31/12: Takin' care of business again

No route, no pics. Today we spent the last day of the year preparing for our departure from Malaysia to Cambodja. The bikes were packed by KSH bikes (nicely it seems) so it is easy to get them to the airport & on the plane. Lets hope this time it goes a lot!! smoother than the last time (*no 2w delay, no broken front forks (or any part for that matter))

Spent some Xmas cash buying a lonely planet Cambodja, thank you for the gift family Migerode. So we have some more info on the country to prepare and help us on the road. Some more shopping at watsons for sunblock, bandaids & shampoo.

Finish it off with a new years dinner at the hotel & 2 chang beers (expensivvvvvvv!) and we are about ready to call it a day :-) It's only 22:30pm...we are so going to miss new years eve :-O

30/12: Back to KL

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We had to get on the train at 8 am to Kuala Lumpur, but we we're 23 km away from the trainstation. Our alarmclock woke us up at 5am so we would be on our bikes at 5.45am. We wanted to be at the trainstation at 7am, 'cause you never know...
The trainmaster then asked us for an additional 15 SGP dollars/bike! Paying extra for your bike is normal, but that was way to much, so we said we didn't want to pay that and bargend a bit (By now we realise that most things don't have a fixed price around here). We finally still payed 10 SGP dollar per bike, but at least we saved 10$, right? The trainride was cold (again, airco is always working maximum it seems).

Once in KL we biked straight to the bikeshop where Andries packed his bike to take it back home. We asked the man at the bikeshop how much he wanted for the packing of one bike; 50rm he replied. Ardan started to laugh a bit (because we knew Andries only payed 40rm) and said: "No no, our friend came here two weeks ago and it only cost him 30rm". The man waited for a minute and then agreed. So you see: almost nothing had a fixed price...we even got it for 10rm less then Andries did :p. (he didn't bargain!) We finally got to our hotel at 6.30pm (the most expensive we've been in so far, but okay, it's for new years eve), took a shower, went for a bite and did the usual "blogthing". The two coming days in KL we will plan Cambodja a bit, read in our books and enjoy our last luxury in probably the next few months.

29/12: Mc Ritchie Reservoir

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We visited & went for a good walk through Mc Ritchie reservoir today. It's a part of the last remaining forest in the centre of singapore. It's actually never so 'remote' since you have a bunch of people enjoying the outdoors & there are military trainings all over the place (the 'troops' more looked like boy scouts tripping in the woods) although we did hear a fair amount of tnt being blasted around in some part of the forest so some of it is maybe serious ;-) Still have some doubts about that since according to all the singaporean men we talked to, the most find the idea of forced service a pain-in-the-ass & the 2y!! service is nothing more than boyscouts out for picnic. Probably it's all somewhere in the middle...

For the rest the route included a nice treetop walkway from which we had a good view over the forest up north almost all the way to malaysia, a couple of monkeys. 1 wrong turn later (which showed us a nice military gate making us track back) we got a lift from a local passing by to the bus station in the end. We also needed & got some help (from very nice lady, mary ong *note to self: send her a postcard when we are back home) to get the right bus to reach it in the first place. Once of the bike we are so damn helpless :-) Like fish on dry land.

28/12: Bikework, move, housing estate & chinatown

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Today we took things easy. (again?) Nah, we've earned some relaxing, right? So sleep out (especially compared to our host who gets up at 5am for work) go out for breakfast (& get some fresh bananacake from host his mother :-)) and afterwards work on the bikes. They needed a good cleaning & some fresh oil after almost 1500km. Then it was time to move host, a small 10km more up north to Yann (through warmshowers.org). A real friendly guy who just loves riding his bike & is planning a long worldtrip one of these days...his target for leaving up through malaysia is June...it should take him about 2y before he reaches us back in belgium to redo him the favor of hosting.

He joined us for another trip downtown trying to exchange some books (which didn't work unless we wanted to be ripped off, 2 books + 8$ for a used book!...do we look stupid to you?), some chinatown food court dinner, a stroll along the quay & a final drink. He lives in a government block (about 3000 person/block) they call the 'cookoosnests'. He has block nr 470 in his area, so start making the count...btw it is not possible to buy a house in sgp, you can lease an appartement from the government for 99y...mmmm, shady mechanism...+it prevents the really rich from owning all of sgp -property can never be an investement...always ups & downs. The area is opened up by an LRT (rollercoaster bus on rail) running through it to get everybody to work & back every day. The funny thing is that it runs close to peoples homes & to guard privacy, the windows on the bus automatically go shady at certain points...very scifi ride.

27/12: Eastcoast park, Night Safari

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To make sure we could get our bikes on the train back to Kuala Lumpur the first stop of the day was central station.
The answer from the ladie at the informationdesk was that we should check with the 'trainmaster' once we're on the train. Yeah well, that means we're not going to pack our bikes in a box in Singapore but in Kuala Lumpur and we'll see what the trainmaster says. There may be some persuading involved but we think it should be okay (or hope ;) ).

After that we went to the eastcoast. There was no one swimming, so we didn't either and just took a nap on the beach. At around 3pm we set off to the zoo. The first challenge was to find a bus stop. Then it started to rain, very hard but luckely only for 20 minutes. So we waited for it to stop and then took of again to look for a busstop. Finally we found one, but the busdrives on each side of the road sent us to the other side. After ten minutes walking back and fort, and because of that missing several busses, we finally got on the right one. The ride to the zoo took us 2 hours! (bus, metro, metro, metro, walking, bus), so we were to late for the zoo (it closes at 6pm). We decided just to do the nightsafari and therefore use the money we got as a christmas gift from my family. Thank you! We enjoyed it very much!
Note: the nightsafari isn't a real safari like you'll find in Africa, it's just a zoo, but you'll get close to the animals which are mostly not in cages and it's at night when these animals are more vivid.

Back home we ate the chocomousse together with Chou who was waiting to taste this strange dessert: he liked it :)

26/12: Sgp country side ride ;-) & downtown walk

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Went on a short 40km bikeride through the more or less 'country' side of sgp which is quite nice. There are some farms, some parks, not that much traffic and even some other bikers on the road which come out for their sunday ride. Chou & our next warmshowers host Yann both joined us so we had a local guide with us to talk us through what we were seeing, it doesn't get better than that!

Well actually it does, cause afterwards we went to a local foodcourt for a nice lunch, waved out Paul & Lauriane that were also staying here and left for Indonesia today. Wish em all the luck for the rest of their trip! Went for a walk around town: Little india, a good view of the area around the water, financial buildings, a strange looking casino/hotel "boat on 3 buildings" thing and then again a great dinner in another foodcourt. We had a good bowl of "Bah Kut Teh" which are pork ribs in soup basically, if only we knew earlier...bah kut teh every day, all day ;-) A dish of bbq'd stingray, chicken, vegetables...soooo good!

25/12: Xmas @ Orchard Rd...hell?

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So today is Xmas & we are in sgp. We moved home to Chou (warmshowers guy) who also has another french couple (Paul & Laurine, http://www.element-terre.com) staying over at his place, crowded with bikers you say? :-) We also used our Xmas gift to decorate the bikes. Not like a real tree, but its close to it.

They biked Vietnam & cambodja already, so we could ask them for some tips & hints...cambodja is great they assure us, vietnam wasn't the best experience they had (people trying to push them over, throw snake at them, consider them to be nothing more than a moving ATM machine...) Although the tourist places are nice & people are used to you there, it seems they don't really like it when you go to the countryside...w'll see what vietnam brings us.

Decided to head downtown & visit the centre, cathedral, park & go to see the lights on orchard road which was closed down to traffic for Xmas parade etc...bad move...1000's of singaporeans & others pushing & trampling each other, why do you get ideas like that? Nono, it was nice to see the lights, but after 15min we wanted to escape again :-) Which we did, headed back home & called it a night since we were still a bit tired from the party the day before

24/12: Singapore Xmas eve & Bday celebrations!

