Cycle Touring Blog
After a heavy day in the rain, we took an obligatory photo in front of Marina Bay Sands famous hotel. It has a ship on the top of it! I did look at the price to stay incase it was worth it, just for one night, but at £500/night we decided, hell no 😂
We stayed here a few nights as we wanted to sort as much as possible in Malaysia. Singapore is very expensive so we bought everything we needed to pack the bikes in Malaysia.
From the border (with thanks to Google maps) we took a fairly quite route through the city, the first part was mostly on roads and the final 8 miles were mostly on cycle paths. The closer you get to the “city center”, around the Marina Bay area the more cycle paths you will find.
Everyone should use a VPN, but it is especially important for people who are travelling. You'll use Wi-Fi hot spots and might even travel to countries where you cannot access your favourite websites.
The upside to all this rain is the scenery, it is beautiful in Malaysia. The land is much more sculpted here too and residents often look after the land around their houses much like you would expect to find in Europe.
We’ve been enjoying some of Malaysia’s west coast and figuring out what to do with our trip. We contemplated riding the east coast and even the option to ride Indonesia. In the end we decided we’d head to Aus as planned.
We got acquainted on Instagram just as Stew and I explored south Thailand and geared up for our 24th country by bike, Malaysia, which of course, is where our new friends live.
We got to the train station in the nick of time, bought a ticket and run to catch the train that was departing in 3 minutes! A bit stressful at a station you don’t know.
Cameron Highlands delivered the *best* downhill, better than I expected. The not-too-steep grade meant that you got to really enjoy that 30 mile descent. I absolutely loved it.
And we did it! We rode up to The Cameron Highlands, 6500 feet (2000 metres) of elevation in about 45 miles (72km). The grade of the hill was actually not too bad at all, but it is fairly consistent so it’s a proper grind.
If you're planning your own bike tour this article will help you. There's a lot of advice in there and a free spreadsheet (with video) that we use to help calculate our budgets and itinerary.
Honestly, I love it when I see them in the parks or up in the trees. Naturally, until I’d travelled I’d never seen a monkey that wasn’t on the television or caged somehow. Well, I did see monkeys at the safari park as a kid as they pulled at the wind screen wipers 😂
How’s this for a cycle path, fantastic, no? Talk about working with nature. In Taiping they’ve even reinforced this tree (and many like it) so it can grow exactly how nature intended it.
From the minute we walked in, the man pictured, named Loh, and his family were very interested in our adventure. He took pictures and a video of us. We answered all his questions. I wonder where the video will end up 😆.
The storms in southern Thailand and Malaysia can be incredible. Often you hear deep and loud rolls of thunder, some even wake us up at night. We do stand and watch them from the hotel sometimes but haven’t caught a proper good lightening strike on camera yet ⚡️
Last year we cycled 13,000 miles across 21 countries in loving memory of best best friend, Leanne Brownhill. The plan was a 24,000 mile bike ride across 26 countries, but covid ended our adventure and fundraising efforts.
How freakin’ gorgeous is this firehouse in George Town, Penang? We cycled past earlier today, but as I tried to get a photo the lights turned green so we came back later.
Upon first entering Thailand from Cambodia the roads were very pleasant, plenty of space and very little traffic. However as we got closer to Bangkok, the traffic volume steadily increased.
There are no rules to cycle touring As long as youre leaving one place on a bicycle and arriving at another youre cycle touring It can be a few miles or a couple hundred its up to you
Getting back into cycle touring was an adjustment that was easier for us to make than we expected We did worry that wed struggle to adjust to budget living but so far things are going well
If you’re in your twenties, you should pack a bike and ride as far as you can. Throw in the towel on your job and just do it.
The rain falls heavy in South East Asia and you can tell there’s a storm brewing from the temperate change.
A commendable decision was made by this team working at 7-Eleven/Caltex.
We rolled into La-ngu simply because it was on route. We were expecting just to eat and sleep, but at dinner we ended up having a wholesome time.