We arrived back in KL to join the Tourist Board/WTR Magazine FAM trip. We used our own bikes: we did warn them they are not as fast as KTM950's or BMW1200's, so they gave us our own escort of two Goldwings - they called themselves the babysitters!

We started with a coach tour of KL which included a stop outside the King's Palace and a visit to the Batu Cave Hindu Temple.

The Kedah cub club guys on their ancient (up to 40 years old) machines outside the King’s Palace. They came 450 km for the MotoGP.

On the Sunday we got taken to the Malaysian Moto Grand Prix which was an amazing first-time experience for us, and watched Valentino Rossi storm to a win after a very exciting race.

Keen riders arrive en masse for the Moto GP.

Even the cleaners ride bikes at the Moto GP.

We were surprised to see this notice here. Quite agree.

And we thought the guys had come to watch the racing!

After the Moto GP, we visited the Pennzoil factory, one of the leading oil brands in Malaysia and a joint venture with UMW a Malaysian company. They are building a stonking new factory in China. Another Malaysian success story is the Naza bike shop – row upon row of shiny superbikes, fast cars and the home of Harley Malaysia.

Outside the Pennzoil factory

Serried ranks of R1’s at Naza. We have never seen so many expensive bikes and cars in one showroom.

We then went on a whistle-stop tour with several other foreign journalists and local hosts, up to the north west of peninsular Malaysia, staying in gorgeous hotels such as the Impiana in KL and the Pangkor Island Resort Hotel.

Pangkor is a small, beautiful island, about 40 minutes from the mainland We enjoyed a boat trip and a visit to a fish-drying factory and an amazing Chinese temple. As we’d left our bikes on the mainland, touring was on a bunch of mopeds which was highly amusing.

The hornbills come to the feeding platform at the hotel every day

Our group relaxes on the beach after a strenuous bout of silly games.

The mopeds make a change from the big bikes.

Several hours work ahead for these guys doing it all by hand. Note small satisfied cat in corner.

Back on the mainland, we test rode the new Modenas electric bike, after a visit to the factory in Gurun which makes mainly small motorcycles. Modenas have developed this bike to cater for urban commuters, and plantation workers who need to do about 35km a day. Our test ride was 1200 metres up then down the spectacular Jerai Mountain, a solitary limestone outcrop overlooking flat rice plains – it was a tough test for the little bikes but they made it and we hurtled silently down – a weird feeling. We stayed at the Regency Jerai Hill Resort, a collection of lovely bungalows and fabulous views across the plains to the sea.

A peek inside the Modenas factory.

The C-tric bike will be under US$1600 when launched, and uses lead-acid nano-gel batteries to keep the price down. It was completely designed and built in Malaysia and they claim it will do up to 105kph. However the Road Transport people have yet to formulate a way of licensing electric bikes without letting in even cheaper Chinese imports.

Pat gets the bit between her teeth and then finds the reverse switch (yes, honest, there is one).

Who would think you could have so much fun on an electric bike?

Heading south again, it was a relief when we got off the fast express ways (great on a powerful bike…) up to the Cameron Highlands – wonderful sweeping bends and fantastic cream teas, and best of all beautifully cool. Normally, we trundled along behind the group with our Goldwing babysitters, but when we got to the windy highland roads somebody asked where we were and the response they got was 'At the front!' Ha!

We even found a little bit of dirt in the Camerons – yee hah!

From there we had another lovely ride through the hills to Bukkit Fraser, another extremely steep lone hill and again our little Falcons proved their worth on the hairpins.

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The group at the top of Bukkit Fraser – the road is very steep and narrow, so it is designated one-way, alternating hourly between upwards and downwards. Great restaurant at the top.

We finally got back to KL for a superb final night’s dinner at the Impiana Hotel with several top folks from the Malaysian Tourist Board and said goodbye to all our new friends. Amongst them were some bike journos from Indonesia…. so now we have invitations to go play bikes there too. Next winter perhaps!

In the middle of this trip our computer decided to throw a wobbly and open up a couple of hundred windows if/when the on/off switch deigned to operate. So I took it apart and washed the keyboard (yes there is a certain amount of logic in my reasoning). It has been a bit shaky and unreliable since August (Sho: and since Pat dropped it off the top bunk in a Mexican hostel well before that….) but the internet connections have not been wonderful either.

