The Amazing Flying Motorcycle

Whilst bumming around KL I visited Batu Caves, the location of a Hindu Temple. There were lots of steps up and it was nice and hot. Thankfully someone had the sense to stick a useful sign at the top.

There was also quite a nice view from the top of the KL Menora tower.

Sunny Finally opened after a week of waiting. I could finally get some new tyres, some nice knobbly offroad ones, for the potentially hard slog across Indonesia. There were also some aluminium boxes there which fit my rack perfectly so I snapped them up at a discounted rate and posted my soft panniers home. I like these ones. I'll try to not break them. I discovered my engine was running very rich upon spark plug removal so tweaked my carburettor a bit more but it still ran rough on the way back to the guest house.

At Sunnys I noticed another Uk plated BMW, and recognised it as being Russ' who I met in Pakistan. We bumped into each other at the guest house. He was having engine troubles. Luckily despite the problems my bike has never stopped running and has always managed to get me somewhere (apart from when the valve clearance became massive in Turkey which I could adjust or for that matter when the chain snapped in Northern Thailand.

I figured out that it must be the float in the carb set incorrectly and thus with it being Sunday, and Sunny closed again, I decided to pull the bike apart on the pavement in true 'Yeah it can't be that hard to fix can it?' style. After an hour I was holding various mechanical parts in my hands trying to get to grips with exactly how it worked. One part didn't make sense, something had to be missing, and sure enough I had dropped a tiny important bit on the floor. Thankfully I found it. The bike is now running perfectly again after my confused tinkering.

I set off back to Penang to get boat to Indo. Everything ran perfectly, just as I had hoped for my anticipated island hopping adventure.

Whilst killing time for a change on Penang I met Lene from Norway and we decided to hit a beach for the day. Whilst lazing in the water on a deserted beach I heard a sharp call from an alarmed bird. I glanced up and was convinced I saw a 'dragon type creature' about 1 metre long in the water not far away. I promptly removed myself from the vicinity. Later in the day I saw it again. Possibly it may have been Nessie on her holidays but more likely I think it was a Monitor lizard. Various monkeys also visited us on the beach and I managed to fall asleep on my side in the sun and now have a half bronzed (read burnt) body.

The onion boat to Indonesia arrived on Thursday, so I could head down to Butterworth port to sort out the customs clearance. That afternoon and my bike did its greatest acrobatic trick to date when it was hoisted into the cargo hold of the boat. It was a rather apprehensive experience as she floated a few metres over the wharf whilst I hummed the theme tune from 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I just hope she doesn't take a dip on the other side.

I now will get a ferry to Medan in the morning. I've been a bit apprehensive about Indonesia, due to the size of the archipelago and the reduced amenities in remote areas. But then again I have been swanning around Thailand etc. for the past couple of months. Now I'm rather excited at the opportunity for adventure in the jungles, and with the bike running well I am confident of few problems, but then again...it is a KTM.

Lost...

Yesterday I decided to visit Sepang, the Malaysian F1 racetrack to see what was going on. My Garmin Etrex Vista HCx GPS directed me there. Not much was happening, just a Kawasaki racing team testing their bike. My GPS couldn't direct me back to the city. It stopped working. Nothing I can do or a technician can do anything about it. The GPS firmware has decided to go bust so I now have a rather nice paperweight which shows some pretty maps but does not tell you where you are. Fantastic.

After spending a night drinking beer and messing around with it on my laptop I am now pretty stressed since I need the thing to find waypoints that Carlos has given me for getting my bike to Indonesia. I also now get lost rather easily, even walking around town. I've spent the day trying to get hold of an equivalent unit but no one has one, thus I'll probably have to fork out for another one, the Garmin 60CSx. Of course I will also need a completely new mounting system for the bike, which I am also not happy with.

This trip is really wearing me down. The bike still isn't running right, the fan has stopped working meaning that the radiator boiled over in traffic enveloping me in a cloud of steam and various bolts have fallen out of the frame. Thanks to the Chinese New Year the mechanic still isn't open yet thus I can't get anything sorted, or the new tyres I need.

If only I could start again with what I've learnt so far...

Welcome To The Jungle

At the KTM dealers for the umpteenth day in a row and I decided to pull the exhaust apart to weld up a hole that had appeared. To get it out easily we had to remove the radiator and upon removal managed to shear yet more rusted bolts requiring some grinding, drilling and tapping. I also decided to clean my sheepskin seat since a colony of ants had decided to make it home.

Eventually the bike was finished so I returned 'Slagathor' to her owners and tried to find the right bus to the dealers. A helpful little Indian man offered me a lift on his scooter and was amazed with my helmet, so much so that he wanted three separate photos in various combinations.

