We finally biked to Mandai.
After three weeks, after a couple of short and not so short rides, we finally did the route that passes from Yishun to Mandai and then back down Woodlands Road.
Mandai's an interesting road. One that fascinates me.
It's one of those roads that links the northeast to the northwest and it is a relatively seamless road that doesn't have many intersections along the way save for one turn into Sembawang, one turn from Mandai Avenue to Mandai-something, one turn into where the crematorium is and which leads to Seletar and Upper Thomson, and one turn into the zoo. It's a road that arcs across and connects you from Lim Chu Kang and Kranji to Yishun (or Nee Soon) with just one cut into the Sembawang in between.
I've never turned into the zoo road when I'm on the bike, by the way.
Usually I go straight. I'm already up north. I don't have time to turn left and turn right. Either I turn in from Woodlands Road and then zip right across, up and down the hills and slopes of Mandai, some of which need a bit of huff and puff, or if not I'm coming from the Yishun side and then I'm zipping right across towards Woodlands Road and Kranji.
The latter was the route I took this time.
And which, frankly, I'm uber thankful that I made it up to Yishun at all.
Getting there from the east coast side this time was quite a challenge. Nothing to do with falling down or near accidents, thank God, but because of dust and air pressure. Contact lens wearers will understand what I mean. :) And this happened still, despite the fact that I was wearing clear glasses... It got so bad that at least three times I had to stop and take a breather, push my bike to park, calm down, and rinse my lenses out as carefully as I could.
And that's not counting the rains that happened right as we were out of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 and heading into Lentor.
Normally I'd have continued. But Lentor is a pavement chock full of trees with few shelters and it would not be safe to get caught in the open during a thunderstorm on a route like this.
So we waited.
The rains paused. We went on. Lentor hasn't changed much.. a very good thing. They've straightened out some paths here and there, but the rest of the route, especially nearing the reservoir, is more or less the same. A bit of tree trunks upheaving the path. A bit of broken pavement. It was cool, windy and pretty okay altogether.
Heading up from Yishun Avenue 1, we stopped for dinner at Northpoint. The original plan was to have Collin's... because we'd already tried the outlets at Balestier, Marina Square and Cathay Cineleisure and we wanted to try out this one. But the diner is indoors and we didn't think we'd get away with parking our bikes indoors. So we had Four Fingers instead.
Fried chicken. :D Korean style. :D
And then it was the Mandai route after that.
I'm glad little has changed. The slopes are the same. Long, drawn out, with lights along the side; The trees are the same. The crickets are the same. The view of the reservoir from the road (if one can glimpse it) is the same even in the dark of night. The traffic lights in the middle of the slope are also the same. As is the ghost of a Shell station. There's just one exception though. Right opposite the gate of one of the camps today stand four blocks of temporary housing for the foreign construction workers.
Wow.
It's done pretty well, so well that I thought an estate had sprung up in the middle of nowhere, until I saw the lorry stop on my left and a group of workers hopped off and I had to yell a bit to get their attention just so I could first pass.
We made our way back down east after that, going via Woodlands Road, passing by a train depot, then down all the way past Bukit Panjang, then down Hillview, down Rail Mall and part of the Bukit Timah Hill range- one tough upslope that took the air out of me- and then one long, long slope down before turning into Dunearn Road, and then it was a familiar route back down via Rochor and Lavender and Old Airport Road.