Sho went and bought a second baby computer in KL and needless to say mine has recovered for the moment. So now I have two bikes and two computers to maintain.

Kidnapped again just as we were leaving KL, we spent a couple of nights in the posh area of Shah Alam with Yang and Izan, one of our Goldwing baby Honda escorts. We got a ride on the back of a couple of Goldwings through KL at night while we were staying with them. I have to admit it was comfortable and great fun, just for a change.

We will never be rude about Goldwings again!

The stunning Shah Alam Mosque and a couple of dusty old bags.

At this point we thought we really ought to get a move on before our Malaysian visas ran out, so went north again. We had to pass the Cameron Highlands again so diverted up there for some more windy roads, another haircut and some more Chinese food.

We passed the Ubadiah Mosque in Kuala Kangsar, the most beautiful mosque we saw in Malaysia. Designed by a British architect Mr Hubback in 1913, It took four years to complete. Construction was delayed after two elephants fought and damaged the marble from Italy which had to be replaced! /p>

We next went to Penang, an amazing World Heritage City with wonderful colonial architecture and great food.

Penang Cty Hall

spent a long time in the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi – which is said to be the finest Chinese clan house in Malaysia. The Chinese are in a majority in Penang and this is the richest meeting place and temple of all, full of fabulous carvings and frescoes.

Khoo Kongsi Temple.

An exuberant dragon on the roof.

Chinese fishing wharves in Penang.

We rode round the island and the stall holder here told us there are 10 different varieties of bananas and he has 7 of them on sale.

Captured once more by Noor’s spider web of bikers, we were met here and escorted over the ferry by Azmi and his friend to Noor’s friendly bike mechanic in Sungai Petani. We only planned to consult him about Sho’s weeping fork seal, but he changed our engine oil and fitted the new fork seal for about £32 including the oil. Mr Wong, leader of the local bike gang hosted us in a posh hotel and we had dinner with all the bikers.

Once arrived at Noor’s house near Jitra in Kedah, about an hour and a half from the Thai border, we discovered that our International Driving Permits had expired – oops. Various calls to the RAC and Sho’s brother later, two new IDPs were couriered to us.

We had a lovely chill-out time at Noor’s, and attempted to catch up with ourselves. Doing our tax returns etc however was less than fun…. Fortunately, at often no notice, we discovered that Mrs Stirfry had organised for us to do something with the locals.

One day we ended up at a Malaysian wedding (a small one... only 4000-5000 guests from the local kampongs or villages) who all have to be fed, then visited an unconscious biker in intensive care (his wife had been killed in the crash), and finally some squeaky new twins born a few hours earlier in another hospital. This two hour jaunt turned into another 100km and about 10 hours!

The bride wanted purple, so she got purple . At some weddings the bride and groom change into several different lavish costumes.

We have certainly gained a fascinating insight into Malaysian and Muslim culture. The subject that riveted us most was polygamy. A couple of men we talked to, who each had two wives, said that they had to scrupulously divide their time and their money fairly. From what we saw, they did so. One guy told us that his first wife didn’t speak to him for several months when he got married again. Overall, the men seemed pretty satisfied with the situation. The women didn’t seem so keen. One told us fiercely she would divorce her husband if he took a second wife (not sure how she could do this in law) and another (a second wife) said it is very difficult to find a decent man who is not already married. It’s hard for westerners like us to comprehend polygamy, but (Sho here) I think of a friend who was recently cruelly dumped and divorced by her husband of 15 years for a younger model, utterly devastating her and crippling her financially..

We also learned some Bahasa (Malay language) – our favourite expression is Mat Salleh – originally a corruption of “mad sailor” – ie the first foreigners who came to Malaysia – we were frequently called Mat Salleh Gilah (mad white people) by Noor so we just had to retaliate with Malayu Gilah – mad Malay.

Another day, we got invited to a lunch.....We rode out with Noor in clean teeshirts to a motorway toll entry and parked up. Soon joined by about 15 cops on big white bikes and flashing lights. Nice chats and silly photos and they said disparagingly of our bikes after riding them "no pick up" ... well they were on VFR 750's but I bet we'd keep up on the twisties!

