This is the route we took.
We were supposed to meet at 7.30am last Saturday, but Rafie dreamt that it was raining and overslept so we met at 8am instead. Can't really blame him, it has been raining almost everyday for the past 2 weeks. Met up at 8am at my place, passed my rain pants to Eric as I wore the rain jacket and off we went, heading to the Woodlands checkpoint.
Nothing dramatic on the ride towards the checkpoint. But while riding on the causeway towards the Johor Customs, I managed to see Eric's car stuck in the massive traffic jam haha. Rafie and I cleared the Johor Customs and parked our bikes by the side. I texted Eric to text back when he was 5 minutes away from clearing the Customs, our plan was to meet about 500m after clearing the Customs. Not long after, he replied, we hopped back onto our bikes and met up at our designated meeting point.
Rode for about 2km before reaching a Shell petrol kiosk, filled our babies with full tanks of Malaysian petrol and got back onto the road. That was not before I passed Eric the rain jacket I was wearing, it was so hot I was dripping sweat out of my sleeves.
We stopped by an Old Town White Coffee outlet just 10 minutes from the petrol kiosk for breakfast.
Filled our tummies and we were ready for the trip that lied ahead of us. Very twisty roads with the occasional straight for a quick handful of throttle. The traffic was not in our favour most of the time, the road was actually rather packed for a Saturday morning. With just one lane wide in each direction, we often found ourselves stuck behind slower vehicles. Since Eric was with us, we had to make sure that he was able to overtake safely before we followed suit. The roads actually reminded me of this famous place called The Snake, in Mulholland, California. Watch riders carving up The Snake in this video.
To help you visualize the route we took to Mersing, add some slow cars, trucks and longer straights. Oh and also, you'll probably be the only ones riding bikes above 400cc, the majority of local riders in this part of Malaysia favour scooters. Nevertheless, it was still a pretty fun road to ride on, especially when there was no traffic. Eric would often pull ahead of us in the corners, and I have two excuses for that. One, the road was not very rider friendly, I would not recommend riding at a fast pace, you have to watch out for potholes and bumps. Two, we were only wearing jeans, not exactly the kind of material I want to be touching the tarmac haha.
From the petrol kiosk to Mersing, my odometer clocked about 105km. It was about 12pm when we got there, not too shabby, despite the unexpected traffic. And the first place we went to? The beach of course! How can a road trip be a road trip without a stop at a beach haha!
Eric has been to Mersing before and he went to a nice seafood restaurant the last time. Sadly, we did not have the fortune of going there because he forgot how to go there, argh! So, we settled for the next best option we had, Kentucky Fried Chicken! When we stepped into the KFC outlet, we knew something was amiss, the outlet was suffering from a power outage, doh! Everything was not working, the air conditioning, the lights, the soft drink dispenser... blah blah. We found ourselves a nice cozy corner where we could see our vehicles and I went to see what they could still sell. Since everyone wasn't that hungry, I bought some orange juice for everyone. Thank god, they still had ice.
It was about 1.30pm and we decided to leave. Stepped outside, wore our helmets and it started to pour. Plan B, back to KFC. We spent the next hour sitting inside the KFC outlet, playing Logos Quiz. Just imagine, 3 grown men, staring at an iPhone, debating what that logo could be.
2.30pm and the skies were clearing up. The rain stopped and once again, we got back on the road. Not before refuelling, of course.
Just moments after we set off, the rain came pouring down. Hard. Sucked it up and wore my rain jacket, decided not to wear the rain pants because it was too troublesome with my riding boots on.
We took a longer route back, but the next 2 hours of riding was not exactly enjoyable. The rain was so heavy, I could barely see Rafie's tail lights in front of me. I was last in the convoy, Eric was leading the way as usual. Throughout most of the journey, we kept to about 70km/h. After about 80km of riding, we got out from under the gigantic rain cloud and my jeans started to dry. Our pace picked up and we started overtaking every vehicle.
That luxury did not last though. Another 30km later, our route brought us back under the rain cloud, and my jeans got wet again damn it. This time, even though it was still pouring, we carried on overtaking vehicles. It was dangerous but I found out that Pirelli Diablo Supercorsas are actually pretty decent under hard braking on flooded roads haha. That experience substantially improved my confidence in the tyres in wet conditions.
Finally, we reached the outskirts of Kluang. We stopped at a petrol kiosk because Rafie earlier signalled that he needed to pee haha. Weather was dry and good but our sport bikes became dirt bikes, literally. Our rides were covered with mud and rain stains, argh!
Rafie's riding boots were close to disintegration at this point. It was a miracle the boots held up for so long in that atrocious condition haha. Quickly snapped a photo before we headed for the final leg of the trip; the spirited blast down the North South highway to the Second Link rest stop.
Not much happening in Kluang except horrendously heavy traffic and long waiting times for traffic lights to change.
I missed the motorcycle path at the tolls before the NSH and went to the car toll gate. Rafie had no choice but to follow haha. The barrier was up so my plan was to ride past the toll gate since motorcycles did not have to pay for that toll anyway. But Rafie suddenly stopped his bike and I nearly rammed into him, phew. And the reason he stopped? He wanted to top up his Touch 'n Go card, but I did not know that until much later at our rest stop. All this while, I was stopped beside him wondering what he was trying to do.
During this time, a police patrol car came up behind us and said something to Rafie. At first he thought the police officer wanted to talk to us for going into the wrong toll gate, so we rode to the road shoulder and parked there. The police officer then drove past us and entered the NSH. I was puzzled and we later figured that maybe the police officer was telling him not to stop at the toll gate and stop at the road shoulder if we wanted to continue our conversation haha.
Whatever haha. We carried on onto NSH and went WOT. That stands for wide open throttle! I did not want to overtake Eric who was navigating so I stayed behind him. For his engine capacity, that little car can go pretty fast. I clocked a maximum of 215km/h behind him, which I supposed was his top speed. Rafie who somehow got left behind, had to catch up and he went almost flat out at 261km/h!
Very soon later, we reached our destination. Decided to leave our helmets, jackets and bags in Eric's boot before going to KFC for dinner. It was about 5pm then. Rafie and I went to wash our hands, then suddenly he realized that his wallet was not with him. Panicked and went back to Eric's car to check. He ransacked the boot and his bag but didn't find it. I suggested that perhaps he forgot his wallet at the hand washing area, seeing that he was busy ransacking the car, I ran back to KFC to look for it but to no avail.
It finally dawned on Rafie that he lost his wallet. Luckily he only had cash, his driving license and credit card in it. He promptly called the bank to cancel the credit card and I offered to buy him dinner. While Eric and I were queuing up to order our food, Rafie decided to go back to the car to have one last check. Guess what, he found the wallet blocked from view by a ledge in Eric's boot. What a klutz haha! Too bad he had already cancelled his credit card haha! And no free dinner for the klutz!
During dinner, Rafie was fooling around with his riding boots and he broke a piece of it from this right boot haha.
After dinner, we went to Shell to fill up one last full tank of Malaysian petrol and made our way back to Singapore. Oh and guess what, it rained again in Singapore. Gah!
I've had a series of unlucky events that happened last week, details in my next post. That's all for Mersing, ride safe!
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