Vietnam to Singapore Bike Adventure – January to March 2019
Y'all,
During dinner with fellow biker Sam from Australia the other evening near our Ponloeu Preah Chan Guest House (Google it and then do street view if you'd like a closer look at Cambodian village life), I made the realization that bike touring's greatest technological advancement over the 37 years I've been touring has nothing to do with newer carbon fiber bikes, tires, wheels, panniers or bike things at all. Sam was an excellent case in point. Sam told us that literally the day after high school graduation in Brisbane he hit the road....15 years ago. At 33 years old, Sam looked like any other well adjusted mid thirties guy from Australia, thin but not gaunt, tanned but not fried. He was polite, well spoken and interesting to talk to. He wasn't bragging, but he's been everywhere but the Americas on his bike, riding even across all of Asia from Vladivostok, Russia.... Including cycling thru such thorny areas such as Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Simply said, Sam told us he's made a life on the road and had no intention of settling down anywhere, that he really had no home, and wasn't looking for one. Life on the road had simply become Sam's life, and he was enjoying it!
What made all of this possible for Sam, is simply the biggest aid to traveling in history....a cell phone. Sam had developed links and relationships over the years with several English language learning websites where he can teach live one-on-one with students from all over the world. Each evening when he feels like it, he uses a hotel or restaurant's WiFi to connect to a student via Skype, gets paid $10 per hour via PayPal, converts that to his bank account and withdraws what he needs at an ATM in the local currently as he pedals along. For the average American it would take some adjusting to live on $10-$20 per day, but the real trick is stuffing your whole life into a pair of panniers (saddlebags). But think of the benefits... No more CNN or Fox news, and my Asian cell phone hasn't rang in two weeks! It's crazy to think that the communist government's of Vietnam and Cambodia seem more stable, coherent and bi-partisan to me than ours does!
Sam told us that lately a woman student in Turkey had taken a liking to him and his English lessons and she was basically financing his current SE Asia tour all by herself! He said she gets dressed up really nice for their daily English sessions and she worries about him if he's late to start their lessons. Ha! What a life!
Thirty three years ago, the same summer Sam was born, I began my longest bike tour to date. A 9000 mile ride thru about 25 European countries. At that time all I had for navigation was a good sense of direction and paper maps gathered as i went from country to country. Back then, communication back home consisted of post cards that told my mom and friends where I had been two or three weeks earlier, or an expensive collect phone call if you could find a booth at the countries central phone company headquarters in a big city.
Now, the cell phone has made bike travel much easier, even if you aren't trying to make a living while riding like Sam does.
Of course, you still need to be able to push the pedals all day, and keep the front wheel out of the ditch, but your phone takes as many of the unknowns out of traveling as you wish. It also helps if your butt doesn't hurt all day, which mine doesn't, but don't bring that topic up with Rhonda (but it's getting better every day). I still never make reservations, rarely read about a place before we arrive, and in general only have a vague route planned out. I feel if you wanted to take all of those unknowns to go away too, you might as well stay home.
Invariably, when I'm at home, some one always asks if I'm scared when I tell them of my next adventure's destination. Party due to my nature and partly because of past positive experiences... I'm NOT scared….which I have come to see as a valuable gift. And, I think that friends of nine that are bikers could do this type of adventure if they got over their fear of the unknown... Which can logically be diminished greatly by use of the phone.
Rhonda and my current tandem-bike adventure across SE Asia from Da Nang, Vietnam, across Cambodia and to Thailand and beyond is just another example of the best combination of fabulous bike touring.....super interesting places, the most polite, kind, helpful people I've ever met, awesome food around every corner and cheap Luxury hotels every night. Thanks to the many Europeans that winter here, nice places to stay for cheap are abundant in each fairly large town.
On a couple days rides across the central part of Cambodia we had to ride 86 miles between hotel sized towns, but we have light weight sleeping bags and pads if we get caught out and need them, but never want to. It's pretty hot around noon to three, usually 90 degrees, so we try to get an early start on days like that. Generally, we've been averaging about 70 miles a day. Our tandem weighs 420 pounds with us on it and is hard and slow on any kind of incline, but cruises faster than a single bike on down hills and flat roads. Piloting the tandem takes more attention on my part, and more trust on Rhonda's, as she had no control over steering our braking.
