North from Singapore

[GeoffL]

I have time off work, the family's gone home for a holiday, I have a large KTM that can ride in, through or over pretty much anything, and all of south east Asia is at my doorstep. Not a hard decision.

I left yesterday morning, with everything I need for two weeks packed into some Andy Strapz panniers and a big orange (of course) drybag strapped to the back of the bike. I had this wonderful feeling of elation after crossing the border into Malaysia, faced with an open road, no traffic, the sun shining down on me and no fixed plans other than that Chiang Mai might make a good destination. If I don't get sidetracked on the way. I didn't have any idea where I was going to end up that night - maybe Malacca? KL? Cameron Highlands? A guy in KL has offered to let me try out one of his paragliding wings if I could get there that afternoon or the Sunday morning, so that might be a good place to aim for. Besides, Malacca went past too soon for me to think about stopping.

I quickly decided to put as many miles under my belt as possible on the first day, to get away from the places you can get to easily from Singapore. So I shot up the North-South Highway as fast as I could, dodging the occasional rain cloud. Then failing to dodge the occasional rain cloud. Then riding into a thunderstorm, making the best of it for twenty minutes only to pull over and wait the storm out.



This was torrential rain - cars were leaving bow waves on the highway, and visibility was very low. That expressway's hair-raising enough at the best of times, given most drivers' attitude to lane markings (an interesting guideline) and personal space (as in 'my personal space is 6 inches behind your rear wheel until you get out of my way').
I waited out the thunderstorm for half an hour or so, then got back, soggily, onto the bike and headed north again - only to find that the thunderstorm had also headed north, so I had to go through it all over again. It never really stopped after that, just occasionally got a little less torrential. Paragliding in KL was clearly going to be a washout, so I went past and just kept heading north, pitying the lass dressed in shorts, t-shirt and sandals riding pillion on her boyfriend's sportsbike as they shot past me through the rain.

The rain slowed the pace down somewhat so I knew I wouldn't make the Cameron highlands that night, and opted instead for Bukit Fraser, a hillstation about 100km north of KL. The road up to Fraser's Hill steadily left behind traces of civilisation as it wound up through the rainforest, twisting and turning for 40km or so through lush greenery. I stopped to catch my breath and could hear nothing but birds and insects - there was barely another vehicle on the road.



The last 8km or so is up a mountain road - Jalan Gap - only wide enough for one car at a time. There aren't even passing places, so instead there's a guardpost at the top and bottom and a strict schedule: cars may go up the road during the odd-numbered hours, and may come down the road during the even-numbered hours. I got there at about half six, so waited at the bottom until it was opened again at 7.



Unfortunately the historical Gap Resthouse, a colonial relic where one could have tea and scones while waiting for one's turn to drive up, was closed for refurbishment, so I spent the time chatting to a Chinese guy heading up to Fraser's Hill for a friend's birthday barbeque. He's a fourth-generation Malaysian citizen, but still refers to himself as Chinese, mostly because the Malays seem not to particularly want him or his race. Malaysia is a welfare state, so hospital fees are low - as long as you're ethnic Malay. The Malay Chinese and Malay Indians pay the same taxes that fund the hospitals, but have to pay higher fees to use them. Similar rules apply in commerce and banking - preference is given always to ethnic Malays, a legalised racial discrimination.

I got to the top just as the night drew in, and squelched into the first hotel I could find, my hands shriveled and wrinkled like a geriatric's from the hours of rain. The enticing looking Malay buffet was unfortunately set up especially for a group for the University of KL, so I had to order a la carte, choosing from those well-known Asian delicacies of chicken drumstick, lamb chop or fish and chips.

Unpacking gave me a chance to find out just how waterproof my various bags were. The panniers, the big orange dry bag and the waterproof case for my phone/gps did just fine, but my little handlebar bag clearly had given up the struggle against the rain a while back. Unfortunately that was the bag that the map was in, but as it was a 1 to 1,500,000 scale it never had been much use anyway.