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Today was Xmas & time for us to leave Malaysia and enter singapore. We had about 10km to bike to Johor Bahru & the border...which seemed a bit more difficult to find than we hoped :-) A lot of fast moving traffic, a lot of round-n-round riding to get to the causeway bridge...but finally we got there, got the stamps & biked into singapore.

It was a hot day, real hot so we took it really easy to bike down to the city centre where we would stay the night at a couchsurfers place (Jeffrey) on oxley rd, just next to orchard rd, singpores busiest shopping strip (which is somewhat crazy the day before Xmas)
Got a really nice guestroom with ensuite bathroom, an Xmas party & birthday party so things couldn't have been better.

23/12: Johor Bahru

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At the last moment we have changed our plans & biked to Johor Bahru, because some research on the internet showed biking across the 2nd link isn't so easy after all...some say it's legal, others clearly say its illegal...sometime Malay customs don't care, singaporean do, you get stuck on the bridge for hours...mmm, not a nice forsight...so JB after all.

Got lucky & found a couchsurfer who didn't mind taking us in at quick notice...oef, his famile has just (2weeks) moved into a new house in the outskirts of JB...we get all the luck don't we? 2x couchsurfing, 2x in new houses...Sweeeet!

Very nice family (3 kids) who has hosted a lot of others before, they even keep a guestbook where all write down something. So cool (Line & I want that too). The man took us around town for a small tour of the main attractions. The sultan of johor old house (mansion is the right name), parc grounds, mosque. Oldest JB chinese temple & a visit to a local village indian-muslim restaurant...Wow, that was good food! What a flavors!

Cooked a "belgian" dinner for the family after shopping together in the Carrefour. Stoemp with carrots & chicken (cause its impossible to find boereworst around here ;-)) Not every family member seemed equally crazy for the idea of mashed patato & loads of real butter, but the middle aged son licked out the pot at the end. Mission accomplished!

22/12: Pontian Kechill...Heello Mistah!

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Heellooo Mistah!...certainly a nice greating to get from a young cleaning girl while standing in the hotel corridor wearing a tight boxer, waving the netbook around for the best wifi signal ;-)

No, honestly, its not just the girl in the hotel, it seems people are getting more relaxed the more we head down towards singapore (or it could just be us getting used to malay style...we don't think so) More & more people wave, yell "hello", ask us where & what we are doing. Is it the fact that they live along the coast? Eat a lot of seafood? More sgp influence? who's to say...

Walking around town...quite small, but at least 5 hotels. Singaporians like to come here & get down it seems. Parteh! (lets hope no loud karaoke tonight, we had that already yesterday). Found a fun store to browse through, it was even fun for Line & me, hardware to cooking supplies, sweet merchandise. Finally we only bought a bit of 2 component glue (just in case) & a keychain rubic-cube to go bonkers on the coming days.

Line also got hooked on a new drink, "Blackcurrant Aloe"...she needs at least 2-3 fixes a day or she gets the shakes...;-) Luckily 7-11, mini marts & gas stations can supply her. Cambodja will mean cold turkey.

Pontian sea view dinner in the evening. Very relaxed mood here, tables, big screens, bbq's.

21/12: Batu Pahat, owyeah, we passed the 1000km mark btw

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Going to Batu Pahat we made a detour to the hot springs. "Air Panas" It wasn't what we expected. We thought it would be in the middle of some forest, a natural hole in the ground surrounded by rocks. Well.... It was not quite that :)
It was made rather touristic, swimmingpool tiles surrounded the hot spring. Never the less, it was an experience putting our feet in the natural hot spring. And hot indeed it was!

After that we got back on our bikes, feeling the healing powers of the spring on our feet :)
We had to stop twice to look for shelter for local tropical rainshowers. Lets hope we don't end malaysia & singapore in too much rain.

Tomorrow we're of to Pontian Kecil, a good 75 km. Not much to do there, but it's our last stop before Johor Baru where we wel cross the border to Singapore on 24/12. We will also start keeping a bit track of the km's we ride (Line's idea!) so we also checked retrospectively to find out we have 1125km on the counter, the 1000km mark is shattered already, so now we have to keep a look out for the 2000km marker :-)

20/12: Muar, bustling river town

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Melaka to Muar, just 50km so we planned a more "scenic" route zigzagging around the Hw5. This plan worked fine until at some point the road disappeared into mangrove forest...oeps, google maps has some wrong info there...Luckily the detour wasn't too much, the total for today would not spiral out of control due to it (thats why we planned this today), but it left us riding the good old Hw5 again :-)

Made it to Muar easily, biked around town quickly looking around for hotel signs & settled with the first one we checked out. Hotel Leewa, its in the lonely planet, its the "best" cheap you can have in town it seems. The chinese owner told us he had bike tourers in all the time, just this morning a japanese guy checked out, day before an american woman...popular that biking it seams? Where are they, we haven't met 1 in malaysia yet...

Walked to local riverside park, read our books, ate (yet another) nasi. Prepared the rest of the trip down to Singapore. Searching for dinner in the pouring rain (monsoon style) made us go for the first thing we came along...not the best choice. "Taste the real Nyonya food"..well if that's real, its real crap. Their veggie mix smells & tastes like a donkeys-arse with a sweat gland problem (we (meaning Ardan!) presume thats how a donkey arse sweat gland issue would be). Luckily we had some other dishes to fill us up.

19/12: Lazy @ Melaka

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Andries and Karolien left early this morning to catch the bus to Sinapore at 7.30 am.
They sent us a text message at 11 o'clock that they already arrived safely.

We decided yesterday to stay another day in Melaka 'cause we don't want to arrive in Singapore earlier then the 24th of December. So today we woke up at around 10 am (so a good night sleep after two days of not sleeping very good. Although in this guesthouse we can hear the guy in the Mosque singing (very!) loud and clear at 5.30 am until 5.50 am!!) After we woke up and had our usual big plate of fruit here in Melaka, we just read a book, planned Singapore and Cambodja, ate something,...Just being lazy in Melaka :)

Oh, and we finaly didn't forget to take a picture of the funny bicycle rickshaws at night when they not only have there music screaming out of their boomboxes, but also put on their very colourful lights :) Watch them ride their stuff

18/12:Beauty, Bukit China, Dutch Fort, Mosque Island...local wisdom?

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More melaka today, andries planned a trip through town to see some of the highlights that missed the menu of yesterday.
First the musuem of beauty = old pictures, bad translations, unfortunately nothing new...just 0,5€ spent.
Second, Bukit China = biggest chinese cemetery outside of china = a very large park on & around a hill with tombs spread around. We couldn't really grasp the scale of it on pics, but its big. Also it seems thay have been stacking up deads here since a lonnnnngggggg time...explains the size of the sudden hill perhaps?
Third, Dutch fort = a small remain of a fort on top of yet another hill, with most "amsteldams" canons pointing inland (most attacks came from that side, why? We don't know)...Ardan feels the power.
Fourth, Mosque island = a modern mosque build on pillars into the sea on a man-made island in front of melaka coast. Strange, island is packed with empty, semi finished flats, shops, hotel,...& somebody continues building "the first arab city outside the arabs" on it...wtf is up with these stupid constructions??

Final, local wisdom, probably the smartest thing we've read from all the 1-liners in asia until now, painted on the side of a local school in melaka. "Academis brilliance is no compensation tp the poverty of character"

17/12: Melaka Oldtown - Dutch, Portuguese, Brtish & then Malay

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Niet goed geslapen. Vreemd wel aangezien we twee dagen achtereen 100 km gefietst hadden dus wel genoeg vermoeid waren.
Moe uit ons bed en dan toch wat opgekikkerd door lekkere verse fruitsla en een boterham met kaas, sla en tomaat te eten.
Melaka wat rondgelopen en de must sees volgens de gids bezocht.
Na de middag dan toch nog even een dutje gedaan.
Voor de rest van de dag wat gelezen, gegeten, gebabbeld...
Een rustig dagje dus.
Morgen is het de laatste dag voor Karolien en Andries in Maleisië, zij trekken zondagochtend door naar Singapore.

