Ah - the Grik Highway.
Yes, as you say yempaul, the twisties. Lovely. 150km or so of absolute unspoilt wilderness...
...with puddles of refreshing cool air washing down off the mountains, views across whole valleys with not a trace of human habitation, and dirt tracks leading off in all directions - just what the KTM was built for.
There were warnings everywhere - from the wild elephants...
...to my guide book's note that soldiers are stationed along the highway, there to clear the booby traps left by the communist insurgents in the 80s. Oh well, it's an old guidebook, I'm sure they've found them all by now. Every 100 yards or so there seems to be a great big "AWAS" sign, which I think means 'warning'. Sometimes it just says "AWAS", sometimes "AWAS!", but most of the time there's a description underneath of exactly what you should be awassed of. In Malay, of course. So I have no idea what it is I should be awassing, and carry on regardless. The word 'hadappan' does crop up quite a bit, and I think it means roadworks. Or landslides. Or possibly roadworks to clear up landslides. It did crop up again later for a pedestrian crossing outside a school, but who knows - maybe there were a lot of schoolkids, coming down the hill in an unstoppable rush. Who knows. I survived it all, possibly because I awassed so well.
Finally on to Kota Bahru, capital of Kelantan province and the cradle of Malay culture (according to the roadsigns). By the time I get there, I'm exhausted - I've crossed the peninsula twice that day, from the East coast of Thailand to the West coast border crossing, now back to the East coast of Malaysia, and all because a bureaucrat demands that I must permanently export my bike from the same border crossing that I temporarily imported it at last week. No matter, if I hadn't I would have missed the Grik Highway and would also have had to drive through Pattani and Narathiwat in Thailand, two hotbeds of separatist violence. They car-bombed a hotel in Pattani last week that the Lonely Planet recommends as the best place to stay in town.
The language barrier is still there in Malaysia, but with occasional gaps. I stopped by the roadside in Kota Bahru to check my guidebook, and a Malay gent wandered over and asked, in an accent that a BBC newsreader would be proud of, whether he might be of any assistance?
I ended up staying at a hotel at Pantai Cahaya Bulan, the Beach of Passionate Love. Well, you have to try somewhere with a name like that, don't you? No, you don't, because I have and can tell you not to. The guidebook doesn't explain how it came by the name (though it does say that nearby Pasir Mas is reputed to be home to Malaysia's prettiest women) and being as charitable as I know how I can only suggest that it's because both seem slightly more appealing after dark.
I was probably being a bit harsh, being so tired after a long ride, but think tat, tack, everything done on the cheap, rubbish lying everywhere, and a sliver of a beach with filthy sand backed by concrete breizeblocks, packed full of people, who decamp after dark to sing truly terrible, over-amplified karaoke outside my hotel room window. The hotel itself didn't help, being a depressingly run down place, with an incongruous picture above the reception desk of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip signing the visitors register in the early 70s. That's probably why they haven't bothered cleaning, renovating or fixing anything since - they're trying to retain the essence of HRH's visit as unchanged as possible. The kitchen, a slovenly lean-to inhabited by a dispirited cook, even managed to find all three ways to foul up breakfast toast - bread stale to the point of mouldering, butter rancid and jam that tasted more of chemicals than of fruit - three out of three, well done! The coup de grace was attempting to charge rates that would give the Kuala Lumpur Shangri-La pause for thought.
On the road again, as early as possible, and down the beach road through Terengganu province, which is a long string of beaches, backed with casuarina palms (the tall slender ones in every brochure picture of a perfect beach), oil palms with fruit that looks like capsules of crude...
...and beachfront shacks serving food. There seem to be elections on at the moment, and every party has its flag proudly displayed anywhere that will hang it. Rhusila, where I had lunch, is known as the center of Islamic fundamentalism in Malaysia...
...and I'm betting that theirs was the flag with the scales of justice crammed in as many times as possible. This is, after all, the country that makes it illegal to convert anyone away from Islam, and is perfectly willing to enforce that in the courts.
The waitresses dissolved into fits of giggles over my attempts to order lunch, but we eventually settled on Nasi Goreng (Nasi means 'rice', Goreng means 'plus whatever we've got in the kitchen today', I think). Trying to pay was harder, as they kept saying "Ferringhi, ferringhi" ('foreigner, foreigner') at me. Yes, I'm a foreigner, but I'm sure you've seen others before so how much do I owe you? Eventually I cottoned on and sheepishly paid them the Four Ringgits they were actually asking for.
On south, and it is possible - only a faint possibility, mind you - that I may have got a tiny bit lost as this didn't look like the highway I was looking for
I got to Cherating in the end, a fabulous beach of pure sand facing the South China Sea and lined with everything from basic guesthouses to five-star resorts.
After last night's fun I'm in a resort that has beer, a swimming pool, beer, western food, beer and a comfortable bed. Excuse me, I'm off for a beer.
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