Vietnam was more mountainous, while Cambodia has been mostly rolling hills and flats. About like Missouri, which looks flat from an airplane, but to a biker it's almost always going up or down. We've covered about 630 miles (1000 km) since the start in Da Nang but the real benefit to having a tandem is that we're never separated and I never have to wait! When we ride thru villages or cities big and small, people look at us like we're a UFO. Obviously, not many tandems make it here and there is really no recreational biking in these countries mostly due to the fact that they all ride motor scooters every where starting at age six.
Cambodian food is much like Thai food, with countless types of fruit in abundance. So don't feel sorry for us! Gardens are plentiful and nobody seems to be starving due to an abundance of food. Most of the forest was removed long ago for cash crops of rice, cassava and black pepper. Many water apple, mango, citrus and other fruit tree orchards are in abundance also. Pay no attention to the articles stating that there are millions of unexploded landmines and other bombs laying around Cambodia... I haven't seen one!
Yesterday we thoroughly enjoyed biking and hiking around Angkor Wat...a truly stunning place. We rode 25 miles just getting to some of the colossal ruins. A bike is really the best way to go see it. I could go on and on about it, but this does a much better job. Something everybody that has the means to visit should see in their life time.
Watch this YouTube, it's as amazing as this makes it sound, this documentary explains it very well.
https://youtu.be/KsDGDzwuQ-I
Tomorrow.... Who knows? We're having a hard time finding a reason to move on down the road from Siem Reap (Siam Defeated - in Khmer) to Siam itself.
Cheers,
Randy and Rhonda
Thailand
Y'all,
We've covered a lot of ground crossing Vietnam, Cambodia and now Eastern Thailand. We've seen many cultures slip by along the side of the road, met hundreds of really friendly natives, and we just aren't ready to call it quits yet. It takes quite a bit of effort to get your life stuffed into a pannier and then fly it half way around the world. So..........we've decided to carry on biking through southern Thailand, Malaysia and into Singapore. It's about another 1000 miles, about the same as we've done so far. We've got the Luxury Bike Touring in Asia routine down pat now, so why quit?
Now in Thailand, we're rubbing shoulders on the beach with tourists from all over the Frozen North. Because it's the week to bring in The-Year-of-the-Pig for Chinese New Years, many of the islands and beaches we've been to are filled with Chinese holiday makers. That is the biggest change to traveling in Asia since the first time I came here 33 years ago.... Chinese didn't leave their country back then, now they are the majority of the tourists you see in Asia. They are all about the package tour, not figuring out where to go, or what to do or anything on their own.
We found a ferry in Pattaya, Thailand that takes us across the Gulf of Thailand to Hua Hin, Thailand. This allowed us to save two days riding and also miss having to ride thru Bangkok, and its 10 million people, with their 10 million scooters. We had heard that they had closed all of the schools in Bangkok because the air pollution was so bad right now.
Pattaya was the main town that US Servicemen went to for R&R in the 1960-70s during the Vietnam war. It has a well earned reputation for being pretty raunchy and has grown into a huge city. Now, the city is packed with Russian tourists escaping the Siberian Winter. The hotel we stayed in last night was 97% Russian. So.......... if the Russians are hanging out where our Servicemen used to, does that mean we lost the cold war, or maybe that means we won??? Anyway, one very large Russian's T-shirt we saw announced, "Good guys go to Heaven, Bad guys go to Pattaya"!!!
Top 10 Reasons We're Keeping on Riding in SE Asia:
10) It's still February in Spokane
9) I'm getting used to that blonde girl following me everywhere I go.
8) Not sure we'd ever get back this way on a tandem ever again.
7) We're just getting used to the 90 degree heat and high humidity everyday and riding in totally soaked clothes all day.
6). We still haven't tried Mango Sticky Rice in at least 500 towns in Thailand
5) See #10...
4) I've only hitchhiked thru Malaysia, never biked thru it.
3) Why not?
2) The 30 year old tandem bike with 59 year-old engine is running strong! (Rhonda says though that the engine uses too much fuel and has bad exhaust problem with frequent backfire).
DO IT WHILE YOU CAN!!!!!
