Singapore, Bali, Japan and South Korea

11th April 2018
Tree in Lodge Hostel, Singapore
32c and humid

It's interesting how plans can change, especially when you don't have onward tickets to worry about.  The only date in the diary is Teleri and Todd's wedding, 31st August, in Sydney.  Don't worry, it's in the diary and we won't forget.  Seriously though, not having deadlines and responsibilities while travelling can lead to a total meltdown in the whole scheduling process.  Just yesterday a woman at the hostel discovered she'd missed her flight to Bali because she hadn't checked the time properly.  But first, a quick catch up on what we have been up to since leaving Sumatra.

We took the bus from Bukittinggi to Dumai and we're glad we did.  Palm oil plantations as far as the eye could see, plus a roller coaster of a road which, at times, was so narrow it would have been dangerous to cycle.  Some spectacular mountainous scenery along the way, so it wasn't all bad. Returning to Melaka and eating thali was a welcome change from fried noodles or rice.  The three day cycle to Singapore was uneventful, we got to see even MORE palm oil plantations and I got to squirm around on my increasingly uncomfortable saddle before making the decision that I HAD to get a new saddle in Singapore.  There was no more 'tinkering' with the height, the angle or the bracket that had broken, and trying to straighten the twisted 'nose' hadn't worked either.  It was 'do or die'.

The crossing into Singapore was easy and before we knew it we were in safe, secure, dependable, efficient and sparkly new Singapore.  Dave took Maps.me at its word and followed the cycle route which, at first, seemed like a good idea but we soon found ourselves leaving the Park Connectors and on mountain bike trails, which with a loaded touring bike, believe me, are no fun.  It took HOURS to get from Jahore Bahru to our hostel when it should have taken no time at all.  We later discovered that we weren't the only cyclists to have fallen for the Maps.me trap, so that made us feel slightly less stupid.

After Sumatra we were both feeling in desperate need of a 'holiday'.  It had been a difficult 5 weeks with both of us being ill (not at the same time which extends the 'down' time significantly) plus all the other difficulties mentioned in my previous post.  We had also, at that time, been travelling for 9 months and were both feeling the need for a break from the bikes.  So somewhere between Bukittinggi and Melaka we decided to ditch the bikes in Singapore and fly to Bali for a couple of weeks.  Luckily, the lovely Tree in Lodge hostel were good enough to let us store our bikes and panniers (we literally had one carry on bag) in Singapore so it was easy enough.  I just want to say at this point, the SK and Jung (spelling?) the guys running Tree in Lodge Hostel have been amazing.  This is a wonderful hostel, especially for cyclists, they have looked after us (and the other 10 cyclists that we have met here) SO well, we can't thank them enough.  If you're heading to Singapore, this is the ONLY place to stay.

We flew to Denpasar with Scoot (Singaporean budget airline) having done virtually no research except for how to get from the airport to Legian where we had booked our first few nights' accommodation.  We had spent several months in Indonesia 30 years ago but seeing as our recollections of Bali were scant to say the least, we didn't think it was any use at all.  Getting around Bali is not easy, even if it is a small island compared to Java and Sumatra, we found out why early on in the trip.

There is only one public bus company Kurakura (tortoise in Bahasa, that tells you something) and it's not permitted to operate from the airport.  There is only one taxi company with a licence and wo-betide any other company who try to muscle in on that business.  The taxi company with the licence is NOT the taxi company with the great reputation, that is Blue Bird.  So, on arrival you have to have your wits about you and know what the prices are.  That in itself is difficult, because nobody really wants you to know the 'real' price.  We discovered the price should be between 55,000 and 80,000 Rps.  Ask at the official taxi desk (which is where all the tourists are herded towards) and they will try and charge you as much as they can get away with.  Our first quote was 250,000, we walked away and eventually (while walking away) negotiated 100,000, still over the odds but not too bad.  The gnashing of teeth started right there.

Friends we had met in KL were also in Bali and had been staying in Sideman (pronounced Sid-a-man) and it looked so lovely up there on the eastern side of Mt Agung, in amongst the rice terraces, that we decided we would like to spend a few quiet nights up there also.  Transportation to and from Sideman, for the reasons stated above, is not easy.  The reputable Blue Bird doesn't go that far (30km), the public bus company only serves the densely populated south and therefore doesn't go there either.  It looked like the only way to get there was by hiring a car and driver for the day at a cost of 400,000 or 500,000 rps.  We found that very difficult to justify when the accommodation was costing less than 200,000 per night.  So after much deliberation and gnashing of teeth, we cancelled the Sideman accommodation and went north to Ubud.  At least we could take a bus to Ubud, but it was when we arrived there we realised the extent of the 'taxi mafia' problem in Bali.  Not only are Uber, Grab and any other online booking service not permitted, there are stories of 'outsiders' being beaten or their cars being vandalised. The streets of Ubud are lined with individuals offering taxi services, but there are no taxi companies.  It's a big problem for tourists like us and it occured to me that the government could easily do something about this but they clearly choose not to.

