Twin Peaks Ride (Genting Highlands & Fraser's Hill) and the Best Route to Corner in Malaysia: Day 2

Sunday, 7 October 2007


Paiseh paiseh. My article on Day2 take so long to come out. I was busy using my free time to draw a picture.
No, you never read wrongly. Endless, me can draw one. Got chance, next time I show you my drawing. Ok, go back to our story on the Twin Peak's ride.




Fraser's Hill at Dawn






















Look at the beautiful dawn at Fraser's Hill!


















The rising sun slowly stirring the land around it.


















In the cool morning air, the lazy hills still have the blankets of cloud pulled over them.



















A cheerful bright flower to wake up your morning and to remind you today is a beautiful day!


The above photographs are courtesy of Spectrum and Bornfree. They not taken by me.
Because I was still kunning on the bed zzzzzzzzz.
I really meant to wake up one.


Trekking at Fraser's Hill

Spectrum brought us for trekking and he reminded us to wear trekking attire lik long pants, shoes and long-sleeve shirt.

Ai yah, Fraser's Hill is such a lazy tourist place, why ask us to wear like this? Also no jungle to bash what.

So most of us just wear T-shirt and slippers.
We stroll at a leisurely place, breathing in and feeling the cool, fresh morning air on Fraser's.













Do we look cool?
Supposed to walk in one row and look cool like those Backstreet Boys boy bands.

















On top of Fraser's Hill, there is one (and only one) "town centre". It is marked by a clock tower.


















As you walk around, notice that some of the buildings have charming architecture.
This one looks like it was air-lifted out of Amsterdam and plonked here.


















We stumbled upon this thick, long, huge millipede!
Must be a thousand years old. Can understand why it goes bare footed--so many legs.
















Singaporean really swah-ku. Never see before a millipede is it? All crowd around the millipede.

Ooi, bully ker-chi ah!? So many people bully one millipede ah?!
No lah. The millipede blur blur was crawling towards the road.
We want the millipede to live another thousand years,
so we help to U-turn it back towards the forest.


Ok, we reached the jungle trail liao.
At first, it cannot be seen that there is a jungle trail. Only signs are the sign board, and a very small opening through the bushes, like a very small long gao.

Har?! You expect us to bash through this thick underbush ah?!
We looked at Spectrum in disbelief. Hello, we now are on holiday. Not on reservist leh!

This Spectrum keep saying Must try, must try! While we were trying to convince each other, one of the girls in our group, Joy, very gun-ho. She want to walk up the trail liao.

I quickly volunteer and telll her, Wait, wait, let me go first.
Must help all the Men in the World save some face mah.























Up the steep jungle trail on Fraser's Hill. With me as point man.
It took quite a while to get the group to get onto the slope.
Alamak. All ride so big cc bikes, but balls so small cc!


Finally, we managed to convince most of the group to bash through the thick bushes and onto the trail. Just as we are starting to get used from entering a jungle world and about to start our trekking, I saw a small family coming downhill from we were heading towards.


















The father (in grey T-shirt, back facing you), as he walked past me, asked:
"Do you know how to get rid of leeches ah?"

I begin to recall from what my sergeant told me during my national service days, but I never get to practise, "Oorh, use cigarette or fire to burn it lor." I think to myself: Jey, want to test me on my jungle skills ah?! Uncle, I am SAF (Singapore Armed Forces)-trained leh

The uncle replied, "Really ah? My daughter got a leech stucked on her."


*Gulp*




Oh my goodness. I came to Fraser's Hill is to be a tourist. I just want to do tourist things. I just want to do comfortable and relaxing tourist things that tourists ought to do.
I am not here to do jungle bashing. I am even more not here to deal with live leeches and bash through leech-infested jungle.
Trek 25 metres is enough liao. I want to quickly get out of here.
























Thank goodness for smokers! The smokers in our group came to the rescue and used their lighted cigarette to burn the leech. The leech released its grip on the daughter.

The fact that the daughter remained so cool and steady and walked through the whole trail carrying a hungry leech stucked to her made me even want to scream out even more.

My greatest fears in life are slimy soft things like caterpillars and leeches. I dared not go see the leech.

Finally relieved that the little girl has gotten rid of the leech, I was prepared to retract back.
But too late. 3/4 of the group already committed onto the slope liao. Very hard to u-turn back.
Spectrum urging non-chalently behind, "Let's carry on!"

Har!!!??? Xian ji buah!

















Parts of the jungle trail to walk through. Ambush alley for hungry leeches lurking around hungry for human blood.



















Even as fallen trees and we have to duck under.
What if one leech dropped from the branch and onto your neck and into your shirt???!!!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeks!!!


