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Published: November 9th 2007
Singapore Split-Up
At Hwachong College. This was our last group photo at the end of a talk. The day after our tightly-knit group began to go its own way...Day 302, 29th March
Around Singapore
Today was our rest day, the first of a few that would shape our futures, and a good day to nurse a well-deserved hangover! We went for breakfast at the Fat Frog and then to check email. I had nothing from Kathryn which was a surprise, still, I sent her a mail and a block sender to everyone on my list to say we’d made it. The guys went to the pics while I went back to the hostal to pack my stuff ready to cycle to Lynley’s place on Bukit Timah Road. She’s a friend of a friend from NZ who’s offered to put me up at her condo, she works in the travel industry here.
It was a seven-mile ride to Maplewoods Condominium. When I arrived there I was met by Steve and Fleur from NZ who were also staying there, we hopped into the luxury swimming pool just in time for a storm. Funny thing is, have you noticed when people are swimming outdoors, they get out of the water when it starts raining? And another funny thing is when I watch people in a rush, they run, hop
Singapore Skyline
When the fun was over we didn't do much sightseeing. I remember taking a similar shot in 1986 here when this small harbour was full of traditional junks and cheap cafes. on an escalator, stand still until they get to the top or bottom, then…start running again! Weird?
Later on, Lynley cooked up a great meal, but sadly not veggie. I ended up with a pack of sooper-noodles with chopped chillies, extra hot.
Total Miles: 13697.32 Todays Miles: 35.50 Average speed: 13.6 Time on bike: 2:35
Day 303, 30th March
Singapore
Spent the day chilling and talking about trips. We did a walk around the Bukit Timah nature reserve. The place was surprisingly wild, like virgin rainforest, loads of monkeys and that. I didn’t expect that in the middle of a city state. I began to wonder that if all human life suddenly dissapeared on earth, then how long would it take for the animals and plants to take over again? How long before tigers came back to Singapore? What traces would be left in a thousand, a million years to suggest that people ever existed in this place? I made a mental note that it would be a good place to free-camp on my next visit here. We wandered back to the condo to relax in the pool despite thunder and lightning.
Passport Stamps
The Singapore entry and exit stamps. In all, my passport was stamped 44 times on the trip. Day 304, 31st March
Singapore
I rode into town to see the guys and check my emails. I got a bloody daft email from Kathryn that pissed me off no end! She saw me and the guys on telly in LA and noticed a cute teddy-bear on the from of my bike and wanted to know which girl had given it to me! Not another jealous girl - I can’t deal with that again! Jealous of a cuddly bear, I may have found at the roadside, on my handlebars…! Actually, a girl did give it to me, for good luck, that’s all. I really will have to wait and see how it works out with Kathryn.
I had lunch with the guys and ordered some photos that Roma had took. She’s off with a friend to Malaysia and it doesn’t look as if she’ll hit it off with Rory at all, despite their brief romance in Hanoi. Toby had got some postcards prited with our pic on it to send off to friends abroad - great! Later I rode back to Maplewoods, had dinner, wrote my postcards, and crashed out early.
Day 305, 1st April
My World
The crystal ball that Kathryn gave me just before my trip with locks of her hair. I carried this ball all the way to Singapore and clasped it in my hand at night while free-camping. A strand of her hair I tied to a branch of a tree in every country I visited - she was with me on this journey, too. Singapore
It’s officially 10 months since the beginning of the trip, and All Fools Day, but I wasn’t in the mood to crack a single joke. I rode to the hostal and checked email again, hmmm, things don’t look too good - maybe I’ll be going straight back to England and not to LA.
Our 200 postcards had cost 135 Singapore dollars and I had 45 of them and was still busily writing them. Scott went off to the airport with his bike nicely packed up, he dropped it off there cos he’s flying out early tomorrow, the first one of us to leave.
Toby’s friends turned up later, Multimedia Mark who had been doing Toby’s online diary for him, and Dangerous Dave! Later on we had the last celebration together as a group - the drinks flowed! The stories of the last 10 months went on relentlessly, and by the end of the evening it got a tad emotional. I began to sink in that we were all separating after such a long time together - I think we all shed a tear or two.
Day 306, 2nd April
Singapore
I
Merlion Trophy
Presented on completion by the British High Commissioner - we each recieved one. awoke with a little hangover. Having wrote 40 plus cards to sent to people, I decided it would be cheaper to take the 170 bus from Queen Street to Johor Baharu in Malaysia to post my cards. Anyway, it would be fun too. Before that, though, I wandered to the Peoples Park Complex to pick up my airline ticket that Lynley had booked for me last night at the Sino-American travel agency. Yes, I was going back to England, in two days! I paid by credit card which I was using now for the first time on this trip. It was fairly cheap at S$850, flying Malaysian Airlines via KL.
