Awesome Day, Awful Night, Amazing Sight

Resting by the lakeshore at Taman Wawasan.

A venue with beautiful scenery, with only a handful of people, with more than 1 km of 100% flat pavement for the young cyclist. Not many places fit such description. But deep in the heart of Putrajaya, there is a stretch of totally flat road with stunning view, perfect for the kids to practice their cycling. That stretch of asphalt is, again, at Taman Wawasan (translated as Wawasan Gardens), running parallel to the lakeshore for roughly 1.4km. A secluded place known to the locals as Putrajaya's best kept secret garden.

The route that we took. We parked at the end of Jalan P2a, then cycled to Jambatan Seri Bestari (translated as Seri Bestari Bridge) about 1.4 km away.

At the end of our route, below Jambatan Seri Bestari
(translated as Seri Bestari Bridge).

Around 9am, via car with bicycles in the bonnet, the whole family travelled to the obscured parking place under the Putra Bridge. Funny that the place was so near to the overly crowded Dataran Putra (translated as Putra Square), yet parking spaces were in abundance due to it's hidden location. With wifey waiting in the car with the baby, my two elder sons and I dismounted our bikes from the car and away we went. A surprise since the usually empty Taman Wawasan (from my visits covered in recent posts here and here) was now a lot livelier with cyclists. Still, apart from gardeners, no visitors were on foot. Many were on bicycles (roughly about 15 riders), a few on motorcycles and 1 with a car (maybe lost I guess). We completed the 2.8 km journey (1.4 km x 2) within just 30 minutes and went back to my MIL's (Mother-In-Law) place. An awesome day out with the kids. Then disaster struck.

Resting by the highway side for the car to cool down.
This was near Plaza Tol Salak Selatan. 

On the way, the car's thermometer shot through the roof. Since we nearly reached my MIL's place, I just parked the car at her place and let the car cooled down. Before going home to Kuala Lumpur, I refilled the car's radiator after finding it empty. A quick inspection concluded only a minor radiator leak. With a 5 liter water tank as backup, it should be enough till we reach home, or so I thought. Confidently, we started our journey back to our home. But just after 11 km into our departure, the car's temperature shot up again. This time the car guzzled water by the loads. We waited by the highway side for half an hour before starting the car again, then sped to the nearest Rest and Service (RSA, R&R, Rehat dan Rawat) area, about 2-3 km away to replenish our 5L backup water tank. There, again we waited for another half an hour to let the car cool down for me to refill the radiator. I estimated by stopping at strategic locations along the route and repeating the process, the return journey should take roughly 6 hours. That mentioned, it normally takes just 1 hour from Putrajaya to reach home. 4 hours later, we finally reached the car's service centre. We then left our ill-fated car there to be serviced the next morning (the service centre was along our route to our offices). Borrowing my BIL's (Brother-In-Law) MyVi car, we continued our deary journey home. Well, it was not all that deary, because when transferring stuff from our broken down car to my BIL's car, I found this!

My XDS FA-20 bicycle fitted nicely
in the small MyVi compact car.

It fitted perfectly! The MyVi car is a small compact car, and the fact that my XDS FA-20 could fit nicely in the leg room of the back passenger seat is a sight to behold, and with extra room to spare! Amazing! Despite the ordeal my family and I had gone through that night, I closed my house's front doors with a smile :)

Hashtags: #compact #compactbicycle #compactbike #cyborg #cycling #cyclingwithkids #myvi #putrajaya #saibog #tamanwawasan #xds #xdsfa20