After a while, I try to pyscho myself. Mai xiao lah. Maybe the whole trail only got one single leech niah lah. Don't know how that little girl so suay suay can be sucked by that one leech.
Leech so slow. How can it possibly crawl onto our fast moving legs?

Becasue of such thinking, so whenever we pause now and then during our walk, not just me, but every of the guys, kept moving and shuffling their legs on the stop. All do hantak-kaki marching.

But still no use. And don't know how the leeches do it. Despite never standing still, one of the guys found a leech crawling up onto his canvas shoe. *Gulp*

And another guy, just in the nick of time, found one leech crawling up the flesh of his exposed ankle, but haven't sunk its mouth in yet and he quickly swepe it away!

This is turning out to be Nightmare on Leech Street.

We walked on, in full alert, as if we were those hunted and eventually doomed commandoes in the jungle in the movie Predator.

We reached a spot where there was a branch off from the trail. We can see that it leads onto civilisation, onto a metal road. We actually have not walked very far. Maybe only 200 metres. But it felt more like 2 kilometres. Spectrum was asking aloud, more to himself than to anyone, Which path to take, to continue the trek or to take the shortcut out and end the trek prematurely.

But very quick to respond, our tough R1-speed demon Crashman volunteered the answer. Off he went down the shortcut route to civilisation. He was quickly joined by the rest of the guys.
















Leech Check Drill.
Finally glad to see sun light again and emerge out of Leech Alley, I suggested the Leech Check Drill. Just to check if we might have any leech stucked onto us, unknowing to us.
Every guy in the group promptly performed their own Leech Check Drill.

















History of the jungle trail if you want to know (click to enlarge). The trail is more than 100 years old.
I don't know how the original founder could survive all the leeches.


We continue our walk. Thank goodness no more jungle trails. But just normal tourist walks.

















Rent and paddle the boats at Allan's Water.
















Interesting quote on Fraser's Hill.
Of course take nothing but photographs lah. Because on Fraser's Hill there is nothing else to take, nothing to shop or buy.
No shopping, girls! Hiak hiak hiak!


The walk around Fraser's Hill was really the highlight. It was very refreshing and relaxing.
I highly recommend you to take a long stroll around the next time you are up Fraser's Hill.

Anti-leech solution optional.


Check out and Ride Down Fraser's Hill















View of the apartment block that we stayed in. Note our bikes parked below the block.
We checked out at 11.30 am.

















We aren't leaving Fraser's Hill without the customary group photo-taking.














If one bike were to topple, then all liao.




















Thick vegetation lined both sides of the route down.
Going down is the same style as coming up, but reversed.
Slow, intense-focused and somewhat repetitive corners.

















Like coming up, after a while, the bikes start to bunch up.




















Slow meandering corners.

But be careful. The repetitive and long ride down can easily seduce you to lose concentration and to simply follow the lines of the bike in front.
If the bike in front runs wide into the incoming lane, you would run wide too.

And another thing to be careful of. Sand and debris on the road.
Because the road rounds around a mountain, rain might caused the sand and debris to be eroded and to fall on to the road. The sand and debris fequently settle on the outside of the corners. The sand might compromise your normal optimum cornering line so you should not ride with the max permissable corner entry speed, but with plenty in reserve.


















Downward Hair-pin.


After Route 55 that runs through Fraser's Hill, we turned right into Route 8.










Route 8, at the bottom of Fraser's Hill, where the road finally straightens again.
And who turned off the air-con?

After Route 8, we hit the scenic Karak Highway, E8.



















I switched to Da Vinchee's Suzuki VStrom 1,000 and he to mine STX1300.

You sit high up on the V-Strom. When you take a corner, it feels like cornering on a stilts. But it takes surprisingly light effort to steer the VStrom. I also welcomed the breeze allowed in by the V-Strom compared to the STX, though there is some wind buffering beating down on the top of the helmet at speed. This later version ('07) of the VStrom is able to hit high cruising speeds (140-150kmh) without any of the harsh vibrations of the early versions of Vstrom.

In turn, Da Vinchee's description of his brief stinct on my STX1300 was, "Very refined bike...agile...instant pull."


We reached the Genting Sempah R&R where we had lunch.
Of the original 22 bikes, some left for Singapore still leaving with 15 bikes and 17 people to head up Genting.



The Ascent to Genting Highlands

















Within short notice, the road starts to tilt upwards.



















On your mark, get ready to lean over. Wide multiple lanes. Note the differences of the road nature compared to Fraser's Hill.
















The wider lanes allow higher corner entry speeds (2nd-3rd gear 40-60kmh).
Swifter progress and more buah katah time.


