5 pm and we say goodbye to each other after two cycling days together, although who knows, maybe we’ll see you in Borneo. If Markus only finds a sailboat, he will go across. He has one goal with his journey now and that is to avoid engines. I him for that

 

 

See Yeah later
// P-G, The Global Cyclist