Famo Adventure Motorcycling Guide

Welcome to Malaysia! Here’s a “quick” rundown on what’s been going on in the last few weeks (photos to come when I track down my cable). Some of it may seem a bit spurious and nonsensical, but then thats what holidays are about right? I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the 6th at about 1am, checked into Anjung KL guesthouse and promptly met four Australian guys. I also met an Aussie girl called Jacqueline (from Melbourne). We spent a few days sightseeing around KL and I became friendly with Jacq and we started hanging out. Day 1 we saw the Petronas twin towers and did some further moseying around the orchard gardens, then day 2 we caught a bus down to Melaka two hours south of KL.





In the Orchard Gardens

Melaka

Melaka was a former Portugese colony and Jacqueline was interested in seeing the old churches. We missed the last bus home but managed to detour through Seramban and back into KL. She caught a train to Singapore the next day to visit a friend for a week. As we were sitting on a bench in Melaka, we hatched a plan for me to cruise down to Singapore on my bike, pick her up and come back to KL (in time for her flight to Japan). It was all a bit crazy because at that time my bike hadn’t even arrived in Malaysia.




Prayer House in KL

Tuesday afternoon I was scammed. The touts here are few and far between but this one was a corker. I was walking from the hostel to BB Plaza and met a Chinese guy who expressed an interest in Australia. He said that his sister wanted to travel in Perth and that I could give him some tips about the country. He also said he was a musician and was about to go to practise although his voice was bad from a big night of drinking. He asked me if I wanted to learn a Malay song and I said sure (always willing to try new things).

He called a cab and we jumped in (me, him and his “1st cousin”). We drove for maybe 20 minutes into the suburbs and stopped at a really nice house where I was introduced to his “uncle”. The uncle was very friendly and they gave me coffee and fruit but then the original guy who was supposed to be rehearsing disappeared, which I thought was strange and they left me with the uncle. He started talking about how he worked at Star City casino in Australia and that he was a blackjack dealer at Genting casino just outside of KL, after which he offered me a free slot machine card and said that I could get 2 days free credits from the machines. I took it but by this time was wondering where the music was…

The “uncle” then said that with my help, we could win a lot of money and all I needed to do was learn a few tricks of cheating. He asked if I was keen to try and I said okay (I had no intention of cheating at a casino by the way, I was just interested in what was going on and had a half-fascination with the fact that I was being scammed, hoping that I could cut and run when it got too heavy). So we went into this little back room with a desk covered in a towel and he took a pack of cards out of the top drawer. I sat across from him and the first cousin sat beside me, trying to rub against me. Her moustache was quite disconcerting.

Okay, so “uncle” taught me how to read the top card during the deal and how to identify the dealer’s card through his finger signals. He asked me if I was ready to take $5000 USD to the casino and take 25% of what we won through the scam. I said to him “Sorry mate, I should have told you earlier but gambling is against my religion”. He said no worries, all I had to do was hand money from a bag to his rich Bruneian friend and he’d place the bets. All I had to do was indicate whether or not we wanted to match the current bet. I said “No, you don’t understand, I’m not interested in losing all of my money to you freaks, I have to get back to the guesthouse.” They said okay and he took the slot machine card he gave me and sent me on my way (not before trying to get me into their car to go see the sick mother – the reason why they were cheating in the first place). I got back into town and freaked out completely (how stupid could I be to get involved in a scam, it could have been dangerous, I could have had a gun pulled on me and lost my passport etc). The next day I was careful walking around in case I ran into the gangsters again.

Step forward a week and I met an Iranian guy who fell for the same scam but actually lost money. The actual scam (I opted out too early to find this out) involves having a first practice game at the uncle’s house against a loser “friend” who just turns up. You have to buy into the game and you’re told you’re guaranteed to win because you know how to cheat. The friend loses loses loses and you start to get cocky, winning about RM8000. The friend looks dejected and the uncle says “We’ll just play this hand and then call it quits”. The uncle deals and you have 21, the friend has 20 (a surefire win for you) UNTIL… The friend raises the bet to FORTY TWO THOUSAND US DOLLARS. That’s right, wads and wads of cash come spewing out of his bag and the only way you can win the hand is to match his bet. He’s muscled you out of the game, the bastard! The uncle then persuades you to withdraw all of the money from your bank account to match the bet. Now the scam goes that there’s no way you have enough money to ever match the friend, so you’re offered assistance but never enough to match. You’ve now lost your buy-in (US$300 in the case of the Iranian guy) because every time you ask for it back, they say you have to come up with the matching bet.