16/12: Another 100km to Melaka

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Initial plan was to find a place between Port Dickson & Melaka for today, preferrably along the coast...maybe a palm lined beach with chalets, pool, cocktails...we can tell you, "you can't find it here" ;-)

The coastline is quite industrial, there isn't real beach, resorts are washed down chalets or appartement with garbage fires alongside...nothing worth stopping for...so we pedalled on towards melaka in 1 go totalling again 100+km today.

Our map & Gmaps route said 86lm, but was considering following the nice coastal rd N143 all the way. However it seems the rd abruptly stops at a military base entranc?! Why? Well at that point we could see endless tankers (petronas ships loaded with crude oil) on the horizon. They have a dump station between PD & Melaka, which looks quite big (on Google Earth) so its a tactical place of interest...Petronas is  also simply the malaysian government (thats the money they use tho build Putrajaya, or that what I think) so they just build huge military camps around it to give it some protection (they have to be somewhere anyway) and voila. Forget about that nice coastal rd.

DDidn't bother to visit Melaka today, we have 2 or 3 days here so that things for tomorrow. Now we just eat, sleep & rest our weary legs.

15/12: Port Dickson

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Woke up early this morning (7am) for a new bike day. The plan was to go to Putrajaya, visit this 'modelcity' and stay there for one night. We already heared that there weren't any budget hotels, but we went anyway.
Once there, we soon realized that 'no budget hotels' meant 'only very expensive hotels', ooops :) So we quickly got back on our bikes.

Getting out of Putrajaya was an experience....
The opposite of Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur: no traffic at all!

This is a modelcity build by the government where only 10% of the buildings are occupied. It was a strange feeling, all this huge temples & buildings, brandnew raods, a big artificial lake, and almost no people in the city itself.

After leaving Putrajaya we headed for Port Dickson, another 60 km. It was a hot and long ride, but we enjoyed it. After a 100 km's we finally got to a budget hotel. Port Dickson is a very small place (according to th rough guide 'a place of little interest') so we decided to call Andries & Karolien that they better stayed one more night in KL (after their visit to the elephant sanctuary) and meet us around Melaka.

Heading for bed early tonight, 'cause a 100 km's biking makes you tired :)
Tomorrow we'll bike around 60 km to (hopefully) a little beachspot where we will take a look first before we call Andries & Karolien. If it's nice, they'll come over there, if not, we'll bike another 20 km or so and meet up with them in Melaka.

14/12: FRIM, batu Caves & Petronas

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Plan was to visit FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia) to do their Canopy-walk (rope walking in the tree tops) & afterwards Batu Caves (Indian Cave Temple).

When arrived at FRIM it seems their canopy walk is out of business for 3 months (which noboday @ Tourism Malaysia @ KL Sentral seems to know...thanks for nottin' guys) so we walked around the forest, avoiding the leeches as much as possible.
Afterwards taxied to Batu Caves, a hindu cave temple, with the tallest statue of something ;-) (It's tall)
Lots of stairs up, rewarding view from the top & agressive monkeys on the way down. Also the "souvenir" shop on the top had some catching soundtrack echoing through the cave View it here

Andries, Karolien & Line went to get themselves a 60 min full body massage. For andries it was a bit too full body ;-) Up close & personal! A 60 min massage costs about 12euro for the record, not a bad way to spent some money. Thanks to all for the gift this month to Line, she enjoyed it.

Ended the day with a visit to the petronas towers, some chinese food & ice cream. Early night, tomorrow is a bike day again.
Without Andries, he & Karolien are going elephant riding/bathing & then we should meet up in Putrajaya in the evening...lets see how that works out.

13/12: Walk around till Karolien arrives

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Andries set out early today to have his bike packed and stored in KL Sentral station for when he leaves in 10 days...all went well! Bike was still there in the indian sweatshop where he left it yesterday (he was soo happy he bought 5 guys a coke) and the bikeshop packed it up real nice. Soo nice, we will maybe also visit them to have our bikes packed for the flight to Cambodja from KL end of the month.

After that we walked around chinatown a bit, visited some local temples, another restoran "Big mouth bah kut teh", some foodstalls (fried sweet patato, banana,...yumie) and sweetsweet icecold drinks too keep cool. At around 4pm we camped out at KL Sentral, waiting for Karolien that was arriving today. After a small 45min delay she showed up & we headed back to Tropical Guesthouse together to get rid off her bag, go to get some indian food, some sight seeing.

Andries was kept awake a good part of the night yesterday by some guy who brought a "workinggirl" back to his room. Walls are just thin cardboard seperators in cheap guesthouses...everybody goes to bed early toninght. More to come tomorrow

12/12: Bike into KL city

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Yesterday we trained into KL from Shah Alam to make "arrangements" aka fix guesthouse for coming days in KL, train tickets back to KL from Singapore end of the month, guesthouse for last days in malaysia, interneting for making the bikeroute to get us into KL city etc. Lots of that stuff that kept us busy all afternoon, but all was fixed by the time we went back to shah alam.

So today we biked from shah alam into KL city, what was surprisingly pleasant?!? You can follow a dedicated motosikal/bike lane almost all along highway 2 to the centre of town where it then dissappears at some point so you "merge" with the rest of the traffic...The traffic condition itself seems a lot better than Bangkok though. Not soo many cars/busses/motorcycles and the traffic seems more organised (which is still really not compared to our standards however). So we made it to our guesthouse fine & waited for andries who took a detour to a bikeshop to have his bike prepared for the flight back home.

Bikeshop was closed (sunday, obviously) so he struggled to get the bike 1) On the train, 2) On a taxi so finally he convinced a guy in a foodstall to keep it in his place for the night so he can go back and arrange all tomorrow...Will it still be there?? We all ask ourselves :-))

Rest of the afternoon walked around KL city petronas tower park) & went to see Rapunzel 3D movie in the evening. Now tired and ready for bed.

10/12: Shah Alam

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Kuala Selangor to Shah Alam went smoothly. Left at around 9am and arrived around 1pm. The road gets more busy as we near to Kuala Lumpur though, sometimes it felt like biking through highway traffic. It doesn't feel dangerous as most drivers are used to slow bikes/motorcycles on the side of the road, but it certainly feels a bit akward for us. You do get used to it fast (like there is an option ;-))

At some point the expressway 2 (toll highway) to kuala lumpur had a seperate motosikal/bike path lining the highway. This stretch has probably been the most relaxed bike since now (motosikals do still rush by at their maximum speeds). We are hoping this continues all the way into KL, but maybe thats just wishfull thinking.

Anyway, Shah Alam. The old capitol of Malaysia, its the muslim "center" of the country. It has the biggest dome mosque in Asia & some bigass towers, the blue mosque (just look at the pics to understand). We had a short, but nice, tour from somebody (even on friday which normally is closed for non-muslims, since friday is most important prayday). He was a verse singer for the mosque & surely could sing nicely. We had got a small bigdome-echo chanting just for us.

After the visit we quitly biked away over the mosque parking where andries decided it was time to get dangerous & do a frontflip while on his bike. Imagine a soccerfield sized empty, totally flat parking with 3 bikers with 1 suddenly going over his steering wheel & slamming onto the ground?!? Strange, the guards/supervisor there couldn't understand what happened either...andries tried biking & grabbing his phone at the same time...not a good idea. A big scratch, but he's fine! Oef.

Some restaurant also caught my eyes along the road..."Restoran, Bah Kut Teh"...yeah, who needs kut thee?
We only took 1 pic, but many advertise it this way...if they only knew dutch.

