Kuala Lumpur…

Planters Hotel, Tanah Rata... Centrally located and good value for money...

After a day in Tanah Rata, where I managed to see most of this little highland town, get my laundry done, and do some writing, I was ready to ride to Malaysia’s capital city…

Trevor had taken the longer and faster route the day before, turning east at Ringlet, and then looping back to the city, skirting the Genting Highlands to the south…

I chose to ride on through Ringlet and take on the 60-odd kilometres of twisties before hooking up with the highway at Tapah and then barrel south for Kuala Lumpur…

Apart from a few trucks inching their way through the valleys and hills that the road wound through, the road was free of traffic and this allowed me to scrape a few more whiskers off the edge of my new tyres…

This bit of road demanded complete focus, and I rarely had more than a hundred metres or so of the surface in sight at any one time, so paying attention to what I was doing was relatively important…!!

What made things even more interesting was the road surface itself…!! It was pot-holed in many places, had long and fairly deep cracks that ran across the road at oblique angles, just begging to get a hold of the front wheel… In some places it ran so close to the edge of the steep drop offs on either side, that it was difficult to keep an eye on where we were going, and off the beautiful scenery…!!

I guess it could have been made easier if I had been riding a little slower, but that would not have been much fun now, would it…?? Besides, there’s no point in taking life too seriously… Nobody gets out alive anyway…!!

Ok, so let see if I have this right...!! Not only should I keep an eye out for rockfalls and a twisting and slippery road surface, but I should also be aware that to leave the road on the opposite side to the mountain, would result in a long period of "free fall"...?? That all...?? No cattle crossing...?? Piece of cake then...!!

I made the ride to K.L. in a little over two hours, skipping over the mountains, and then blasting down the highway from Tapah...

After riding in the lower gears for much of the first hour, once I got the Big Fella onto the highway, I slotted him into sixth, and then let him have his head…

This sign at a service station had me reflecting on my reasons for riding around the world...

We sat behind a Porche Cayenne for the next 80 kms, riding at between 140 and 160 km/h for much of the time, so I am unable to deliver too much comment on the scenery we passed through, except to confirm that there are a heck of a lot of Palm Nut plantations along this stretch of highway…!!

Spot a smelly Durian, press Emergency button...!!

I got to the Radius Hotel where my riding buddies were safely ensconced, found Big Red on the second storey parking bay, and parked the Big Fella close by…

I would be sharing a room with Phil, up on the 18th floor of the hotel, and after getting my kit stashed away, we spent a portion of the afternoon in the hotel pool on the fifth floor, before we set out to explore the city…

The hotel was barely a few kilometres from the city centre, and surrounded by a host of restaurants, bars, outdoor markets and snazzy new shopping malls, so we did not have far to walk to find something to eat or drink… Which was a good thing, because the temperatures were up in the high thirties, and this coupled with the humidity, made walking a thirsty exercise indeed…!!

Nothing seems to go to waste at this place...!! A restaurant I would be avoiding...!!

Local bus service in K.L. ...

Phil and I in front of the Petronas Towers...

We took a taxi to the Petronas Towers, and stood craning our necks for the better part of an hour, marveling at this amazing building… A visit to this city would be incomplete without spending some time walking through the public area in front of the towers, where extensive gardens and fountains are located, and from where most people line up to get photos of themselves with the complex in the background…

Phil finally finds a drinking partner with hollow legs to keep up with us...!!

The few days we spent in K.L. were eventful to say the least…!!

Malaysia proudly brands itself as "No 1"... National pride is on display everywhere...

When traffic becomes too hectic, you can hop on one of the monorails that circle the downtown area....

We had met a fellow BMW biker in Tanah Rata, who had invited us to a gathering of the BMW Motorcycle Owners Club, which was being held at the Hard Rock Café in Kuala Lumpur…

We decided to walk from the Petronas Towers to where the Hard Rock was located to ensure that we would be able to park the bikes there later that evening, and were delighted to discover that a special parking bay had been allocated for “Big Bikes”…

Malaysia has a thriving community of BMW enthusiasts, and we later discovered that there was as many as 2000 Beemers in the capital alone… The vast majority seemed to be GS models, but we also saw a few Cruisers and K-Series as well…

Close to the Hard Rock Cafe, stood the Beach Club, and while we were having a light lunch there, discovered that this was the “happening place” in Kuala Lumpur, especially after the sun went down…

Phil and I made a mental note to return there later that same evening to see just what would be “happening ” there…!!

More signs like this please...!! Bloody scooters keep clear...!!

If you're a South African, the name of the 2nd item on this menu will have you settling for a burger instead...!!

Walking the streets of Kuala Lumpur can be thirsty work, as Trev demonstrates..

