ORDINARY SUPERHERO

Salam Ramadhan to you kind visitors. May you have a blessed Ramadhan. Ayoh Keng left a comment in the previous entry that Beijing Olympics has ended but our Ramadhan-lympics just begun. Semoga kita semua berlumba-lumba mendapatkan barakah, rahmah dan keampunanNya di bulan yang mulia ini. InshaAllah.

Olympics dah habis. Nasib baik bola English Premier League dah start - sekurang2nya ada lah benda nak tengok kat TV hujung minggu. ************** Pagi ni masuk ofis lambat....dengan sengaja. Lagipun hari ni ada raptai perbarisan hari Kebangsaan. For the last two weeks, kerja memang stressful. Masuk ofis sebelum jam 8 pagi dan balik hampir tengah malam - almost every day. So pagi ni lepas hantar Kak Long dan Akmal ke sekolah, hantar Kak Chik pulak. Hari ni sekolah (tadika) dia ada buat field trip ke pusat membuat barang2 dari tanah liat. Sebelum jam 8 pagi dah nak kena hantar ke sekolah. Lepas tu hantar anak dara no. 2 ke sekolah agama. Lepas tu baru lah sempat pergi breakfast dengan beloved mem dan Akid. Akid share makan tosai dengan Ibu. Akid: Baba....banyak bendera (sambil menunjukkan bendera kecil Malaysia yang digantung di dalam kedai). Baba: Aaa..'ah, bendera Malaysia. Akid: Yang tu...yang warna hitam putih tu...? Baba: Tu bendera negeri Pahang.. Akid: Yang merah tu....be...

It's all over in 39 minutes. I hoped it could have been better and more equally matched. But what do you expect when Lin Dan played a near perfect game. I think Chong Wei's face looked pale and lost. He has no answer to Lin Dan's pinpoint cross court smashes and quick kills. I think Chong Wei is too kind-faced. We need to have someone with fearless face. Someone like Markus Kido of the Indonesian's double player. I was very frustrated with the results.

Yes! All the way to the final. Lee Chong Wei just won his semi final badminton match against Lee Hyun-il of Korea in rubber games a moment ago. He will face the winner of super Lin Dan and Chen Jin in another semi final match. Chong Wei is our best bet for our very first Olympic gold medal.

How's that for the title of today's entry? I wish I could just sit at any cafe with free WIFI and blogging away the whole day. The Dome at KLCC would be the best place. Good place, good view and ehem..... lots of beautiful chicks. Kah kah kahh.....wishful thinking. Quick replies to some of the comments in the earlier entries. Why 08080808 (4x 08?) Wan asked why I wrote four times of '08' instead of three. It's simply because there were eight of us altogether. Four male and four female riders/cyclists. Did we cycle back to KL? How did we get back to KL? CikRampai and AHNI asked this question. NO. We didn't cycle back. The target was to cycle to Kota Bharu. We were ecstatic to reach destination. The journey back may not be as fun anymore!. We took a flight back to KL via Airasia. Tickets were booked months ahead. The bikes (all 8 of them) were dismantled and packed into our support van and the van left for KL on the same evening we reached Kota Bharu. Seronok t...

I'm back, alive and in one piece! Thanks to fellow bloggers for your kind prayers and encouragements. Apologies I could NOT reply to the comments as yet. Of course I have many many more entries on the amazing ride that are lingering in my head but at the moment, I need to catch up with the works that I left at the office. So thank you again guys (I mean those five or six of you).

We safely arrived at pengkalan chepa at noontime yesterday. The ride from Tanah Merah to pengkalan chepa was more relaxed and fun. May be because everybody knew that we only have to cover about 50 odd kilometers. Yes, after having been cycling for more than one hundred kilometers every day for the last three days, to cover for 50km was a big relieve. We all had roti canai for breakfast before we pushed off to Pasir Mas. It's a flat route with sufficient road shoulder all the way to Pasir Mas. I was given the honour to lead since we were entering my hometown. Stopped at a coffee shop owned by Nasir's cousin not far from the roundabout to the lemal bridge to Kota Bharu. Crossed the bridge and took the old salor road instead of the highway. By then the sun was on top of our heads and most of us were dehydrated and had to top up our water bottles. You would be surprised to see how most of us could gulp the whole 600ml drink in one go.