Waking up the following morning I discovered that my room had one hell of a view across the mountains, all covered in untouched rain forest. I could see three or four other buildings in the foreground, near the hotel, but apart from that it was rainforest all the way to the horizon.



There didn't seem to be a great deal to do in Fraser's Hill, so I headed on North again. My original intention was to head for Kota Bharu, the capital of Kelantan, and only partly because the main beach there is called the Beach of Passionate Love. Unfortunately the road across the mountains was blocked by a landslide, so it was back to plan B: lunch in Ipoh, dinner in Penang.

The road back down from Fraser's Hill was even lovelier in the daylight. There can't have been a straight longer than 50 yards or so in 20km, and the views alternated between dripping, mist-shrouded rainforest and this lake



...which doesn't exist, as far as I can tell. I tried looking it up on Google Maps to find out what it's called, but the satellite picture clearly shows that there's no lake there. Must have been the mother of all heat hazes, then.

Ipoh seemed fairly nondescript. I'd heard good things about this town of tin-mining millionaires, but up close it seemed far less enticing. Maybe it was because it was a baking hot noon, maybe because it was Sunday - who knows. I stopped for some Mee Hoon with Cockles (!) and caused much excitement amongst the stall holders and patrons. I don't speak Bahasa Malaya, but even I can recognise the Malay words "KTM", "Singapore" and "motosikal", which seemed to crop up in every conversation in the place while I was there.

Then up to Penang, and across the world's third-longest bridge (apparently) into Georgetown. I headed through Georgetown and out to Batu Ferringhi, which used to be a backpacker hangout many years ago but is now a commercialised resort full of Holiday Inns, Hertz rent-a-cars, Australian tourists and hundreds of stalls selling fake watches and DVDs. However, I've found a comfortable guesthouse, the beach looks good and after about 1100km and 16 hours in the saddle, it's time for a rest, so I'll probably stay here and laze in the sun tomorrow. More next time I get somewhere with Internet.

[Gadget Boy]

Beautiful!! We don't get to see much of Malaysia here.. thanks for the insight into their class system and detailed report

Looking forward to more..

[blackie]

Fantastic! I miss riding those places. Formerly from Singapore and now hiding out in Canada
From Penang if you still have time, go across the Grik highway to Kota Bahru and take the coastal route back to SG via Kuatan and Mersing. You won't regret that trip!

[vOOdsy]

Nice photos, miss my homeland (from Negeri Sembilan orignally).

Oh and I miss the wonderful food there too

[GeoffL]

Ah well, v00dsy, here's a couple of photos for you then...



I'm not even sure what the first dish was - can you identify it?

Geoff

[GeoffL]

Blackie, I'm planning to come back down the East coast, if time allows. I've only ever seen the West Coast of Malaysia so far

[Icecream]

Great RR GeoffL. I'm looking forward to the next installment.

[GeoffL]

My rest day on the beach turned out to mean only half a day on the bike, as it would be rude to come to Pulau Penang and only see one place, wouldn't it? A quick lap round the island seemed in order.

First stop was the Buddhist Temple of the Azure Cloud, improbably set in the middle of an industrial estate south of Georgetown.



The Church of England is worried about constantly declining attendance, and now I know the reason why: they don't have Pit Vipers!



Buddhist temples do (well, this one does, anyway) and Buddhism doesn't seem to have declining attendance. This must be the reason. Being confronted with one of these things would certainly keep people awake during sermons. Apparently these ones are the descendants of snakes tamed by the monk who founded the temple, and seem to have grown accustomed to camera flashes and the occasional manhandling by an overzealous photographer (not me, I don't entirely trust the claims that they've all been devenomed) in return for a steady supply of tasty eggs.

Further on round and a brief stop at the Titi Kerawang waterfall (gotta love these names)



...and a pause to inspect a hitchhiker I picked up somewhere...



...then back to Batu Ferringhi ("Foreigner's Rock") for an easy afternoon by the beach.