I prefer the Genting corners to Fraser's Hills which are slower.
If Cameron Highlands corners were thrown in, I would rank the corners, with the top being my most preferred:

1. Genting Highlands
2. Cameron Highlands
3. Fraser's Hills


















Keep your eyes on the road. Not on that lady on the big poster playing her legs at you.



















Steep gets steeper. And cloud starts to appear as we hit cloud level.




































Into Cloud City and Sin City.
Our convoy prepares to make a grand entrance into the First World Hotel.


Checking into First World Hotel

















Our bikes lined the hotel entrance and formed a spectacle for a while as, we off loaded our luggage onto the lobby.



















The colourful exterior of the First World Hotel which we stayed in.

We arrived at about 3 pm and we parked our bikes at the hotel's carpark. As we rode into the entrance of the hotel's carpark, I had a big scare.

The carpark's floor was painted and it was drizzling outside, so the floor was a bit wet.
After my bike crossed our a hump, I opened my throttle slightly to get over the hump.

Suddenly, underneath me, my big 300 kg++ STX started to disobey me, and slide sideways and drift across the carpark floor in a S-pattern, just like in the movie Initial-D. My rear wheel lost traction because of the wet painted floor. I was thinking, "Xiao liao lah. How to pick up this heavy beast when it drops onto the floor."

Miraculously, somehow the drifting action stopped and the bike did not drop. I turned around and looked at my bikers behind me in Did-you-see-that. I could see a couple of their mouths still open big big.

After we parked our bikes, we back to the lobby to check in. And the checking in process is sibei long man. Even though I booked our hotel rooms, fully paid all of them in advanced via internet and phone, and there are like 50 staff each with computers in front of them processing customers check-in, I still waited one hour to collect our room keys!

This means the casino business must be damn hot man. So our jeng hu to build casino is correct one!

The checking-in took so long, SuperRuth (girl in the middle) composed and took this cute photo in the hotel lobby.

What is the famous saying? See what ...Hear what...Speak what...?
And we don't know the napping uncle on the left.

We finally collected our hotel keys. We were split into 6th floor and 8th floor.


















My room on the 6th floor.

I forgot to mention: On Fraser's Hill Silver Resort, each unit cost 225RM per night and can sleep 4 persons. On Genting First World Hotel, each unit cost 131RM per night and can sleep 2 persons.



















My room has a good view to outside.

















View outside my room.

I learnt that try not to book your hotel rooms on the 8th floor. Why leh? 8 lucky what. Because the hotel's main restaurant is on the 8th floor, so many people from the whole hotel will walk along its corridor to go to the restaurant. So rather noisy to the people inside the room.


Evening Program

We jalan jalan around the First World Hotel.

The First World Hotel is a good hotel to stay because it is the one of two hotels on Genting with the casino inside the hotel. Also, it has a big amusement theme park inside for non-gamblers to explore. It is one of the newer hotels there and the room rates are amongst the cheaper ones.



















The bright colourful theme park inside First World Hotel.

Got shopping. Got an amusement park with roller coaster. Got different decorations and famous replicas.


















Can find Eiffel tower on Genting!


















The Statue of Liberty also like to ride bike, like us!


This Genting company is really clever in entertaining people and making money. It is a place that you can take your whole family there on the weekend and guaranteed they will all have fun. We have lots to learn in the casino business from them man!

Take for example, if you think eating on our Sentosa is expensive, wait till you eat on Genting. One plate of wanton noodle in their foodcourt-like eating place cost 15RM!
If you really on a budget, you can eat at their McDonalds and KFC.

And on Genting, you see thousands of people of all religions and races being gainly employed working in the foodcourt, to bell boys, to inside the casino. So I don't understand why if they can do it, there are still people using religion as objection against the casinoes in Singapore.



















Interesting phenomenon: Super puffy potatoe chips bags on Genting.
When transported up to the higher attitude where the air pressure is lower than on sea level,
the air pressure in the pressurized bags expand.


















At the original Genting Highlands Hotel.
Contrast the more classic design of this hotel compared to the wacky theme-park style of First World Hotel.

Don't know this is true or not. Do you know that the First World Hotel's casino sits right in between the Pahang state and the Selangor state? One of the reasons why Genting organisation built the second casino in the First World Hotel is so that in case the Pahang state want to use Islam as an excuse to shut the first casino down, there is still the second casino in its strategic position. Malaysian politics, I lia-boh-que.



















At night, the cloud and mist are so heavy, it proved impossible to take photo.
Can't see far too. So better don't ride up Genting at night.


















Chilling out door out at this Coffee Bean on Genting.
It's located somewhere near the Genting Highlands Hotel.


It was actually very cold and it would be more comfotable to sit in door. But we wanted to enjoy the rare opportunity of drinking our hot coffee in the cool climate.


This wraps up our night on Genting. I tell you of my casino gambling trip the next monring in my next article!