Shah Alam to Gunung Brinchang Road ride

My last camping road trip was sometime ago. I have not been out camping lately and I need a break from my normal routine. A group of friends are planning to do a Northern India adventure ride. They have been preparing their bikes and need to test their set up. Bike set up testing is an excuse to go to Gunung Brinchang for a night camping.Reason being its a mountain climb and its cold up there.
Four of us started from a fuel station along the NKVE at 8pm. We rode real slow on the North - South highway heading towards Tapah. Only one bike had a fill up in Tapah and we proceeded ascending the snakey road to Tanah Rata. Night riding is one of my favourite. It was a real pleasure to able to ride with less trafic on the road. The cool air is priceless. We reached Tanah Rata at 12 pm. We had hot tea at one of the stall. Our plan to camp was thwarted with the threatening sky and we looked for a room instead. We found an appartment in Brincang and checked in at around 1 am. Shortly after checking in, it was raining so hard that our decision to check in at the apartment was a million dollar decision. Had we camped, we would definitely be drenched either with rain water or our own sweat cocooned in our tent.
In the morning,we rode up to the summit of Gunung Brincang which stood at 2000 metres above sea level. The view of the surrounding mountains from the summit was simply magnificent.It was really cool and refreshing. On our returned ride down the mountain we met a group of MTB riders huffing and puffing up the climb,oh boy was is a tough climb and I almost could feel their pain having being cyclist myself. I have faced the same situation many times. The toughest climb being on a coast to coast tour, crossing over the main range from Butterworth to Kota Bharu.
Midway on the descend,we stopped at a resting point to snap some pictures with the tea plantation as the background. Next stop is the fuel station in Brincang before we rode down hill to Tapah for lunch arriving at 12.30 pm. The final part of the ride started at 2.pm after the KLX 650 gas tank was refilled with the fuel carried in the spare container. We were forced to make another fuel stop due to the small gas tank of the XR650 which had to be refilled again. It seemed like the main problem for these bikes are the small original gas tank. Permanent solution would be to replace them with bigger capacity tanks. From the station we continued our journey home on the south bound highway without much drama. The only glitch was the wide berth of the panniers made it difficult to lane splittings when traffic was heavy.