Malaysia - Johor Bahru to Melaka

Arriving in Malaysia was not fun. I wondered if Malaysia would treat us well?

Grey skies. A sea of grey concrete apartment blocks. Clouds threatening rain. Swept along by commuting scooters we emerged from the custom booths on the bridge into a teeming spaghetti of fast roads. Many of the buildings proclaimed “I ❤️ Johor Bahru & You”. The feeling wasn’t mutual.

And then the heavens opened. With no where to shelter and more than twenty miles still to go it was heads down as we pedalled through the sheets of water forming on the highway and tried to anticipate the bow wave from the fast passing cars. We were pretty soggy when we arrived at our unassuming hotel in the middle of a concrete grid of buildings just off the highway.

Our cycle to Melaka took three days, stopping the night at Benut and Muar on route, both small towns. So far, cycling in Malaysia was less interesting, with straight roads through endless palm oil, banana, and coconut plantations. We saw evidence of the recent flooding and many irrigation channels were running very high.

In Benut we enjoyed eating Indian food and were celebrities in the supermarket with the manager asking us for a selfie.

The ride to Muar the next day was 62 miles (a big day for us). For second-breakfast we ate at a busy roadside eatery where the owner’s daughter gave Lilz a complimentary dish of nasi lemak, considered the national dish. Compacted rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaves served with spicy sambal, crispy anchovies, and a hard-boiled egg.

In Muar, boys were playing football across from our hotel and we ate from a pop up food market, dribbling butter from corn on the cobs down our chins.

A shorter 29 mile day to Melaka found us cycling more back roads, along the coast. When we stopped for lunch we met Nadiah, a lady who had studied medicine in Newcastle and now lived with her eleven cats helping her mum run the restaurant. Shortly after lunch, we met Stefan, our fifth cycle tourer. An Austrian, he’d been on the road for 18 months and was carrying a lot! He was heading down to Australia where he’d then fly to South America to cycle with his best friend, his father, who was joining him.

Standout features cycling along the nondescript seafront was the enormous two meter long monitor lizard we saw swimming, and new interesting birds - colourful kingfishers and large white bellied raptors.

Entering Melaka felt good. Immediately there was an energy and excitement about the place. I felt we were going to like it.Læs mere