Sho .... and some Cops

Then a roar of bikes and about 100 sped past - we set off at full throttle behind them trying to keep up and one of the marshalls then led us weaving through at even higher speed to get to the front of the pack and join the two other ladies... and all this through town with the cops and marshalls working as a team on each junction. Scary.

Once at the Deputy Minister of Kedah's place we were taken up to his table and introduced to him and to a prince from Johore (state in south Malaysia where the ride started) and his wife. Made polite noises and retired to our table and found ourselves next to the organiser of the ride. The bikers were doing a charity ride round the whole of Malaysia in 6 days (rather them than us is all I can say).

We declined their offer to join them for the rest of the day as this would involve more high speed motorway rides to the university followed by many speeches in Bahasa and then more motorway speeding (cops joining in BTW) to another state.

The girl holding Darwish (Noor’s grandson) is Gee, a famous singer and soap star – and a keen biker. She’s delightful. She was one of the two women on the ride. The other was our friend Mira.

While at Noor’s we had to renew our travel insurance. AXA, who had insured us for a year and had agreed to give us another year’s insurance, reneged on their promise and would only give us 6 months… All efforts to find anything else failed. Nobody would insure us because a) we are already on the road and b) they think we are too old and shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing.

By the time we were ready to leave Noor’s (she kept delaying us with more activities….) it had started to rain, and rain, and rain. We put all ours and Noor’s stuff up on chairs and tables and watched the water level in the storm drain outside her garden rise and rise. Fortunately we were not flooded, but around a hundred thousand homes and small businesses in Kedah, Perlis (north of us) and eastwards in the Kota Bharu region were. We were stuck for over a week as the main motorway to Kuala Lumpur and the roads to the Thai border were under water, but went out periodically on the bikes to see what was going on.

There’s a village down this road somewhere.

The main highway to Kuala Lumpur was a good spot for fishing.

We celebrated Noor’s 50th birthday on 5 November – Guy Fawkes Day in the UK. You need a permit to light a bonfire, so we made do with some fireworks that had mysteriously arrived from Thailand in somebody’s top box and down the back of somebody’s jacket….

We went out riding one day with Shuib and his 10 year old son Sharil who took this photo.

This splendid bridge leads to a small uninhabited island, where the road stops abruptly. It was a prestigious project by a previous prime minister that got abandoned . The locals go fishing from it, having wiggled their bikes past the closed entrance – as we did!

A joyful picture. I think they are harvesting Morning Glory (served as a vegetable). Sho thinks they are planting rice. P

We had one place left to visit – the island of Langkawi, so as soon as the floods receded we left our bikes with Noor’s friends Hanis and Chegu Mat at Kuala Perlis and hopped on a ferry to Langkawi. Here we hired a couple of step-throughs and zoomed all over the island. To our astonishment the father of the new-born twins had booked us into the very nice Landcons hotel for a couple of nights – thanks very much Achin!

We went to inspect Achin's new twins - the hair is shaved off at seven days and the heads smeared with ground rice paste. This celebration means open house for the village - and about 200 folks turned up for lunch.

Langkawi is beautiful in places if somewhat touristy. Thank goodness we had bikes to explore with. Pat is on the famous Ferringhi beach and the peaks were taken from the cable car.

Small river port on Langkawi.

We spent a third night on a dive-boat belonging to Za, whom we’d met at Awi’s Yellow House in Kuala Terengganu – she’s a Malaysian dive-master who is fitting the boat out as a live-aboard for diving packages. One of these days we’ll go back and do a dive course with her. Especially as she produced Dorset Cereals for breakfast which gob-smacked us.

Dramatic sunset on the boat just prior to extremely dramatic electric storm.

Back on the mainland, we were scooped up again and delivered to a homestay in Perlis where Noor and us were all hosted by the local bikers for two nights. Thanks very much guys. Very interesting as the family were rice farmers – we discovered Malaysians eat an average of 60kg of rice a year just like the Japanese. They receive 750 ringgit for 100 kilos of rice - about £160.

