Some photos to show you I'm still alive and very happy. I went with a great group of friends to Yogjakarta to celebrate Indonesia's Independence day. "Merdeka!" Met some great people there through couchsurfing and altogether lost my voice from talking and laughing so much. [View Full Entry]

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The smell of the third world hits me as soon as we exit the immigrasi at Batam; that unmistakable smell of burning rubbish mixed with low-grade exhaust fumes and other exotic smells that just didn't exist back across the Straits. Singapore is probably the most immaculate city and country in the world, Indonesia is, well very different. We change money and enter the scrum of shouting Ojek drivers (an Ojek is motorbike taxi, how they think they can help us when we already have 2 wheels of our own is something I don't bother to stop and discuss) and food vendors, [View Full Entry]

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Yes we are still alive and well. We have been lazy cyclists and even lazier bloggers for most of our time in South East Asia, especially since leaving Vietnam - our last blog post. That was 3 and a half months ago and since then we have visited 4 new countries and pedalled our way very slowly from Ho Chi Minh City to Kuala Lumpur here in Malaysia. Thanks to the many people who have contacted us recently with messages of support and encouragement, both friends from home and those we have never met who simply wondered why the blogs had [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Thailand caked in dust and mud, with Robin half blind. The Thai border post was the smartest building we had seen in ages, covered in portraits of the Thai King and the Red, White and Blue flag. We would soon learn these are omnipresent. Everything was just so much cleaner and tidier than Cambodia, something we felt highly conscious of as we stood stinking and covered mud in a queue of smart, clean, and perfumed backpackers to clear immigration. Our bikes looked little better than us and about 2km into the country Erika's chain broke in protest. We [View Full Entry]

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We must be getting good as this travel lark - we entered Cambodia without having to bribe the immigration officials to stamp our passports as many travellers do, and even manged to haggle the money changers down to a decent rate. Riding away from the border post we entered a surreal world of high rise hotel casinos, neon signs, bars and expensive cars. Could this Las Vegas-like border town really be Cambodia? A kilometre or 2 later and we had our answer - no. Leaving town we reflected how yet again a simple line on a map has resulted in such [View Full Entry]

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Borders are rarely this significant. Usually the fact that some imaginary line on a map has been crossed does not actually show itself on the ground. The Laos-Vietnam border is different; we went from a steep, almost vertical, climb up through thick jungle to a sudden line of no trees, flat, bare ground and huge excavators eating away more of the hillsides. Suddenly there was a 6 lane road and houses everywhere. These houses were not the bamboo and hardwood huts we were used to, they were tiny concrete boxes, housing large families plus their motos. Now “motos’’ (sco [View Full Entry]

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The long flat road stretched out endlessly south from Vientienne. The first day was ok; we made good progress despite a relentless headwind and towards the end of the day the forested hills of a National Park loomed up to the left of the road. We checked into a nice little guesthouse and set out to find the market in the tiny town. We managed to stock up with bananas and peanuts, which are about the only snack food we have found in this country. It was only then that we noticed the other more exotic foods for sale: kingfishers, herons [View Full Entry]

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Ask me what I did in Laos I will say not much. Even though we have cycled from the Chinese border south to Vientienne we have also spent a lot of time still and resting. Drinking lots of wonderful 'Beer Lao' and eating many baguettes and doughnuts, we are definitely appreciating a rest and relaxation. Maybe it is where we are in our journey but I think that more likely it is Laos; it really is an infectiously lazy place. So we are off to drink lovely rich chocolatey Lao coffee, maybe iced with condensed milk added. A wander round the [View Full Entry]

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We had done it, we were officially out of the permit zone that is the Tibet Autonomous Region, but in Zhongdian we were still very much in Tibet. The faces, clothing and houses all still looked Tibetan. Above the 'old town' stands a prominent Tibetan Gompa with an even more prominent prayer wheel next to it. In fact this is allegedly the biggest prayer wheel in the world, and as it takes at least 3 people to start turning the thing it’s not hard to believe it. The town is surrounded by pine forested hills and wide grasslands alongside the lake, [View Full Entry]

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I am wearing most of my clothes; leggings, trousers and waterproof over trousers, 5 tops, a down jacket and my over jacket, plus two hats, 3 pairs of gloves and 2 pairs of socks. My fingers and toes are still completely frozen, but none of this is bothering me as the amazing night sky full of stars is reflected in the big river which is gently flowing past me on my right. The moon rose at about 4 am as we were packing up our camp, struggling with the ice encrusted tent and stiff bags. Now this silver light casts long [View Full Entry]

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