We figured that the club members would want to see the bikes we were touring on, and after arranging a taxi to take Phil and Chenty to the Hard Rock, Trevor and I fired up our bikes and headed out into the evening traffic to meet them there…

By the time we arrived, our friend from the Cameron Highlands was already there, and a line of BMW’s was already parked out front…

We squeezed our bikes into the line, taking up a lot more space than normal, because we both had our panniers attached…!! A small crowd of guys gathered around the bikes and we were quickly introduced to the President of the club, Minesh Doshi, who owned nearly every BMW model produced in the last five or six years…!! I can’t be sure, but I think he told us that between his wife and himself, they had something like 19 bikes…!!

We settled around a long table that had been reserved for the BMW Club and got down to some serious socializing… Which, like walking the streets of the city, can also be thirsty work…!! Beers kept arriving at regular intervals, and we soon had a line of them set out in front of us…

Big Biker Hangout, Kuala Lumpur...

My friends considered writing RONNIE next to the title...!! Quite cheeky, I thought...!!

This was clearly a very popular hangout for bikers and rockers alike, and within an hour of us arriving there, the entire place seemed filled to capacity… Some great music rocked the house while the waiters were kept extremely busy…!! Throughout the few hours we spent there, people came up to introduce themselves to us, and chat about their own biking experiences…

A group of guys were preparing to ride up through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and into China, and return through Tibet and Nepal, and then fly their bikes home… Burma was as much as a hassle for them to ride through as it had turned out for me… We gave them info about the freight agents we had used in Kathmandu, and also related our own experiences of riding through the countries they would soon be visiting too…

We also met Mr. David Chew of Wunderlich Accessories and a fortuitous meeting that turned out to be…!! He advised us that he had a small workshop where he serviced all makes of BMW bikes, and very kindly invited us to bring our bikes around the following day to give them a “check-up”… We accepted this very kind offer with alacrity, and made arrangements to meet him the following day…

BMW Owners Club Malaysia... A great bunch of guys...!! President, Minesh Doshi is in the blue shirt, Treasurer Kelvin Gunarathna is in the striped shirt, and David Chew of Wunderlich Malaysia, is on the far right...

It was close to midnight when we said goodbye to all our new found friends, and then made our way carefully through the traffic and back to our hotel… While Trevor and Chenty retired to their room, Phil and I grabbed a taxi and headed off to wherever mischief could be found…

Phil and our ever friendly waiter at the Beach Club...!! He had his work cut out with us...!!

The early morning became a bit of a blur…!! The Beach Club was pumping, and after ordering a bucket of beers, which was six bottles of Carlsberg in a bucket of cold water, we settled down to watch the going’s-on around us…

Turns out, the Beach Club is “Hooker Central” when the sun goes down in Malaysia…!! Girls paraded around in the skimpiest outfits, and were not at all shy in advertising their “wares”… They were also probably the most aggressive working girls we had ever come across, and constantly pestered us to either buy them a drink, or take them away with us…!!

I think this was the 10.30 appointment we arranged...!! But neither of us was really sure...!! By 3.00am they all looked the same to us anyway...!!

By the time our second bucket arrived, we had decided to stop telling them we weren’t interested and began messing with them by making arrangements to meet them the following evening…

We tried to keep a straight face while we did this, and succeeded in convincing a few of them to leave us alone with promises of seeing them the following day…

Then our third bucket arrived… We were four sheets to the wind by now, and began getting our “appointments” mixed up… A few girls had been speaking amongst themselves and realized that we had been taking the piss all along… We were confronted by an angry Vietnamese girl who chastised us for wasting her time earlier and spewed a string of Vietnamese at us, which probably wasn’t very complimentary…!!

We not so much walked as staggered out of the Beach Club at about 3.00am, and then took a taxi back to our hotel… Phil had the nibbles and decided a late night snack was in order… The street market around the corner was still doing a roaring trade, so we sat down at a pavement cafe nearby, and ordered plate loads of chicken kebabs, foolishly washed down with more beer…!!

I vaguely remember climbing up a ladder which stood on the pavement outside a 7-Eleven, and led up to the second floor above it… A maintenance crew was busy installing a large neon sign, and I provided some advice on how the job could be completed in half the time with half the labour… They weren’t buying it and politely suggested I leave them in peace…!!I made my way back down the ladder to where a grinning Phil welcomed me back to terra frima…

Thinking about it later, Phil and I came to the solid conclusion that it was the chicken kebabs that made me do it…!!

A few hours later we joined Trevor and Chenty at breakfast, and carefully phrased our answers to their searching questions… Then Trevor and I saddled up and rode our bikes across the city to David Chews place of business. 18kms to the western outskirts of Kuala Lumpur…

We took our bikes to Wunderlich to have a few bits and bobs fitted and repaired...

