Sharing a simple ride account for my visit to an old mining town, Sungai Lembing.

Having been to many big touristy chinese towns in malaysia such as malacca and penang. It was extremely refreshing experience to actually go to Sungai Lembing which is a small Chinese village mostly left untouched to the outside world except for a few touristy but very beautiful attractions such as rainbow waterfall, panorama hill and gua charas to name a few.

Sungai Lembing is a tin mining town 42 km northwest of Kuantan in Pahang, Malaysia. Lembing is Malay for spear, and “sungai” means river. Per local legend, the local ruler saw a vision of a spear in the nearby river and thus named his town after this vision.
Until the 1970s, Sungai Lembing was a major producer of underground tin. Sungai Lembing town developed in the 1880s when the British set up the tin mining industry, although the history of mining in this area extends much further back. From 1891, the Pahang Consolidated Company Limited, (PCCL), which was under British control, had a 77-year lease to mine the area. PCCL managed the mine from 1906 until its liquidation in 1986 when world tin prices collapsed.
**extracted from Wikipedia

4th October 2013
2200hrs - The whole riding group met up at Lavender bus park and loaded up our bikes and ourselves up onto our chartered bus to begin our journey to Kuantan where we would ride about 40km to Sungai Lembing.

2300hrs - We manage to cross the customs smoothly with no incidents and especially to our bikes. Do note that a declaration letter for the bicycles to the customs is almost necessary if not we could be made to unload our bikes up and down the bus which would be a major pain in the ass to do. lol

5th October 2013
0530hrs - The bus journey at night was fast and smooth and it took only 5-6 hours to reach the main town area of kuantan. Many of us was able to steal some sleep on the comfortable 22-seater bus that we have chartered. But waking up at 5am to unload the bikes from the baggage storage area was not something that you would have wanted to do when you have not even brush your teeth.

0730hrs - After setting up all our bikes and having a simple breakfast in kuantan town, we proceed to ride off for our journey to Sungai Lembing.

1030hrs - Having some mechanical troubles to one of our riders along the way we only managed to reach Panching village after 3 hours. Panching Village is the entrance to Gua Charas which is a temple cave found in a limestone hill (Bukit Charas) about 25km north west of Kuantan, Pahang. From Panching village to Gua Charas we have to ride in through a oil palm plantation The cave is a holy site for both Hindus and Buddhists and their symbols and statues are dotted around the interior of this vast cavern.
Bukit Charas is a 400 million year old limestone and granite massif reaching 355 metres at its highest point. If you have’t been to a limestone cave, this cave might impress you with how huge and deep it goes. Definitely a must see place along the way to lembing town.

1230hrs - We took about 2 hours to explore the vast limestone cavern before we proceed to head off and resume our journey to lembing. Along the way out of the plantation, we nearly had a clash heads on with a herd of cows crossing our path.

1400hrs - After an exhausting 15km ride to lembing from Gua Charas, we finally arrived at the entrance of Lembing. We had a thirst-quenching ice kachang and took some photos at the entrance of Lembing town. We managed to reach our resort called Lembing river view resort. Here’s the website address. http://lembingriverview.com/

1500hrs - We had a very late lunch at Lembing town where we had roasted meat and rice. Everyone was really really hungry and gladly gobble down the food.

1700hrs - We headed to a home-based roast pork factory next to the river in sungei lembing in an attempt to watch the whole pork roasting process. The roasted pork is very famous here as it’s prepared in a very special way. The whole pig is lowered into a pit and is roasted from wood fire. It’s a very slow and painful process but it’s really worth it. Note that it is available only during the weekends and you have to make sure that you make some reservation as you might not get to eat it if it’s fully reserved by others.
Sg Lembing Roast Pork (林明周末晚烧猪肉)
Tel：+6017-909 3580 / +609-541 1975
Address ：A-259, Jalan Jeram Takar, 26200 Sungai Lembing, Kuantan.

1930hrs - We had our lunch at a restaurant famous for it’s tomato noodles in Lembing village. Before that we had a fun time crossing the hanging bridges of Lembing. Lembing is nestled along a river and there are a few hanging bridges connecting both sides of the village. It’s extremely fun to actually try riding across the hanging bridges as you need to have a good sense of balance.

2100hrs - We had an early nights sleep after an exhausting day stretching from the night before when our journey started. The next day we had to wake up and move off at 0430am to trek up panarama hill for sunrise.

Location of Sungei Lembing with reference to West Malaysia map.

Route taken from Kuantan with stopover at Gua Charas before finally heading to Sungai Lembing.

Overall view of the small town of Sungai Lembing

A cup of coffee to kick start the day before we ride off from Kuantan.

Mechanical problems to one of our cyclist. Gladly we have many skillful mechanics around who saved the day.

Lubricating the rusty chain. Do make sure your bicycle is well maintained before attempting to ever ride overseas.

Good friends always help and care for each other.

Everyone in high spirits even though one of our friends have to “up lorry”.

Self bike porn shot. Sadly i do not have this bike anymore but a small wheel bike is able to complete this trip without much difficulty.

Enjoying a cup of coffee at Panching Village.

Banana man?

Gua Charas can be clearly viewed from Panching Village.

Simple malaysia Nasi Lemak always the best.

Very kind old man that we met in Panching village.

Levitation time again.

Erm… kissing Gua Charas lol

Levitation boy.

Cycling through the oil palm plantation from Panching village to Gua Charas.

Cycling through the oil palm plantation from Panching village to Gua Charas.

Entrance to Gua Charas.

Entrance to Gua Charas.

Hindu monuments and where we had to pay our “ticket” to enter the cave.

Going down into the limestone cave.

Going down into the limestone cave.

Interior of Gua Charas. Huge and vast cave for buddhist and hindu worship.

Interior of Gua Charas. Huge and vast cave for buddhist and hindu worship.

Interior of Gua Charas. Huge and vast cave for buddhist and hindu worship.

Interior of Gua Charas. Huge and vast cave for buddhist and hindu worship.

A left turn from the entrance of the cave took us up and even higher to nearly the top of Gua Charas.

A left turn from the entrance of the cave took us up and even higher to nearly the top of Gua Charas.

A left turn from the entrance of the cave took us up and even higher to nearly the top of Gua Charas.

When you can see a hanging bridge, you know that lembing is near.

Ice kachang been mass produced due to sudden influx of thirsty cyclists.

A thirst quenching ice kachang to cool off from the afternoon heat.

At last riding into Lembing town. It was a very hot day and though we only ride 40-50km. The heatwave and continous slopes made the ride very exhausting.