Syok and Tragedy in Perlis

Ten of us joined the "Kayuhan Syok-syok" organised by the Putra Palace Hotel in Kangar Perlis on Saturday 15th. About 130 riders altogether started the ride. The ride took us from the hotel in the centre of town, through narrow paved roads beside paddy fields, kampongs, dusun, two-lane roads and interestingly along gravel road through sugar cane plantation. Total distance about 70km. Syok because we were in the last group to finish having stopped & rest on several occasions including a 30minutes' stop at a nasi lemak/roti canai stall at about km25. Some had roti canai, some had nasi lemak - nobody complained of being hungry thereafter. Finished the ride in about 4 and a half hours. The tragedy was when we heard that one of the elder participants collapsed during the climb in the sugar cane plantation & was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Tropical Storm

The harvesting machine about to go to work.

Flattened parts of rice field. This one was ready for harvesting.

The usual route home under a foot of water.

There's this huge tropical storm Morakot over Taiwan, the cloud cover spans wide and covered the whole of the island. Rain and floods wreck parts of the country and the storm is reported to be moving into mainland China. Other nearby countries such as The Philippines are also not spared of the fury. The effect was also felt in Kedah with very heavy and long periods of rain last Friday 8th August. It rained almost the whole day. The effect of that was clearly seen when I went for a ride on Saturday morning. Parts of rice fields ready for harvesting was flattened, high water in rivers but luckily no house was inundated with water. Some losses suffered by paddy farmers but compared to what's experienced in some other countries they can consider themselves lucky.

Kedah Jamboree

I've heard of this bicycling jamboree thing before but only now got to participate in one on Saturday August 1st. with about 600 other riders. This was a grueling ride on a 42km trek on mostly timber logging tracks with steep climbs and very fast and dangerous downhill runs. Thought could escape the torturous part by a clever detour but still there was no escaping the huffs and puffs of having to push hard up several uncycleable hills. Painful but worth the experience.
The mass start.


More hills to climb but here it's not that far to the finish. Along this stretch it's more pushing than riding.