David directed us to his workshop which was a few doors down from his Wunderlich distribution outlet, and introduced us to his partner Nik, who immediately arranged for our bikes to be ridden into the workshop and began tinkering with the things we needed repairing… Trevor’s hooter had given up the ghost somewhere between India and Nepal, and although he had got it working again in Thailand, he needed a more permanent solution to the problem…

"How is it that the Big Fella got in before Big Red, Nik...??"

I had noticed that the little connector that carried power from the bike to my headlamps, had melted into a plastic blob, and Nik quickly replaced this and then ordered a catch for my pannier, which I had broken in Laos… While we waited for the catch, we took the pannier apart… This turned out to be a wasted exercise as the one that their driver delivered was for the lid, and not the larger catch that connected the pannier to the bike…!!

Nik then ran a diagnostic check on both our bikes, and pronounced both engines in excellent working order… We were impressed by the neat and well organized workshop that David and Nik had set up to deal with the servicing requirements of many model of the larger bikes that are sold in Malaysia… Bikers came from far and wide to have their bikes serviced here rather than at the dealerships where they had bought them, and this speaks volumes for the professional manner in which this business is run…

Our attention was drawn to a white Mini Cooper that belonged to David, and had been fully restored and “souped up”… It had been branded in the Wunderlich Motorrad colours and Trevor reminiced about the exact same model that he used to drive back in the U.K., in his younger and more vulnerable days…!!

The 1971 model that stood before us had all the bells and whistles that could possible be fitted to the vehicle, including a 1380 cc race engine with Swiftune Rockers and Cam, brand new springs and shocks, as well as a “roll cage”… It was a “right little beauty” to quote Trevor, and it was for sale…!! Only problem was, it didn’t quite fit into our panniers…!!

The 1971 Mini Cooper had been decked out in Wunderlich colours...

"Ok, Nik, I'll take it, but we'll have to cut a hole in the roof for my head to stick through...!!"

Cold, wet, uncomfortable, but happy...!! Rainy ride in Kuala Lumpur...

David had ordered lunch for us, and back in his showroom, a table and six chairs had been dragged together, where we sat eating while listening to rumbles of thunder that heralded heavy rain… The storm that lashed the city lasted for the next hour while we ate and eventually, we decided that we would have to ride through the rain in order to make our appointment with the photographer and editor of World Tour Rider magazine, who had arranged to meet us at the Radius Hotel for an interview…

Before we left, David presented us with Wunderlich t-shirts and copied a few of the Garmin maps he had of Indonesia for me… He made us promise that should we have any hassles in Malaysia, we would call him to help sort them out…

We bid our friends goodbye, thanking them for the generous assistance and advise they had provided us with, put our rain-gear on and made our way back to the city…

Conditions were appalling, and to make matters worse, we took a few wrong turns that resulted in us riding almost 50 kms to get back to the hotel, rather than the 18 kms it had taken us to get to Wunderlich earlier that same morning…!! We looped back and forth on the various motorways circling the city, before we found the correct road leading downtown…

Even in the crappiest weather conditions...!!

The guys from World Tour Rider magazine were excited by news of our travels...

Aleksey Prosvetov and Rush Rasyldan of World Tour Rider were waiting for us, and together with Chenty, we were interviewed, and spent a pleasant hour explaining our reasons for riding around the world, and the places we had visited to date.

The magazine has a growing circulation and is currently distributed in South East Asia only. It is aimed at both local and international riders and covers rides made throughout the world by long distance tourers…

Rush had brought along a batch of their magazines and I selected a few detailing a long tour made through Australia by a rider who had recently passed through Malaysia… We made tentative arrangement to meet again at the World Tour Offices after our trip down to Singapore… As things turned out, we were unable to meet up with them again as our exit from Malaysia was so swift once our bikes had been crated and made ready to fly…

Yes, but only if me have permanent access to toilet facilities...!!

Rather have some of this Kick Ass Soda...!!

Phil made arrangements to get to Singapore by bus the following day, and Trevor and I prepared to ride down to Johor Bahru to meet my friend Rory…

Trevor planned to park his bike there and go directly over to the island, while I would join them the day after…

We took a last stroll through the busy streets close to the hotel, and found a small restaurant to eat at… The rain had eased by then and although the gutters still ran with water, the street vendors were setting up their stalls, apparently confident that the city had seen the last of the bad weather for that day…!!

Later that night, Phil and I chatted about the trip we had shared over the last few weeks, and recalled many of the highlights… I had enjoyed traveling with him, and as his sense of humour closely matched my own, we had got along like the proverbial “house on fire”…!!

I would be sad to see him go in a few days time… Together, we had covered a few thousand kilometres and I am pretty sure he had found his part of the trip as adventurous as we had found ours…

©GBWT 2011