South East Asia Leg 1: Singapore

Neither of us particularly wanted to go to Singapore, but when we’d re-booked our flights back home Singapore Airlines ended up being the best choice. We had two weeks between flights; the plan was to spend a bit of time in Singapore but mostly to explore Malaysia a bit further than we had before. In particular, one of the criteria for this little hiatus was to spend Toby’s birthday on a beach somewhere hot. We were going to be arriving back to a Canberra winter and we really wanted to get some quality summer time in before we did. The criteria for hotels included wireless internet so Toby could survive, and gyms so that we could start getting back in shape. Toby had an oz tag game the week we got back and he didn’t want to humiliate himself. So before we left Oxford we booked hotels in Singapore and KL that met those criteria. We weren’t 100% sure what we would do after that, but reasoned we would figure it out as we went along.

The hotel in Singapore was disappointing at first glance; it was part of a big building that included a very ordinary shopping mall and the large lobby hadn’t been redecorated since brass fittings and smoked glass were all the rage. Luckily the rooms had been refurbished since then and it was much nicer than initial impressions would have had us believe. My main memory of Singapore is of resting. We enjoyed the hotel room, and the gym even though it wasn’t very good. We didn’t do any of the touristy things the guidebook told us to, although we did go for a nice (and sweaty) wander through Chinatown and some of the markets. We went to the train station to book tickets to go to KL and ate some really tasty food. We also had a good giggle at all the posters in the subway for the moral police, and the video in the trains that was basically an instruction video on how to bomb the subway system. Of course we had a walk down Orchard Road to ogle at all the amazing shops and wish we had more money. And I think that’s about it.

Our train was at 7.40 am, an early start for us but we didn’t want to arrive in KL at night time. Unfortunately we woke up at 7.20 am. There wasn’t much point worrying about it by then although we have never done anything like that before. I remember thinking my sister Ali would be proud of me. So we ended up on the 2.30pm train instead, which made for a more relaxing morning and anyway we were due to arrive in KL around 8pm I think so not too late. I was really tired when we got on the train in Singapore and I promptly fell asleep, only to be woken up half an hour or so later when we were crossing the border and had to get off the train for a passport check. Wow, I wish I’d read that website more closely so I knew that was going to happen. It was a little disconcerting to leave all our belongings on the train while we got off and went into the office to show them our passports; you could hear the guards taking the sniffer dogs through all the carriages and I must admit to being a little nervous that as two of the only westerners on the train we would become unsuspecting drug mules. (We didn’t.) I was also trying to watch what they did with our passports; I’d read stories of people not getting stamps on the border and then running into problems when they tried to leave again. It seemed ok and then we all had to wait some more while they finished with the train. I went to the loo while we waited and the reason I mention that is there was a poster in there that explained to people how to use the new-fangled Western toilets and keep them clean. In particular, don’t squat on them. I looked in amazement at the cartoon drawing of a lady squatting on the toilet but when I mentioned it to Toby he said, “Oh that explains why so many toilet seats are cracked here.” Can’t say I had noticed that myself but I suppose it makes sense. Most places we went to had both kinds, which we’d gotten used to in Japan and again in Turkey. I don’t mind squat toilets as they do feel quite hygienic; the only thing I don’t like is that the floor tends to get muddy and I have a hard time trying to stop the cuffs of my pants getting wet.

Anyway. We were back on the train after that and I slept some more. The train was pretty boring although we did go through some more interesting scenery a few times. There wasn’t really anything to eat either; lukewarm noodles already packed into takeaway containers, a few packets of Twisties and some chocolate bars. An Indian man struck up conversation with us for a while; he had a business running pilgrimages around a lake or mountain (I can’t remember) somewhere (maybe China?) and had obviously taken this trip a lot. At some point when it seemed like we were running behind schedule, he informed the whole carriage that we would be in KL around 11pm. Maybe.

