08/03/2011 Penang to Bangkok

As the moonsoon is going away and the heat is building up in Malaysia, biking and camping are becoming more and more uncomfortable. From Penang (Georgestown) after getting our Thai visa, we took a boat to Langkawi where we spent  two days on the beaches. Honestly, we didn't really like the place. Too many tourists, too busy and the beaches on the West Coast where we went were not worthed.

From Langkawi we took a ferry to the Thailand's paradise island of Ko Lipe. We stayed three days there, snorkeling in the crystal clear waters and admiring coral reefs and thousands of fishes, urchin and starfishes. Then, we took a 6 hours ferry to Ko Lanta where we took three more days of rest, sleeping and enjoying the beach.

A few words about doing islands hoping in Thailand with your bicycle...Be prepared to fight! Two tourists trying to carry their bikes on ferries may sounds to a Thai crew like a good opportunity to extract some money from your pocket. So be ready to argue. After long tail boats dropped us from the ferry to the sand beach of Ko Lipe, The guy from the passeport office/ferry cie started asking us 500B, which is a considerable amount in Thailand, for the 50 meters boat ride that our bicycles had done. That sound weird since it should have been the long tail driver to ask us the money and not the guy at the border office. Finally, we argued with the guy and left without paying. Ultimately, He threathened us that we would have to pay 1000B if we want to leave the island with our bikes. Bullshit! In fact, it didn't cost any extra to put our bikes in the long tail when transbording to the ferry to Ko Lanta. The ferry crew asked us 100B per bicycle for the trip which is reasonable (5-10% of your ticket cost for your bicycle, I think it is all right). However, on the middle of the journey, we had to transfer to another boat in which occasion the crew tried to ask for more money. I said something like "I already paid 200B and I won't pay more!" and they stop arguing. The new boat was much smaller than the first one but we finally found a way to fit our bicycles in, between pilled up luggages and squeezed passengers. Fiou!

Our bikes' journey from Ko Lipe to Ko Lanta...

Waiting on the beach in Ko Lipe

On the Long tail boat

Waiting to board to the ferry

On the ferry on a stop

In the speed boat to Ko Lanta

The rest of our journey between Ko Lanta and Bangkok is an epic ride with several days over 100km. Most of the road on highway 41 and 4 is flat except a 200 km very hilly stretch near Chumphon which was very painful. The nights were so hot that is was very difficult to sleep in the tent. After a few bad days, we finally decided to forget about the tent for the rest of our journey to Bangkok and take motels instead. Another problem we accounter was to feed ourselves properly. Thai cuisine might be good or not but one thing is sure, like my mother says, white rice doesn't feed you...and that's what they eat all the time here! After a while starving on our bicycles, we elaborate the very complicated strategy of eating five times a day. And each time, we ordered not snacks but main courses. Another part of the strategy was to rehydrate ourselves by drinking pepsi and eating a watermelon per day. We were also chunking an average of 10 liters of water per person per day. Let's sweat girls!

Melon break

The Thai have the nice tradition of service plates of vegetables with the meal. But don't look for that in the touristic area. This is what the locals do.

We biked into Bangkok softly without any incident. In the tourist area, a white guy on his bicycle saw us and brought us to a bike shop were we finally found the back derailler wheels that we were trying to buy since Georgestown.

brand new back derailler wheel vs after 13,000km. Our bikes suffer!

 Since Singapore, we got half a dozen flats always because of that same type of damn pin. It keeps going through our brand new-kevlar belt super resistant tires....What the hell!