The American Hobo, AKA Daniel, has finished his 4-month bicycle tour around Malaysia. He cycled through Vietnam from north to south and then rode through Cambodia and Thailand before crossing the border into Malaysia. And he did all this on a $100 bicycle.
In Malaysia, he first rode down the west coast, passing through Kuala Lumpur and Malacca down to Johor Bahru. Then he rode all the up the east coast to Kota Bahru before turning west and cycling across the mountains all the way to Alor Setar. Then he turned south again and just today finished the final leg back to Kuala Lumpur, deciding wisely NOT to fight with all the major highways heading into the city and instead put his bicycle on a KTM Komuter train to Putra KTM Railroad station.
I was in touch with Daniel and I knew what train he was on, so I walked over to Putra station to meet him there. He got a half-decent deal on a room at the Raja Bot hotel, so he took a room there for a couple of nights so that we could hang out a bit and trade YouTuber stories. Daniel is preparing to hop on the Indomal Fast Ferry to Sumatra with his bicycle, and I might be able to give him some tips about that. And he can give me some tips for my own still upcoming bicycle ride in Malaysia (assuming the monsoon rains don’t put an end to that before it even starts).
A funny thing is that Daniel’s bicycle suffered a flat tire just as he got on the train at Tanjung Malim. And there was an issue with loosening a bolt on his rear wheel to fix this flat tire, so Daniel ended up carrying his bicycle the 1.6 kilometers from the train station to the Raja Bot Hotel. As Daniel joked, he had entered the Planet Doug zone where things like this tend to happen.