Cheers,
RG
Chapter 8 in my upcoming book: "How to Melt Away 20 Pounds in Sixty Days"
Y'all:
I think the reason I enjoy traveling by bicycle so much is because it allows you to really pack in the experiences in the given timeframe of a trip. Even on the most boring of rides, like across Texas, there is no routine day. Sure, there is a lot of legs going round and round, but because you are in contact with the ground moving beneath your wheels by your own power, you experience the climate, local population, local foods and cultures more intimately and differently. Even the smallest climate and other environmental changes make a big difference on a bike.
It seems like six months ago Rhonda and I started this trip in Vietnam, but in actuality, it's been a bit less than two months. There is no place I've cycled that gives you more experiences, cultures, sights, sounds, tastes and smells per kilometer than SE Asia. As the pilot of a 420 pound tandem it's been particularly challenging. It's been a 2000 mile (3200 km) gauntlet, or obstacle course, of constantly changing road conditions, (driving on the right side in Vietnam and Cambodia, and left side in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore), animals of all kinds on the roads, literally thousands of chaotic intersections, hundreds of thousands of scooters going by with cars, trucks, buses, road construction and every conceivable type of road debris/obstacle you could think of. I'm actually frankly shocked that we've stayed upright and didn't have any physical contact with any other traffic the whole way.
I don't think there has been a day that didn't reach 90 degrees, at times there was wind from all directions, and lots and lots of dust, smoke and exhaust fumes. And yet, we stayed upright, never came into contact with any other vehicles and survived unscathed.....AND, because of, and in spite of this, there is no place than SE Asia I would rather ride!
The absolute beauty of Thailand, it's awesome food and friendly, polite and helpful local population makes it a great place to visit. We really enjoyed many of it's southern islands both in the Pacific side as well as the Indian ocean side. The roads were in the best condition of any on the trip, most with good smooth asphalt and wide road shoulders, and even a designated bike path here and there.
Thailand had long ago been "discovered", and tens of thousands of Euros flock there in the winter. Biking thru Thailand allowed us to find the small, unhurried beach villages that aren't on the bus, train or plane routes. I would strongly suggest biking, renting scooters or renting your own car if you visit Thailand so you can get off the beaten path.
Malaysia and Indonesia have a predominantly Sunni Muslim population, 62% in the former and 87% in the later. With a total population of 250 million, Indonesia has 225 million Muslims, making it the largest Muslim country in the world.
Malaysia though, seems like the best experiment in a "melting pot" culture I've seen. Muslim women seem completely at ease standing in line for the ferry in a black burka right next to a Chinese woman in short shorts and a tube top. It seems that of the people we've come into contact with in Indonesia and Malaysia, it's the Muslim women who are the most outgoing and speak the best English. Without exception, they all ask where we are from... And then are mildly surprised when we tell them America. But always give us a big smile when they learn we've come so far on a bike to see their country.
Because it has a long coastline, Malaysia has seen colonialists and conquerers from Portugal, China, England, The Netherlands, the Middle East, Pakistan and India. They've all left population remnants that have mixed in well with the Maylay majority, while keeping some of their own traditions alive. Even traveling thru small towns you instantly know if you've entered a Maylay, Indian or Chinese store or restaurant.
It was in Penang, Malaysia, the former capital of the British Empire's Straights Settlements, that Rhonda told me she was done biking and wanted to take the bus thru Malaysia due to the extreme heat coupled with super high humidity. Although we had been through 1500 miles of pedaling together thus far and had lots of hot days riding, the higher humidity in Malaysia made the heat beyond oppressive. But still, I just can't figure her out....... Here, I gave her a front row seat-view of my sweaty arse for over a month, over massively rough/tough terrain, thru crazy chaotic traffic in oppressive sweaty heat..... and yet…. she was willing to give that all up and said no more! Oh my!! As Nathan once aptly stated on his first bike road trip with the family... "On a long bike ride you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable", and I don't think Rhonda ever did on this ride. That's not too say she didn't enjoy the entire experience, but I know for sure she did not enjoy getting on her bike seat every morning.
