Monday,November 29, 2010, morning in Gerik is pleasant, it's chilly with temperature barely at 20 deg Celcius. I woke up early to enjoy and experience morning in Grik. I walked around the guesthouse, admiring the morning dew and greenery, with unpolluted atmosphere and untouched plants and trees its was paradise. I wasn't sure of the actual Grik's elevation above sea level, anyway it's really on the highland. Later I took a casual ride to the downtown and stopped by the restaurant to have 'nasi lemak'. There were talks about Grik, Pengkalan Hulu and the nearby surrounding areas, as the evident were never documented and only mentioned through words, it would be a risk having meal in the public places as one would be possessed by a voodoo kind of charm that causes the victim to vomit blood and would lead to death or lifelong suffering of continous vomiting of blood and other sickness.The charm is transmitted through food during meal. Grik and some areas in Perak are verbally known of having some quarters of people who practice such ritual. It will get riskier towards the end of the year as the practitioners are obliged to pay dues to the spirit by sacrificing at least one victim before the year end, or else the spirit will curse him or anyone of his family members and they will instead vomit blood and suffers. Being a full blown American educated, it's hard to believe but I did encounter some hard cases as I was born, bred and raised as full-blooded 'kampong boy' Perakian, and there were cases happened in my hometown too. Only thing I did before having meal is to pray and give total submission to god, so that I would be granted protection against all evil spirits.
While having breakfast, I was greeted by Ustaz (Mullah), he was asking me 5 basic questions again(where, when, how... so on) and later wanted to have a taste on my bicycle, by all means please.He seems enjoying the ride within the building compound.Talking about supernatural, I just forgot to mention about the incident that happened to me when I was approaching the town last evening. It was light rain and dark, the distance was about 5km to the town, on the descending slope, all of a sudden my bike was running heavy as something is pulling it from behind.With my own weight of 80kg and 30 kg on the bike, the gravity by logic should deliver nothing less than 30km per hour of freeride speed, to my surprise the speedometer shows only 10km per hour. I look back and saw nothing but only darkness. I doubt it was mechanical fault, yesss it could be ghost. When the idea of ghost came into my mind, I started to mumble to myself "why me, its dark and raining, I am tired, helpless and desperate for shelter, rather than you give me trouble, why don't you offer me assistance". Immediately after completing the phrases, she (must be female, male ghost don't bother male guys....according to Korean movie) let me go, as I was later cruising at steady 32km per hour of speed. Even on the steep uphill I ran consistently 28km per hour of speed, it goes till I hit Grik town, which is too good of a performance for guy my age. Perhaps she thought not worth it, a tasteless flesh of middle aged man, former virgin and with body fulled of contaminates, it could be harmful to consume. Or else, if I am pure and virgin I may end up on her dinner table (hehheheh...according to chinese movie).
After I had breakfast, I packed and checkout from the rest house, a beautiful receptionist attended to me at the checkout counter, very rare to have such beauty in this small town, double her age will not exceed mine, so lets the young guy look after her, I got cycling to do. I left Grik when the sun was just about to warm up, it was a nice flat road towards Pengkalan Hulu, its only 40 km away. Along the away, its a malay villages, palm oil and rubber plantations, I saw a boy with curly hair, covered by sarong waist down and a pouch hang on his belly. He smile and waived at me and I took a few shots of him. From the name of the villages and county, I figured there are some resemblance of 'Siam'(Thai) as this place was once rules by the 'Kingdom of white elephant' and Pengkalan Hulu was known as Kroh before the present name. After less than 7 km, I started to face a mean and unforgiving uphills, most of it were climbing, Pengkalan Hulu is at higher elevation than Grik. The surrounding views are mostly high mountains. The beginning of 'Titiwangsa' the backbone of Malaysia Peninsular. Its nice views and very refreshing, however the sun was so bullyful(new vocab). There are some canopies of tall tress along the road, the road was built by the British to transport tin ore from Klian Intan in Pengkalan Hulu to Grik and Ipoh for processing. The mines is still in operation and run by a company called Rahman Hydraulic.The tin ore deposits are on the open outcrops. Its not like the dredger technique where the tin deposits are beneath the earth strata. The technique of mining here is by detonators, where they blew the mountain with dynamite and collect the tin ore that are composed within the sediment rock, its dry and clean process. Later the rock and tin ore are separated. I believed the road has been widen. After cycling for more than 400km, I noticed that the roads that were designed by the British are more tolerating when negotiating uphill by bicycle. Newly designed roads mostly have steep gradient, the rationale is, bicycle is only for sports and recreational these days. I took a few stops as the sun and slopes were intolerable. Its peaceful, less traffics and lots of bird sings. I saw no sign of compromising slopes at least not yet. Its a beautiful tropical jungles and mountains all along the way. For information, though this is my silver state, it was my first time in life to step foot on this ground. Never been here before.