We have made it. We have made it. AlhamdulilLah. Total distance covered was 346.89km. Will update more later.

Today is the final leg of our amazing ride. Some of us have been talking that we were already so lucky to have made it here so far. Good happy news today someone in our team celebrated his 58th birthday! Abang kamat is the oldest of the group. We are heading to Pasir Mas and will 'geretok lemal' en route to Kota Bharu and to Pengkalan Chepa.

The ride from Dabong to Jeli was a bit tough going over nine hills eventhough the hills were not that steep compared the hills that we had to 'climb' from bentong to raub. The ride was difficult because of narrow roads without road shoulder. Because of deserted roads, the cars and lorries were speeding like nobody's business. The route from jeli to tanah merah was much better because of it has proper road shoulder. Enroute to tanah merah we stopped for 'sup belut'. Fuuh, the soup was superb! It's hot and spicy and tasted like sup torpedo!. And I had a flat tyre again for the second time of the day. It was less than 30km from Tanah Merah. It's about 7.10pm when safely we reached Seri Chalet in Tanah Merah. AlhamdulilLah. My speedometer showed that I have covered 285.18km in 3 days. Tomorrow will be the last leg!

We are taking a break at the new bandar jeli mosque. There is no way for us to cycle under the hot blazing sun. It's really really hot now. Hopefully it will not rain in the late afternoon. This morning alone we have had 3 punture cases. Kamat's got flat tyre even before we started this morning. Then Nasir's bike (Alia's bike actually) also got flat tyre somewhere after lubok bungor. We stopped to patch the tyre at a small kedai kopi there. Tak de chance nak makan cendol kat situ sebab 'air batu' belum sampai lagi masa tu. When I realised that my front tyre's air pressure was depleting, I stopped to inspect. Took out the tube but couldn't find the holes. My be the valve was not properly fixed. The lunch of nasi kukus and air nyior was excellent. Surprisingly we met again with the guy we had a drink with earlier in the morning when we took a break at kampung tunku abdul rahman putra sg balah. When we had our drink there, were told that that village wa of...

173.09km that's what we done so far for two days. We will be heading to Jeli abt 50km and then to Tanah Merah where we gonna stay for a nite. We could only catch a glimpse of the famous gunung stong waterfall because of heavy mist. That's the highest waterfall in south east asia if you do not know yet.

Except for the near miss at kuala lipis station, everything went out as planned. It took us almost four hours of train ride from kuala lipis to to dabong. It was a single class (read third class) train. So there were many times that the train has to stop, wait and give way to the express trains from the other direction. But again we reminded ourselves that we were on vacation and should think of nothing but to have fun. Some of us spent mingling with makcik 'peraih' and the ladies selling food/snacks that walked up and down the coaches. It was not difficult to strike a conversation because we attracted curious looks from others. Definitely they know that we were from out of town. Most of them were surprised when were told that we were from kl and heading to Kota Bharu. One makcik told us that one minah saleh bought 'buah jering' and ate it there. Kah kah kah she must have thought that jering is a kind of chewable nuts or something. We spoke to the ticket inspector a...

We are still on the train. Expected to arrive at Dabong station at a quarter past three. We will be staying at a hostel overnight. Had maggi in the cup at the canteen. That's the only thing available for our lunch. Let me tell u, the maggi was delicous!. Hah hah ha..

