Jetstream Adventures 04: Chinese New Year Ride - Part 02

The journey home...

We had it all figured out.
The plan was to ride into the city centre, then take the KTM Komuter from the Kuala Lumpur Railway station.
The journey to Jalan Semarak was smooth. From there, we cycled towards Jalan Daud and the Kampung Baru intersection.

Cruising along Jalan Semarak...

Old and new: Kg Baru with the Petronas Twin Towers in the background

Photo opportunity

Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman: the deadliest passage

The one route that I would avoid is Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman.
It stretches from the Jalan Raja Muda Musa junction towards the Jalan Raja intersection.
This is a long stretch that is full of buses, taxis and cars. 
There's hardly any run-off space for bicycles.
Through it's existence, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman had claimed numerous lives, namely: the unfortunate pedestrians and motorcyclist.
That's why I am not a fan of those "Night Ride in the city" events that runs through this route in Kuala Lumpur.
If you want to ride along this route, you must have nerves of steel and an aggressive stance like those messenger riders in New York City.
We avoided a stretch in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman and exited near the Jalan Sultan Ismail intersection.
From there, we rode on the pavement and made it as far as Jalan Raja.

Crossing onto Jalan Raja Alang

At Jalan Raja near the Sultan Abdul Samad building

Forward to Kuala Lumpur Railway station..

We halted at the traffic light junction near Jalan Raja and waited patiently for the lights to go green.
Then, it's a short ride to the historical KL Raiway station.
In it's past glory, this station has a hotel and caters to rail travelers from all over the world.
What's left now, is a pale shade from its glorious past.
We took some snapshots at this Colonial-era building and packed out bikes.
A group of KTM ticket inspectors walked past us and were talking about folding bikes being packed.
From here, we covered our Jetstreams and worked our way towards the KTM Komuter platform which is bound for Port Klang..

Photo ops at the KL Railway station

Waiting for our train to Subang Jaya

And as predicted.. 

Thirty years ago, Kuala Lumpur's streets were deserted. Not a single soul on the road as half the city's population are out of town.
Today, it's business as usual as the city's landscape changes with the arrival of new economic migrants from West Asia and the developing countries of Southeast Asia.
More apparent are the Burmese people who settled here as "refugees".
Seriously, I don't know how they ended up as asylum-seekers as most of them ended up being employed. And they brought their families along to set up little Rangoon's in places like Jalan Silang and Jalan Pudu.
The Bangladeshis and Nepalis too are nicely settled-in here.
I told Michelle that the KTM Komuter service is preferred choice of transport for such economic migrants and it turned out that what I said was true.
KTM is revamping its electronic ticketing system to go in tandem with their ETS services to the North and South.
This is something that we will experience in the later part of this year.
As I made a beeline towards the ticketing booth, hoards of Banglas were making their way out of the station in transit either to Rawang or Seremban.
A guy jumped the cue just to be turned away by an abusive KTM staff.
The man had literally abused a couple of Banglas verbally and told them that only group tickets are sold on the electronic gate.
A single-journey ticket from KL Railway station to Subang Jaya costs about RM1.70. 
Michelle was really surprised with the cheap ride. This is also one of the factors why foreign economic migrants love to take the train. In their country, they will even sit on the roof to get from one station to the other.
Stupid politics aside, we Malaysians are ignorant of this and do not appreciate the peace and freedom that the country has to offer.

Some "ladies" in the women-only coach

Setting up for the ride home.. 

We hopped onto a coach which is meant for ladies only.
There were a group of Bangladeshis in the train, oblivious to the fact that the coach was meant from women.
They sat next to Michelle and were looking at our bikes.
I stood next to my wife and after a few stations, a ticket conductor walked past and asked the Banglas to move to the common coach.
I played possom and stood there all the way to Subang Jaya.
The ticket guy realized that we were hauling heavy cargo and was kind enough to ignore us.
Station after station, the foreigners kept coming in and each time they were about to settle down, they were herded away like cattle to the common coach.

Rolling along SS16 in Subang Jaya

On final approach

Home at last! 

On the home-run

We reached Subang Jaya about 4:45 in the afternoon.
There's another 11km stretch to cover from the train station and we covered our usual route towards Jalan Kewajipan.
After clocking-in nearly 40km, we pulled over at the Main Place mall where I made a detour to grab some vegetables to cook dinner.
On the whole, the multimodal commute and ride in PJ and KL was a smooth affair. We avoided some major roads and enjoyed the ride through some interesting parts of the route..

Jetstream Adventures 04: Chinese New Year Ride - Part 01

Another year with different bikes.. 