09/12: Kuala Selangor-monkeys and fire flies

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We finally had a good night sleep!
It had been a couple of nights since we slept trough the night, so it was a delight waking up at 9 am.
Opened the curtains and saw a monkey climbing over the electric wire across the street and straight up our hotel.
We only got out of our hotelroom at 11 am, before that we all took a good long shower, read a book, checked our e-mails...

After that we ate something at our hotel and went for a walk nearby to the lighthouse.
Up the hill there were a bunch of monkeys.
Immediatly a guy asked us if we wanted to buy some beans to feed the monkey.
"No thanks" we thought, but when we saw the other people feeding this cute monkeys we couldn't resist and bought a bunch of those beans after all.
It was really fun.

After that we went back to the hotel and Ardan en Andries got ready to go to the nearby nature park.
I was tired so I stayed in our hotelroom.

After that a meal somewhere and of to the fireflies.
A guy on a little wooden boat lead us along the very dirty river.
Luckely we didn't pay a lot of attention to that 'cause our eyes were to busy following the little lights in the trees along the river.
Beautiful sight it was: a living christmas tree.

08/12: Kuala Selangor

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Kuala Selangor, the sometimes 1000's of fire-flies along the river is what gets people here; Fire fly in malay are called "kelip-kelip" referring to the sound they make. We plan to do some spotting tomorrow night, lets hope for a dry evening.

Basically rest of today was biking & finding a place to sleep and do our laundry...some clothes where becoming really dirty (& smelly :-)) Anyway, we even found a place with good internet connection so we relaxed a bit, reading in our books and updating blog/site/pics.

We also already booked our flight to Cambodja 2 Jan 2011 from KUL. So new-year's eve in KL & Christmas in Singapore is the plan. Already booked a guesthouse in KL for end of year (fearing potential full bookings if we wait too long) & the guesthouse even has an NY party for the guests who are "home away from home". Now looking if we can't find a couchsurfer in singapore who wants to take care of 2 extra heads around the christmas table...? If anybody has friends in singapore...?...give us a shout!

07/12:Teluk Intan to Sungai Besar

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Had a toastbread & peanutbutter (chocolat rice crisps) breakfast in front of the "giant" mall. Andries went straight into McDonanlds for some fruit juice and water, cause the mall was opening only 15min later...he just couldn't wait.

Then headed back on the 5 towards Sungai Besar where we wanted to overnight, as it was about 55km away & we didn't feel like a long bikeday. Biking was as normal...hot (although luckily it was clouded so a lot better than yesterday), couple of pitstops for some food & drinks. Finally biked into Sungai Besar, but we seemed to have missed the town a bit, cause we were back on the main 5 before we knew it...kept on biking figuring we would find another place to stay.

Saw some sign for a "Homestay" at some point and we decided to follow it since we had 60km on the counter already.
After some riding through paddy fields we found the homestay place, which only had a elderly couple that couldn't speak a word of english...a younger girl showed up after a while and we got a room. It's basic, but we can sleep for the night. This is rural country indeed (as a guy in petronas fuel station told, warned, us about).

Ow yeah, bought some sunflower seeds for snacking, according to the package they should "Bring you the happiness of delicious feeling"...sweet, translation skills aren't important, that's for sure.We a lso got some taste of highway-wildlife by spotting a huge (+-2m) lizard on the road trying to cross over before being hit by a car...shook up he crossed all the way back to side he came from...not too bright most animals.

06/12: Teluk intan

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Yesterday we had a slow day on Pulau Pangkor. Some swimming, eating, drinking, cards playing...garmin software swearing ;-)

Anyway, today left the island after breakfast. Did the 2 hills to the ferry pier smoothly, so we were ready to depart from Lumut at something before noon. Weather was getting better so we quickly slapped on some sunblock (read; quickly)
Andries noticed he destroyed one of his (plastic) pedals while pushing himself across the island probably...Lumut doesn't have a bike shop: we had to hope finding something on the road or in Teluk Intan.

Biking (total of 70km) was certainly better for Andries today, he didn't feel so destroyed as the first time. It also really felt to go faster. Refueled with some great food from a roadside shack. Potentially even the best dish we had until now....not bad for a roadshack...After that it got ***** hot at some point, pedalling & baking through a flat open strech we crossed a large bridge that pops out of the earth as a moles heap to reveal palm plantations as far as the eye could see on the otherside of the river.

Found a bikeshop at the entries of town, the friendly guys there quickly updated Andries his broken pedal for some metal ones.
Tried the only clearly posted hotel we could find (Anson) which was a bit expensive...tried another one after asking around (Aun How Home)...found it, to see it was just some houses in a residential area with a phone# posted outside...why not? Called them, somebody came, showed us a (what looked like) brandnew room, paid, got a key and thats that. The guy asked us how we found him, even he seemed surprised, locals only I guess? (or he has a freaky fetish, Some collects cars...others hotels?)

Settled down, all feeling a bit baked...some more than others...read the previously "quickly" slabbed on sunscreen?...Andries joined the club and has clear foot/arm/leg bike-tan seperation lines! Burn baby burn.

6/12...St Nicolas in Belgium...so we got the open a present from home. Had to sing a song though to deserve it!
Youtube video of us singing Thanks for the treat...mmm, speculoos tastes so good.

04/12: Ipoh to Pulau Pangkor

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Left Charles appartment this morning at eight. (Thanks again for the great 3 days: you were a great couchsurfer-host and we hope to see you next weekend!) We had a at least a solid 90 km ahead to get to the island. The weather wasn't all that great (gray and raindrops once and a while), but that turned out to be great biking weather.

After a good 90km ride we managed to arrive in Lumut to take the ferry to the island. Andries his arse is shattered on the first day! Hehehe, we are of to a good start, thats for sure. The island was super busy, it's school holiday + weekend + long weekend...oeps, all hotels are booked solid...struggled a bit to find a place to sleep, found a spot that we took (but it was shit actually) so biked back into town looking for a potential other place and with some luck found it! Back to the first place, get all our stuff, wave quickly at the guy and disappear. Now we have a relatively nice bungalow and wifi in the area. Good enough. Time to rest.

I do have to make 1 more note, Garmin Software SUCKS!! The hardware gps is fine, but there software is the worst piece of ******* ever to be developed by mankind. Especially their Training Center to use with Edge 205/305 is total crap. Maybe thats the only real crap they have, but thats what I have...anyway, ventilated again...pffff.
 

03/12: Ipoh

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Na ons ontbijt zijn Andries en ik naar een waterval gaan kijken in de jungle om de hoek. We wisten dat er bloedzuigers waren dus een lange broek aan en een aansteker mee om ze er af te branden (je mag ze er blijkbaar niet aftrekken want dan blijft mond steken). Met een bang hartje de junglestrook in. Op het einde toch maar eens checken, had ik toch wel geen bloedzuiger op mijn kous zeker?!!

Bebloede kous en flippende Line (en Andries!) als gevolg :) Kous uitgesmeten en bloedzuiger er willen afbranden. Dit werkt dus niet he mensen! Andries ook maar gecheckt, die had ook prijs. Ik heb het dus op een lopen uit de jungle gezet en Andries moest mij dus wel achterna :) Eens er uit en op een open stuk hebben we dan gestript tot op ons ondergoed om te checken dat we geen bloedzuigers meer hadden... van banden smeden gesproken ;)

Totaal bezweet en nog beetje schrik dat er nog ergens bloedzuigers zaten (maar ook wel lachen met onze reactie over zo'n klein -maar toch zeer vies- beestje) snel terug naar huis gestapt waar we het verhaal aan een lachende Ardan vertelden :)
Meteen nog eens alles gecheckt, zwemkleren aan en in het zwembad van onze Charles zijn compound gedoken!
Dat was het avontuur voor de voormiddag.

Tot bedaren en afkoelen gekomen zijn we dan naar Ipoh centrum gegaan om Andries zijn fiets op te halen. Daarna wat rondgefietst naar een grottempel om de fiets te testen. Hij rijdt verbazingwekkend goed volgens Andries.