I wandered around Chinatown and bought a few trinkets for my parents, my sister, and my best friend Harvey. Then boarded the bus for the one-and-a-half-hour journey to Johor Baharu. I travelled this route in 1986 and I didn’t remember it being as long and as busy as today. The Woodlands checkpoint was a hectic place, much easier to cross the causeway by bicycle. In JB, I found the GPO and spent an hour licking stamps, they say that each stamp licked is ten calories! Then I boarded the
Merlion (detail)
They even put a little sticker on the back - they must have been expecting us! Thanks Tobes and Rory. bus for the long journey back arriving in Queen Street after six - glad I don’t have to commute this every day!
I popped into the hostal and quickly told the guys that I’d see them tomorrow for lunch the last time, then I had to dash off to Lynley’s before it got dark. I stopped to eat on the way cos I was starving and arrived in the dark at Maplewoods. I chatted with Lynley for a few hours. Steve, Fleur and another friend, Nadine who’d arrived earlier, were away on Bintan island - unfortunately I wouldn’t see them again. After watching TV and finding out that the Queen Mother had died, I crashed out with the thougth in my mind that the old dear was over a hundred and had a good life, but on a positive note… the British taxpayers will now be paying a little less after the pompous funeral arrangements that will surely go ahead.
Day 307 & 308, 3rd & 4th April
Singapore Hostel - Changi Airport (FLIGHT) Manchester Airport - Alderley Edge - Macclesfield - Rudyard - Bagnall - Werrington - Hillside Road - Number 22 - END
Lethal Weapon
Since when was a mini-Leatherman classed as a leathal weapon! I awoke early, this was it, I was going home after the adventure to God knows what awaits. I had breakfast and packed my stuff in my panniers which would be going in the hold of the plane. Then after a lazy morning I said my thanks and farewells to Lynley and left her place for the seven-mile trip into the city and locked my bike up at the hostal where the guys (minus Scott) were holed up.
We all went off to a place that David (the Singapore cycle fanatic) had recommended - a strange sort of vegitarian Indian fast-food emporium. I’m usually against such eateries but this place was pretty good. Stephane had made copies of many of Roma’s photos of us all arriving in Singapore a few days ago, and we sorted them out between us. Then it was time for me to leave for the airport. Outside the restaurant I gave Toby, Rory, and Stephane a big hug, and said my farewells for the last time on the pavement. We all agreed to keep in touch, to have a reunion sometime, somewhere, some-when… And then I turned around and went off back to the hostal
The Journal
Here it is folks - the actual journal I wrote in from day one. at around 2pm. As I walked away it felt like all the ends of all of my relationships, my losses, losing my grandparents, loss of my beloved pets…. I can’t really put it into words, but, it realllllly felt sad, like it was the end of something really important - it was the end of an important chapter in my life. I walked away, didn’t turn around for a last look even though I really wanted to. They would see my tears rolling down my cheeks - maybe they felt the same at that moment. I just carried on walking back to the hostal and to pick up my bike and to close this chapter.
David gave me an escort to the airport a 15-mile ride away along the east-coast cycle path which follows the coast through palm trees. Then we were there at Changi International Airport looking for the correct terminal, mine was 2. I dis-assembled my bike, only removing one pedal, dropping the seat and handlebars, turning then in, then deflating the tyres. No box was needed, I just lobbed it on the conveyor at check-in with my two rear panniers full of the heaviest stuff. I
Mileage Chart page 1
All distances, mileage, times, and places visited were kept meticulously at the end of every day in my journal. This is what you see at the end of each blog entry. was allowed to take my tent on board as hand baggage, which was strange, because of the 20 or so sharp tent pegs enclosed within. At security they took my mini Leatherman off me which I could pick up in Manchester - it was sealed in a bag and classed as “Lethal Weapon”! I boarded the plane for KL at 5.30pm, it took off at 6pm, and from that point on I felt that technically the trip was over… I’d left the ground and broke contact with the earth-link to home after 10 months of biking - I had mixed feelings. I was happy in a way to be seeing my parents again, sad in a way that the flight wasn’t going to Hawaii or to LA to meet Kathryn. I was feeling as if I’d betrayed her….
