Thailand & Malaysia

#33 - 02.02.2010, Johor Bahru, Malaysia:

The countryside on the final leg of our journey is dominated by the monotony of endless rows of oil palms – Malaysia seems to be one big plantation of oil palms with a few islands composed of cities or national parks strewn in. If they ever had any, the seaside resort towns of Port Dickson and Tanjung Bidara have lost the glory of an era long since passed. Melaka, on the other hand, has fully embraced its legacy as one of the oldest trading posts on an important shipping route connecting East with West. While more touristy than Georgetown, it has managed to maintain the charm of a small town proud of its diverse history. Finally, a slight detour takes us to Malaysia’s east coast and our plan to set a new long-distance cycling record for the journey is successful as we chalk up 210 kilometres on a single day. We are a bit anxious as we roll into Johor Bahru, the southernmost city of peninsular Malaysia – is it possible that after having aimed for the destination of Singapore for more than a year the next morning we will actually reach it?
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#32 - 24.01.2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

Malaysia, the most unknown Southeast Asian country to us, shows us its friendliest and most colourful side as we spend a few days in the former colonial trading post of Georgetown. Malays, Chinese, Indians and English - all have left their cultural traces and the outcome really corresponds to the claim that the country has chosen to promote itself as a tourist destination: ‘Malaysia - Truly Asia’. Less inspiring are the much-famed Cameron Highlands, set in the hills at 1.500 metres we perceive them as a hopelessly over-rated bunch of glasshouses and trash dumps and instead of staying for two days we leave immediately. While big, modern and diverse, Kuala Lumpur feels a bit like the smaller brother of Bangkok, it attempts to be equally cosmopolitan but has not quite made it yet.
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#31 - 14.01.2010, Satun, Thailand:

Whilst we enjoy the company of our friends Steffi and Mathias and Phuket is an interesting place to spend an unusual carneval-like New Year’s Eve, with everything here geared towards mass tourism we are glad to escape its craziness as we aim for Krabi. This area offers everything from sunbathing on secluded beaches to snorkelling and rock climbing - all of which we go for. As we push further south in the humid heat we are cooled off on a few days by tropical downpours but luckily skies are clear and the sea is calm when we board what turns out to be a hopelessly overloaded slow ferry on the verge of capsizing taking us to the tiny island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman sea. The island is a fine conclusion to the Thai stretch of our journey with a postcard-like setting of turquoise waters gently lapping onto powdery white beaches fringed by tropical jungle.
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#30 - 29.12.2009, Phuket, Thailand:

Expressway-cycling for a few hundred kilometres through uninspiring Thai landscape we get an introduction to the phenomenon of mass tourism in Thailand in the town of Hua Hin. The perfect tent spot on the beach-front that we find in a limestone karst national park not far south from there on the next day is much more our style and instead of tourists we just encounter masses of monkeys. For Christmas we settle down in sleepy Prachuap Khiri Khan for three days and have the sandy beach in a large beautifully curved bay all to ourselves. Pushing it to be in Phuket in time for a New Year’s appointment with our friends Steffi and Mathias, we race further south and cross from the Gulf of Thailand coast to the Andaman coast at the most narrow point of the Malay peninsula at the Isthmus of Kra, within sight of the southernmost tip of Burma. A couple of days of alternation between rubber and oil palm plantations and the first Muslim communities and we reach Asia’s answer to Mallorca: Phuket.
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#29 - 16.12.2009, Bangkok, Thailand:

Living the life of real tourists after eleven months of cycling we stay put in a resort on a sunset beach of the island of Koh Chang for a week, which is the perfect setting to celebrate Kathi´s birthday. Our stay in this corner of Thailand in involuntarily extended when first Kathi and then Sandro catch a bad eye infection, Kathi even spending two days in the excellent local hospital. At least the market of Trat offers such an extremely tasty diversity of food and fruit that we do not regret having to stay longer than planned. Once able to see clearly again we quickly cover the ground to reach Ayutthaya, where we wander through the ruins of the temples of the former royal capital of Thailand before we imerge into one of Asia´s busiest mega-cities: Bangkok. This is the city of meetings as we catch up with our Spanish cyclist friends Aitor and Iñigo and are given the insight on life in Chinatown by Florian, an Austrian emigrant who has settled here.
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