Toch hebben we besloten om de Cameron Highlands te laten voor wat ze zijn. Op googlemaps gezien dat de hoogtelijnen toch een beetje te ambitieus zijn voor Andries en mij. Ardan zou het misschien wel aankunnen. (al is het wel verdomd zwaar werk! Continue 5% tot stukken rond de 10% voor een dikke 40km...stevige kost)

Morgen vertrekken we dan met zijn drieën zuidwaarts zodat we 13 december Karolien in Kuala Lumpur kunnen verwelkomen.

2/12: Ipoh temples + getting andries a bike!

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Our couchhoster Charles had to go to Kuala Lumpur for business so he proposed to ride andries back to Ipoh. What a guy! Andries tried to arrange a bike while in KL, but it proved to be unsuccesful...:-( We didn't think too much about the fact that andries is relatively tall, so all asian bikes available are too small. Would we find something?? Awch, imagine we can't? Luckily he decided to go to 1 more shop in Kuala where he found the best bike he found until now. He just got it to have a bike.

  

No seriously, he didn't go for this option. We figured we had to find a bike in Ipoh instead.

Anyway, while andries was on his way to Ipoh, Me & Line biked around town to visit 1 of the surrounding cave temples. Perak Tong cave temple, a big limstone cave turned into a chinese temple with 415 stairs leading to the top of the hill from where you can look over ipoh city and beyond. Rewarding views for the exercise.  Had lunch at a local restaurant where the owner-chef, Andy, was a biker as well. He was very interested in talking to us, warning us about the steep climbs to go into the cameron highlands. Is it a good plan to bike up there and down again? Time will tell, finally we spend about 2 hours sitting together in his restaurant until Andries & Charles arrived.

Andries still didn't have a bike so we went to the nearby (80y old) bikeshop in Ipoh...asked for a "big" frame and we found our way up to an oldstock stashed away in the attic, had some discussions on the price, hesitations if this was ok, but this is going to be the best deal we can find. 400rm = about 100€ and there aren't any bigger bikes around anywhere :-)
The bikeshop is building the bike up as we speak...we all can't wait to wee it tomorrow...

     oldskool!

01/12: Ipoh Town

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Took an early train down to Ipoh (get up at 5:30am, ough) where we meet up with andries in a day. He is in Kuala Lumpur since today and is trying to score a bike...cross our fingers! Also the national malaysian train company KTMB have a quite solid theme tune that is played on the train...and loud during the intro film on the onboard screen...video with the party tune

Using couchsurfing today & tomorrow. Charles, an ipoh local who just moved back to ipoh after 10y of living in New Zealand is taking us into his brandnew house (just living there for 2weeks!). Great guy, took us out for drinks, food, get malay sim cards (check column for our new nr.) and we get a personal room! Waw, couldn't ask for more.

He even has to go down to KL tomorrow, so he will pickup andries and get him back to Ipoh. Are we (he) lucky or what?

30/11: Penang National Park etc

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Another bike day, good.

First biked up the Air Itam dam which is nearby, we have to train the legs a bit if we really continue towards the Cameron Highlands (they are know as the malaysian alps, but there not really like the alps luckily). Not a really steep climb, not that long, but hard enough work.

Afterwards stopped for a visit at the butterfly farm, walk around butterflies and other creatures alike. We finally saw the gecko that kept us awake some nights whith his loud barking. Small animal, lots of noise.

We learned another fact (maybe only accoding to the butterfly farm though ;-) ) that they call butterflies this way because the old believe was they flew away with the butter (& milk)....right....how do you explain the dutch "vlinder" then??

Penang national park certainly has jungle, beaches are not that nice, OK, but we've seen better on this trip already :-)
Wildlife...well, we spotted some monkeys, in asia that hardly qualifies as wildlife i think.

On the way back another pitstop at the "Spice Farm", chilibushes, cinnamon, clove, bamboe's,...however Line remembers most how the reception guy sprayed citronella oil in her eye (apply to keep away mosquitos he said, but do not put it in your eyes...stupido...) and the numerous mosquito bites she had by the time we left again :-))  Nothing seems to help to keep the mosquitos away from her tasty blood (having her keeps them away of me, so I'm safe)...maybe try to find a bag of even more sweet blood somewhere?

29/11: GeorgeTown

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Biked around old (& slighty newer) Georgetown to see the main tourist attractions.
They call the slightly newer part "buffer" for old georgetown..it is malaysian preservation strategy..

Penang State Museum: Worth 1RM (which is about 0,25€), but Line & me usually find museum to be quite boring and this was not the exception to this date...more luck next time ;-)
Fort Cornwalis: Also worth the 2RM, old English star layout port fort. Thick walls and big ol' guns. To be considered as a garden ornament for the future, but where to find a 2ton 18th century japanese jonk canon in Belgium??
Chinese Clan house: which had a 200y old flapping door somewhere in a (seemingly) not important room? But seemed highly important to some old chinese guy who really wanted to have our & his picture taken with it. He also gave us his address so we can send the pictures to him...maybe his personal 200y old project for the museum?? It could file perfectly with the pictures about the clans "cyclo-calculator" & printer that seemed to be important enough to be memorised on a wall?? Strange characters those Chinese...

        

Biked further around, saw some mosques, more Chinese temples, Hindu temples?...It is true, Penang really is a melting pot of cultures. You see, smell & taste it all around! Good spice for live on this island. Had a nice indian dinner, Roti Canai (4 style): a bread like pancake with onion, some butter, sweet & curry sauce and nasi kandar: rice w black drenked soy sauce chicken & cabbage fried in turmeric with really good spices. Tasty!

At some point we walked into a shopping mall (luckily, cause 5min later the sky opened for the first time this day) and Line saw a wedding dress in a shop she wanted to fit...50€...mmm, should we already book a return ticket for shopping after the trip?? Not yet, the dress wasn't right around the tits, but a dress for 50€ + flight 500€ is still a cheap wedding dress.

27-28/11: Bkk to Butterworth, Malaysia

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Om 12u de laatste Thaise maaltijd verorberd (of toch tot in april) en ons dan naar het station in Bangkok begeven om de trein te nemen naar Butterworth in Maleisië.
Ondertussen nog een Nederlandse vrouw ontmoet die 5 weken in Noord-Thailand en Laos ging fietsen (je ziet we zijn zeker niet alleen met zo'n gekke ideeën).
Op de trein voor zo'n goede 22u (wat er uiteindelijk 24u waren) is ook weer een ervaring.
Al was het verbazingwekkend comfortabel:
Overdag twee zitplaatsen per persoon en 's avonds/'s nachts een redelijk goed bedje.
Het was wel zeer koud op de trein (en zeer licht doordat de lampen uit veiligheid steeds aanblijven. We waren hier gelukkig op voorzien en hadden onze slaap-oog-lapjes bij de hand:) ).
Die mannen zetten de airco ook super hard, waardoor je dus in zo'n warm land waar het altijd +30°C is geweest met een dikke fleece op de trein zit (wat dan weer een hitteshock geeft als je moet uitstappen bij de grensoversteek/douane).
Soit al bij al blij dat we gekozen hebben om de trein door te nemen naar Maleisië en onze geboekte vlucht gelaten hebben voor wat het was.
Nu zijn onze fietsen veilig bij ons (al waren ze bijna terug richting Bangkok gegaan met de cargo-wagon die ze los koppelden op de grens! Chancekeuh! )

Hier in Maleisië is het vochtiger dan in Thailand.
Het regenseizoen zal daar wel deels voor iets tussen zitten.
We hebben dan ook onze eerste Maleisische stortbui meegemaakt.
Om half vijf 's avonds begon het hier goed te drashen.
Dit gebeurt blijkbaar elke dag rond dat uur.
We zullen onze klok er dus op gelijk stellen en zorgen dat we onze kilometers van de dag gefietst hebben voor de hemel openbreekt.