He showed me which bus to get and waited with me, giving me his mobile number and address and asking whether he could come with me to Australia. We waited for about half an hour. Lots of buses came and went, apart from the one that he said I should get. I got bored of his company so jumped on a random bus. The driver told me that I should get another bus, despite the place I wanted to go to being posted on his route. I jumped off and got on the other bus. This driver also told me that he was not going where I wanted to go. I decided to see how not near to where I wanted to go he was going so stayed on. He dropped me off directly outside the dealers.

I was plied with a pretty big bill, which was expected, since some of the KTM parts I wanted only came as part of bigger parts which I didn't need, thus I had to pay for the big bits. The labour charges were minimal despite the amount of work. There was another KTM 640 there on display so I plundered it for bits. I was also given lots of stickers, a t-shirt and other bits of KTM merchandising tat to help me on my journey. I'm not sure how the KTM branded chinese money envelopes will be much use.

Despite the rebuild on my carburettor the bike ran badly and cut a few times on the way back to the guest house. I guessed this was because I had changed the needle location in India so changed it back to where it should have been.

The next day I set off for cooler climes towards the Cameron Highlands. The bike was not running too well. I figured the carb still needed tweaking. It also tended to runaway to about half throttle a lot, so I also figured that maybe there was dirt in the carb. A spark plug change probably wouldnt go amiss either but that could wait until KL.

I found a nice quiet guest house where I checked in for two days. I went out for one of the best Indian meals I've had. Tandoori Chicken for £1.50 with naan bread and curry sauce and rice. Why can't Indians cook like this in India? It's not hard guys! I don't think I had a single nice meal in India. All the decent cooks must be banished or something. I also discovered this tasty treat... Kickapoo Joy Juice!

I booked myself on a tour for the next day thinking that I should probably do more than laze around and read and tinker with the bike. We set off early first to a butterfly farm, which was just a front for showcasing all the fantastic poisonous jungle critters that we could possibly encounter.

I decided against holding some scorpions after my previous experiences in Turkey oh so long ago.

I probably went a bit overboard with my photos of butterflies.

We continued on our trip in a second Landrover Discovery 110 since the first had broken down. Soon the ride became rather hairy as we started to make our way up a very muddy track. There would have been no way I could have gotten my bike up there. With the absence of seatbelts I almost put my elbow through the window a few times. My action photos don't quite capture the true flavour of the moment as we were rocked from side to side next to a precarious edge.

After trekking through the humid jungle for a couple of hours we arrived at the site of a blooming Rafflesia, or in other words, a big urinal smelling red flower which isn't actually a flower but instead a fungus or mushroom or something apparently. I wasn't really paying attention, I was on the lookout for poisonous things and leeches.

We slid back down the hill to an 'authentic' aboriginal village where they sat around smoking suspicious smelling cigarettes or hid inside watching SKY TV. We had a demonstration of a blowpipe and were allowed a go too. I was tempted to ask to be shot in the leg for the purposes of science but had second thoughts.

We were then carted off to the Boh Tea plantation, where most of Lipton's tea comes from apparently. I had a couple of cuppas and some nice cake whilst enjoying Telly Tubby land.

We finally visited a strawberry farm. Most of the Cameron Highlands seem to be constructed of plastic greenhouses. There were strawberries and cream on sale at the farm, but I had already stuffed myself by sampling the produce directly from the bushes when nobody was watching.

All in all it was a very English day and thoroughly enjoyable. I wasn't looking forwards to Malaysia after the joys of Thailand and had the feeling it would be similar to India, but the Indians here are so friendly and most importantly they have some common sense! They don't drive like idiots!

That night we sat around a camp fire drinking and enjoying the cool mountain air. We stared into the fire and had deep conversations, coming up with meaningful similes for the fire. 'Fire is like the window to your imagination, everyone looks in to see something different', was one guys inspirational offering. After a moments deep contemplation all I could come up with was 'Fire is hot'.

I set off the next day to Kuala Lumpur. I was not looking forwards to the heat of the city but wanted to experience the Chinese New Year. My bike slowly ran better on the way there so I think there may have been a bit of dirt in one of the carb jets.

About 100km from the city there was almost solid traffic heading in the opposite direction. I wondered whether they were fleeing from some natural disaster which I was unaware of but apparently they're just going on holiday for the New Year.

The city itself did not loom out of the distance as I expected. About 10km away I rode over a hill and was greeted with literally a wall of gleaming skyscrapers. It was rather awe inspiring. The city traffic was rather light and the highways were fast and open. The signs were no use to me so I had to rely on my GPS, as always in cities, to guide me to where I though the guest house I wanted was. There were a lot of buses on the streets and people waiting for them. Again I think they were trying to escape at the last minute for the New Year but I may also have just ridden through the bus station by mistake.