Once we got over the logistical nightmare we settled down to enjoying our break.  Legian and Kuta are great places if you need to shop, and for the first few days we needed to do just that.  Legian is the slightly quieter end of a very VERY long beach that eventually leads into Kuta and while shopping was on the agenda initially it didn't take very long for that novelty to wear off.  We chose accommodation based on two criteria, it must have an outside seating area (either a balcony or access to a terrace) and a fridge.  If it had a pool as well that was a bonus (two did).  The choice is extensive, for less than £10 a night we fulfilled our criteria, AND had a fabulous breakfast included but you can pay less or you can push the boat out and book one of the resorts overlooking the beach, or go really exclusive and rent a fabulous villa In the hills where it's a little cooler.
The heat had ramped up significantly, or so it seemed, so day long excursions anywhere were immediately cut to half, and eventually we managed 3 hours at a time.  We slept A LOT, ate western-style food (again, the novelty wore off fairly quickly) and drank beer and cocktails, we socialised with the 'Canadians', a lovely group of people all travelling together and so glad to have met them in KL and have caught up with them in Bali.  We walked and walked but found ourselves dipping into malls to cool off as the temperatures seemed hotter than ever.

The highlights were the walks we took in the rice paddies in Ubud, such a beautiful place, really calming and hardly any tourists.  It was in Ubud we were most reminded of when we were in Bali all those years ago when we were invited to a wedding and teeth-filing ceremony (quite often done at the same time) I still have the photographs somewhere.  I remember the young couple very well, they were physically very slight, as a lot of Balinese are, in full traditional dress and they looked TERRIFIED.  I wasn't sure if it was the wedding or the teeth-filing that was terrifying them.  In those days Ubud was a large village it's now a huge, sprawling town with far too much traffic, just like the rest of Bali, particularly the south.  Ubud is still a very special place and you can get away from the tourist trap shops and restaurants fairly easily, just turn down an alley way, or head to the rice paddies and you'll find a local artist, a yoga studio or a potter.

Eventually we found ourselves back in Singapore, fully rested and ready for the next part of our adventure, Java, (returning to) Bali and Lombok.  Unfortunately for Java we met the lovely Michel and his wife who after an evening's chat persuaded us that cycling in Java wasn't actually a good idea.  A couple in their 60s they are experienced cycle tourers, who have travelled in many difficult places, had given up on Java because they felt it was very dangerous.  If I'm perfectly honest we were both looking for an excuse to look at other options, after 5 months in South East Asia we were feeling a little SEAd out.  So while Dave was at the dentist having his filling replaced I got to thinking about ALL our options and did a bit of brainstorming with the help of Mr Google.  The result (although these things are never THAT straightforward, in fact it took a whole day of BOTH of us with the aid of 2 phones, a laptop and a lot of 'what ifs' being thrown around) was a flight to Japan.  Our intention was to go to Japan AFTER Australia, but why not now?

Since booking the flight to Osaka we have changed our route several times based on a meeting with Gerald (who had recently toured in Japan) and consultation with weather maps.  Japan is actually quite big (should have worked that out before we booked the flight) and we really want to tour around Hokkaido (in the far north, lots of bears, yikes) but the weather is still cool.  So, we have decided to head straight for South Korea (weather's lovely now) and then fly from Seoul (we think we can get a cheap flight for approx £140, for both of us and the bikes) to Sapporo in Hokkaido. By that time, the weather should be perfect.

Our first problem is getting out of Osaka airport with 2 boxed bikes, 4 panniers and 2 extra bags, into Osaka itself.  We're hoping the baggage forwarding companies will take pity on us and not turn us away (recent accounts are they don't take bicycles any longer, but if you label the boxes with 'bike parts' we might get away with it).  The other approach is to act dumb 'Johnny Foreigners' who know no better and hope that all the stories we have heard about wonderful customer service and the inability to offend are correct. Wish us luck!

Laters

PS we have flights to Australia booked now, 8th August, to the Gold Coast, then a mere 900 kms cycle to Sydney!

Link to Facebook photos coming soon!

Chinatown

Outside Zam Zams with our Singapore 'family'

Veggie Thali

The very expensive Balmore Whisky, £4000!