Our homestay family were dressed to celebrate the official return from the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca)

Noor joined us here for our last 24 hours in Malaysia and the final party night with the local bikers, before accompanying us to the border. Here we discovered that somehow we had overstayed our visa by one day – oops – which can mean all sorts of dire things but the officer gave us a stern wigging and let us go. Noor chatted up the Thai immigration chief to such an extent he shared his lunch with her, gave us bottles of water, and offered to let her into Thailand despite the fact she’d forgotten her bike papers. However she decided not to and went home.

What an amazing three months in Malaysia – we met hundreds of bikers, made some friends for life, celebrated Ramadan with them (well not during the day…) and Hari Raya. At times we felt a bit like a precious parcel which was passed from group to group around Malaysia. We hope that as many of them as possible will be able to come and visit us in Dorset one of these days.

Our heartfelt thanks to all of you and apologies to anybody we have not managed to shoehorn into this blog.

This blog was started by Pat in honour of the fact that her mum was born in Malaysia and her granddad spent several years out here building railways and bridges in the early part of the 20th century. It has since been extensively modified by Sho (says Pat…)

We really don't know how we came to spend three whole months in Malaysia. We only intended to spend about a month here but we got sort of kidnapped on arrival at the airport.

All we'd done was send an email asking about shipping to our friend Peter - beddhist to HUBB readers. He emailed his mate Acid (we were dead worried about what somebody called Acid Mustapha might be like...) and Shuib. Shuib emailed his friend Noor.... The net result was we were met at Kuala Lumpur (KL) airport by a welcome committee of seven riders from Ladies Bike Malaysia, including Noor who had borrowed her cousin's Merc to ferry us around.

These ladies ride all sorts of big bikes, Ducatis , BMWs , MV Augustas, – you name it.

Mira on her MV Augusta.

Bikes are standard transport in Malaysia. Three riders are common. When a toddler can stand in the shopping basket and hang onto the mirrors or the bars, he's big enough to ride.

That's where it all started. Despite arriving about lunchtime we didn't get to our hostel until midnight on the first day. On the second day we didn't get back there at all! It was Ramadan, which means people pray a lot, fast from dawn till dusk, then demolish masses of food the minute sunset is officially proclaimed. This meal is called Break-fast, a term which had us confused at first. Then carry on partying with coffees and snacks until the wee small hours, get up at 5am when the mosques start calling for prayers... and repeat for 30 days. Then comes Hariraya, otherwise known as Eid, to celebrate the end of Ramadan. This is another excuse for more socialising, vast quantities of food and special cookies! Malaysian food is delicious and had a very bad effect on Sho's waistline...

Our great hostel Anjung KL in the city centre with exotic parking at its boutique hotel across the road, and a fantastic Indian restaurant opposite.

The group in KL were brilliant, driving us hither and thither to get our compulsory insurance from the AA in Klang City, (west of KL) and to the port to extract the bikes. Then escorting us to Putrajaya City (so new it did not appear on our latest edition map) to get our compulsory ICP (international circulation permit). The distances and time involved were considerable. We should mention at this point that Noor had already persuaded the chief customs guy to stamp our carnets despite our not having the ICP or insurance. This at 4.15pm on a Friday in Ramadan when the office closes at 4.30pm. Top marks Noor! No money changed hands.

Noor, aka Mrs Stirfry, on her Kawasaki KLE 500. She opened doors for us all over Malaysia and has become a friend for life.

The group also helped us to get the bikes out from the port on the Saturday morning (port closes at midday), including getting the container unloaded and our crate sorted((how?), while we were still on our way there with the customs papers and then guiding us back into KL city centre. That was an interesting experience.

The expressways often have separate motorcycle roads with dedicated bike-sized flyovers and underpasses, all populated by swarms of small step-throughs travelling at 100kph. Unnerving when they over or undertake you. Memo: keep looking in both your mirrors.

We’ve never been treated to our own motorcycle roads before!

Motorways are free for bikes and you get your own special bypass round the toll booths

They even have motorcycle shelters for when it rains. Wimps we thought … until it started chucking it down.