After speaking with the Iranian dude, I felt a bit better that I didn’t lose any money and I suppose it must happen about 2 times a day to unwary tourists. I don’t think they are violent, they just want to rip you off big time. Anyway, the moral of the story is to keep your money to yourself, and not think that it’s possible to win big at some stranger’s backyard gambling den in the middle of a foreign city. I seriously wonder what the outcome would be if the Iranian guy had enough money to muscle the friend out of the game, payback?! I don’t think so.




Me, Azmi and Wan

So, on the Sunday (11th) I headed out to the airport in a taxi and tracked down the cargo sheds. I paid for the taxi driver to come into the customs area and we found the place at which I was to collect my bike. It was midday and a bit of asking around revealed my bike’s flight was due in at 2:40pm, so I sat down to wait. I walked outside for some fresh air and bumped into three Indian Malays and started chatting about my bike journey, they introduced me to a Maori/Malay guy called Saleh and we immediately hit it off due to our mutual love of fishing (Sometimes I “pad out” my interests to keep the conversations going). He happened to be the operations manager of the cargo shed from which I was to collect my bike, so he took me inside to wait and I met some of the MASCargo guys. Saleh introduced me to Azmi and he said that he’d be happy to look after me for the day and make sure I received my bike safely. It was funny to see these guys working while their boss Saleh played game after game of Zuma on his computer.

Amzi is a Malay, 28 years old and married with two sons. He took charge of the bike situation and fast tracked it through the cargo queuing system. It took about 45 minutes and when it finally came through I grabbed my air waybill and Azmi accompanied me to the customs office where I paid some duty on the bike. We headed back to the cargo bays and forklifted the bike to the loading area. By this time there were maybe 20 workers watching me tear the crate apart and nervously put my bike’s bits back on in the right order. Some were very helpful, putting the mirrors back on for me, a few kept saying “Mat-Rempit” (an underground motorcycling craze in Malaysia where the members ride 125cc mini motorcycles at about 130km/hr through the streets of Malay towns. Azmi told me he was former Mat-Rempit. The name literally means Ram It! i.e. go really fast) some of the workers were laughing at me and I found out the next day that they thought my disproportionately long second toe was humerous. All I cared about was getting my bike together. By the time I could leave, it was about 6pm and I was exhausted. It had started raining and Azmi offered me a place to stay for the evening to save me riding back into KL, I was very thankful. After the bike was rideable, I went back to customs to get my Cartnet stamped and I found out that I didn’t have to pay the original duty of AU$30. The customs boss was skeptical of my intentions and explained to me that I should have just had the carnet stamped. Oh well, they finally set me free and I rode towards the customs gate. The final challenge was a gauntlet of officials, each wanting to show their power by asking what I had in my boxes. I tiredly obliged at each point and at about 7:30pm I finally hit the road out of the airport.

Azmi was waiting for me with his wife Wan at the first fuel station and I followed him through the rain back to his house in Nilai (half way between Sepang airport and KL). The first comment he made when we arrived was about how small the house was and I said it was perfect (honestly a really nice house). He leant me a shirt and we went to have Satay Kajang, the best satay in Malaysia. Azmi’s wife Wan has studied Microelectronic Engineering at university and is now a lecturer so we had some things in common. They are hoping to move to Perth at the start of 2008 so that Wan can do her PhD. After a great night I fell asleep exhausted. The next day Azmi took me on a tour of some Malay towns. We had Nasi Lamek (Rice, chilli paste, nuts and half an egg) and Roti Cenai (kind of like a pancake with curry sauce) for breakfast. He then took me to Kajang and I bought a spare helmet for the crazy plan to pick Jacqueline up from Singapore. We met up with Wan and had lunch at a large supermarket, took some photos of the Mosque and ministerial buildings at Pudrajaya and then went back to the house. Azmi had to work at 3pm so I left my gear at his house and headed into KL. The ride was very scary, traffic in the city is mayhem and everyone has to get into the tightest spots first. It seems dangerous at first but when you get into the flow, it becomes easy and even a bit of a thrill, people don’t get angry in their cars like in Australia, they just make ground when they push in and lose ground if someone pushes in front of them, no worries either way.