In the nick of time. We almost missed the train!. We were supposed to cover about 50km from sungai pasu where we stayed last nite to the train station in kuala lipis. We stopped at Benta rest area for a drink after having stopped earlier at Dong for breakfast. My rear tyre punctured in kuala lipis town when we were already very close to the train station. By the time we reached the station, the train were about to leave! Apparently they hv re-scheduled the 3.00pm train to 11.30am. Luckily the station master was kind enough and asked the train to wait for us. Quickly loaded our bikes onto the train and thanked our lucky stars. Again we have to thank to the very kind ticket inspector. We thought we could pay for our ticket on the train but we were told we could no longer do that. Well who cld blame us for that. Wan sabri's last train ride was thirty years ago my very own experience was waayy back in 1982 when we were given warrant ticket to go back to our hometown during school break...

We had a good nite sleep last night. The dinner prepared by makcik Ribut was marvellous. The guys were even treated with durians. We have done 119.07km for the first day. We are ready to move now. Breakfast on the way abt 6 km from the homestay. We will head 2 kuala lipis.

We are at r&r sri bilut less than 10km then another 12km to our target homestay. We will stay there tonight. Puan Hajah Ribut homestay here we come.

Lunch break at kedai kopi Kow Po at Bentong. If u are from bentong then u will know that this is the place that serves the best ABC cendol in town. Many cyclists from KL would cycle from genting sempah down t bentong just to eat abc here and cycle back. We have done 70.12km. Ahh, kenyang....how to cycle?

Going down hill after abt one hour break at R&R genting sempah was a bliss. We went downhill for most of the first 20km. My eyes just fixed to the road and just glide my way. Yes, glide that's the word. The best route so far! We are stopping at a small hot spring abt 15km to bentong. Distance covered so far is 52.42 km.

I have blown my cover!! Go and buy the Star today. You will see the coverage on our Amazing Ride at the Metro Section

We have safely conquered the much dreaded genting sempah route. I reached the viaduct before the r&r genting sempah at abt 10am. Then going downhill to genting sempah r&r. We have done 32.65km from Taman Melawati where we started.

First pit stop - I mean pee stop at batu 12 gombak at about 9.45am. We have done about 14km in about 1 hr. We pushed off fr. Melawati at about 8.40am because the support van arrived a bit late. But that's ok for me because it gave enough time for my wife 2 bring my water bottle that I forgot to bring. !

What is significant about 080808? Beijing olympics or many decide to tie the knots with their love ones. But for me, today is the day. Today is the start of my very own Amazing Ride. Today, 8 of us will cycle from Taman Melawati all the way to Kota Bharu. Yes you read it right. All the way to Kota Bharu! The trip is going to take us 4 days from Taman Melawati to Bentong, Kuala Lipis, Dabong, Jeli, Tanah Merah, Pasir Mas and finally to Kota Bharu. I am looking forward to the challenges ahead. Please pray for my safe journey. I will try 2 update via email regularly. It's a journey of a lifetime for eight of not so young people on the eight of August of two zero zero eight.

Sebenarnya dialog hari Sabtu, 2 Ogos. Kami sekeluarga tengah minum2 di Delifrance kat Ampang Point, bila sorang perempuan (india) lalu depan aku dan senyum kat aku. Aku rasa macam kenal, tapi tak berapa ingat kat mana aku jumpa awek ni. So, aku senyum dan angkat tangan to acknowledge her . Kak Ngah: Sapa tu Baba? Aku: mmmm...entah awek lama kot? Baba pun tak ingat... Budak-budak tiba2 excited, berebut2 nak bercakap... Kak Long, Kak Chik: Ibu, Baba ada awek, Baba ada awek.. Ibu: Baba tu memang.....ramai sangat awek sampai tak ingat Aku: Aaaa....sapa awek tu? Macam familiar aje.... Ibu: Itu pun lupa ke? Tu kan owner kedai (groceries) kat Ampang Putri Kak Ngah: Apa la Baba...pelupa Aku: Ya la ramai sangat.... (saja melayan budak) Abang Akmal: Ha! Baba ada awek, nanti macam Atuk; Ada nenek dengan nenek mama! Aku tergelak besar...tak sangka pulak budak2 ni dah faham yang Atuk dia ada dua rumah. **Owner groceries shop kat Ampang Putri tu memang dah cam muka aku. Maklum lah semua anak2 aku tu...