Op naar het Maleisische avontuur.

L&A

26/11: Bangkok

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Goed nieuws!
Mijn nieuw paspoort was deze week aangekomen en dit zijn we vandaag gaan ophalen bij de ambassade.
Op het fietske door de ochtendspits in Bangkok: een ervaring :)
Mini filmpje van het "dansende" verkeer

We moesten daarna nog naar het immigratie kantoor om een stempel te halen (wat nu verhuisd was een dik half uur rijden van centrum Bangkok).
Het gerust hart was er eerlijk gezegd pas toen we mijn paspoort met de stempel in in handen hadden.
We wisten namelijk niet wat te verwachten van het immigratie kantoor (niet Engels sprekende - wat onofficieel baht innende ambtenaren zoals bij de aangifte van verloren paspoort bij de politie???).
Dit bleek alles behalve dat.
Een immens gebouw, met enorm veel loketten, een zaal vol niet-Thai, maar alles zo geregeld!
Geen probleem dus :)

Op de terugweg (met een gerust en blij hart dat ik Thailand terug uit kan :) ) nog goed kunnen lachen met de taxi-chauffeur die de tuktuk-drivers mooi kon nadoen.
Terug in centrum BKK een treinticket gekocht om morgen naar Maleisië (Butterworth) te treinen, om van daaruit de ferry naar Penang te nemen.
We hadden geluk, want het waren zo goed als de laatste plaatsen (weliswaar niet meer in dezelfde cabine, wel zelfde wagon... hopelijk kunnen we met een brede glimlach met iemand wisselen morgen, en anders is het maar zo).

Op naar een nieuw land!

24/11: Ko Samet Beaching

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Did absolutely nothing today. Went to the beach, sat there, swam a bit, drank something, read a book, swam a bit more, laid down a bit more...perfect. Additionally the island was cut off from the electricity grid for most of the day, so there was absolutely nothing else to do anyway! Island-style.

23/11: Ko Samet Exploration

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Started the day by staying in bed until we wanted to get out. We didn't need to do or go anywhere, so we didn't need to set the alarm. Woke up to read in our little Moleskin diary that it is "World Beads-day" (only according to the Migerode family probably :-), because we could not find any reference to it on google...& google knows all, right?). Thanks for the colourfull bike-rim tuning components, because the thai were starting to ask themselves why our bikes are so plain & stock...they loveeeeee tuning of the over-the-top-colourfull kind.

We now both have proudly pimped-out front wheels! Check out the pics.
They also make a cool sound now when going round.

For the rest of the day I (Ardan) biked over the island. There is only 1 road and it is MTB worthy. Dirtroad with hills and lots of loose gravel. This is also the reason why all mopeds on the island are camino-cross worthy tuned with offroad tires and there are a handfull of pickup-only taxi's (Toyota Hilux baby, everywhere in Asia...).

Now, we're going to take a walk over the island, have dinner and check out what a full moon party is al about.

22/10: Ko Samet

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Yesterday was Loy Krathong, but in Maephim where we stayed it was celebrated moderately.
On the oneside it means we did not see hundreds of lights going up in the sky...on the otherhand we could sleep cause there wasn't too much party noise...to us it seams a balanced trade-off.
In the evening we felt like eating a western meal in stead of Thai food once again.
Line enjoyed it very much. She almost licked off her plate. We ate chicken/pork, peppersauce/mushroomsauce, baked patatoes/french fries. I must admit it was very tasty and a wellcoming change in food.

Today biked down the coast to Ban Phe for a boat to Ko Samet. Another island on the way ;-) We will stay here until we catch a bus back to bangkok to get Line's new passport and then we are thinking about boarding a train down to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with a 1-2 day stop in Butterworth. Train is not that expensive, you get to see a lot out of the window (more than a plane anyway) & it should be easier & more safe with our bikes. (Remember the sh*t we had with the planes until now).

Otherwise Ko Samet is just as the books say. It's quite touristic, but for a valid reason. It has beautiful beaches, perfect weather and we feel a more relaxed vibe than Ko Chang. Partly maybe due to the fact that the island is a lot smaller & only has a dirt road that meanders across it. We will keep you updated on what we do & see the following days...Tomorrow is Full-moon, so there is bound to be some partying going down. Maybe the perfect way to close our first part of thai coast?

20/11: Mangrove adventure

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Vandaag vertrokken we uit ons duur hotel (1000 baht) om ergens vlakbij een goedkopere slaapplaats te vinden zodat mijn knie nog een dagje kon rusten.
Fietsen ging eigenlijk wel dus besloten we om iets verder dan gedacht te fietsen.
Uiteindelijk had ik heel de weg geen last dus dan maar meteen doorgefietst.
Op de teller stond vandaag toch weer zo'n 80 km (zeg ik met trots ;) ).
Deze keer zonder kniepijn!
Dank u ijs, gele 'wonder' olie en een halve mobic :)

Om ons geluk niet te hard te testen, vanavond toch maar weer ijs op de knie en morgen echt een dagje rust.

We zitten nu weer ergens aan de kust, zo'n 25 km van Ban Phe (waar de overzet naar Ko Samet is).
We houden ons dus wel bezig.
Zolang we zo vooruit geraken zit het snor.

Dit weekend is het Loy Krathong (lichtfeest) in Thailand.
Morgen worden de lichtjes pas opgelaten, maar vandaag is het al 'vollenbak' Thais lawaai en karaoke :)
Hoe luider, hoe beter en hoe meer plezier blijkbaar.

Maandag vertrekken we dan voor een kort fietstripje naar Ban Phe en Ko Samet waar we waarschijnlijk tot en met woensdag zullen blijven.
Donderdag bus/trein naar Bangkok waar we dan paspoort ophalen/stempel halen bij immigratie/treinticket boeken naar Hat Yai.
Zaterdag zijn we dan hopelijk op weg naar Hat Yai waar we dan dinsdag de vlieger naar Kuala Lumpur nemen.

Allemaal voorlopige planning natuurlijk (behalve vlieger op dinsdag 30/11), want de plannen kunnen nogal eens veranderen op onze reis zoals jullie al gemerkt hebben.
Dat houdt het spannend he! :)

L&A


19/11: Just a little exercise

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Today we kept things very still. After the big, first ride yesterday and Line already feeling her knee a bit, we biked as little as possible while still trying to move forward. Killed time by sitting in a hammock on the beach drinking a cola. Swimming in the "resort" pool, going out for some rice & crab.

But for some strange reason the coastal road we are now riding has a brandnew bike path on it? There isn't a Thai riding a bike?? so why a bike path? Just for 'falang' travellers? Anyway, thank you Thailand for making it easy.

18/11: First real bike day

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Left Ko Chang early, got the first or 2nd ferry off the island. We wanted to get a headstart to try and bike most of the trip through not too hot weather. We had some target in mind, but were not too sure if it was achievable...From the middle of ko chang to Chantaburi or Laem Sing...in both case certainly we had a good 80km of biking to do from the ferry pier on thai mainland...

Anyway, there is only 1 way and thats forward. So we set off from the pier in Laem Ngop after some "meat-on-stick" & "sticky rice" (which will probably be the main fuel on this trip). Soon we felt that 10am is already pretty hot for biking ;-), some more sunscreen and off we got.

Line had a bit of a hard start. She didn't seem to enjoy the biking all that much...oeps. Luckily after some km which were not going up & down & a cold cola, it got better. The moment we stopped for a fresh watermelon on the side of the road everything was perfect again. We stopped here & there, mostly to drink, eat, put on sunscreen (again) & to rest a bit.

Finally we decided to go to Laem Sing Beach & not Chantaburi (the gem capital of thailand) since from there we should be able to follow the coast until Ban Phe and we don't care about gems anyway...after 80km we finally arrived in the Laem Sing Beach area, but found a bit strange, deserted looking, worn-down beach side bungalow parks with crazy prices for the night...oeps again?

