Thursday, December 24, 2015

Start of something great



Boats waiting in the harbor at Ao Nang beach

We quickly discovered the wonders of southern Thailand, not the islands full of westerners getting drunk and WAY too much sun (like a walking skin cancer ward), but the quiet roads that cut through flooded plains filled with water buffalo, birds of every variety, local fisherman and happy smiling locals.  On the way north toward our next stop, Krabi, we saw all of these things and except for the heat we were enthralled by Thailand.  As it had in the past this good energy gets tested a bit whenever we enter more touristy locations, and Krabi is certainly one of those.  We were lucky enough to have a nice Russian warmshowers host named Andrey allow us to stay at his home while we explored so that we were able to escape paying the usual overpriced rates for substandard accomodation you find in all of these beach resort locals.  Not so fortunately (or so we thought at first) Andrey was "double-booked" foor guests at this time.  Apparently he was also expecting a French family to arrive that evening.  While we were sitting and drinking a local beer of choice (ie Chang, Singha, Leo) they arrived and it turned out this amazing husband and wife were on a similar tour as us only in reverse order AND with a 6 year old son!!  Our figurative jaws dropped as Chiara and I only days before were in the midst of throwing in the towel just short of the 5 month mark on our journey over some petty, insignificant trifle that we could not agree upon and here Albon, Delphine, and their son Vincent had spent the same 5 month period touring eastern Europe with their young son and seemed almost unscathed?!  Seemed these folks had a thing or two to teach us and we were excited to hear more as they had just come through Turkey, the country we plan to start our Europe leg of the tour.  


    
Andrey, Bruce, and Alban, reading to Vincent on Andrey's porch aka our living quarters, Delphine and Vincent cycling

But first the Tetris game of tent accomodation must begin in order to get everyone a place to sleep.  Andrey's place was modest and therefore we figured we would stay on the porch in our tents in order to not completey take over his space.  The next two days we ate, drank, compared tour "notes" and decided that maybe ths was the time for our "Tourist" part of our Thailand trip.  We would team up with the "French Connection" and take a boat trip to a small island to camp and snorkel for a few days.  After a large amount of recon work to discover where was ok to camp and what we would have to bring with us, we finally made our way out to Bamboo Island by long-tail boat with minimal gear and lots of excitement.  Turns out this island is one of many that gets flooded with a daily stream of boat that plop tourists of all shapes and sizes for short visits before scooping them back up and taking them to another island.  Usually 4 in a day, which must be a whirl-wind of chaotic boat travel.  However for us the true enjoyment started around 4pm  when the last of the day boats left the island and we were left to enjoy the peace and beauty of this place with no one but the few national park staff that remained to clean up from the day and prepare for the next days onslaught of sun-reddened, selfie-stick carrying travelers that would make the journey.  But for us a beautiful sunset, meager meal of rice and vegetables, a couple sips of Mekong (local whiskey type drink) and good company of new friends was all we needed.  Until about 10am the next morning this little island was all but ours and early morning swims and stretches on the beach were ours for the taking.  Though to now we are till not sure if anything we did was 'legal' the small family of staff were wonderful to us and we felt like one of their crew.  


Turns out, however, that getting off these islands can be a bit tougher when not pre-arranged.  After 2 nights we decided that it was time to move on so we started searching the seemingly endless line of charter boats for an open spot to hitch back to the mainland.  The only one we found was not exactly heading straight back to the mainland but would be doing the before-mentioned "4 island tour" of which we were the first.  We resigned ourselvess to the fact that we would be in for a long day and boarded the long-tail.  This, to our pleasant surprise, may have been the bet thing that could have happened as we became part pf a tour that took us around to other islands where we swam, hiked, climbed on rocks and were amazed by the beauty that is southern Thailand.  Who needs one of those package trips?!
    
A beautiful beach sunset,climbing and snorkeling around Bs,boo island, the dramatic cliffs around Krabi 

We made our 'triumphant' return to Andrey's house in a horrendous thunderstorm and  torrential downpour.  One that Chiara and I were very familiar with by this time but one that appeared to have spooked our new French companions a bit regarding the weather they would be facing in SE Asia as their trip began in earnest.  Our last night was spent exchanging emails and hopes and plans for visiting each other in the future in our respective home lands.  This burgwoning friendship we hope will be one that carries foward into the future as we truly enjoyed the companionship of this young family and were inspired by their will and determination to live their lives and raise their family in a truly unique way.


