A Bike Journey Archives - Page 4 of 13

Singapore

15 May 2011

The roads leading to the Causeway to cross over to the island country of Singapore were quite busy with many slip roads to negotiate but the border crossing was easy. The man at immigration was rather astounded by our plans when we gave him our address in Singapore: “You’re going to cycle all the way to Sunset Way? That’s really far!” It was no more than 15km… We had arranged to stay with Chuen and his mum through Warmshowers. As Chuen was still at work, his mum let us into the lofty house. We couldn’t believe our luck, we had…

Farewell Asia

12 May 2011

(Germany) – Klang – Melaka – Singapore border By the time we returned to Klang, our 10 day break in Germany already felt surreal. We had had a fantastic time oohing and aahing over our little nephew Felix and catching up with Freddie’s family and some of our friends. We visited her grandma and saw various aunts, uncles and cousins. Freddie’s dad took us out for a great day in Hamburg, visiting the world’s largest model rail exhibition and Russian spy submarine now anchored in Hamburg’s port. The day ended with an hour’s sailing on the Alster lake. The rest…

13,000km Photo

6 May 2011

To celebrate our final day cycling in Asia we decided to dine at the illustrious “Secret Recipe” restaurant. Unfortunately Guy found out the hard way why it was all such a secret. We spent the day limping from one bus shelter to the next as his dinner kept reappearing. ||…

Malaysia: A Fusion of Cultures and Cuisines

24 April 2011

Malaysian Border – Penang – Kuala Lumpur After some long days on the bikes in the severely flooded south of Thailand, we were ready to cross into Malaysia, hoping for an improvement in the weather. We had chosen a remote border crossing in a hilly jungle area. The 30km cycle from Chalung to the border was very quiet, leading us to doubt that the border crossing was even official, but suddenly we found ourselves in a bustling Sunday morning border market.|| Having pushed our bikes through the market and spent our remaining Thai Baht on our last “Cow…

Raging Floods and a Love Hotel

14 April 2011

Ao Nang (Krabi) – Chalung (Malaysian border) Despite the floods and the relentless rain, we had little choice but to crack on and leave Ao Nang as the clock was ticking on our flight out of Kuala Lumpur. So we pulled out our wet weather gear again and tried to tell ourselves that riding in the rain all day, every day was a character building experience. Fortunately the rain was much lighter as we left town, and the floods seemed to be slowly receding, surely this was the end of the rain. How wrong we were! ||…

12,000 km Photo

12 April 2011

That’s us in front of the dunny block at a Thai fuel station. Classy, we know! The locals were quite perplexed as to why anyone would take a photo of themselves in such an illustrious location. ||…

A Very Wet “Dry Season”

6 April 2011

Chumphon – Krabi On our first day without Nick as we cycled from Saphli Beach to Arunothai following an estuary out of a small fishing village we couldn’t help but notice the air felt a lot more humid than usual and the dark clouds on the horizon started to look a little more menacing. Little did we know what Mother Nature had in store for us.|| Without Nick, communication was a little sketchy and even though we were sure we knew the words for “fried rice with chicken” by now (how can we forget, “Cow Pat Guy”! In…

A Breath of Fresh Air

29 March 2011

Bangkok – Chumphon Our good friend Nick had come out from the UK to join forces with us for our first week’s cycling in Thailand. Being married to a Thai girl, he lived in Bangkok for a few years but had never cycled in Thailand, so we were all keen to explore Thailand from the seat of a bicycle. We waved goodbye to Aom, Nick’s wife, as we pulled out of the parking bay to join Bangkok’s rush hour traffic. The road that had looked like a minor road on our map turned out to…

11,000km Photo

27 March 2011

A couple of days out of Bangkok, we were cycling on a minor road near the Thai coast, enjoying the lush tropical landscape. The photo was taken by our friend Nick. ||…

Bangkok

24 March 2011

Three hours after our rushed departure from Chennai we landed in Bangkok (the reason we flew is because it is not possible to cycle through Myanmar at the moment). Relieved to be reunited with our bikes and luggage, we caught an airport bus to Khao San Road, the bustling street many backpacker’s lives revolve around in Bangkok. It was still early and we had breakfast at a little cafe while we put our bikes back together in the muggy morning air.|| On the recommendation of Tara and Tyler from Going…