Getting on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT)

Stephen Wiltshire's Singapore, after a 30 minute helicopter ride

I have no words

Chinatown heritage buildings

Arab Street grafitti

Ubud rice paddy

La Lima Hotel, Kuta

Working

There he is, Boy Wonder!

We went to Malaysia for a few weeks

14th February 2018
Swiss Heritage Hotel, Melaka
Very, very hot – about 40c!

I almost forgot about writing this entry, so keen are we to get on a ferry to Sumatra!  Only kidding, the past month seems to have flown by, so a brief update:

From Koh Lanta we backtracked to the mainland and headed south towards the Malaysian border.  Every now and again Maps.me takes us on a little adventure which, depending on how we are feeling at the time, we choose to take or otherwise.  In the Thale Ban National Park we let Maps.me do the guiding, only because it was 8 kms shorter than the main road and by that time of day we are getting well and truly fed up with the fishy smell emanating from the many trucks that whizz up and down the highway (what IS that smell?).   We were directed away from the rubber and palm oil plantations into a community forest.  Past a gathering of some sort, the man on the microphone making us the centre of attention for the 30 seconds or so it took us to cycle through.  Everyone stopped eating and drinking, started waving and clapping, smiling and laughing;  We felt like royalty.  We meandered through this beautiful area for about 5 kms, then it was back onto the main road.  Thank you Maps.me, a fabulous little diversion.

Rubber to the left of me, Palm Oil to the right, here I am ......

We crossed the border at Wang Prachan, incident-free, and the first challenge was to get over the 5kms of hills standing between us and Kangar.  The road was very steep at various points made more difficult by the midday sun and the fact that we hadn’t climbed anything steeper than stairs for ages.  Dave lucked out when he found a mobile phone (obviously fell out of someone’s pocket) so like the little Magpie he is stashed it in his pannier for later.  Lo and behold, once he’d cleaned it up and reset it (unable to find out who it belonged to sadly) it works perfectly!
 
Afternoon/early evening showers became a thing right from the start in Malaysia, so on our first day we spent an hour sheltering in a disused building waiting for it to stop.  Pretty much every afternoon, somewhere between 3 and 6, it rains for an hour or so, sometimes longer, torrential wet-you-in-a-moment kind of rain, that no umbrella will repel.  By the way, it's the dry season.

Stuck drinking beer while the rain stops, shucks

It became clear that my memory of accommodation in Malaysia was correct.  It is expensive compared to it’s neighbours, and the quality is, on the whole, quite poor.  Windowless rooms are common and one of them had 3 out of the 4 walls painted black!  We aborted our ride up to Frazer’s Hill because the hotels in Kuala Kubu Bharu were SO awful (and expensive) we couldn’t bring ourselves to stay.  Having said that, we had a fabulous room in Tapah, with floor to ceiling picture windows and views of the mountain, for just 10 Ringgit more than the ‘black hole’.  Also, where we are staying in Melaka is amazing, with an actual bath, balcony, fridge and we could have a game of badminton in it if we were inclined (we’re not) it’s so big.  So accommodation in Malaysia is, shall we say, a mixed bag.
 
We spent a few well deserved days off in Georgetown, re-acquainting ourselves with the old town and finding the street art that it is now famous for.  We found ourselves drifting back to Little India everyday for Roti Canai, Dosai and Thali, we had a 'western' style breakfast one morning but decided that was a mistake.  It really felt like being back in India.  Malaysia has very high taxes when it comes to alcohol so our ‘after ride’ chilled beer has been quashed.  However, in Georgetown we managed to find the ‘bar’ (it’s a little supermarket that just happens to have stacks of tables and chairs that people are able to use) selling cheap beer and liquor.  Locals rub shoulders with visitors, everyone shares tables and stories, it’s really quite sociable.  We're not sure how they do it but suspect they have a 'source' in Langkawi (duty free alcohol).

Right round the corner for The Seven Terraces, you can't miss it

I have little to no recollection of the quality of driving in Malaysia on previous trips, just as well because we probably would have avoided it.  It’s like Mr Bean meets every Sunday Driver you’ve ever known that SHOULDN’T be driving, or, Boy Racer in supped up cars (brand new and lowered suspension, or, old and battered, like the cars me and my friends would have been driving in the 70s).  We love the Malaysians when they're not driving, really we do.  I've lost count of the number times people have paid for our coffees or rotis, or stopped us in the middle of the street or a supermarket to say hello and have a general chit chat about where we were from etc.  We always feel comfortable in Malaysia in a way we don't in, say, Thailand, even though over the years we've spent the same amount of time in both countries.  Some places are just like that.