I found the guest house and will have to spend a couple of days seeing the sights and lazing around before the shops and embassies open again, either on Tuesday or Wednesday.

On New Years Eve there were lots of firecrackers set off in the streets. It was all rather dangerous but the tourists loved it. To me it sounded like someone having fun with lots of bubble wrap.

I find KL very similar to Angkor surprisingly. They are both jungles within the jungle. KL is a surprisingly green city in places but as always I find large cities pretty lonely places.

If Carlsberg Made Toasters...

They probably wouldn't be the best toaster's in the world.... This one would...

KTM merchandising is a bit bonkers, but pretty cool!

I'm going to get myself a proper Tankbag, better than strapping my camera case to the tank as I do at the moment. I am tempted to get some decent Aluminium boxes, but they would seriously detract from my budget. I'm completely undecided on luggage once again. Soft luggage is great for performance in the centre of the bike, but now has a couple of rips and I'm constantly worried about things being pilfered. Aluminium I found was durable and more secure but put a bit too much stress on the frame, but the boxes I had made in Pakistan were pretty heavy and didn't mount properly... Should have gotten decent stuff before I set off. We live and learn...

Whilst my bike was being systematically dismantled and rebuilt I felt rather lonely, so rented this little minx.

I've nicknamed her 'Slagathor'. She's like a Hairdryer on steroids with a top speed of about 50mph. Down hill... With the wind behind me... Whilst slipstreaming behind a a truck... You get the idea... It's enough to allow me to explore the Island though.

I found a nice bay where the fishermen moor their boats. There were some big jelly fish in the water.

I noticed something bobbing along not far away. It was a wild otter munching on discarded fish. My lens is a bit pathetic for zoom shots but that small black dot is an otter, I assure you.

There's an Irish guy here at this guest house. He annoys a lot of people here because he's been on the lash for the past few days. He constantly had a can of beer in his hand until this morning when he awoke from his stupor and discovered someone has nicked all his money and passport. The people at the guest house are a bit disappointed since it means he's now stuck here. He looks rather uncomfortable and unhappy now that he only has a bottle of water in his hand.

My plan now is to find out more about shipping to Indonesia tomorrow then head inland towards the Cameron highlands.

I've kept forgetting to add this slide show I made when I was in Kathmandu, so here it is...

The Falang In Penang

My time on Koh Tao came to a rather abrubt end one morning at 5am when I was unceremoniously turfed from the ferry back onto the mainland after a few bad hours of sleep. A couple of truck drivers were rather annoyed as well since I had managed to block their lorries in with my bike so they had to wait for me to remove my straps and disembark.

It was still dark at 5am but I decided to push on South and across Thailand to Krabi where I would spend the night. I hadn't left myself much time on my visa since it expired the next day so I would then have to push on to Malaysia. The road to Krabi was mainly highway but I amused myself by taking photos of my shadow.

Fantastic limestone rock formations emerged from the landscape like sleeping monsters and the foliage also appeared to get bigger. Massive palm trees lined the road and it was all very scenic.

I arrived in Krabi at about 10am, had some breakfast, found a guesthouse, then went to sleep. I awoke at 4pm and decided that I should probably have a look at what the town had to offer. I expected some nice beaches in the bay but there just appeared to be a lot of mangrove trees. The same tout asked me 3 times whether I wanted a boat ride. I returned to my hostel just as it started to rain pretty heavily. I was glad since the bike would get a good wash after spending a week on an island in the salt air. I ate then went to bed. I'm sure Krabi is a nice place but I was too tired to appreciate it.

I set off early the next day to get to Malaysia. After 5 hours and 300km I saw a sign for 'the border'. I followed it curiously since I still thought I was a good 50km away from where I thought the border was. The road snaked through the jungle and then I did indeed arrive at the border. It was literally a drive through border in the middle of the jungle, sort of like a McDonalds, but I still had to get off the bike and wander around the Thai side being directed from window to window just to get my passport stamped. For some reason the moody guy at the window labelled 'departures' wanted me to go to one labelled 'information'. They sent me back to the 'departures' man who stamped my passport then let me go. Since I was now stamped out of Thailand with nothing to stop me leaving I decided against going to customs so that they could get confused about the paperwork for the bike and just rode over the border. Nobody seemed bothered.

Just over the border I noticed a 4x4 parked up. It had plates from the Netherlands and was a couple of overlanders I had last met on Koh Chang. They were also surprised that there was a border here. They're on their way to Kuala Lumpur to ship their bike to India so that they can begin the long journey back to Europe. Good luck guys!