The Epic Ride Part VIII: England (again)

We rode from Newhaven across the coast a little way to Brighton where we decided to just head into town and hope we saw a sign leading us somewhere useful. We began following signs to the tourist office but when we got to a roundabout right near the water there was a camping sign so we followed that instead. The road up to the campsite was right along the water; ocean on one side, beautiful terrace homes and hotels along the other. Then we headed inland through some suburban streets and through a large parkland to the campsite. It was a massive campsite and a bit expensive but we paid our money to a lady at the front desk who looked like she had some major sunburn and then headed up towards the back where the tent sites were. First we went to the top terrace, but once we got up there all we could do was laugh; the lovely green grass unfortunately covered a slope so steep we were certain we’d wake up in the morning at the bottom of the hill. It was empty, not surprisingly. The next terrace had quite a few tents already and not much shade, but it looked better than the bottom terrace which didn’t even have any views. So we set up the tent as far away from others as we could and then decided we would walk into town since it was too warm to wear our riding gear.



The walk was probably longer than we anticipated but once we were onto the esplanade along the water it was very pretty. We walked along the beach a little but those English pebbles make for rather awkward walking so we used the footpath most of the time. We walked all the way to the famous Brighton pier, which was essentially a collection of fast food outlets and souvenir shops although there was also a couple of pubs and what I think was called the Fun Palace – basically somewhere that sucks your money up. We had a go on some pokies and try-to-catch-the-teddy-bear-with-the-claw but didn’t win anything. I was determined to have some proper English fish and chips but a lot of the places were already shut so we shared some Chinese noodles instead and then went back along the pier and ate some awful cheap fish and chips by the water. Not quite the experience I had imagined, even though the pier was a lot of fun. On the way back to the campsite we stopped at a Lidl to buy some supplies and then got back to our tent to find that we had been even more blocked in by three girls in a massive tent who stayed up half the night playing their iPod loudly and sharing philosophies like ‘once you go black you never go back’ with the rest of the site. Lovely. Brighton is party central so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. In fact I’d love to go back one day, not camping, with a proper outfit, and visit some of its famous clubs and do some Fatboy Slim spotting. It looked like there were some nice bars to explore.



In the morning we headed for Oxford, arriving in time for lunch and then Toby spent the afternoon cleaning the bike which was looking a little the worse for wear after so many weeks on the road. The plan was to spend the next few days recuperating at Margaret’s house, and also to sell the bike. We hadn’t managed to advertise it privately while we were away so it was up to the dealerships. Luckily there was a motorbike show room just down the road from Margaret’s, where Toby headed first thing the next morning. Unfortunately he was back within five minutes as the owner only wanted to stock Italian and Japanese bikes. We were on a BMW. I didn’t really understand the mentality behind that, but we put it past us and started hunting down other dealerships in the area. To make a long, frustrating and rather sad story short, we failed to sell the bike. No one wanted it (too big, too German) or if they did want it, they weren’t willing to pay what it was worth. In the end Toby decided to just sell it at a massive loss and then we discovered that we didn't have the correct paperwork. Of course we'd never realised this since we didn't know what paperwork we needed. A couple of phone calls later and there was no way we could get the forms in time, so we couldn't sell it at all. It was a very disappointing turn of events as the money for the bike was supposed to pay for the next leg of our trip. In the end, Margaret very generously agreed to loan out part of her garage and there the bike sits, awaiting the next adventure.



We had to organise another load for DHL to ship back to Australia, with the bike and camping gear we weren’t willing to throw out, and stock up on items for our trip to Singapore and Malaysia. And most of all, we had to rest. The bike dramas meant our stay in Oxford wasn’t as relaxing as it should have been, but there wasn’t much we could do about it so in the end we were on the bus to London, backpacks in tow. Toby decided to treat us to the same fancy hotel he’d stayed in in January, on his solo weekend away, so it was a surprise to me to see just how fancy it was. It really was lovely and in a nice spot near the university and library. We probably should have done some sightseeing, but we were still recovering from our camping adventure and so spent most of the next two days enjoying our nice hotel room. Toby’s friends Rob and Kim made the trip down to Edinburgh to say goodbye so they spent Saturday night out and about while I caught up with my friend Elle (who I’d gone to high school with and later met up with in Edinburgh) and some friends of hers, involving some yummy Thai food and drinks at a pub afterwards. They all carried on to a club but I was conscious of wanting to get the last tube back to the hotel so I left around midnight and managed to get a cab from the tube station since the one near our hotel was shut that weekend – a very frustrating thing as one of the reasons Toby liked the hotel was how close it was to the tube. The next morning we met up with Rob and Kim again to have brunch before they got the train back up north, and we did some shopping since I was determined to get the Lonely Planet for Singapore and Malaysia, as well as some other books to read. It was a pleasant few days and it was especially nice that we were able to spend some time with people who had made our time in Edinburgh that much better.