Bridging the Malaysia-Thailand Gap



Our last push in our abridged Malaysia tour promised to offer a treat of sorts- the ability to dust off the old nylon and screen home-away-from-home and spend a night in the outdooors, this time at a beauthiful park tucked in the Northwest corner of the country.  The location, Perlis State Park, just happened to be in our path as we made our way toward the Malay-Thai border.  Though it was quite a treat for us to stay in this paleolithic jungle-like environment which showed signs of once being a bustling and popular educational park with gardens, caves, rivers, and animals.  Now in somewhat disrepair, most likely from government defunding (the Malaysian economy has been on a downward trend as a result of falling oil prices) it was still a treat to walk around, set up camp, watch monkeys climb the tree canopy and at dark witness the pyrotechnic wonder of nature as the fireflies (something that Chiara had never seen in her life) flitted about the field.  Truly a fantastic way to end a fantastic tour in Malaysia.

    
Pictures from Perlis.  Doing my best to model pose.

The next day we said a fond fairwell to Malaysia and headed to cycle across the border into Thailand, the first time we crossed a border by bike on the trip.  After a fairly uneventful crossing into Thailand we made an easy pedal into the city of Hat Yai.  Hat Yai is all but unknown to foreigners unless they cross the border it is the third largest city in the country; unlike all the others there is little to no tourist market and is mostly Thai locals. We once again had an awaiting Warmshowers host and Chiara was ready to burst with anticipation over her impending massage (one that she had been thinking about since Taiwan).  Priscille and her husband John were amazing hosts for two nights, Priscille cooked us some wonderful dinners, we shared finally- cheap-again beers, Chiara was able to shop, we both enjoyed a two hour full-body Thai massage for 300 bhat (about eight USD) where the massa, t therapists worked out all our kinks and troubles.

    
Our first temple right in the border, yay, Thai massage! It hurts and feels good at the same time.
Priscille, making serious Prince-eyes 

After our restful time in Hat Yai, we hightailed it north along a flat and trouble-free road that eventually led us to Rangot.  We had intended to find a flat spot somewhere to camp but as the sun began to drop and our search for food was in full swing a nice Thai woman and her husband called out from their passing vehicle and aked us where we were going.  After a bit of conversation, she and her husband led us to a local food market and eventually to there friend's "Resort" which was still under construction.  They introduced us to Will, a lively young guy who spoke quite a bit of English.  His family was doing a "soft opening" (as Portland folks might pretentiously call it) of their new beautiful (and very unpretentious) resort.  Will let us camp in the common area, and that evening we also met Martyn, a recent arrival from Lithuania who was on Rangot to teach Englissh.  Lively converation ensued covering all topics from music, to travel, to politics, and after a few hours and another surprise flat tire (after over 5000km we are starting to notice that this happens a bit too readily and that maybe it is time for that new set of Schwalbe tires we have been talking about), we decided that one day was not enough at the resort.  We needed a little more time to explore the lake next to the resort, paddle around in the kayak that Will kept on the property, and just plain chill out a bit.  Which is exactly what we did the whole next day, save for a very cool kayak paddle at sunset to the main town market 5 km from the property, and a visit to a local bar where we drank Leo beer and listened to wonderfully talented local Thai musicians.  

     
Right outside of Will's resort, rowing to the might market with Martyn

Will is playing guitar here

We went to bed that night unsure about when we might leave this great little spot we had stumbled upon but when we arose the next morning we both knew that the road was calling so we quickly packed up and hit the road.  Sorry to not be able to say goodbye to our new friends as they were still tucked up in bed, we left a note and a surprise for them to find!  



Sunday, December 6, 2015

Penang.



Moving north we were lucky to have been announced by Keiith's family in Singapore and we were hosted by two diffrent  family members.  His Auntie in Parit Buntar and an Uncle on Penang Island.  We want to thank them and the rest of Keith's family for everything they have done to make our time on the peninsula enjoyable and filled with great food!

Now to Penang Island and the famously beautiful and well-preserved colonial city of Georgetown.  We had been riding shorter distances (<80km or about 48miles/day) since we had started touring Malaysia.  It felt like we had gotten a bit soft after our time spent in Singapore and KL.  Though it had been only a bit over a week of downtime it appeared we were starting to feel every bit of the >5000 kms and almost 5 months pedaled thus far.  The time also seems to have given us a renewed desire to explore, but it could have also be the return of the afternoon rains and the deliciously exotic new foods?  Either way we found ourelves not minding the soreness or the relentless humidity.  And arriving via a short ferry ride to Penang Island was quite exciting.  

