Monday, March 28, 2022

Selangor: Rawang to Serendah - Cycling The Rawang By-Pass

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Selangor:  Rawang to Serendah - Cycling The Rawang By-Pass
Rawang to Serendah via the Rawang By-Pass: Sunday, 29th May 2016
Rawang (TM Point)>Rawang By-Pass Trailhead>Rawang By-Pass>Serendah Barfi>Serendah>Serendah 7-Wells>Serendah Waterfalls>Serendah Tomyam>Jing LoongTemple>Rawang (TM Point).
Cycling Distance: 35.4 km.     Level: Medium
Time : 7:45am to 4:15pm
Time Taken : 8 hrs. 30 mins. (inclusive of stops for breakfast, lunch, visits to places of interests, swimming/picnic at the waterfall, regrouping, and lots of photo opps).

Route Recommendations :
1. There are several climbs along the route, with several steep ones at Bukit Rawang Putra and some gentle off-road slopes leading into the Serendah Waterfalls. The elevated road at the Rawang By-Pass is gently sloping.
2. May is during the  During the tropical dry season, weather can get rather hot from late morning to mid-afternoon, so do cover up or use sun-block lotions.
3. Places of Interest:
    En-route were several places of interests, some of which we visited and others we did not for lack of time (Note: click on GPS coordinates for directional map to respective places):
    - Famous Serendah Barfi (GPS: 3.36711, 101.60411) one of the rare places that sells Barfi.
4. Food
- Breakfast: Noodles at Restoran WTC (GPS: 3.32312, 101.57892) in Rawang.
- Lunch: Seafood Tomyum, fried chicken and ice-kacang at Serendah Tomyam (GPS: 3.36791, 101.60663) in Serendah.

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PRELUDE
(YouTube video of Bkt. Kukus Highway by Yihchang)
This was a ride which we did six years ago and I am just writing about it.
Why so late? Well, the time is right to write about it, and it was also triggered by friends posting about the country's tallest highway-  the Bukit Kukus Highway in Penang - which just opened a month or so ago (for visualization, here's a  Plan of the Penang Kukus Highway). At 60m tall, this highway beat the 58.2m Rawang By-Pass which was opened in 2017 for the tallest record. View the video on the Bukit Kukus Highway (there's also a beautiful video of the Rawang By-Pass furhter down), AND imagine the excitement of cycling on a similar highway!
And it's here-in that lies our tale, for we rode on that then tallest highway, i.e. the Rawang By-Pass, car-free as it was even before it was opened! Read on to see our adventure of riding there and to subsequent destinations thereafter .....
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THE RIDE
 
This ride basically took us to cycle on the Rawang By-Pass (car-free as it was not opened then) and to a Punjabi dessert shop, then onwards to the Seven Wells & the Serendah Waterfalls for a cooling dip. The return trip was with a quick tomyam and fried chicken lunch a Serendah Tomyam, followed by a visit to the Jing LoongTemple before ending the ride.
It's a route with some steep climbs at Bukit Rawang Putra and some gentle off-road slopes leading into the Serendah Waterfalls.

A good and easily located spot to meet up is at the Rawang TM Point. Nearby, at Jalan Bandar Rawang 15 are many parking lots fronting the shops there.

After a quick breakfast at Restoran WTC, we kicked off the ride, happily riding through short tunnels running below the Jalan Pintas Bandar Rawang, an older by-pass road which eased traffic in the town by by-passing the commercial centre of the town.

Our happiness was short-lived, soon we hit several hard climbs at Bukit Rawang Putra, where some humbly dismounted and pushed the bikes .....

..... followed by even steeper and gravelly roads (now known as the Rawang By-pass Trailhead), where all humbly dismounted and pushed!

That trail-head led to the approach "on-ground" section of the elevated Rawang By-Pass, running through several vertical and beautiful cliffs cut out from the hills for this section.

A wonderful sight beheld us ahead - view of the elevated highway sitting on tall piers.

Here, at the freshly cut cliffs, we stopped for some surrealistic photos!

.... and photos with the rock-cutting equipment.

And tongue-n-cheek effect of a cycling buddy through some of the construction concrete pipes.

From here, a view of what we will be riding on - the elevated highway snaking through the hilly secondary jungle.

A view of the tall piers, the highest shooting upwards 58.2m above the ground.
This spot now is a popular hiking ground known as the Bukit Kuari or Rawang Bypass Trail that cuts through dirt roads, tunnels, and along highway walls with ropes, to a 233m high viewpoint.

Top & bottom views of the elevated highway.

Happy cyclists on the highway!

A beautifully done video of the Rawang By-Pass, titled "Cruising Through Giant Broccoli" by its YouTube producer syamoes. 
"Perhaps these "giant broccolis" is the reason why there is this high bypass, to protect these trees - known as Giam Kanching (scientific name Hopia Subalata). This can only be be found at this area, and not found any way else. It has been recognized by UNESCO to be the only site for this trees in the world. And it's only few kilometres from Kuala Lumpur" - remarked one viewer of the video.