Since The Big Red Beast didn't fit on buses, we decided that she would wait a day in Penang and then take a bus to Port Dickson and wait for me there. I meanwhile would ride alone for the about 300 miles over the three days to meet her. The first day was 115 miles from Penang to Sitiawan and it went pretty good, but I had to stop about every 12-15 miles to tank up on liquids and try and cool down. Because I was in mostly small villages I never found any restaurants with AC but found lots of fruit and juice stands right along the road to drink at and rest in the shade. It seems the locals need to drink huge amounts during the day also. The second day I made it another 88 miles to Kuala Selangor, but the heat was really oppressive, 95 degrees with high humidity, and my phone said the "feels like" temp was 114 degrees, and I heartily agreed with my phone's assertion! Water ran out of my helmet like there was a leaky pipe in it and all of my clothes were soaked thru by 9:00 am despite the constant breeze on them. I don't know if it was because of the previous days effort in the heat, the fact that I was riding The Big Red Beast alone or a nagging head wind for 50 miles, but it seemed very difficult, particularly in the hottest part of the afternoon. The AC in my hotel room that night was really appreciated. The third day I made another 90 miles and met up with Rhonda in Port Dickson. This day required riding thru the outskirts of the mega-city Kuala Lumpur, the capital. Not my ideal bike ride.
Once in Port Dickson we decided to go on a ferry across the Straights of Malacca to Dumai, Sumatra, Indonesia for a few days, and then back to Malaysia on another ferry to Malaka, a city a little further down the emerald green Maylay coast.
Dumai, Sumatra was quite "rustic" compared to Malaysia, but it's local population was as friendly as the rest of SE Asia has been. The entire port of Dumai was obviously created to fill the many oil tanker ships anchored in the harbor with Sumatran oil and gas. This was something I'd never seen in person before. Ship filling stations lined the shores for miles. Most of the ships getting filled, I learned from a tuktuk driver, were from India.
I had noticed that there were even some Warm-showers hosts in Dumai. One of them ran the only English school in town and was willing to trade a bedroom and meals for any native English speaker coming into talk with the students. We didn't need any accommodation but we went to the school to meet the students and had a lively conversation with some 13 and 14 year olds. One of the questions they asked was what was our favorite country we visited. We vaguely deflected that one, but did ask the same question back to them. Without any dissent, each student said they hadn't been to any other country, but that if they could travel, they would certainly go to Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca on their obligatory Muslim Hajj, or pilgrimage. We had noticed on the TV in our hotel room that many of the channels were closed circuit TVs in Mecca showing masses of people walking in circles around the Kaaba in Mecca (a black box built by Abraham that is known as The House of God).
Once back to Malacca, Rhonda continued taking buses daily down the West coast of Malaysia, one days bike ride ahead, and I'd catch up in the evenings until we reached the very bottom of Malaysia at Johor Baru. JB was a huge city just across the Straight of Malacca from Singapore. I picked up Rhonda and her bag at the bus station and we finished the ride together by crossing a long bridge into Singapore.
We have friends from Washington State that have lived in Singapore for the past three years while working for the US Navy and are staying at their lovely house. We've got four days to explore this ultra-modern island City State of almost 6 Million people before we fly home. You can fit 7 Singapores into Spokane county! But it is so organized and well planned, you'd never know it.
Cheers,
RG
(as usual, feel free to pass this along to anyone you feel might be interested)
A special thanks to the half billion friendly, kind, hospitable folks who inhabit the six countries we rode thru on this trek, you really made us feel welcome. We were given thousands of hellos, sa-wa-dees, thumbs ups and most of all - smiles as we rode by.
There is not one place on this trip that I wouldn't want to go back to.
We realize, and take seriously the responsibility of knowing that we will probably be the only Americans most of the people we interact here with will ever meet.
Favorite meal (this is a tough one) massaman curry on Koh Tao, followed by mango sticky rice of course!
Strangest thing that happened.... accidently popping an engorged leach that had latched onto my ankle in Vietnam while riding a bike!
Most surprising fact.... Many fewer bugs in SE Asia than at home. It seems the birds, geckos, frogs, lizards, bats and birds take care of them. I never got a mosquito bite and Rhonda only a couple.
You know your traveling with a nurse when..... Her first aid kit is bigger than her makeup bag! Glad we never needed it!
Thanks to all of the mango and rice farmers for their hard work, and the several dozen chickens who gave their life in support to power our ride.
Special thanks to my ever-loving wife who not only let me go on another adventure.... But came with me to enjoy it all the way thru!
-Do it While You Can!!