We continued biking in the planned direction for tomorrow (day after?) for another 5km following some hotel & beach posted "Ao Yang" in the hope to find something better...otherwise we would have settled for it, cause we were getting a bit tired.
We arrived at Ao Yang, a very small orange sand bay, with beachside seafood stalls & 1 (again empty?) hotel with discount!
Perfect! Rooms are nice, they have wifi and the drinks are cheap. Had a nice crab, rice dinner looking out into the bay.

Now we can rest our tired bodies with this view. So far, we like thailand...

    

17/11: Snorkling Ko Rang

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Vandaag gaan snorkelen.
We waren eerst van plan om te gaan duiken, maar beseften dat dit voor geen één van ons beiden eigenlijk nodig was.
Snorkelen was evengoed (en veel goedkoper).

Op een gezellige boot, met max. 20 mensen naar Ko Rang gevaren.
Ondertussen konden we op het dek in de zon op matrassen genieten van het uitzicht.
Aangekomen in het Maritiem park van Ko Rang het water ingedoken.
Meteen heel wat mooie vissen gezien.

We hadden een plastic zakje gekocht, speciaal om je camera onderwater mee te nemen.
Dit bleek niet eenvoudig om foto's mee te trekken, je beweegt namelijk steeds in het water :)
We hebben toch enkele foto's kunnen behouden die niet volledig wazig waren.

     

Om te lunchen zijn we naar een parelwit strand bij een ander eilandje gevaren.
Dit was echt zoals in de film: wit strand, turquoise water, kleurrijke vissen in het water.

 
Wat is het leven toch hard ;)

Het was wederom een zeer geslaagde dag!
We hebben er wel een zeer rood vel aan over gehouden (we hebben ons nochtans meermaals ingesmeerd, maar water en zo'n felle zon winnen het toch van de zonnecrème precies. Hopelijk wint de aftersun met aloë vera het van het rode vel).

16/11: Short, Hard Bike & Hamock Time

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On Ko Chang you can really hold a genuine cycling classic in true flemish honor!
The winding road goes up & down like a furious hell vixen. Some climbs are ridiculously steep, with hairpin turns on which the inner curve is totally impossible to ride up. Even cars don't use the inner curve on some because the cars can not make the inclination angle!

So after having biked 2 bays further down (about 10km ups & downs) to Ao Bai Lan, we decided to call it a day :-)
There is no need to bike any further down the island anyway...we have everything we want here.

Very nice guesthouse/bungalow resort? (Paradise Cottage) with sweet lounge music on the terras, elevated open huts with hammocks to relax in while looking out on the palm tree lined ocean. All with drinks and food in arms reach. A bit over budget for every day, but we have to enjoy our stay on the island, right?

    

Since we did not go diving on the south coast we booked a full day snorkeling trip for tomorrow to a remote Coral island (Ko Rang) as compensation. We also already decided to take a 'pickup taxi' back to the pier instead of biking it back the day after tomorrow. That way we will at least not be destroyed by the time we start biking on the thai mainland again.

15/11: Ko Chang Island - Hat Klong Phrao

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Heerlijk ontbijtje in onze guesthouse in Trad.
Opdracht voor vandaag gelezen: dag van de dynastie dus onze driekleur vastleggen op camera.
Meteen een knaller van een foto genomen, al zeggen we het zelf :)

   

Daarna hebben we 25 km gefietst naar de pier om de ferry te nemen naar Ko Chang.
Nog wat sticky rice ingeladen (wat echt een lekker snackje is), en op de ferry gestapt.

Tegen dat we op Ko Chang aangekomen waren was het al goed warm.
Toch met volle moed aan de tocht begonnen richting westkust van het eiland.
We hadden al van mensen gehoord dat er sterke stijgingen waren.
Na de eerste berg dachten we: "oh als het dat is, valt het mee".
Daar kwam de tweede berg!
Man man man, wat was dat!
Ik ben afgestapt, maar Ardan is helemaal tot boven gefietst!!
Ik dus de fiets die ook wel minstens 25 kg woog de hele berg opgeduwd.
Ik kan jullie zeggen, dat was ook geen lachertje!
Iedereen die je voorbijsteekt op een brommertje of in de auto.
Ze lachen en trekken een gezicht van: "welke idioten gaan hier met de fiets op??" ofwel roepen ze aanmoedigende zinnen :)
Beiden bovengekomen volledig nat in het zweet.
Uitdrukking Ardan: "ge zijt just gaan zwemmen met uw kleren aan!"
Al was het bij hem niet beter: zijn t-shirt was doorzichtig geworden :)



Soit, op adem gekomen, een lange afdaling en nog wat platte wegen verder, aangekomen bij een guesthouse.
Hutjes op het strand, beetje vergane glorie, maar toch ook wel idyllisch.
Gezwommen in heerlijk water als beloning voor onze inspanning.

       

Leuke eerste echte fietsdag!

14/11: Trat

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Om zes uur opgestaan, op onze fietsen gekropen en naar het busstation gefietst om Bangkok eindelijk achter ons te laten.
Na een busrit van zes uur (wat best meeviel) aangekomen in Trat.
Fietsen uit de bus geladen (die waren mooi ingeladen en kwamen er dus ook heel uit: UPS kan nog iets leren van die mannen :) )
Gefietst naar een van de hostels uit de Rough Guide: Basar Garden.
Een guesthouse met slechts drie kamers.
Een fantastisch mooie en grote kamer voor maar 250 baht (+/- 6€).
Gevoel dat je in een mooie boomhut slaapt (we doen al ideeën op voor in onze tuin).

   

Het is hier zo heerlijk rustig!
Het weer is ook weer fantastisch, de zon straalt en het is meer dan 30 graden.
Genoeg drinken en voldoende zonnecrème is dus de boodschap.

Lekker gegeten en dan een toertje met de fiets gedaan door Trat.
Eindelijk nog eens mango met rijst gevonden op een marktje!
's avonds nog de bekende gele olie van Trat gekocht (goed voor alles wordt gezegd: muggenbeten, spierpijn, verstopte neus, zandvliegen,...).

Morgen gaan we waarschijnlijk de ferry naar Koh Chang nemen.
Wie weet blijven we daar wel voor vier dagen om daar ons duikbrevet te halen (ipv op Koh Tao in zuiden waar het nu toch regent).
We zien wel...

We genieten van de rust, de zon, de omgeving,... (en van onze fietsen ;) )

L&A

13/11: When it rains, it pours...

...and after rain there must be sunshine?

Yesterday evening (night?) around 23:30h we got the bikes delivered to our guesthouse by UPS. Quickly unpacked the boxes (which seem to have had a bit of a rough ride from belgium to here) to check if everything was OK...to our horror both bikes have bent front forks. 1 is bent backwards, 1 is bent shut and to the side. Aluminium forks, so game over. No way to bend back or whatever, need replacements.****

            

How much bad luck can a person have before even having started their bike holiday??
We dare no longer ask ourselves the question :-)

In some way we are lucky to be in Bangkok from all places where there is a chance of getting it fixed.
Today we quickly located Probike.co.th shop not too far from our guesthouse & got 2 taxis to take us & the bikes to the shop.

New, oldskool steel, mtb forks are available. The cost is normal (around 30euro/fork) and work hours are ridiculously low. (2,5euro/hour) They told us we could get our bikes back on monday morning...Shit, another weekend in Bangkok. We really want to get going...But, maybe our bad luck has changed for the better as we just got a call they will already be ready today & we can go and pick them up!

Lets hope they managed to fix them nicely, re-adjust gears etc. so we can get out of Bkk tomorrow.
Plan is to take a bus east (with our bikes, without destroying them)

Latest update
Just picked up the bikes. Yesss! They work fine. Finally we are ready to hit the road. The guys at Probike are the hero's of the day.
We biked just a couple of km's (Probike to guesthouse) but at least we are finally pedalling away!