NOTE: the Rawang By-pass Trailhead access to the highway is still there but there is a need to carry the bike over 2-1/2 feet wall right before going into the highway. Rough directions are: starting from Jalan RP5, at the first fork turn right. Further on one as see the by-pass highway wall make a left to go parallel to the highway and then at the end of the wall turn right towards the highway. Use the above ride route map as a guide. Do right with care as it is now opened and traffic goes fast.
Otherwise one will have to use the highway access ramps to ride onto the highway: as can be seen in this "Amoi Rides In The Kampungs Rawang By-Pass Ride' blog.
And here's a plan showing the routing of the Rawang By-Pass; starting from near Templer Park to it's Serendah exit
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We say goodbye to the "highway" not knowing that we had cycled on the then highest highway of the country, and left via it's Serendah Exit ramp, it was blocked with concrete barriers an huge boulders; but no worries there were many "heroes" to help the ladies carry the bikes across. It was a short but sweet 3km. car-free ride on the uncompleted highway; and an eye opener for many on the construction of highways..... and a scary one for those with acrophobia 😱 - still the views were worth it!
Now onwards to other interesting sights!

After a toilet break at BhP Petrol Serendah, we rode into an interesting small Punjabi community where there's a shop that is connected to Barfi. No it's not connected to the Indian blockbuster movie Barfi!, but rather it's a place that makes and sells Barfi - Indian desserts.
Barfi is a dense milk-based sweet from the Indian subcontinent. Milk powder and sugar are the main ingredients of barfi. The ingredients are cooked in a vessel until the mixture solidifies, which is then transferred to a shallow pan and cooled. Finally, it is cut into squares, diamonds, or circular shapes and served. In addition to nuts, barfi is often flavored with fruits such as mango or coconut and spices such as cardamom or rose water. It comes in various colors and textures. Barfi is sometimes coated with a thin layer of edible metallic leaf known as vark.
The huge Punjabis selling these made the place all the more memorable - nothing like a BIG, STRONG & FRIENDLY service 😂.

Here's the price list of their products (these pricing could be out-dated, please check with them for the latest).
Other than barfi, they also make and sell peda, lado - and also khoya - a dairy food widely used in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent.

Another 2 km. we rode passed Serendah, and we were at the Serendah 7-Wells Park .....

The Seven Wells sounds like a mystical place, and in fact with with water disappearing into seven holes, it does look like a magical place.
But there was nothing magical about it, won't see no green leprechaun (or the local equivalent - toyol) popping up!
What it is, is a small dam (possibly about 100 years old or older) with seven sluices which are fed by water through seven sink holes or spillways. These spillways act like plug holes in a bath and allow the water collecting in the upstream lake to drain gently (or not so gently during a downpour). There is also some doubt about the purpose of the dam. It looks too small to have generated power. It could have been designed for flood prevention as the river flows directly into Serendah's built up area after passing through the dam. (Serendah means low lying and therefore potentially prone to flooding). Alternatively it could have been built to control the water levels in the tin mining excavations.

Further ahead is the Serendah Waterfalls; but we did not stop at the lower falls where most visit. Instead we took a short off-road ride up a slopey trail on the right... a bit of pushing or carrying of our bikes was required .....

But it was a worthwhile effort; up here were less people we had the place almost to ourselves ..... AND several mini cascading waterfalls to have fun in!
And soon all of us were dipping into the cool, clear water .....

..... and letting the sparkling white water rush down our backs.

More bubby waterfall fun photo 😊😍.

And at the river banks, others were having a picnic!
This place is great for picnics - with cooling breeze blowing through, and butterflies & dragonflies fluttering around.

After and hour of fun, sadly, it was time to head out.
But we were not the only having fun there, a family heading out, sitting five on a motorbike and looking very satisfied.

Lunch was at one of our regular spots here - Serendah Seafood Tomyam! Other then tomyam they serve very good fried chicken and thirst-quenching/heat-defeating desserts like ice-kacang and leng chi kang.

Time to head back..... we took a different route and shorter route back, via Federal Route 1, the old trunk road. Being a main road, it was understandably busy with traffic, so we rode along the emergency lanes. It's a road almost devoid of road-side trees, and at this time of the day the skies were not that friendly, getting hotter..... but at the same time getting more beautiful with puffy white clouds on a pastel blue backing.
Ok.... ok.... better turn my eyes earth-wards and concentrate on the road and the cars whizzing by........

But for some of us, it's not the end our ride yet! While the rest rode back to Rawang, a few of us made a detour to visit the Jing Loong Shan Wan Fo Temple, located about halfway back.
We were surprised to find such a large and beautiful temple in the middle of nowhere, the road leading to it was very quite as it leads only to this temple and the Scomi Rail factory that supplies the trains & carriages for the KL Monorail.

(Brass incense burner)
The roof architecture and red columns reminds me of the National Theater and Concert Hall, the two buildings at Liberty Square leading to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.

It has been an eye-opening ride of seeing an elevated highway that's under construction, and of course one with memories of good times with friends.
Many thanks to the two cikgus for organizing this event.

(For more photos of the ride, Click Here!)
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