Yes, that upside-down thing above the horse is a parrakeet/macaw/parrot/bird-thing. It was tethered to a branch of a tree by the bar, but regularly fell off and swung there, squawking, until it could right itself and regain what little was left of its dignity.

One thing I will say about the Malay bikers is that they all seem to have remarkable bikes and riding ability. The barman here can apparently make it the 1,000km from Penang to Singapore in six hours, which is not bad for an old Vulcan, and a guy I spoke to on Saturday had a friend who would ride the 1,600km from Singapore to Bangkok in 10 hours, just to have a coffee. And then turn round and do the return trip. Remarkable. I clearly have a lot to learn.

Tomorrow? Up to Thailand, probably, to see if I have the right documents to be allowed to temporarily import my motor vehicle. Wish me luck.

[vOOdsy]

From where I'm sitting, it smells like char keow teow to me.....:wink

[Duscherck]

Grat report! and beautiful places.

[RatBob]

Great pix and report. Keep 'em coming.

[GeoffL]

I knew this was going to be a long day, so I set off before dawn. It was going to be a long day because I wanted to head straight through the deep south of Thailand as quickly as possible. Sure, the separatists don't target tourists as a rule, and sure, there haven't been any attacks for a while (I think), but a bomb is a bomb and I don't want to end up as the exception to anybody's rule. It doesn't make for a good epigraph.

I'd hoped to escape much of the traffic but it seems that much of Georgetown also gets up before dawn, so I had to contend with the dawn rush hour. On the plus side, the bridge from Georgetown to Butterworth looks lovely in the dawn light.



From there it was a good 100km up to the Thai border, which wasn't something I was looking forward to. However, I adopted my favourite look of helpless but benevolent incompetence, and a kindly customs officer shepherded me through with minimal fuss. Note to American readers: yes, kindly customs officers do exist, though not in JFK. In Singapore they even give you sweeties.

To tell the truth I wasn't looking forward to it because I knew I didn't have the right documents. One necessary document was the bike's registration card, to prove you own the vehicle you're temporarily importing. I don't have one. I have a letter from the Singapore Land Transit Authority telling me I had registered the bike and they'd forward the registration card soon soon, but the registration card never actually turned up, and I hadn't chased it up. A minor detail, but the sort of detail that tends to excite bureaucrats. I shouldn't have worried, as with the help of my kindly customs officer, things went smoothly. I could read the expressions on the customs clerk's face: a frown as she realised this wasn't the document she was looking for; a sideways glance at the smelly bearded biker who she knew couldn't be relied upon to speak a word of Thai; another frown as she realised how hard this was going to be to explain in her limited English; then a 'what the hell' expression as she decided it must be ok if another customs officer was looking after me so closely, so clickety-click and a temporary licence to import a motorcycle appears off her printer. Job done. Kindly customs officer, whose job it should have been to search my luggage, decided instead to move part of the barrier to let me through to Thailand. Marvellous. Onto the bike and off up the road before anyone changes their mind.

Just then, Buddha himself floated by on a lotus blossom to bless my journey.



Which was nice.

Up the highway for a while, through Hat Yai (the epicenter of the separatist violence) as quickly as possible, then off onto smaller roads to head towards Krabi. These roads were glorious - rolling by-ways through luscious greenery



...lined with trees dripping flowers...



...of all sorts of different colours...



...then through Krabi and out onto even smaller roads towards the beach at Ao Nang. The closer I got to Ao Nang, the more dramatic the scenery got





...so dramatic, that I missed the turning for Ao Nang and went 10km in the wrong direction. So turned round, missed it again, and went another 10km back the way I'd come. Eventually, after spreading the (again, 1 to 1,500,000 - oh for a proper Ordnance Survey) map across the petrol tank with a puzzled look and attracting a friendly helpful Thai driver to explain what had happened, I realised that it wasn't the dramatic scenery that made me miss the turning, it was the fact that there were absolutely no signposts on it and it was so hemmed in with shops it looked like a small alley. 100 yards down the road there was a GREAT BIG signpost telling you that you were on the right road, but somehow nobody had thought to put one at the junction itself. I'm sure there was a very good reason at the time.

