Heaven Located…!!

A huge change of fortune today…!!

And just as I was thinking that I should have spent more time in Thailand…

Heading south... Off Penang and on towards the mountains...

I stopped to refuel the Big Fella and got a bit hot and bothered when the young man employed there would not accept any cash from me, nor would the bloody machine attached to the pumps accept either of my bank cards…!!

A sure-fire recipe to awaken my goat…!!

Our bikes growled in anticipation as the turn-off to the highlands was sighted...!!

The service station we had stopped at was one of those “automatic, help-yourself petrol emporiums”, where the only member of staff in sight, was a young fellow who wandered around explaining to people that they needed to visit the service station”s mini-market to pay for the petrol BEFORE they actually got to pump it into their tanks…

In South Africa, there would have been “blood on the forecourt”, because we are not used to this sort of thing at all, and have become accustomed to rolling up to the pumps, winding down the window, and requesting one of the ever present pump-jockeys, to “fill her up”…!!

This “pay before you pump” lark just wouldn’t work back home…!! We like to see and feel what we are paying for before we part with our hard-earned dinero…!!

So hot and bothered did I become, that once the tank was full, I removed my jacket and rode the rest of the day with only a T-shirt for protection…!!

Not the most clever thing to do when you are riding long distances, or any distance for that matter…!!

South of the town of Ipoh, we took the turnoff for the Cameron Highlands, and my “just plain ornery” mood, magically evaporated…

Once we got our bikes off the highway that had carried us south for the past two hours, we began a steep and winding climb up to around 1500 m.a.s.l. . This over a relatively short distance, which made for steep climbs and breathtaking scenery…

You will notice that there are not too many photos of the ride… That is because for most of the journey up into the highlands, (that attract many tourists and locals alike), I was hanging on for dear life, either trying to keep ahead of Trevor, so that he could film me and I could film him with my rear-facing camera, or keep close enough to him to make use of the video camera mounted on the front of my bike…

I was  able to get some good footage with both my cameras, and once I have got a video editing program uploaded, I will post some of my clips on You-Tube…

Twisty enough for any man and machine...!! Trevor and I were temporarily transported to Biker Heaven...!!

You will have to see the film we shot to believe it…!! But be warned, make sure you are sitting down when you watch the clips, or you are likely to find yourself horizontal in front of your TV…!! It’s a wild, giddy, nausea inducing ride, Dudes…!!

At one point we were passed by a swarm of “crotch rockets”, their riders clinging to the tanks of their super-bikes… Some of them gave us a cheery wave as they passed, and received a very brief nod from us as we prepared to throw our own bikes around the next set of corners… There was not much time to remove a hand from the handlebars to wave back…!!

This was without a doubt one of the most exhilarating rides I have made since Nepal…!!

The Big Fella and I clung tightly to each other, at times it seemed that each of us was willing the other to get closer and closer to the tar as we took one corner after another… I felt the blood running hotly through every fibre of my body, heard the roaring in my ears, felt the intense, eye-widening focus needed to keep both the Big Fella and I from running too wide out of one corner, or braking too deep into the next…

At one point, we were so “dialled in” to the ride, that it felt as though I was riding on the front of a roller-coaster…!!

When I rode shotgun for Trevor, I often looked up to see Chenty using another video camera to film the ride, swiveling her wrist to shoot footage of me sitting on their tail…!! I wondered what it was like to be zipping around these corners without actually seeing them coming up, as Trevor almost completely blocks her view forward…!!

Just rewards for a great ride...!! Home made ice cream with funny things floating on top...!!

This went on and on for the next 80 kilometres, with hardly any let-up…!! Bike, rider, tar, sky, trees, barriers, switching video on and then off again, leaning behind to control the rear camera as well…!!

Everything working together to make the kind of ride that you will never forget…!!

At one point I felt the rear tyre twitch and believed that I might have got my right hand pannier to kiss the tar, but can’t be sure…!! I certainly hope that I was not cutting things that close…!!

Trevor and I took the odd bit of traffic in our stride, whipping past on the outside of the much slower moving cars, seeing a few surprised looking drivers as we flashed by them… Most of the ride was done at around 1oo km/h and on some of the lazier bends, even faster than that…

We turned off the road towards Terinkap, and then rode through the small town and on to Brinchang, passing hundreds of old land-rovers, many belching clouds of black smoke… I think old Landies come to the Cameron Highlands to die…!!

It took some time for us to find a hotel that suited us, and then later that afternoon Trevor and I took our bikes to be washed at a little place up on the hill behind the hotel…

It had been some time since we last had the bikes cleaned and after they were done, we spread our riding gear out on a wooden rack and gave them the pressure treatment as well…!!

Our bikes were last cleaned about 3 000 kms ago by my reckoning...!!

We hung our gear over the bikes to dry, attracting more than a few curious looks from the folk passing by...!!

Tomorrow we are booked to go on a tour of the area, which includes a tea estate, a strawberry farm, an insect and butterfly collection and a bunch of other stuff specifically designed to keep me out of mischief…!!

I must then decide whether to ride on to Kuala Lumpur with Trevor, Chenty and Philip, or stay here and work on the website… Both options are very tempting…

I also have a yearning to ride the road we came in on again… It was that good…!!

I am slowly beginning to warm to Malaysia…!!

©GBWT 2011