We had a full week of different parties: before "break-fast", break-fast and after break-fast. Many of the parties entail riding there in convoy (we are by far the smallest bikes) along with marshalls usually on Goldwings (huge and shiny with lots of lights and armchair seating and loud music,) kitted out with blue flashing lights and sirens. They are not police but are apparently trained by them to organise the traffic. We have been swept along in the midst of a batch of these, through red traffic lights over double white lines etc, all at speed in busy traffic.... you need a strong nerve and you must concentrate!

One of our Goldwing escorts. His dad bought him this bike when he turned 16 and he has never ridden anything else! He is now 20 and throws the bike round like a toy.

The baby Honda protection squad dwarfs our bikes.

One day we went for a ride with Maznah Zolkifli and some of her mates.

Maz (centre stage) took us up to her pad in the Genting Highlands. She’s a tv celeb in Malaysia and also a keen biker – currently on an MV Augusta.

We also managed to do a bit of sightseeing. KL has some fabulous architecture.

From left: the ultra-modern KL Tower, the KL Twin Towers and the historic railway station.

Noor introduced us to a lot of new food – Durians were in season so she stuffed one in her top box and we could smell it as we rode behind her on the motorway. Notices everywhere forbid you to take durians into buildings.

Noor’s top box stank for days.

This is a roti tissue. Sweet crispy pancake drizzled with condensed milk and sprinkled with sugar. So slimming.

We finally escaped the group’s kindly clutches and rode out on our own to the Cameron Highlands. Visited the fascinating Boh Tea Plantation, started in the 1920’s by a British guy who noticed that tea prices didn’t crash like rubber prices in the Depression. We ate Chinese food and I got my hair cut by a Chinese hairdresser.

Thousands of acres of rolling hills full of tea plantations. Some are so steep, harvesting is a real challenge, requiring special hand tools.

From there we headed across towards the east coast railway, aka the jungle railway. Here we paid homage to my Grandpa's engineering works in the 1920's and rode across some of the bridges he built.

My grandpa would certainly have known Kuala Lipis station.

Grandpa was the engineer in charge of building the Bertam bridge. Note the motorcycle-sized clip-on to the right.

Sometimes it is a bit of a squeeze. Anything larger would have a lengthy diversion to get across the river.

The Guillimard Bridge was ironically partially destroyed by the British in the Second World War to try and stem the Japanese advance. It was rebuilt after the war.

Then we headed for the top right hand corner of Malaysia to Kota Bharu where thanks to Noor and Chegu Mi, we were captured again by the biker network and sat at the VIP table at a break-fast dinner for 140 bikers.

Chegu Mi took us to visit a traditional kite maker – very famous in this area.

Then we went by boat to the Perhentian Islands for some great snorkelling and some very hot hiking. We stayed on the smaller island at D’Lagoon in a lovely little sandy cove.

Supplies have to come in by small boat to the resort.

D’Lagoon has a couple of resident giant monitor lizards which gave us a shock when we first discovered them in the undergrowth behind the huts. This one has come for his chicken snacks. You can’t tell from this, but it is a good 2 metres long.

We much preferred the baby owls one of the staff was training.

Shahrul and Sedan from Kuala Terengganu bike club tracked us down as soon as we hit the mainland to make sure we didn't miss out on the festivities of Hari raya at the end of Ramadan. They escorted us about 80km to our home for the next few days.

Sharul and family. They took us to dinner in the poshest hotel in town. He can’t wait for his kids to get a bit older so the whole family can go biking together. His wife is equally keen.

Our first introduction to Hari raya, courtesy of Sedan and Ida. We counted 23 jars of tiny homemade and handmade hari raya cookies made by Ida. So delicious!

We stayed in Kuala Terengganu in an eccentric spot called Awi's Yellow House.

Awi’s is a collection of straw and bamboo huts on the river. The en-suite facilities consisted of a hole in the floor of the roofless enclosure next to our hut. We shared them with the hut next door which was fortunately empty.

The view from our balcony however was stunning. We could see monitor lizards swimming up and down, mudskippers lurching about and Pat found some otters.

Awi himself is the local traditional boat builder who turns out to have a French wife who's a boat designer. (Sho: she and Pat spent a happy couple of hours chatting about sails, struts and hulls...)

This is the boat that Awi is currently building. He only builds to order for people he likes from chenal, a certified tropical hardwood. On the blackmarket it is half price, but he is honest and buys it from the correct sources.