Finally, into the rapidly expanding resort of Ao Nang in time to get the necessities of life: shower a day's worth of mud, grit and exhaust fumes off my face, a beer, and a barbequed squid while watching the sunset.

[clintnz]

Very Nice!

May Buddha continue to smile upon your journey

Cheers
Clint

[GeoffL]

Wednesday was a rest day in Ao Nang



It's a hard life.

I got talking to Ya, a cookery teacher in Ao Nang, who told me something of her life growing up in a rural village near the Laos border in North Eastern Thailand. She says that shrimp paste occurs in so many Thai dishes because for many villagers, like her, it was about the only protein they could afford. They had no money at all when she was a child, but then what is there to buy in a village in the jungle? She saw a Farang (foreigner) for the first time when a helicopter crashed near her village when she was six, but then no more until she left the village when she was ten. Now, she sees them every day, she says, still sounding surprised at how things turned out. She even went as far as marrying one, moving to Europe with him and ending up as a cook in and eventually chef de cuisine for a hotel in Luxembourg, before coming back to Thailand to found her own cookery school.

Today I'm back on the road, but with a change in plan. There's still at least 1000km to go to Chiang Mai, my original vague destination, but that's two or three days highway riding there and the same back again (if there are any Malay bikers listening that's two or three hours, one-handed, and I'll have six whiskies at the end and head back South doing a perpetual wheelie) and I won't get to see much of the intervening country. So instead I'm off onto the local roads, heading east into Surat Thani province, then will potter more slowly down the East coast of Thailand and Malaysia.

The roads, again, are luscious green winding affairs...



...usually lined with flowering and fruiting trees...



...(is that Jackfruit?) and roadside stalls selling everything you might want...



...as long as you might want dried fish.

I pass hundreds of scooters laden with all sorts of cargos - vegetable, mineral, animal and human - some of whom are even wearing helmets. Most smile and wave, though the two long-distance cyclists I saw baking in the midday sun, in the middle of nowhere, didn't but then I'd be surprised if they had energy to spare to wave.

Finally on to Hat Piti, a beach south of Surat Thani, and I'm getting the feeling that not many Farang head out this way. All but the major road signs are in Thai script, people look surprised to see me, and when I road over a small wooden bridge over a tiny stream in which some kids were swimming, one was so shocked he ran off yelling. I haven't seen a Starbucks for quite a while now. But as I was wandering down the side roads near Hat Piti, looking for a hotel I'd heard about, I paused at a street junction trying to figure out if I could recognise ANY of the road signs as the one I wanted, and a street vendor looked up at me then pointed emphatically down the road to her left. She was right as well, though I have no idea how she knew where I was going.

I guess most of the Farang just head through for the Ferry terminal for the world-class resort islands of Koh Samui, Koh Pha Ngan and Ko Tao, just offshore. Everyone I speak to certainly assumes that's where I'm headed, but although Koh Samui is great I'm deliberately avoiding it. I had my honeymoon on Koh Samui and it was the perfect time in the perfect place with the perfect woman. Nearly ten years on she's still perfect, so I don't want to go back to Koh Samui and find out that it isn't - I'd rather remember it the way it was then.

Hat Piti is almost deserted...



...though Muy, the hotel owner, proudly tells me she's expecting a group of 800 bikers from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia next month, en route to the nearby small coconut-farming town of Sichon. I'm not sure why.

A walk along the beach shows more evidence of animal life than of human...




Now it's off to the restaurant to find out whether Muy is a Buddhist or Muslim - i.e. can I get a beer with my dinner?

Edit: Buddhist. Lovely.

[oldkrank]

I was in Singapore on a last minute buiness trip and wondered what it would be like to take a ride in the surrounding countryside. Thanks for giving me an indication of the possibilities.