Immigration on the Malaysian side couldn't have been easier. I filled in a form, and was given a 3 month visa for free. The cheerful man behind the window was happy to welcome me to Malaysia and hoped that I would enjoy my stay. The man at customs knew exactly what to do with my Carnet, stamped it, then waved me on my way.

I was headed to Georgetown on the Island of Penang. Here I hoped to find a place to ship the bike to Indonesia once I have explored Malaysia a bit more. There are also KTM dealers here! The first I will have seen since Turkey. I want to get my rear shock absorber re-built as well as a decent service by someone who hopefully knows what they are doing. I'm not holding my breath but we can all dream.

After 50km or so I stopped at a petrol station. I had a brief conversation with a man from Bangladesh who, once I had mentioned I was from Manchester, kept naming footballers. I get this a lot. Mostly I just have to stare blankly, nod and agree. They soon seem to figure out that I have no idea who the names they keep repeating over and over are. They then look at me as if I'm stupid, which I am, and there is an awkward silence. I then make my getaway.

Luckilly there was an ATM there since the money change shops at the border were closed for Friday prayers and couldn't change my Thai Baht. I had no idea what the exchange rate for Sterling was so after a couple of attempts at trying to take out more money than I had, ended up with 1500 Ringit. The petrol station had 97 Octane petrol, the best I had probably seen since Europe. 16 litres cost me 34 Ringit. I figured out that there is about 5 Ringit to the Pound thus it was £7 for 16 litres of top quality fuel. Bargain! It's amazing how much healthier my engine sounds with the better petrol. I guess that's the price of higher compression and higher performance.

I took the toll road highway South towards Penang. Unlike Thailand, bikes are allowed on. We also don't have to pay and have seperate chevroned lanes marked out for us! In Thailand the police just wanted you to ride in the gutter. The Malaysian's have also built little storm shelters for bikers for when it rains. So thoughtful!

After another couple of hundred kilometers the traffic started to thicken and the bikes were directed to a seperate lane to the left, for what I presumed was to bypass the toll booth. Most of the bikes pulled over for what I also presumed was a break. I pulled over too but also to try to figure out why Helmet Cam had stopped working. I think he got wet when I took him diving or maybe the batteries are playing up.

I moved off again and was shortly greeted by an unexpected toll booth. I fumbled around for change and annoyed the woman in the booth as well as the bikes behind me. It clicked, the other bikes who had pulled over were getting their change ready.

I was soon on the bridge across the water to Penang island. It's several kilometers long. I wanted to take a video but as I mentioned Helmet Cam was asleep.

Once on Penang Island I attempted to negotiate through the traffic and down the one-way streets to find a guesthouse. This sign wasn't much use...

I managed to get to Chinatown where most of the guesthouses seem to be. I had a beer in a cafe whilst trying to decide where to stay. An enterprising businessman took advantage of where I had parked my bike to make some extra cash.

After finding a guesthouse I went out for a little walk. Georgetown is a wonderful fusion of Indians, Chinese, Malaysians and Muslims all living together in a vague semblence of organisation which I would like to attribute to the former British rule (yes maybe we did something right!). The call to prayer is sometimes accompanied by Chinese drums being beaten. A Indian man in a cycle rickshaw passed me by, smiled, then kept going. I was amazed he didn't keep hassling me. I had some food at a small streetside stall. The Indian man did his funny little head nod dance when I asked for noodles and chicken. He cooked up an amazing fusion of Indian and Oriental dishes.

On my walk back to the hostel, fat women hid in bushes and whispered 'hello darling' to me. I grinned at them, waved and said 'hello' loudly. They tried to hide behind tiny bushes. Such friendly people!

This morning I went on the hunt for a KTM dealer, the first one I will have encountered since Turkey! I found it after a 2 hour hunt during which I asked lots of directions and even had someone draw me a map which would have taken me straight there had I not taken a wrong exit and ended up on the highway. Whilst I was stuck in traffic an old man came and had a conversation with me about the virtues of patience.

I found the dealer. They had lots of 990's. I was tempted to trade my bike in and get one. I am now bike-less, having left Katie for the best service she will probably have had this trip. My rear suspension is being rebuilt, the engine is being properly serviced together with my carb being tuned and I'm having new tyres and wheel bearings put on together with numerous other little things. All in preparation for potentially bad roads in Indonesia together with the long slog across the Australian desert.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do or where I will go next. I could try and get across to Borneo or wander around Malaysia for a bit before heading across Indonesia. Maybe some more diving is in order but I know it will never be as cheap as on Koh Tao.