After watching the lights of Singapore dissapear into the south, I relaxed for the one-hour flight to KL and experienced a very smooth landing upon arrival. I had to find my connecting flight in the plush new KL International Airport terminal, which was no problem, then at 11pm I was on the big Boeing 747 bound for home. It took off
Mileage Page 2
Yet more........ at midnight and cruised at 35,000 feet, 500mph during the night. I was alone up there with my thoughts. I occurred to me that for every month I’d spent cycling on the ground, it equalled approximately one hour up here in the sky - how the world has shrunk…
Day 308, 4th April
The Malysian Airlines food was crappy. They seem to have the idea that vegetarian means vegan, and as a result I missed out on the buttered bread, cheese cracker, and milk coffee that other passengers were getting. Maybe next time I should just have a standard meal and push the meat and fish to one side? I busied myself by following the route plan on the small screen on the back of the seat headrest in front of me. We were now over the coast of England and the plane had begun its descent in Manchester. A red sun was rising over the horizon to the right. Just before 6am the plane was higher than normal above the beginning of the runway. “Surely it can’t be landing from this height”? I thought. But it was. It dropped rapidly mid way down the runway -
Mileage Page 3
and more........ an appauling landing. As it hit the ground everything shuddered and a few women screamed! It came to a hell of a screeching halt just yards from the end of the runway…Man! It’s definitely safer to cycle - but that would have took another 10 months.
Going through immigration was easy-peasy. I then collected my ‘Lethal Weapon’ and then my panniers, and finally ‘Isolde’ - my bike. Everything had arrived safely and unscathed after the flight. It took half an hour to assemble my bike and stuff in the arrivals hall, then I was ready to cycle home.
I left the airport with no money whatsoever and rode out into a bloody freezing fog-bound England. What a shock to the system. I had been used to the 25C night minimum temperatures and the 35C daytime average of SE Asia for the last few months, not this just-above-freezing stuff. I didn’t even have any warm clothing with me, just my Hwachong College cotton jacket which was a gift from Singapore.
My route home took me along pretty busy roads to Macclesfield, then on quieter roads to Rushton. I then decided to take the familiar lanes through Rudyard, Longsdon,
GO - BIKEPACKER - GO....
Freedom is the wind in your hair, a blank page in your journal, and two wheels to carry you where you so wish -the the only limitations are in your imagination - JUST GO FOR IT! and Denford - I was back in home-country now. The mist lifted, and so did my spirits helped by the familiar sights all around me. This is where I grew up and I was coming home.
Lots of small hills that never seemed any easier to cycle up. One by one I went over them until I rode onto Armshead Road. From here I could take the short-cut across Wetley Moor to my village. Just after 10am, I’d crossed the moor and was on Washerwall Lane, that runs through the village of Werrington. On the last half mile home there was no fanfare, no crowd of people to welcome me home, nothing at all - I felt it best this way, nobody was really sure when I’d arrive back and the least they expected would be that I take the paths over the moor into the back of the village, un-noticed.
And there I was, at the bottom of Hillsde Road, my road, my childhood, my memories, my life. I rode up the steep road the last 100 yards to number 22, my home, on the left hand side. Everthing looked so normal as I pulled into the driveway. The flowers of early Spring were blooming, the trees were budding, everything looked normal. I dismounted my bike for the last time, and rested it up against the garage door, sat on the doorstep, put my face in my hands and sighed. I thought about the completion of the ring. Ten months ago we started as a group of lads from this very doorway, we started an adventure right here, and 13,758 miles later, I end up back in the same spot - something has changed. Changed in me. A passing of something.
Strangely, my parents weren’t at home and I didn’t have a key. So I waited for them to arrive not knowing where they had gone. I’d done a lot of waited on the trip and now I was used to the solitude of my own thoughts - boredom and being impatient are a product of the “Now Generation” and I feel I’m cured of that now.
My parents arrived back from shopping an hour later and were totally surprised, there was hugs and kisses all around. I unpacked my bike then had one of mums lovely cups of tea, I’D forgotten how good they were. Then I ate loads of rounds of the thing I’d missed the most - cheese on toast! My old bedroom was basically the same, many familiar things, and then all of a sudden it seemed that I hadn’t been away for that long, perhaps not at all - it could have all been a very strange dream. I know it’s illogical, but a strange fear gripped me for a moment that I didn’t understand. It passed soon thankfully.
I spent most of the day unpacking and later in the evening relaxing alone in my room, I didn’t call anyone, I just wanted to be alone in my thoughts. I relaxed, listening to classics, reading through all the letters from Kathryn, thinking of new trips. Tomorrow is another day, another beginning, a start of my new life. My book of life forwards is just blank pages to be filled in. I lay there on my bed, content. Content in the thought that I’d achieved something big in my life, maybe the biggest thing I’ll ever do?
I slept well.
THE END.
Todays Miles: 61.61 Average speed: 13.6 Time on bike: 5:23
Total Miles: 13,785.93
Total Kilometres: 22,289.00
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Tim S.
non-member comment
Wow, the trip's over, but I don't want it to be over...can't wait for the where are we now blog, and hopefully the next memorablog from your previous travels