Tour de Wantan Mee : Lard Overload!!! (12 March 2016)

The Team!

Goofing around!

The envoy

"Blue Clear Sky"

One for the Blog!

Does Monkey God actually lives here?

The ladies at work

The maggots

Leek and tofu stuffings

The kitchen

The steamer

Cooking the turnips

The long queue

We haven't got enough of the chewy noodle!!!! We were so obsessed with it, we ended up at Huo Guo Shan again....2 weeks after our earlier tour of duty! In the quest for the oily noodles that leaves the tell tale signs of glossy lips, all riders promptly convened at the temple's car park. We moved out right on time.

A few meters down the road, Claudine stopped to turn on her Strava. All riders overtook her in a blurred flurry! Her Apple Watch was taking some time to locate her GPS, and with a nagging husband behind, she decided to use her Iphone instead! The setback was she will not be able to monitor her heart rate today.

With Strava running properly, the twosome sped in a hurry. Passing by The Legends Golf and Country Club, they picked Andy up. Andy was slowing down to check on the couple. Always a keeper, he is forever looking out for others!

Now, there were three!

In simple elementary mathematics, the trio raced ahead. Just after the railway tracks, were Janet and YL by the side of the road. Janet was having some bike problems and YL was helping her sort it out. The lovebirds in "His&Hers" jerseys were picked up by the trio. 

Now, there were five!

However, before the uno, dos, tres, cuatro and cinco can even work out a sweat, Janet was seen wobbling on her bike. She missed her pedals a few times and was seen kicking off something. Her shoe laces were getting untangled!!!!

Another delay meant another bigger distance between the Five Amigos and the Maze Runners! They tried their best to close the gaps but Janet was new to the hills and nobody wanted to leave her behind.

When the rolling hills started, Andy slowed down on his first downhill slide. He gave instructions to everyone to "pedal more". We all took to the pedals like hamsters on wheels. Mash! Mash! Mash! The downhill coupled with our mashings propelled us to the top of the hill. We did this at every slope intervals until we were exhausted!

Some distance after the chicken farm, Claudine gave a yelp and swerved her bike out. By the road side with it's tail sticking out onto the road was an enormous monitor lizard! It was immobile, DEAD!

After much labouring, Layang-layang came by....

The wantan mee shop came by.....

But it was a short lived pleasure! Nobody were waiting there. Alas, it was already in the plans to eat only on the return route!

The Five Amigos left the town and resumed their climb again. JEC wouldn't call it "Hills training" if it is not climbing! Passing by some oil palm plantations, Claudine called out to YL for a short water break. They stopped on a road shoulder, at the entrance of Sime Darby estate. At this juncture, Andy took the opportunity to elevate Janet's seat post. He claimed she was not fully utilizing her power!

The stretch of roads here were beautifully tarred unlike the pot holed ones between Sedenak to Layang-layang. The plantation owners take pride on their lands, planting flowering plants by the roadside. They were a myriad of yellow, purple and red. Against the backdrop of a blue clear sky, one could almost pop into the country song of the same name by George Strait!

The Five Amigos started their countdown on the road markers for Renggam. The first marker that caught Claudine's eye was at 11km. Then, slowly it reduced to 6km. Claudine wondered if she was being delusional when she noticed the road marker went back up to 8km!!! 

Everyone rejoiced when they saw the 2km marker to Renggam. Claudine was hoping to see her stationery train on the tracks again. But their rendezvous was not to come today. Appearing like a mirage were the rest of the team on their return route. Without a second thought, the Five Amigos made a U-turn to join the rest.

The team only managed to ride together for a brief moment after securing contact. Then, within minutes, the Maze Runners raced ahead into the horizon. Unable to keep up, Claudine found herself riding alone. Not trusting her safety, Thomas fell back to sweep her. Meanwhile, Hea was a vision from afar throughout the journey back to Layang-layang.

It was a well deserved overbite. Never mind the lard and the potential blocked arteries. We did the hills to compensate for the killer food! 

Besides the earlier monitor lizard, there were a lot of roadkills today. Rats, squirrels, bird, furry creature and wrist watch leather...*baby snake

Khan's tyre... Not only did it get itself perforated, his CO2 cartridge did a kamikaze even before it was used!!! Agnes offered her cartridge to save the day. No mouth to mouth resuscitation from our beautiful rider though!

Chun and some riders left without eating. We guess fatherhood has its responsibilities and as far as we could remember, he recently had baby number two, perhaps a running toddler by now!

When we were about to start our homerun, the train did a ceremonial trundle down the tracks. Regretfully, we were unable to take photos with it today. Thankfully, we did manage some goofs with Leo's Go Pro.

Then, the peloton started to pick up speed...

Very soon, Claudine was left behind...

Again, Thomas swept her...

Once more, Hea was a vision ahead...

Not far after leaving Guang Fatt Wantan Noodle shop, an envoy of cars honked in support of the riders. It was a wedding entourage on their way to pick up the bride. All cars were beautifully decorated with ribbons.

Passing by the chicken farm again, the giant industrial fans were blowing hot, putrid air right at us. While we had sped downhill earlier, we were now climbing on our return. We panted and gasped for air, unable to filter out the stench, virus and all! We sucked them all in and said a silent prayer!!

Before long, our fortitude led us back to the hills and the pot holes again. The sun was stronger at mid morning, casting shadows of the oil palm trees on the roads. With the shadows, it was difficult to make out the holes.

Cruising downhill, a dead monitor lizard with its mouth wide open frightened a good number of riders. Many actually thought the animal was all ready to attack!

Hitting civilisation after a somewhat long run through the green land banks, we came upon a few marquees built for a Malay wedding. It must be an auspicious weekend for nuptials. Factoring in the solar eclipse that occured a few days ago, the cosmic alignment must have foretold a momentous day to unite two souls.

All riders returned to base despite the hills, bad roads, punctures and threatening dead lizards!!! Even our lovebirds made it back safely. They had taken their time to ride back and even made a stopover for drinks at a roadside stall! That is despite the fact that Khan made an attempt to rescue them with his 4WD!

Euphoric, some of the greedy ones were bent on more food. Voon led them to Kelapa Sawit town for some famous "soon kueh". The story was featured on Singapore's U channel this week. 

 The maggot like kueh comes in 4 different flavours of Kiam Chye, leek, turnip and chives. The food will certainly be a prime motivator to return to the hills again. They were really good!

Again, we did not manage to locate the residing cave of The Monkey God. However, He did make his presence known! VT stepped on some monkey poo on the way home!!!