The second day we rode around the island perimeter (about an 80km trip).  It was a beautifully scenic and enjoyable day.  That is until I noticed a problem with Chiara's bike while changing a flat tire?  It appeared that in KL when we were tuning up the bikes, I, in haste and dim light, had replaced the uniquely designed concentric bottom bracket BACKWARDS?!!  For those that are not familiar with bikes this means that as one pedals forward you are actually unthreading and/or causing potential serious damage to the bike.  Limping to the closest village we found a small local bike shop.  The gentleman inside made it readily obvious to us from moment one that he had no interest in helping us.  We tried, through a friendly local man interperting, to explain our situation and asked to use his tools to fix the bike.  Completely out of character for any of the people we had met in Malaysia or any other of the Asian countries we visited, for that matter, the shop owner basically threw us out into the street with a bike in pieces and no other way to fix it.  I was livid and Chiara was able to calm me and suggest we go to one of the ubiqitous the shops and ask to use their tools.  We found one where the owner was excited to see us try to fix our bikes, bikes different from any other they had seen, with a hammer, hex wrenches and will.  After just 15 minutes we had the bike back together and running like new.  The shop owner, and all those whom stopped on the street to watch, smiled and refused to accept any money for the use of his tools.  That is the Malaysia/ Asia that we have grown to know and love!  And to top it off, afterwards we went to get a cold drink and the local interpreter from the bike shop came up to us saying that he had been looking for us for 30 minutes.  He was going to put us in a van and take us to the next town to find a bike mechanic that would help us?!  Bless these amazing people, so willing to go out  of their way in order to help those in need.  We thanked him immensely and then continued our journey around the island and back to our hosts home right as the evening rainstorms began.  
  
The fine gentleman who helped fix the bike

A little note about Georgetown and Penang Island from me (Chiara). If you love restored and/or crumbling colonial architecture, Georgetown is a must-see.  There are streets of beautiful buildings in various states of either repair or disrepair.  Though there was a fair amount of tourists, Georgetown still didn't feel too touristy, and it was pretty easy to get off the beaten path. The ride around the island was awesome, low traffic when we got outside the city, the perfect mix of rural, villages, pretty landscape, and it was very easy to find a deserted piece of beach to jump in and take a swim in the warm ocean waters.  I could have definitely spent a few more days in Georgetown, but...


    
We arose early the next morning, ate, wrote a Thank You letter to Keith's uncle, whom we hadn't seen since we arrived and made our way back towarrd the ferry.  We enjoyed the architecture on our way and stopped for a bit of delicious Roti Cenai and Te Tarik (two of our favorite food items).  Once we crossed back to the mainland we started north again toward our next host location.  
    
Street scenes in Georgetown 

  
Coming back from our private beach and our favorite run-down old Chinese school


Plenty of cool street art


Thursday, December 3, 2015

And now we bring you...Malaysia, and not a moment too soon.



It was time to unburden "Chief" Keith's family (at least that's what I called him in my head) as we had definitely overstayed our 2-3 day Warmshowers host rule.  Keith and his daughter drove us through the Singapore-Malaysia  border, where we could take an inexpensive bus 4+ hours to Kuala Lampur.  We initially had planned to cycle through all of Malaysia, but a month or so back we were informed that the air quality in both Singapore and Malaysia was abhorrent due to the seasonal burning of fields in Sumatra and Kalamantan, Indonesia.  This, we were informed, was nothing that anyone would want to cycle through.  In the recent days however, the air quality had improved greatly due to return of the monsoon season and the rains that usually follow.  Hence, by the time we had arrived in Singapore the smoke and haze produced by the poor Indonesian farmers had abated greatly.


A small aside here: You know when your a Pacific North Westerner when...it rains after more than a month in "tropical paradise" with endless days of sun and heat and you finally are able to breath easy and a huge weight of anxiety is gone. Rain! Love you! Miss you! Rain that makes everything cool, fresh, and green. 

Our departure was fairly routine, and we had a comfortable if not-particularly-exciting transit. Our arrival in KL was similarly easy, and though I was a complete nay-sayer about taking the metro from the bus station, Bruce's savvy ways prevailed again and we easily slung our bikes and bags on the train to our host Akmal's house.  Akmal was our first taste of celebrity in Malaysia.  Any time we mentioned his name to other cyclists they knew who he was, as he is considered one of the best bike mechanics in the country.  He was a great host and we were able to stay on semi-luxury in a house that he is in the process of establishing as a free bike touring hostel of sorts.  We were not sure of the particulars as he did not reside there but we had our own room, hot water shower, free wifi, use of kitchen and the words "stay as long as you like".  We also were invited to spend some time at his shop repairing and cleaning our bikes using his tools and getting parts we needed at fairly cheap rates.  We put new chains on our bikes and gave them a nice tune-up and now everything is running like new.  We also took a few days to get our Thai visas sorted out.  Apparently, if one uses a land border crossing you will get only a 15 day visa for the country.  I'm not sure how fast y'all cycle, but we sure as hell are not getting where we need or want to in the huge-ass country of Thailand in only 15 days.  So after a few days and $35 USD each we have 60 days to explore.  Plenty of time we think.
  
