Birthday Ride 2019

I was prompted by my wife about riding together on my birthday about a month ago. It was a working day with all the kids are in school so we have to take leave from our day job. Month of August this year had been a busy month between our youngest brother wedding and demanding days at the office but I simply couldn’t say no.

Early morning on the day itself I haven’t got any proper route or destination charted on my gps unit and my wife also hadn’t said anything about her target place to ride. When she asked about it as we are about to embark on the motorcycle I plainly said – we are going to Cameron Highland.

Riding without a destination could be dangerous and tiring but we have a firm time frame to do it, before the kids are back from school. Riding passed Rawang town heading towards Kampung Kalong and Gohtong Jaya, I suddenly got an idea – we will ride to Pekan.

We’ve made our way towards Temerloh town through old road FT2 passing Karak and Lanchang. The road seems very quiet this morning with lorries made the most of the vehicles on the road. The sky was blue with a little bit of cloud formation, a relief sight since we left Klang Valley which is still hazy. Restoran Gobang Maju was still closed when we arrived around 10.30am so we went to another nearby restaurant serving fresh Patin fish. We had an early lunch of Daging Salai Masak Lemak, Patin masak tempoyak and sayur pucuk paku.

Restoran Ngeteh D’Sungai
GPS 3.440651, 102.428254

We continued along Pahang River through FT10 towards Bera and the road is on upgrading work and in some small areas they have just poured the loose gravel surface and the contractors were stopping traffic. Riding two-up is no easy feat on loose surface and tight space in-between other vehicles. 

We took a left turn to Kuala Bera riding along the river towards Pekan on route C8 and the traffic eased.

We have arrived in Pekan around 1.00am and we stopped by a clearing under a bridge to snap some pictures.

Under the bridge clearing (Cherok Paloh)

GPS 3.602503, 103.396722

We took a shelter in a nearby hut by the beach, which was empty. In-fact the whole area seems empty, including some stalls, where we hope to get some deep fried seafood or banana fritters.. maybe it was a weekday and it does not receive a lot of visitors to justify business operation.  

Beach chillout spot (Kuala Pahang)
GPS 3.601057, 103.402793

After spending some time, we departed towards Kuantan and later turn left to Gambang. It was 2.30pm and the sun was shining brightly with ambient temperature around 36⁰C when we passed Kuantan Airport, on our way to LPT.

On the highway, the weather turned cloudy and it was raining in some spot on the way to Karak. The traffic was smooth and it was relatively cooler weather to ride compared to the morning. We arrived home safely in-time to receive our kids back from school.

It has been a while since we have a chance to ride together and this rare opportunity was fully utilized by both of us. Although it was a short and impromptu one, we had good time together and the day ended with hope we could do this more often in the future.

Ride snippets:

Rider: Rashidin  & wife Kawasaki Versys 650

Distance: 620km

Date: 21^st August 2019

Lowest temperature: 20°C (Gohtong Jaya)

Highest temperature: 36°C (Kuantan)

Expenditures: Lunch + high tea RM35

Petrol: RM90