I woke up to a cold morning, not knowing where the train had passed. A quick check on my GPS duly informed me that we were heading toward Arau. And the clock also informed me that I miss the sunrise time.
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| Miss the sunrise...... |
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| Waiting for train to depart to Hatyai at the Padang Besar KTM Station. |
Before we alighted from our carriage, we asked the train conductor if it is possible to leave our bikes behind. And he said it shouldn't be any issue since they are going to detach all but the last two carriages before heading toward Hatyai.
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| Me explaining the routes option before we set off to Hat Yai, our starting point. |
Clearing the immigration is a breeze, and soon we headed for breakfast, which is about 9.30am Malaysia time. Since we have to wait for sometime before we can board the train, I gave briefing to my team-mates on the possible route for the day.
When we arrived at the Hatyai, it was already 11.30am. Lucky for us, we gain extra one hour due to different timezone so it is 10.30am. Still the train was late, so we quickly carried out our luggages and began assembled our bikes on platform no 4.
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| All of us scrambled to assembled the bikes on platform 4, except for one... |
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| He's the only one who doesn't need to assemble his bike... just push in, pay the oversize luggage fee to the conductor, and only need to put on the pannier bags and rotate the handle bar... like a boss! |
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| My touring folding bike.... |
2 folding bikes, 2 MTB, one hybrid and one touring bikes. Out of 6 of us, only one didn't bother to put the bike into the bag, which was very wise move. Unlike folding bikes that just need to unfold, those using MTB have to reassemble their fork & stem, put on the wheel, install their pannier rack, and then finally have to fold their big bike bag as compact as possible. And finally there was one very considerate tourer who packed his bike as compact as possible so he can minimised the footprint on the very narrow carriage, but have to practically reinstall a lot more stuff back to his bike. By the time we finished setting up, it was already 11.45am. Look like it is going to be a hot ride.
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| Ah... a Chinese restaurant in Hat Yai... good chance we can communicate without issue... |
A short ride through the town and we decided to stop for lunch at one of the Chinese restaurant.
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| Hmmmm.... the braid pork leg in dark sauce dish... |
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| Steamed chicken dish |
Our lunch was quite the typical choice, as you can ordered the same dishes in Malaysia. But nevertheless the taste are quite distinctively different from the Malaysia Chinese food.
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| Big Chinese Temple under renovation |
After the hearty lunch, we slowly made our way out from the town of Hat Yai and find the route 43. But first we got to navigate through the busy street of Hatyai on hot dry day....
As discussed early at the station, we need to cycle 98km to Phattalung and spend a night before heading toward Trang the next morning.
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| Very useful signboard for tourist... |
Despite the presence of the trees that provided necessary shades from the sun, the air is hot, the road is undulating, and the traffic was noisy. However on the highway, we had the wide shoulder road for us cyclist and motorcyclist to use. And furthermore the drivers were considerably a lot more considerate than those crazy drivers back in my home country. If they spot you from the distance before exiting to the main road, they will wait patiently for you to cycle past them before they drive off.
Along the way we spotted a lone shop selling a lot of bikes, so we stopped by and check out the shop.
Beside the road sign that remind me how many painful KM left, there are plenty of fruits store that sell deliciously sweet pineapple.
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| Finally! Welcome to Phattalung! |
Arriving at the town of Phatthalung, the sun had already set, and now we have to look for hotel. After using blind luck to search for hotel doesn't yield any result. Time to consult my GPS. The first hotel we went was fully-booked for the night. And the next hotel look like out of town. But we had no choice but to move on.
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| Look how dark the place was.... |
As we cycled out of the town, the street became darker and darker. After some distance we turn into completely dark alley with no street light, and I really wondered if it is the correct way. We continued on and we were delighted that we found our
hotel accommodation. And it is really a good bargain as a room of two just cost 300baht, with air-conditioner provided. Since it was already 8pm, we immediately took up the offer, put our stuff into our room and we headed out for dinner.
Speaking with the local is a lot harder than we thought. And ordering our dinner wasn't smooth-sailing. So what we can do is to point at the ingredients or the dishes other customers had ordered. Lucky for us, we get to eat what we expected of the Thai food, and it was simply delicious.
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| One quick glance and I know why the room is soooo cheap..... no water heater....arrhhhhhhh |
After the heart-warming dinner, we headed back to our accommodation. And I began to understand why the room rate is so cheap.. hahaha. But I'm not too fussy about the condition of the room. I'm just glad to have a shelter over my head for the night.
View the Photo Album here
Ride data of Day 1:
Distance: 108km
Average Moving Speed: 17km/hr
Max Speed: 47km/hr
Total time taken: 10h16m
2 comments:
Are you still blogging? Very interesting blog as I also ride a Vitesse P18! Best wishes, Mike
Hi Mike!
Sorry for the delay, as I had become very busy in recent month. But not to worry, will go back to blogging once I have sort out my time.
Regard!
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