With Akmal fixing up the bikes and the fs,is Petronas towers in KL

To say that leaving KL was difficult does no justice to the immense chaos that has been created in a place that seems to have tranformed from a town of cart and oxen to one of super highways overnight. It is a city that apparently has next to no secondary road options.  In fact the only thing that resembles a straight and congruent path out of the city are the highways...and that is what we found ourselves riding to escape the twisting, winding and endless maze of local streets.  And in case you were wondering, NO it was not fun.  We eventually made our way far enough to be out of the heavy traffic and into the quieter towns and the plam oil plantations that make up most of southern and central Malaysia.  A pleasant combination of flat, well-maintained roads, fairly gentle couteous traffic, and nice scenery has put Malaysia in a close race woth Taiwan as our favorite cycling destination.   And to top it off, like clockwork, there is a rainshower every afternoon; when you are so hot and sticky you feel like your clothing is going to become one with your body, and you have soaked through every stitch of material with which to wipe your face, these wonderful transient storms roll through the region adding a breath of fresh, cool air to the mix and rejuvinating ones's spirit.  This, we think, was one of the larget missing pieces to our time in Indonesia that led to our time being more challenging than expected.  Oh and we haven't even mentioned the FOOD in Malaysia is wonderful!  A multi-cultural country with Malays, Chinese, Thai, and Indians living in close proximity, and the food is a reflection of this symbiosis.  It is savory, complex, multi-ethnic, and widely considered some of the best in the world, a point both of us agree upon.  You can get Chinese chicken rice or Indian bread (Roti) with dhal for breakfast, spicy Thai tom-yam soup for lunch and Malay mee jawa (spicy noodles) for dinner and delicious coffees and teas all day.  Often times without even leaving a single hawker stall complex!  And the prices are on par with Indonesia, which means CHEAP.  Oh and at night is when the real party  as the tables and chairs get moved from under the sun and rain protection into the cool, rain washed air and the locals eat and drink and socialize unitl 10-11pm every night.  Really a pleasureable place to travel.

    
We stayed overnight in Kuala Perlis, where there is a nice mountain park with a lot of monkeys.  You can feed them. They will jump on you.  The know where thier bread is buttered.


Malvsia is also the site of a small, burgeoning and very enthusiastic group of cycle tourers.  We met Subki, a local out for a week long tour of the Cameron Highlands, on our way into Ipoh, an old colonial city halfway up the west coast.  He put our picture up on Facebook, and soon his friend Sam tracked us down to make sure we had a place to stay and see if we wanted to ride the town and street art that night. He also intorduced us to Addams and Camee, the owners of a local bike rental shop and one of the cutest biking families you could imagine.  They, in turn set us up the next day with a friend of theirs in the town of Taiping, who also escorted us, by night, through the city on a ride.  Finally early the next morning we were whisked off, by another friend and folding bike tour enthusiast Jerol, to the best nasi lemak (traditional breakfast food for Malay people conisiting of rice and small side dishes of meat, egg, veg, etc) stall in Taiping.  Shout out here to the Sojourn Hostel in Taiping.  Though this little town is not on most backpacker agendas it should be a spot for those looking to cycle tour Malaysia.  Quiet streets, beautiful parks, surrrounded by hills, amazing food options and the nicest little inexpensive hostel from which to ejoy your stay.  The staff could not be nicer and the place could not be cleaner or cuter.  We both highly recommend making the stop for the night.  All these friendly folks combined with the natural beauty of the currounding hills looming in the backgrounds and the old colonial buildings that dot the "old town" streets of the picturesque cities has made Malaysia a place that Bruce and I have called a cycling paradise.

    
With Subki and Sam, there's a lot of great public art in Ipoh
  
With Cammee, Adamms, Sam at the bike shop

    
A beautiful mosque, a Chinese temple built into the rocks, and an Indian temple. There were some really cool building built into the rocks around Ipoh.