We gave much thoughts on "what to ride" on the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year and decided pretty much that it's our refurbished Dahon Jetstreams.
Why? It's 20", easy to lug onto the train.
Last year, we rode all the way down to Kuala Lumpur and back. 
So, we did something different for this year's celebrations.
I had my 2011 Dahon Jetstream EX tuned-up and tested it during the ride to Sungai Way and Kuala Lumpur.
Everything checks out fine. But there's still some creaking noise. 
I suspect that the bottom bracket is giving way. The Jetsream EX has clocked-in around 6,000km, it has a lower mileage compared to my Dahon Speed P8.
The wear-and-tear came from a lot of trail riding and last year's Tour of Sumatera.

Leaving our home in Subang Jaya

The plan..

We rode out from our home in Subang Jaya towards SS3 in Petaling Jaya.
Traffic was pretty light in the morning.
Michelle had suggested that we cycle towards USJ20 and turn to USJ 11.
I hated this route due to the really bad road conditions and it's also full of slopes.
Since it was the first day of the Chinese New Year, it wasn't so much a hassle.

Cruising along USJ23

From SS19, we rolled down towards the Federal Highway motorcycle lane. 
A passage that we are very familiar with.
There were few motorcycles on the road as we cruised towards the Nanyang Siang Pau exit near Sungai Way.

Reaching road 50 in SS3, Petaling Jaya

At the gate of my in-law's home

Family obligations.. 

I hung around Michelle's parent's home, mingled with their relatives and caught up with my brother in-laws.
We spent a few hours there before heading out to the Paramount LRT station.
To board the train, we brought along our carry-on covers.
The Jet's aren't really compact when folded, so, it tends to take up a lot of space on the piece of nylon cover.
The ride from SS3/50 to the train station takes roughly about 20 minutes.
When we got there, we worked on bagging the bikes.
An auxiliary policeman came up to scout the situation and went back to his sentry duties.
We lugged the covered bikes without any issues at the station and proceeded towards the platform to board a train to Wangsa Maju.

At the Paramount LRT station

Entering the platform

Taking a ride on the LRT

A word about commuting on the LRT

There aren't many people who carry their folding bikes onto the LRT on a daily basis.
My emphasis is: "There aren't many".
And bikes, ONLY folding bikes that are folded and bagged, are allowed onto the LRT coaches during non-peak hours.
Although Prasarana Bhd did not put it on bold print that folding bikes should be bagged, we did it out of courtesy for the convenience of other passengers.
An uncovered folding bike can be intimidating to other people. But I am not here to argue on whether the bikes should be bagged or not. It's your call if you decide to bring yours onto the train. Good practices ensures that you are allowed into the train with your bike without paying a single sen or being thrown out of the facility. 
And when you lug your bike into the train, try not to leave it all over the coach. Be nice! Stand near the bike where you can keep an eye on it.

Exiting the Wangsa Maju station

Riding along Wangsa Maju to Jalan Mata Air off Jalan Genting Kelang

More family obligations..

Our destination was Jalan Mata Air.
It was way past 12noon and I signaled to pull over at a row of shops for lunch.
There's this makan place called "Nasi Vanggey" and we settled for some food there.
I pulled out RM20 and placed it on a zippered pocket on my Zoic Black Market shorts.
My estimate was around RM8 for a plate of rice and a drink.
This food outlet has a very interesting point of sale system. You order, get your food placed onto the plate and the server gives you an RF card.
Bring this to the cashier who issues you a receipt. 

The clear passage

This and a drink, came up to RM9.20

Lunch was just so-so.
My aim was to carbo-load so that we could continue with our journey.
I anticipated that my 77-year-old aunt had not cooked and is expecting lunch to be brought to her home by my sister who came around 3.30pm. 
What annoyed me the most, was the wait. My aunt was starving. We hung around to hand over red packets to my sister's two daughters.

Arriving at Jalan Mata Air

Handing a hung-bao to my aunt

Cat-poop and fart-face

My aunt lives with her partner, some old dude who is part of some weird Christian parish. 
He claimed that God gave him a pair of new kidneys when he was really ill.
So, there I was, sniffing around and found that there was a foul odor permeating from my old room. 
Upon closer inspection, I found some soggy cat shit on a sheet of vinyl cover. The contents underneath it was not soiled.
I told my aunt who immediately went to work on cleaning up.
Her boyfriend was upset and started grumbling. This strange guy also did not hand out Hung Bao. 
Instead, he gave cash to the two girls who came to visit their grandmother.
He said it was against his believe. 
My sister came with her husband and two kids, started to serve lunch.
That was my cue to leave.
I handed over Hung Baos to Jasmine and Delilah, her daughters. 
We mounted on our bikes and rolled out towards Jalan Semarak...