On the Monday, our tube station was open again – yay – especially as it was on the line that went right out to Heathrow. It was a long trip but when you are carrying those big backpacks the main thing is that you don’t have to carry them too far. Checking in was fairly uneventful and I don’t recall that we had to wait a very long time to get on the plane. And then we were on our way home, but with another fantastic 2 weeks to go.

The Epic Ride Part VII: France (again)

The next morning we left Freiburg and headed for Colmar, across the border in France. We decided to take the advice of the brochure from the tourist office, and instead of going the quick, obvious way we used a lot of nice windy secondary roads with fantastic views. The result of course was that it took us forever to get to France, even though we hadn’t covered much distance; it was worth it though to really appreciate the beautiful corner of the world in which we’d found ourselves. I remember very heavy traffic again and spending a fair bit of time stuck on a road outside an outdoor furniture shop; we started looking at all the nice tables and chairs and marquees and thinking soon we would be home with our house and able to have outdoor furniture again. Quite an odd thought after spending so much time standing up for all our meals. We spent the night in a lovely village called Ribeauville in the Alsace wine region, which of course we hadn’t known existed thanks to our awesome map. It was a large campsite where we managed to find a decent spot, even if we were overlooked by a building site. The most unusual thing about the site was the storks wandering around, I guess hoping for food from the exceedingly organised Dutch and German campervanners. The owners were lovely people who spoke perfect English; they had two kids who would run into the office at random intervals for hugs and little whispers in French. After we were set up, we walked into town in search of dinner, but unfortunately being a small town the supermarket and other shops were shut. We couldn’t really afford a restaurant; luckily there was a van in a carpark selling pizza! It looked like they were in a different town every night of the week – fantastic business idea in this part of the world. So we joined the queue and had pizzas for dinner sitting by our tent. Just lovely. The town was lovely too, with all the old French buildings and courtyards, but strangely enough it did have a rather unfriendly vibe. Strange characters hanging out in the public parks, hoons screaming around the little streets in their cars, and so on. Such a shame.

We were now on the home stretch towards our ferry in Dieppe, so the next day we left Ribeauville and headed towards the north coast, via some really lovely countryside through Alsace, only slightly wishing we had time for a winery tour. Neither of us can really remember where we got to; only that it was a long ride and the campsite at the end was remarkably lovely. We were almost the only ones there (except for an older German couple who played a sweet game of badminton outside their campervan before heading off for dinner) and enjoyed having the space to ourselves. It wasn’t as manicured as other sites; we actually had to move the tent to get it away from the bush and all the bugs. There was a big open space up the hill where we could chuck a Frisbee around (the same Frisbee we’d found on the Isle of Skye) and generally enjoy ourselves. There was an Aldi not far away so we could buy some dinner and other things; we ate sitting on the wall by the bush. It was a really nice place to spend the night (except for all the bugs).

The next day was the longest ride we’d had as we tried to get as close to Dieppe as we could. We got to Amiens and tried to find a non-existent tourist office; after that we tried to follow signs to a camping site which seemed to be taking us round and round in circles. We drove to nearby villages in search of camping sites that might be easier to find, to no avail. It was all getting very stressful and frustrating, well past 7pm at this point and we were certain we’d end up in an overpriced hotel. Somehow though we managed to find the campsite which was on the complete opposite side of town to where we’d started; I can’t remember if we ended up using the GPS or what. The campsite was very crowded (I think there was a big car race on at the time, as well as a ‘caravan club’ that had taken up lots of room) but there was an on-site takeaway AND a washing machine, so all was well. The office was closed and the manager was running the takeaway and the bar, so he was a little rushed and cranky with us for wanting to check in AND order dinner at such a late hour but we managed okay and even got some clean clothes. So the not-very-fun day ended on a reasonable note.

