Padang Serai to Gerik

Thursday January 25, 2018, 61 miles (98 km) - Total so far: 3,284 miles

(5,285 km)

Back into the hills at last! As always, be careful what you wish for.. ;)

I planned today's route to keep us on backroads for as long as possible. This meant the first section was lovely and quiet, just what we needed. Once we were on highway 4, it wasn't actually that busy, but people do drive fast around here! And the trucks....get pretty close. I haven't been scared of trucks since leaving the UK....but that's coming back now. Good training for New Zealand I expect!

We had lunch just before the halfway mark, which gave us time to digest before the climb started. Looking objectively, it isn't actually that steep or long. But....it's been a while! It was also very hot (not best tackled in the hottest part of the day) - beating sun with little shade. As compensation, the views were great. We are happy to be back on mountain terrain! If you did want to split the journey, we noticed a sign for a camp site before the climb started. We couldn't see it from the main road though.

We hopped off the 4 a little way out of Gerik, which provided welcome relief. It's a scenic ride through some small villages, with very little traffic. Overall, our route added just a couple of miles to the direct route, and possibly some more undulations on the first part. But we'd recommend it:
https://www.strava.com/activities/1374199359

Gerik is a reasonable sized town with lots of amenities. We are staying at the ST (Sri Temengorr) hotel, which is fairly basic but clean, and good value at 50 RM. I confess that we had pizza hut for dinner, oh my it tasted so good after a long ride!

We are staying two nights to recharge ready for our jungle adventure. It looks pretty epic!