15-May-2003 -- A group of us were on a Ride to Nowhere. A ride to nowhere is a motorcycle trip around Malaysia with no set plan or itinerary. We ride and stop when we feel like it, and continue riding the next day. Along the way, we detour or stop to see the sights and interesting places close to where we are at that point. In a previous ride to nowhere, I had attempted to visit 4N 101E, but due to an error in the map, we ended up on the wrong side of the river and 448m away from the confluence.

This time, since we were near Rantau Panjang, we decided to swing by 6N 102E, in spite of knowing that it had been visited a month and a half ago. The detour was not too long, as our ride was already taking us thru Rantau Panjang. It just meant a 3km left turn away from the Rantau Panjang Immigration Complex down towards Pasir Mas. Following the GPS coordinates led us to this housing estate and one of it's roads bordered by houses on one side, and a secondary jungle and swamp on the other. Just as nature would have it, the confluence point lies 7m off the road into the secondary jungle, right in the middle of the swamp. With our leather riding gear, it would have been tough to venture into the swamp and the foliage overhead would have obscured the GPS signals anyhow.

This confluence spot lies just across a road within a housing estate. It's barely 5km from the Malaysia-Thailand border at Rantau Panjang, on a road south from the immigration complex. The housing area looks like it's an average middle class estate, and was rather quiet for a public holiday afternoon. Finding the confluence wasn't difficult at all, and doesn't involve any offroad trekking or hikes. I wouldn't be surprised if more people visited this confluence. In fact, I doubt the the folk living in the house directly across the confluence (see attached pic) even knew that they would be seeing a confluence each time they looked out of the front windows.

So Ivan and I then proceeded to take more pictures to add to this confluence, while Keith and Franco sat at a stall further up the road having some tea. The disappointment at not being first at this spot soon faded away when we rejoined the others and celebrated this find with tea and fried banana fritters. We then continued our Ride to Nowhere along the east-west highway towards Pulau Banding, leaving the confluence far east behind us.