The “floating” mosque in Kuala Terengganu. There is also a very interesting museum where we inadvertently gate-crashed a wedding and got invited in…..

We stopped briefly at beautiful Cherating beach and the royal town of Pekan where we couldn't find anywhere to stay. The head chef of a hotel took pity on us and took us home with him to the surprise of his eight-months pregnant wife.

Our kindly hosts Matt and Ina. We took them out to dinner to say thank-you.

Our next stop was inland at Tasik Chini. This is an Orang Asli village: the original inhabitants of Malaysia whose plight is similar to the Australian aboriginals. Here we stayed at another very eccentric guesthouse, run by an Indian whose father had been brought from Tamil Nadu to work in the rubber plantations. We went for a boat trip through lakes and rivers and ate the fruit of the lotus which was delicious. Perhaps this is why we stayed so long in Malaysia…

There are many things you can do with the lotus – looking very silly is one of them. These were crafted by our river pilot.

We then headed cross-country to the south west coast and Muar to catch up with more bikers: the afore-mentioned Acid and his wife Dr TT (he's a radiographer and she's a pathologist). We had a lovely weekend with them, washed our bikes and watched them dole out Hari raya goodies (a few ringgit in special envelopes) to the hordes of small boys who came round for their presents. This is open house season in Malaysia – you can drop in on anybody you like. If you’re an adult they feed you and if you’re a kid they give you money! What it meant was that every time we started to leave the house, more people dropped by for chats and cookies!

We went for a great early morning cycle ride with Acid, Dr TT and a friend. It felt a bit funny without an engine though.

Then on north to Malacca which was a supremely important port from the 15th century as it controlled the Malacca Straits between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra (now Indonesia). Trade links with China resulted in a thriving Chinese population that remains today. The spread of Islam started here in the thirteenth century from Arab and Indian traders. It’s now a World Heritage City. We should have met up with more bikers here but it was chucking it down and they didn’t want to play in the rain and neither did we.

Malacca is beautiful by night and we did an evening cruise down the river. The buildings on either side were lit up and the rickshaws were also in bling bling mode, complete with loud music.

Melacca is one of the few places left in Malaysia where you can take a traditional trishaw.

The modern versions wait for custom in the floodlit historic centre.

We headed back to KL to organise getting ourselves and possibly our bikes to Borneo and Indonesia when our plans went to pot.... we got invited to join a WTR (World Tour Rider Magazine) trip sponsored by the Malaysian Tourist board for foreign journalists and bloggers, including a visit to the MotoGP. We just had time to squeeze in a short trip to Borneo, third largest island in the world.

Probably just as well we ended up canning Indonesia as we would have been there in the midst of volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis.

Many thanks to SBM Superbikes who housed our bikes, while we flew off to Kota Kinabalu (aka KK) in Sabah. Sabah is the northern Malaysian state in Borneo. The southern Malaysian state is Sarawak and there is a huge chunk of Indonesia called Kalimantan, off to the east. We hired a couple of KLX 150 cc bikes in KK and rattled around Sabah for a week. We admired Mount Kinabalu from afar but did not climb it, visited the orang-utan centre in Sepilok, made famous by David Attenborough, and were woken up by a flock of hornbills outside our B&B. Unfortunately we arrived just too late or too early to see any Raffelesia (biggest and probably smelliest flowers in the world).

Mt Kinabalu is just over 4000 metres high and a World Heritage Site because of its biological diversity.

Grumpy teenage orang-utan at Sepilok.

We got very close to the macaques who also inhabit Sepilok and are much less shy than the orang-utans.

Then down to Sukau on the Kinabatangan River, where we did a couple of boat trips and got peed on by macaque monkeys. We also saw troops of the endangered proboscis monkeys (the ones with the big noses and bellies), kingfishers, hornbills, snakes and even a tiny croc.

Proboscis monkey seen from the river.

We enjoyed the afternoon boat ride so much, we did it again when it got dark.

Sleeping birds on their branches at the river’s edge. We felt a bit mean shining the torchlight on them.

Then up cross country to the northernmost tip of Borneo, before flying back to KL.

Tip of Borneo with Kylie and Kevin (the two Kawasakis)

Boys and their bikes in the river