Mosque in Pudrajaya

On Wednesday I headed south to Singapore. The Jacqueline plan was coming together and I’d decided to ride as far south as Johor Bahru (just north of the singapore border) and catch a bus across to Singapore. The distance is about 400km all on motorway but the rain hit 50km north of JB and I had to stop under an overpass. The rain is torrential when it gets going and I decided “one more overpass before stopping”. Of course the rain hit before I got to the “one more overpass” and I was soaked in about 4 minutes. Three of us hung out for about 30mins (me with mega-bike, the others with their 125s “MAT-REMPIT!!!!) and the rain eased up enough to proceed so I kicked on. I wasn’t sure if I’d just stay in JB overnight and head into Singapore the next morning but I eventually decided to head in that night so I left my bike in the bike parking lot at the bus station.

Getting to Singapore requires a 90min bus ordeal costing RM2.40 (about 80c Aussie). The bus stops at the Malay border (exit clearance), takes you across the causeway and stops at the singapore side (entry clearance) and then takes you into the centre of town. By this time I was walking around like a zombie, too tired to put very much effort into finding accommodation, luckily I stumbled across a wonderful hotel

Damo: Is this a hostel?
Counter: No sir, it’s a HOTEL
Damo: Okay, how much for a room?
Counter: Dormitory S$18 / night
Damo: Sold! (never stayed in a hotel with a dorm before but sometimes it’s wise to keep your mouth shut)

Okay, so was settled by 9pm and put on a load of washing. I called Jacqueline via her friend Lynn and they organised to meet me at midday the next day. Washing finished and I collapsed into a heap.

I met Lynn, who was really lovely and Jacqueline, Lynn and I did some exploring. We went to the cinema and watched a chick flick called The Holiday, was pretty good (I like chick-flicks for some strange reason). Most of Singapore seemed to be a shopping mall. It was raining outside so we spent most of the time walking around the specialty shops. We took a chairlift to the Island of Sentosa and had a go on the Luge. For dinner we had Japanese (Lynn and Jacqueline know each other through their honours year in Japanese studies at Melbourne University) then we went for drinks at Iguana bar, Marghueritas, which aren’t really my cup of tea. I stayed at Lynn’s place with Jacqueline on Thursday night and we prepared ourselves for a long ride the next day.




Lynn and Jacqueline Before the Luge Ride (not motorbike helmets)

The Singapore-Johor Bahru battle was conquered by about 11am and we found my bike as I’d left it but someone had stolen the cable lock that I’d stupidly left cabletied to the back rack (is that irony?). I could see Jacqueline was scared so I didn’t tell her it was my first time giving someone a lift further than 5km. The day went well and we took a detour off the main highway through some small towns (Air Hitam, Batu Pahat). It poured and we got soaked, sheltered under an abandoned café and hammered it back to KL when it looked like we wouldn’t make it (after all Jacq had an early flight in the morning). We arrived on the outskirts at dusk and it was once again pouring rain. We took shelter under an overpass with about 100 other riders and when it cleared, experienced a very hairy ride into the Anjung KL hostel. We got it right though and arrived home at 9pm. Jacq re-packed her bags and we went to the Outback Steakhouse for some food. The word exhausted would barely describe my feeling after three days of riding and sightseeing.

On Saturday morning I helped Jacqueline get her bags to the airport and accompanied her to the airport. We said our goodbyes and I knew I would miss having her around as soon as I turned my back. She’s planning on being in Spain next year sometime so if there’s any chance of meeting up, I’m hoping we can do another motorcycle trip.

Well, that brings me right up to last night. I met an Iranian guy and a Swedish guy. I also bought a ukelele to practice my songs (also influenced by Jacq’s Uke, very cool). The Iranian guy was an amazing guitarist and gave me some rhythms to practice. Tonight I’ll ride over to Amzi’s house and pick up my luggage ready to head north to Thailand. I wish I could send 90% of my luggage home, I really don’t NEED it and think I could survive with just a bag strapped to the back. I’m looking forward to leaving Malaysia, my time here has been amazing but I’m very keen to see what the next country has to offer. I’ll let you know how I go.