We thought there was nothing else to show Emrys and his team mates from Perth, Australia when he came in 2012 for his already 4th visit to Malaysia. We were wrong....
They came back again early April this year with a few other first-timers. Being his 5th visit, we gave Emrys the honour to select his own route this time. He chose the 1600km North-East hybrid route which was full of non stop twisties, eye opening hair-pins and wild elephants. It was indeed a challenge especially when it involved crossing from one coast to another in a day!
We started off with the usual journey to Cameron Highlands via the central part of the peninsula. It was a great ride of course negotiating the corners at Sg Koyan. "I have a MASSIVE smile on my face watching this! I'm getting dizzy watching it with the left-right-left-right... its awesome!!!" said Ashley when watching the gro-pro footages of the ride.
The second day saw us descending down Cameron Highlands via Simpang Pulai-Ipoh stretch - dubbed as the best riding route in the country. We reached Lake Raban by noon and greeted by sumptuous Tilapia fish BBQ at a biker spot restaurant. We reached Penang by 6pm via the ferry and a notable experience was when the ferry docked. "Hold to your bike guys.." said the tour leader. "You'll be surprised". True enough, the ferry docked with a 1.5 magnitude leaving the bike swaying from left to right. We spent 2 days in Penang and did the round Island tour, visit the snake temple and fooled around a bit with the vipers and spent the night shopping for gadgets and gizmos down at Gurney Plaza. Mike got a bit carried away with the drinks and found himself stucked in the muddy beaches that evening. We thought of calling the fire brigade to rescue him when he started crawling back to the shore. It was hilarious.
Knowing we have 450km stretch to do in a day the team got up pretty early the next day and by 7am everyone was already on their bike ready to roll. We reached the top of Titiwangsa range some 1600m above sea level just in time for lunch. Looking at the GPS we were smacked in the middle of the Peninsula, with a few millimetres (so it seems!) away from the Thai border. By 5pm we were already by the beach having fried bananas, ice lemon tea and other delicacies. "Funny this morning we were looking at the Straits of Malacca and now facing the South China Sea" said Meor - one of the tour leaders at MMG.
The MMG team parted the next day with Emrys and his gang as they wanted to spend a few days on their own at Redang Island. It was indeed a pleasure to ride again with them and we hope they have seen a side of Malaysia in a unique, fun at at the same time thrilling as well. We can tell that they had so much fun and the following from Ashley just sums up the whole trip:
"Laying in a beach hammock on a remote island, watching the lightning light up the skies, listening to the tunes, reminiscing about the last 4 days and those amazing roads I have been riding with amazing company and amazing food. THANK YOU Meor, Nik & Malaysian Motorcycle Getaways"