Tanah rata > Ipoh south (89km, 4h50)

Today we are going to reach Ipoh which means downhill all the way! In real life, this is not true as we have spent the first two hours cycling big up and downs. That was even harder than the long (and steady) climb yesterday. Overall, we knew that, at some point, the downhill we were looking for would come and it did :-) And that was nice! Let’s have a look…

Map.

First, this is where we spent our night, in a mini public park at the entrance of the town. They is rubbish absolutely everywhere. This is disgusting. This might be animals but no one come here to clean the place obviously. I’m glad I sleep off the ground.

We slept just next to the road but there was not much traffic last night fortunately, this was quiet. This is the best Christmas decoration I’ve seen until now… You can see that Christmas here is not that important.

Soon after we left our night spot, had something to eat and finally we were back on the road again.

I don’t see any other tea fields here but many, many, MANY greenhouses. The main product they highlight here is strawberry. There is shops/farm all along the road.

Greenhouses are the main attraction here.

Looking at the map and the road that goes down to Ipoh, I could guess that we would have some hills again but I did not expect those to be that big. It’s now 11:30am and we haven’t finished climbing yet. I’m looking forward this downhill! Let’s have a break at the petrol station, filter some water, have an half shower (I was my hair during day time and the rest before sleeping) and eat something. We will be back on the road around 4pm.

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It’s now passed four and we are finally going downhill! Look at the view here: 50% nature, 50% plastic! crazy.

As far as we can see, there is trees surrounded by greenhouses. The worse is, the fruits are expensive here when they produce them HERE! Something is wrong…

The ground doesn’t have to be flat, greenhouses grow on any slope.

Still going downhill. These houses are certainly all new and belongs to the farmers I guess. The atmosphere is not really nice. Everything is square, every house has a fence around it. Why they don’t create a nice community? Richer becomes a country, more separate become the population.

When we stopped at the petrol station I decided to clean my bike. What a mistake… I don’t know it yet but in one minute, I’m going to be drench and my bike will be even dirtier than it was this morning. That’s bad luck…

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Finally, after quite a long day and a long downhill too, we have reached Ipoh. The best place we found for tonight is a cemetery, one more. Always peace and quiet here :-) The shocking thing here is that this place is super dirty.

We always try to find a place with a roof so we only use the mosquito net protection and avoid to boil in our tent/hammock at night. And we can also see if someone come to us.

The place is dirty AND looks completely abandoned. No one take care of it, cut the grass or clean the rubbish. This is a kind of jungle here. Where are the monkeys? I though Malaysian people had a bit more respect for their older generations. Nobody care or I missed something, somehow. Well, good night!