    

At the same time met an american couple that just arrived to bkk and have already been biking for about 5 months through America & Europe. They will now begin the azian part of their adventure. www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/roseandgary2010

And so the 2nd part of our adventure can finally begin....:-)

11/11: Back to bkk...

Got out of bed a little after 6 o'clock to get the early train from Kanchanaburi to Bangkok.
Met a Belgian guy living in thailand (Karel) that was also riding his bike. Asked him for some tips about biking around thailand, getting them on the train, etc. It gave us a idea of the conditions and it seems quite OK generally.

Back in bangkok we soon realised that UPS had not yet delivered our bikes in the hostel...which should already have happened yesterday. Good thing we already stayed 1 night longer in Kanchanaburi...called & mailed around to UPS thailand, saw a new delivery date of 17 Nov?! in the UPS tracking system that scared the living **** out of us. :-O

Finally got contact with them and they said bikes will be delivered tomorrow, no hour specification yet.
Well, we keep positive & wait for them just that little extra time?

Rest of the day in bangkok:
-Buy an additional map of thailand with more clear discription of the smaller B-roads This way we can navigate a bit more clearly from town to town. Found a good Rough Guide, waterproof 1/1200.000 one at Asian Books (Siam Discovery Tower, 3rd floor) for 250B

Tomorrow we check out the bus connection to the east (pattaya) and if/how we can take the bike with us. Normally we would have had the bikes today, leave tomorrow by train (which doesn't ride in the weekend, ***) So we have to figure out how to do by bus or stay in bkk until monday which is NOT AN OPTION. We know bkk by now! It's time to get the show on the road :-)

Karel also gave us the tip to carry around a watergun in case you need to scare a dog away.
It seems to be the most effective way next to suddenly stopping your bike if they chase you (however that move is a bit contra-instinctive don't you think?)

10/11: Elephant Riding & Bathing

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We decided to stay 1 more day in Kanchanaburi. The weather is perfect, hostel (VN Guesthouse) is great,...so why get back to bangkok in a hurry? Bikes should be there somewhere today, but it means they will still be there tomorrow :-)

We used the first (monthly) gift from Toon, Andries, Karolien, Stijn, Lore, Yves & Babs for some elephant riding and bathing.

The travel agents description of the acitivty is as follows:
"A program is special: Arrive an elephant villages, from that time you will have fun to sit the elephant, ee the nature of the forest, river, elephant village and way of being life of wet elephant nurse and the elephant, and thereafter you will have enjoy and meet with the excitement, by the bath gives the elephant in a river" ?!???

To be honest the riding is OK (fun, but the elephants do the same lap over & over...), on the otherhand the bathing is super.
You ride into the Kwai & get to splash around with an elephant called Bopuh. This part they seem to enjoy a lot more!
Thanks a lot for the experience. We are already looking forward to use the gift in December!

 

9/11: Erawan Falls

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Today made a daytrip from Kanchanaburi to Erawan Falls.
2h bus ride up and another 2h back, but relaxing on a Thai bus is certainly not such a bad way to spend some time.
The busses are totally "pimped" out with bright colors, chrome, plastic trim, 2000W+ worth of amplifiers,...fabulous.

Erawan falls is a 7-level waterfall with a trail along it which you can hike up.
Not difficult, quite touristic (even on a tue visit, I wouldn't do it on a weekend) but the nature and pools to swim in on the levels are stunning. The Erawan national park who manages the site charges a 200B foreigner-only entrance fee.
A condition which seems to be standard in Thaiand, as a falang the train, bus, entrance etc are always more expensive...hell, good thing they do not charge ridiculous amounts.

At each level you can swim in pools, one level more beautifull than the other.
Some of the bigger ones have fishes in them that wil come and suck on your feet.
If you are tickly, you have to keep moving around.

Surronding the falls are groups of opportunistic (fierce!) monkeys that will come and grab stuff out of your bag while you are in the water. We saw one stealing a bag of tissues, he was disappointed when opening his winnings :-)

8/11: Kanchanaburi: River Kwai

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Falang, falang... falang falang!
Deze woorden klonken ons als muziek in de oren.
We waren vandaag namelijk in Kanchanaburi en hebben hier wat rondgefietst met gehuurde fietskes van de guesthouse.
Weg uit de grootstad Bangkok en op naar de rust.

Deze trein hadden we bijna niet gehaald.
Tip: wanneer je aan een taxichauffeur in Bangkok zegt dat je ergens moet zijn en hij knikt zo wat twijfelend ja, volg dan de weg op je kaartje! Hij rijdt dan namelijk zomaar ergens heen :)
We hebben hem dan uiteindelijk de juiste weg opgestuurd, maar hij stond dan in de file.
We hebben dus zo hard naar het station gelopen dat het zweet van onze ruggen liep!
Soit, we hadden de trein net, en de rust kon beginnen.
Drie uur op de trein, maar we zagen eindelijk de Thaise natuur en voelde ondanks de hitte steeds een fris briesje op onze snoet.

Aangekomen in onze hostel kwam er nog een gelukzaliger gevoel dan we al hadden.
Onze kamer en de guesthouse zijn dik in orde (groot, proper, kamer aan de river Kwai, het personeel is super vriendelijk, zeer goedkoop).

Het is hier echt super warm, dus ons klein fietstochtje hebben we om twee uur onderbroken voor een glaasje, hapje, boekje, 'rustje' op het terras van de guesthouse (al liggend op matrassen hangend over de river Kwai) --> gelukzalig gevoel bij ons beiden!
Wanneer het wat frisser was opnieuw wat rondgefietst.
Het gaat warm zijn tijdens ons zes maanden!
En daar zijn we gelukkig mee :)

   

Plan morgen:
Erewan watervallen, 70 km buiten Kanchanaburi.

L&A

7/11: Jatuchak market

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We visited the famous Chatujak weekend market in the north of BKK together with Bram & Karlien.
Two friend of us who are on their honeymoon in Thailand.

8000!! stalls selling everything from teak furniture to animals, toilet paper, shirts...you really can find anything here. Very busy, extremely hot, but certainly amusing for a couple of hours after which you need to escape again.
No better way then a 2nd trip to lumpini park.

Tonight we finish planning our 3day trip to Kanchanaburi (River Kwai) until wednesday.
Then we come back to bkk to (hopefully) get the bikes and start travelling.

A&L

6/11: Lumpini Park & Local Thai

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Today we visited Lumphini Park.
An oasis of green and rest in the hart of Bangkok.
A welcome surprise to spend the day on a bench, feed the fishes, watch a huge "lizard" come out of a pond...

   

In the evening we met with a thai friend of a work collegue.
Had some food, some drinks, a birthday celebration.

In thailand everyone in the bar will sing for the birthday person, every table in the bar gets a slice of the cake (oreo chocolat/vanilla cake)and the birthday boy sings a song for the bar. Karaoke/singing = fun for thai.

PS: Huge buildings in the center are totally abandonded...Strange...
 

A&L

5/11: North BKK-Nonthanaburi

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Today we took the Chao Praya Khan ferry to the most north station, Nonthanaburi.
A solid 45min boat trip through Bkk up north. It should have been a bit more relaxed & not so busy there...however it seemed there was a longboat rowing event today...not the hoped "peace" we tried to find, but all-in-all nice to see.

Walked around a local market. You can find everything here...even things we do not know what they are...check out the webalbum for pictures.

Thai event style is basically an MTV clip which has been over-dramatized ;-)
From what we understood it was a traditional? rowing event with large teams (100 rowers?) accompagnied with really loud comentary that could be heard throughout the city (5km away?), fire works (=tnt), shortshort-biking dancers in a tower grabbing the pole with R&B & madonna music...mmmm, special. That's for sure.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB8AGnXZHDQ
  

A&L