The next morning it was time to head for the coast, where we were hoping to spend our final few days in France enjoying some warm weather and relaxing rather than riding too far. We made it to St Valery which was a very picturesque seaside village overtaken by other riders and what looked to be a massive number of English tourists. The tourist office was closed for lunch so we spent some time walking along the waterfront and through the cobbled streets before joining the throngs in the office. Unfortunately there was no accommodation information to be had, but there was a tiny internet port where we sent off a couple of quick emails and lots of brochures about the area we were in, which is how we’d discovered we had spent the past few days travelling through the battlefields of the Somme without realising it. There was even a special brochure about Australians in the Somme and all the memorials and villages you could visit that had special significance for Australians. We were kicking ourselves at that point, having spent the past couple of days just roaring through the flat countryside when we could have taken our time and done some interesting exploring. This is why it pays to do your research beforehand. For future reference, if we were to do this ride again I believe we would have headed east from the ferry to St Valery, spent the night on the coast, picked up some information on the Somme, and then headed south. I think this would be a better use of time. But that is the joy of hindsight.
Since it didn’t look like there was much camping around St Valery we got back on the road and headed along the coast to le Treport, a larger town where we found a campsite almost immediately. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very nice campsite; our tent overlooked a carpark and apartment building. A far cry from the night we’d spent in the bush with only bugs and the Danish badminton players for company. The bathrooms were also strange; there was a door for men and a door for women but they both seemed to end up in the same area, with showers for women and none for men, and shared toilets. There was another door for men which led into a games room. We decided to only stay one night, and push further along the coast towards Dieppe the next day so we would be closer to the ferry.

Once we had the tent set up we wandered into town where there appeared to be a Sunday market set up along the esplanade. This was a great way to kill a few hours, eat some crepes, and generally enjoy the sea air. The beach wasn’t very pleasant; stereotypically Normandie with the rough white pebbles and grey-green water. The best thing we saw was a really cute family of ducks; on our way up to the market we saw them swimming in the harbour, with a small group of onlookers oohing and aahing at them. On the way home we saw them again, with the fluffy ducklings nestled into the reeds on the shore and the mum and dad ducks keeping an eye out for them. There were lots of places we could have had some dinner outside looking at the water, and there was a band starting up too but in the end we bought some groceries at a little supermarket on the way back up and ate our picnic dinner back at the tent.

The next day we drove along the coast to Dieppe and this time we went right into the town centre and parked in the shadow of a gigantic church. It was a prettier town than we had realised, coming into it as we did from the ferry port four weeks earlier. We went to the tourist office where we managed to catch them five minutes before their lunch break; the lady at the desk gave me a brochure of local accommodation and circled the nearby campsites for me. Hmmm, what a useful service. Perhaps they could offer this on the ferry on the way over, for those of us who haven’t managed to do any research? In any case we decided to head towards a campsite called Vitamin, because it sounded funny, and was pretty close to Dieppe without being too much in town. It was a quick drive from the town centre into the next village and was just off the highway. It was a nice campsite, with a friendly lady in the office, a pool, a playground, and an Aldi just down the road.

We got the tent set up and some groceries from Aldi, and then spent the afternoon lazing around the campsite. We had one full day left before we needed to get the ferry, so we did the same thing the next day as well. We swam in the pool, threw the Frisbee, and generally enjoyed the sunny weather while we could. And then it was time to leave, so we left our final French campsite and headed to the boat about lunchtime on the second day. This time we were more prepared and took food and ginger tablets for sea sickness; I also remembered to buy a paper in the shop before we boarded. We were old hands by this point. It was mid afternoon when we rode off the boat into Newhaven, only slightly worried about having to go back to riding on the left. We stopped at passport control where I had to remove my helmet even though Toby didn’t, and the lady annoyed me by asking lots of questions about my plans. I guess I was just tired and cranky. But our next stop was Brighton, home of Fatboy Slim and the famous pier, so the crankiness didn’t last much longer.