Moving north we were lucky to have been announced by Keiith's family in Singapore and we were hosted by two diffrent  family members.  His Auntie in Parit Buntar and an Uncle on Penang Island.  We want to thank them and the rest of Keith's family for everything they have done to make our time on the peninsula enjoyable and filled with great food!


Keith's awesome aunt who took very good care of us.

Now to Penang Island and the famously well-preerved colonial city of Georgetown.

Friday, November 20, 2015

A lovely rest in Singapore


Keith, Bruce, and Germaine at the botanical gardens.

"These aunties know what they are doing" says Regine, the youngest daughter in the family that we are staying with in regards to my marvel at how every cup of coffee I had to drink in Singapore had a perfect amount of milk and sugar. I love the term auntie, which Regine and Rachel explain to me is a sign of respect for people older than them.  


We had been stationed at the home of the Lim family in their lovely home near the center of Singapore for five days and four nights, double our original plan of only spending 1-2  nights.  We had met Keith Lim, the patriarch, during our tour of Taiwan.  As mentioned in one of our earlier posts, "The Food, the Friends and the Father", we crossed paths with Keith (not his given Chinese name but one he uses when he meeting Westerners) around the small town of Yuli where we subequently embarked on a Tour de Food before settling into (or onto) the 3rd floor of a catholic church for the night.  Keith, as discussed, was/is a much more diciplined cycle tourer that yours truly so the next morning he popped out of bed at his 5 o'clock alarm and sped off 20 minutes later.  For this reason he had easily doubled the amount of mileage that we had done, and through the mountains in Taiwan, a daunting task that we couldn't justify on our stop-and-enjoy type of touring.  However, we did have time to exchange information, in hopes that we might cross paths in the future.  But at that time we had very little interest or thought that we would visit him in Singapore.

One evening, when we were trying to decide what we would do with our cheap ticket we had been forced to buy to Singapore before entering Indonesia, we found Keith on the Warmshowers website and were very excited when he wrote saying that we should come to stay with him and meet his family.  Bali, and the rest of our time in Indonesia, had taken a lot out of us.  Though beautiful and filled with lovely people, we were tired of the days of endless heat, crazy busy roads, and seeming lack of knowledge of the existence of the "switch-back turn" whilst climbing a steep grade.  It had felt like it was taking a toll on our relationhip, with Bruce and I either fighting more or just feeling burnt out on riding altogether.  It was the first place where we had voiced the option of bailing on our trip early and if so, what we would do for the next 6 months (Bruce's relapsed fevers and illness made us seriously consider this).  In short, we were road-weary and ready for a bit more home-style respite that Singapore and staying with Keith's family could provide us.


A rooftop park with a view of some of Singapore's crazy architecture.

Singapore ended up being so much more pleasurable and refreshing than we could have imagined.  We had heard certain things about it: "It is very clean and orderly", "It is a BIG city", "It is very expensive to visit", "They are have very strict laws and enforce them with impunity".  In the end much of this was only partially true and even those truths had exceptions, as we discovered when we walked into a tunnel under a busy roadway where we came upon a flock of youths skateboarding, listening to loud music and sitting around smoking all the while be surrounded by signs reading "No skating" and "No loitering".  (I begged Chiara to take a picture of this but she refused, sorry readers).  The constant signs and reminders of what was expected of Singapore residents felt a little 1984 though, and I could imagine that I would get tired of the oversight if I lived there. 


A table full of food from the hawker stalls.

We found the food to be an amazing amalgamation of Chinese, Indian, and Malay, readily available at all hours at the myriad of "Hawker Stalls" and rather inexpensive to be honest.  Truly a nice treat as we were getting tired of the dishes that made up most of meals in Indonesia.  
There was an surprising amount of green space created by the proper planning and use of the limited lands.  Space to run, hike, cycle, boat, fly a kite, golf, and picnic was all available for residents to enjoy.  Like any city of the world it was not the mot personable place we vistied but it also was not rude and people were more than happy to help us when we needed directions.  

   
Some beautiful old neighborhoods.

Anyway, our time spent with Keith and his family was a joy.  They took us around to all their favorite eating spots, a deserved Unesco-rewarded botanical garden, a treetop hike in a monkey-filled forest, and took us to their Sunday night family dinner where we were fed like royalty and we left with a belly full of amazing homemade local foods and invites to stay with family members in our subsequent tour of Malaysia.  Also during our time in Singapore Chiara and I found a bit of time apart, a rarity these days and something than we think any touring couple would tell you is a must in order to ensure sanity and an ability to continue.