140km Georgetown to Kuala Ketil

It’s been an action packed few days, zigging and zagging all over a small corner of Malaysia with the country’s most famous bicycle tourist. Hardly anyone comes down Malaysia’s west coast without being caught by David. “I’ve got spies everywhere,” he said with a smile when we turned up at his home.

We’d heard of David the cyclist hunter and we’d also heard about his spies. Rather than risk being dragged off the main highway or from a nearby hotel, we decided to submit to voluntary kidnapping for a few days.

After all, if you have to be taken hostage, David makes it quite an agreeable form of torture. There’s no small quantity of food involved. He’s hosted nearly 200 people over the past five years and David is clearly accustomed to cyclists and their appetites. A new round of food appeared at least every two hours, with a different cuisine featuring every time. Malay. Indian. Chinese. We tried them all and used the calories to tackle the intimidating schedule David had set up for us.

Our 48-hours of fun started with a hike up Maxwell Hill, a retreat that you can only reach by navigating 90 steep switchbacks. The grade is never less than 10% - often more – and the result is a great view over the nearby city of Taiping and a refreshing climate, just what you’d expect at over 1,000 meters above sea level. Even keen cyclists aren’t so crazy to tackle something like that by bike. We took the jeep. (more…)

26km Langkawi Island to Penang Island

It was with some reluctance that we left Langkawi Island. Such relaxing spots quickly become addictive and we had the feeling that if we didn’t force ourselves to make a move soon, we just might spend our whole month there. So, it was off to Penang by ferry, just over two hours away, past beautiful islands that also called to us. “Come spend a week,” they said. If only…

Arriving at the dock in Penang couldn’t have been more of a change from Langkawi. Out went the quiet beach and in came a bustling city. We pushed our way through the crowds of taxi touts and ventured into the streets for our first taste of Malaysian traffic. It’s definitely a bit crazier than gentle Thailand. No one uses their horns but the drivers are revved up an extra level and we know we’ll have to be on our toes navigating this country’s cities.

Once on the streets, the hunt was on for a hotel. We tried one, then another and the result was the same. Clean rooms but windowless boxes of rooms and rather expensive at that. Only after a little more searching did we find a room - still a windowless box but this time quite cheap so we threw our stuff in the barely-big-enough-to-walk-around-the-bed space and headed out to explore. (more…)

This post is for all of you in the northern hemisphere, feeling the onset of winter. Here we are on a beautiful, tropical island in a great guesthouse, with friendly staff and guests, a kitchen to cook our meals and the beach just five minutes walk away. The cost? A measly $10 a night with all the free coffee, tea and wireless internet you can grab.

Yes, our introduction to Malaysia has been a good one and we’re tempted to just stay on Langkawi Island for our whole month in the country. We won’t though, honest. Okay, we’ve put our roots down for a few days longer than planned but we are getting out of our chairs soon to pedal from west to east across the peninsula and through the Cameron Highlands to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Honest.

The only scary part of getting here was the boat ride. Well, the journey itself was fine, it was watching the boat’s crew lift our bicycles over a foot gap between the pier and the vessel, with a large drop to the harbour below inbetween. We breathed a big sigh of relief when our bikes didn’t go plunging into the water.

338km Ao Nang Beach to Satun

What to do when you’re a budget traveller, stuck in an overpriced beach resort? For cyclists, the answer is clear: find the all-you-can-eat buffet and tuck in. Shocked by the price of fried rice in Ao Nang, we followed the crowds to a bar called Bernies and their vegetarian spread. Now if there was ever a lesson for restaurant owners, it’s to beware of cyclists coming to eat at your buffet. They’ll destroy your profit margin in seconds, which is exactly what the lady writing out our bill told us after we worked our way through three plates each of pasta, curry, baked potatoes, garlic bread and salad, not to mention a few trips to the ice cream freezer. “I don’t make much money off people like you,” she said sourly. Well, we were happy at least and waddled back to our hotel, certain we’d stashed away enough extra calories to see us through to the Malaysian border.

We got a late start the next day, stopping at the gigantic supermarkets in Krabi to stock up on all the things we were sure would be more expensive in Malaysia. After so long shopping in markets and tiny corner shops, these hypermarkets always take us aback with their floor that takes ten minutes to walk from end to end. It took a good hour to pick up a few toiletries and it was midday before we set off down the extremely busy road. There was a shoulder and thank goodness for those two feet of pavement all to ourselves but even so the sound of trucks flying by your ears constantly takes its toll. Whiz. Whoosh. Rumble. Throw in a cloud of black smoke from a poorly maintained engine and it’s not exactly cycling paradise. We just wanted to get that road overwith so we pushed on as fast as our legs would spin round, not paying much attention to where we’d find a bed for the night. Soon it was dusk and we were in Siako - one of those rural towns that’s just big enough for a market but not for a hotel. Thankfully in Thailand, the police are truly ‘at your service’ and had no problem allowing us to set up camp on their front lawn. We’d just started to get the tent out when we heard a voice calling to us in English through the darkness. (more…)

306km Paknam Lang Suan to Aonang Beach

Two beaches. Two strips of sand with waves coming up on shore. At first glance they’re the same but these are no equals. Paknam Lang Suan, the little fishing village we so enjoyed on Thailand’s Gulf coast is a humble place. Just a few simple bungalows offer accommodation by the water and it’s more families than surfers in the parks. By contrast, the flashing lights nearly blinded us when we arrived on the West coast of Thailand, in the resort town of Aonang.

“Hey, where you go? Have a look! New suit? My friend, my friend.”

Suddenly we had dozens of new friends, amassing quicker than fruit flies on a banana as we walked up the main street and each one of them ready to sell us a t-shirt, a tour, a hotel.

“Just one minute. What, you in a hurry?”

Well, yes actually. We are two cyclists, we’ve just come 130km and we’re starving. Of course we’re in a hurry! Finding food tonight wasn’t going to be easy either. In almost any other town in Thailand it would take us no more than 30 seconds to locate the nearest woman serving up noodle soup or fried rice, never costing more than a dollar a serving. Add on an iced coffee each for another handful of pocket change and we’d have full bellies. Our first glance at a menu in Aonang though confirmed our fears: prices were anything up to six times the going rate in the rest of Thailand. (more…)