It's what i do: KMS 7

For the 7th edition of the Historical ride (Kembara Mengejar Sejarah ) we decided to visit the state of Kedah Darul Aman. Initially the plan was to tour Alor Setar first then Lembah Bujang and finally stay overnight at Sg Petani. This time the participants suggested staying overnight at Dan Nok , Thailand as we were close and so we changed our plans accordingly. This time there were fewer bikes so it was much easier to make ad-hoc plans and changes.

Early morning RV as we are visiting a lot of places.

Totally there were 8 bikes, with 9 participants.With one other rider meeting us in Kedah.

Early morning highway...still clear.

As usual i'm sitting at the back .

At Tapah. These morons were out in force.

Friendly and all, but when riding.....a menace. More later.

Back on the bike.

Near Ipoh.

No rush but still we keep to the timetable.

A break plus a very early lunch.

Loving couple :-)

Back on the bike where we met more morons.

Our pace is a relaxed 120-140 on average.

These idiots saw us ,got excited .....

and tried to (cucuk ) play with us

Being adults we maintained our pace and riding style.

So they let us pass ,then accelerate to catch up...All this in traffic.

With their fuel tanks as small as their brains we soon passed them...

So it was goodbye to these stunts....

Almost at our turn off.....

Exit here.

From here its all town roads.

Small northern towns...

Not too long later we reached here.

Welcome to Bujang valley.

Ample parking.

First the museum...

And a/c ha ha ha

Old dugout canoes.

Surrounding sights.

Map of archaeological finds in Kedah.

Model of the temples -1

And the original find.

historical photos...

and artefacts.

Carved stones...

lots of them. Really nice a/c though.

Model 2

See the oliphant ?

Old statues.....

and figurines.

Model 3

And their names.

Other visitors were there too.

Nice place.

Model 5.

Sanskrit writings.

See the stone...

and the plaque.

Lots of history here.

Model 6

See the next pic below.

Still see shapes like this in Hindu temples today.

Old Hindu Statues.

Lord Ganesha .

A bit of history.

A final look.

Now the hard part.

We have to walk up to the actual temples.

Along the way...

All the temples were moved here to form one accessible location.

Still moving up.

The main temple. We're in full gear remember ....

The iconic picture.

Only the base remains of all the Temples.

Ancient Temple and mountains.

Nice.

A last look.

Now further up...

And finally.....

The last Temple.

Nice.

Nice experience ,even in full gear.

Back down.

After resting for a while, the tour continues .

We took the coastal road.

There it is...the sea.....

Paddy fields....

The rice bowl of Malaysia.

Here we met our Kedah bro...Tok Wan

He escorted us to our next stop...

Which was quite near...

Kuala Kedah Fort and Palace.

A nice read.

Light house in the grounds.

The old palace.

Those white things are remnants of other buildings.

One of the main entrances...

A very old wall.

The palace.

You don't see this design nowadays.

Tok Wan giving us a bit of history.

Another gate to the fort.

Time to visit the Palace.

Nice design.

The following interior pics are from Han as i was too lazy to remove my boots. Too tired .

Its a museum now.

Small cannons.

After that great experience we headed east.

To here.

These are later additions.

For visitors.

This is the actual house.

Old wheels. :-)

Nice grounds.

A simple home.

Tun's bicycle.

The actual house.

Here too i relaxed outside.....

so these are Han's pics.

A simple home...

Real old school .

Very nice.

From there we headed to the town center.

From this point......we can visit...

The state Mosque ...Masjid Zahir.

built 1912 .

Directly opposite the Mosque... The Balai Besar ( 1735 )

Grand Audience Hall

Really nice design.

Intricate carvings.

Nice huh.

A huge fountain .

The state art gallery.

Old British design

The old palace...

The palace entrance.

Exhausted :-)

Nice arch in the main square.

The state clock tower...

The Balai Nobat- The original was built 1735.

This 18 metre-tall and 5 metre-wide three-tiered octagonal tower sole purpose is to keep all the royal musical instruments including the serunai (wooden flute), nafiri, gendang (drum) and gong, which is known as nobat.