After more than 3 hours of pedaling, I only managed about 25 km. I decided to stop at the grocery store in the village called 'Kampong Pahit', had myself a refilled of ribena and chocolate. I saw two girls in nursing uniform and get myself friendly with them and later I decided to go to the nearby mosque when I heard a call for prayer. I locked my bike and get cleaned and joined the prayer. After prayer I decided to take a rest and just found out how to use the self activated mode on my Canon camera, it was already a few months in possession. BTW, I am the one who can be called an 'electronic idiot'. Nice view, the mosque is facing a high mountain, the entire village is located on the valley surrounded by mountains. Its me alone in the mosque before heavy rain starts pouring, its cold and misty, I got a companion who came for shelter, a chubby guy clad in t-shirt. He did not response to my salam, doesnt seems friendly. He is big, dark and may look like William 'the refrigerator' Perry if shaved. BTW, William Perry was a Line backer for Chicago Bear football team in the 80s. Well, I better leave him alone then. I sat at one corner in mosque with my eyes still locked to this guy, he got his finger always inside his nose, digging and scratching. So I came with this weird idea to capture his action with my Canon, I did it well for the first two shots, he wasnt looking at me while I was clicking but I was caught red handed on the third shot. Oh my god, he was looking at me in the eyes, I tried to smile and waived to him, he gave no response. Opps better be ready to accept some fists or jump outside the mosque and get wet, as I was only clad in sarong without anything underneath. If we exchanged fists or get into physical commotion, I may loose the sarong and get naked and if I caught naked in the mosque with another guy, it may stir lots of speculations.
He was just staring at me but nothing happened, then I noticed that he is a kind of wacko (american.. means a person who is suffering mental illness) as the look he gave to me has no feeling and meaning, it was just empty look, probably he is in his own world. We were later joined by another person, a young boy who wanted to take a bath at the mosque. The boy confirmed me that the big guy is having mental disorder. I was relief then and later put on my riding gears and started to pedal to Pengkalan Hulu. After 2 km of cranking, the day was getting hot again as the sun was shining bright. The climbing was getting more intense as I approached Gunung Paku (Mount of Fern). I can feel the uphill slope so steep that I have to stand up to put my body weight load to the crank for extra force. Besides, the passing vehicles were pushing on maximum engine throttled while crawling to the summit. How I wish to have 3 more speeds to make it 12 on my lowest chain ring.
It was about three quarter to the summit when I observed that my heartbeat reading was 160 beat per min, additional 20 BPM could be fatal. Therefore, I decided to stop and lie down next to my bicycle for breather under the hot sun. It was only when the BPM gets below 80 then I decided to continue on foot to the summit. I reached the summit and it was a relief and the feeling was like reaching destination. I took few minute at the top to view the scenery before start to descend. It was so steep that I could reached a maximum downhill free ride speed of 67.8 KPH. It wasnt long after the free ride then I saw signboard of Pengkalan Hulu. The down hill road passes through few villages and I saw the tin mines that runs by Rahman Hydraulic.
And not long after that I hit the downtown, its only takes me another 12km
to the Thai border, just could not expressed the feeling when I made it this far.I stopped at the restaurant for late lunch, again it was raining and thunder storm. It was heavy this time, the whole town gloom with clouds and heavy fogs when the rain stopped. Reminds of winter in some European cities, which I used to visit in my younger days. Its almost dark when I was heading to the border. The immigration check point was not a hassle, within 5 minutes, I 've got all paper works done and starts heading into Thai side, it was like a welcome, when I noticed that it was downhill free ride right from the immigration check point to Betong downtown. It was dark when I rolled into the downtown. Through words and sign language, I managed to locate a nice chalet in the malay ghetto of Betong town.
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