Malaysia is a proper melting pot of cultures and nowhere is this more evident than in Georgetown and Melaka, where we are currently.  Buddhist and Indian temples side by side, mosques share spaces with churches, incense mixes with chanting and bells, and the call to prayer wafts out of minarets that look like pagodas.  In Melaka we also have the Dutch and Portuguese influences so we can eat the little custard tarts we used to buy in Porto and sip a coffee, by the river, in an old Dutch Colonial building with a windmill attached.  The riverside walks have been regenerated and sitting with a coffee or a cold beer you could be anywhere in Europe.  We liked The Reggae Bar, not for the reggae but for the guys running it, it’s a very chilled place.

Melaka waterfront

To be fair, the cycling hasn’t been amazing.  We would have preferred to cycle the east coast, but as it’s monsoon at this time of year we stuck with the west.  The road up to the Cameron Highlands, thankfully, was wide enough to cater for everyone, the superbikes, the dotty drivers and the boy racers, oh and us, in our little lane to the side of the mayhem.  The road down to Tapah was not so great with potholes and, in places, no special lane for cyclists.  A bit hairy but very beautiful.  We took the Simpang Pulai to Tanah Rata route (94kms, 1500 mtrs), which was a challenge.  The steep gradients are at the start of the climb, 8.5 – 10%, thankfully when it’s cooler, (we set out at dawn) then it settles down to 3-5% for the rest of the way. Ten years ago we would have completed the ride in a day, but, this time we decided to do it in two.  Round the 47km mark there are a couple of cafes, with public toilets and mandis, which is where we camped for the night.   Ideal.  There’s very little on the road up to the cafes, so provisions and water are a must.

Strawberry anyone?

After our camping spot came the strawberry farms and eventually tea plantations.  The strawberries are grown in poly-tunnels the numbers of which are rivalled only by those in southern Spain.  Not terribly attractive.  Tea plantations are always beautiful as they have to be planted in such a way that tea-pickers can get to the tips of every bush to gather the ‘golden’ or ‘silver’ tips, so the texture of the landscape is quite stunning when viewed from the seat of a bicycle.  The ride down to Tapah was absolutely sensational.  We took our time and stopped regularly to admire the views and the Kampungs along the way.

Yes, run off from the mountain pouring down the gulley ALL night

We have ‘history’ with Kuala Lumpur roads and hoped that a bit of extra planning on our part would mean that history did not repeat itself.  Well, somehow, the planning and Maps.me went all to pot.  The way in wasn’t so bad but the way out was a nightmare, AGAIN, taking more than two hours to clear the main roads in.  We will never, EVER, cycle in KL again.  The city itself was much nicer than we remembered, it helped that the weather was cloudy most of the time we were there, plus lots of tall buildings means shade most of the day.  We stayed at the 1000 Miles Guesthouse, highly recommended by Travelfish and now us.  We met a lovely group of people too, which always makes any stay more interesting.

I’m sure there have been other days when I’ve been really fed up, but, the last three days, from KL to Malacca, have been really hard work.  A combination of pants trouble (ruching on the inner thigh) an uncomfortable saddle (or is it?  We just don’t know, I have new cycling pants which I’m hoping will sort out of the chafing problems), the heat – it’s really hotting up now, reaching 40-42c by 1pm, and undulating terrain that is never-ending.

Being in Melaka has cheered me up though as has seeing Hornbills, White Bellied Sea Eagles and huge Monitor Lizards, one was being stalked by a cat!  The incredibly large (dead) Python  we saw on the road up the mountain scared the bejessus  out of us knowing that we would be camping that night!  We couldn’t remember much about Malaka (apart from some canons which we found at the old fort, and the antique shops which it turns out is now the Jonker Street area) but suffice to say it is very charming.  Chinese New Year is just around the corner and the place is awash with red lanterns, juicy tangerines being offered to anyone and everyone and people “cleaning” like crazy, out with the old and in with the new, apparently.

Beautiful relief work

Here be dragons

Chinese temple

So the new for us will be a new country, Indonesia (Sumatra).  It’s looking a bit ‘wild west’ at the moment, there’s not much out there in terms of blogs or detailed travel (cycling) information, although we have found a few on the CGOAB site.  We have decided to concentrate on the north and have already hit a problem in trying to get a bus to Medan.  There appears to be one bus and it’s a night bus (taking 10 hours).  Both of us would prefer a bus during daylight hours, just because we value our lives really, so we will have to investigate getting a minivan.
 
Firstly, it’s a ferry to Dumai, and we still haven’t paid for the bikes yet although the woman who sold us our tickets has assured us they WILL be allowed on AND it will only cost 20MYR!

Laters

Link to all Malaysia photos on Facebook here