Did I wake the sleeping dragon or not?

“Waking up to the calming sound of lake water, I’ve had one of the best sleeps since I started on this journey…” one of the excerpts from my journal.

Though I’ve had concerns that crocodiles might attack us in the middle of the night, or lake water level rose- we would find our tent floating freely in the water... which obviously did not happen.

For merely RM5 a night, we got to camp right by the beautiful Tasik Chini, the name which most Malaysians find it rather familiar and yet foreign. Familiar in a sense that we have came across with that name in our Geography text book, foreign in the sense that the majority of us have never visited or intended to visit this lake.

While riding the bicycle everydamnday was not my main intention of this trip, I wished to experience Malaysia in ways that I have never experienced before. Our host in Temerloh had previously mentioned about Tasik Chini, and so I suggested to Jonas that I wanted to see this second largest fresh water lake in Malaysia. Being a good sport himself, we then pedalled hard and strong towards this mysterious lake, where legends have that, there’s a big ass dragon hibernating at the bottom of the lake. When I said hard, because it really was. We climbed so many hills that I cursed myself why did I even suggest to come to see this place. And don't even get me started on the weather I had to cycle in.

Let me explain to you the bicycle I had been traveling with/on. It’s a folding bike that’s meant for city biking, until not long ago I decided to give it another purpose (or mission). That said, my bike wasn’t intentioned for long-term touring. Now, imagine having to bike up a hill, or on a road with incline, with truckloads of weight dragging you downwards from behind… and then rolling down the hill with almost zero weight on the front portion of the bike, but with a monstrous weight at the back. The weight distribution was uneven, hence I was struggling greatly trying to balance the bike (and myself). You got the idea now, don’t you?

There was only ONE resort around Tasik Chini with ONE restaurant ran by Malay staff and management. I really wished that I had the luxury of consuming my favourite foods, but no. Time like this, I missed homecook meals terribly. Or rather, Chinese food a lot.

We decided to spend 2 nights there- my reward for conquering the hills. We got so sick of the food served in the restaurant; cooked instant noodles next to our campsite instead. While purchasing bottled water from the restaurant could be costly, I drank the filtered water pumped thru Jonas’ water purifier… via the water pipe of the toilet. I was extremely reluctant to do that at first, afraid that I would fall sick, which would be a total nightmare while you were on the road. Fortunately, I survived.

There wasn’t much to do in the resort, or around Tasik Chini. With ZERO reception for mobile phones, only wiFi in the restaurant area, where we spent most of our time playing with our phones, eating and drinking, reading and journal writing (for me) at. We did a mini hike around the lake, biked to a newly constructed University nearby- was bummed to find out there was no cafeteria yet.

P/S: We did not encounter any crocodiles or dragon, but were convinced that we saw a GIANT LIZARD…

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