Eventually the bike was finished so I returned 'Slagathor' to her owners and tried to find the right bus to the dealers. A helpful little Indian man offered me a lift on his scooter and was amazed with my helmet, so much so that he wanted three separate photos in various combinations.
He showed me which bus to get and waited with me, giving me his mobile number and address and asking whether he could come with me to Australia. We waited for about half an hour. Lots of buses came and went, apart from the one that he said I should get. I got bored of his company so jumped on a random bus. The driver told me that I should get another bus, despite the place I wanted to go to being posted on his route. I jumped off and got on the other bus. This driver also told me that he was not going where I wanted to go. I decided to see how not near to where I wanted to go he was going so stayed on. He dropped me off directly outside the dealers.
I was plied with a pretty big bill, which was expected, since some of the KTM parts I wanted only came as part of bigger parts which I didn't need, thus I had to pay for the big bits. The labour charges were minimal despite the amount of work. There was another KTM 640 there on display so I plundered it for bits. I was also given lots of stickers, a t-shirt and other bits of KTM merchandising tat to help me on my journey. I'm not sure how the KTM branded chinese money envelopes will be much use.
Despite the rebuild on my carburettor the bike ran badly and cut a few times on the way back to the guest house. I guessed this was because I had changed the needle location in India so changed it back to where it should have been.
The next day I set off for cooler climes towards the Cameron Highlands. The bike was not running too well. I figured the carb still needed tweaking. It also tended to runaway to about half throttle a lot, so I also figured that maybe there was dirt in the carb. A spark plug change probably wouldnt go amiss either but that could wait until KL.
I found a nice quiet guest house where I checked in for two days. I went out for one of the best Indian meals I've had. Tandoori Chicken for £1.50 with naan bread and curry sauce and rice. Why can't Indians cook like this in India? It's not hard guys! I don't think I had a single nice meal in India. All the decent cooks must be banished or something. I also discovered this tasty treat... Kickapoo Joy Juice!
I booked myself on a tour for the next day thinking that I should probably do more than laze around and read and tinker with the bike. We set off early first to a butterfly farm, which was just a front for showcasing all the fantastic poisonous jungle critters that we could possibly encounter.
I decided against holding some scorpions after my previous experiences in Turkey oh so long ago.
We continued on our trip in a second Landrover Discovery 110 since the first had broken down. Soon the ride became rather hairy as we started to make our way up a very muddy track. There would have been no way I could have gotten my bike up there. With the absence of seatbelts I almost put my elbow through the window a few times. My action photos don't quite capture the true flavour of the moment as we were rocked from side to side next to a precarious edge.
After trekking through the humid jungle for a couple of hours we arrived at the site of a blooming Rafflesia, or in other words, a big urinal smelling red flower which isn't actually a flower but instead a fungus or mushroom or something apparently. I wasn't really paying attention, I was on the lookout for poisonous things and leeches.
We slid back down the hill to an 'authentic' aboriginal village where they sat around smoking suspicious smelling cigarettes or hid inside watching SKY TV. We had a demonstration of a blowpipe and were allowed a go too. I was tempted to ask to be shot in the leg for the purposes of science but had second thoughts.
We were then carted off to the Boh Tea plantation, where most of Lipton's tea comes from apparently. I had a couple of cuppas and some nice cake whilst enjoying Telly Tubby land.
We finally visited a strawberry farm. Most of the Cameron Highlands seem to be constructed of plastic greenhouses. There were strawberries and cream on sale at the farm, but I had already stuffed myself by sampling the produce directly from the bushes when nobody was watching.
All in all it was a very English day and thoroughly enjoyable. I wasn't looking forwards to Malaysia after the joys of Thailand and had the feeling it would be similar to India, but the Indians here are so friendly and most importantly they have some common sense! They don't drive like idiots!
That night we sat around a camp fire drinking and enjoying the cool mountain air. We stared into the fire and had deep conversations, coming up with meaningful similes for the fire. 'Fire is like the window to your imagination, everyone looks in to see something different', was one guys inspirational offering. After a moments deep contemplation all I could come up with was 'Fire is hot'.
I set off the next day to Kuala Lumpur. I was not looking forwards to the heat of the city but wanted to experience the Chinese New Year. My bike slowly ran better on the way there so I think there may have been a bit of dirt in one of the carb jets.
About 100km from the city there was almost solid traffic heading in the opposite direction. I wondered whether they were fleeing from some natural disaster which I was unaware of but apparently they're just going on holiday for the New Year.
The city itself did not loom out of the distance as I expected. About 10km away I rode over a hill and was greeted with literally a wall of gleaming skyscrapers. It was rather awe inspiring. The city traffic was rather light and the highways were fast and open. The signs were no use to me so I had to rely on my GPS, as always in cities, to guide me to where I though the guest house I wanted was. There were a lot of buses on the streets and people waiting for them. Again I think they were trying to escape at the last minute for the New Year but I may also have just ridden through the bus station by mistake.
I found the guest house and will have to spend a couple of days seeing the sights and lazing around before the shops and embassies open again, either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
On New Years Eve there were lots of firecrackers set off in the streets. It was all rather dangerous but the tourists loved it. To me it sounded like someone having fun with lots of bubble wrap.
I find KL very similar to Angkor surprisingly. They are both jungles within the jungle. KL is a surprisingly green city in places but as always I find large cities pretty lonely places.
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