A fugitive in Singapore

Singapore is known for being fairly regimental in terms of what the law allows and more importantly, what it does not allow. Smoking and eating is not allowed pretty much anywhere. Durian, a fruit that is known for being smelly is forbidden on the train network and crossing a road either not at a crossing or when the crossing light is red are all fineable offences. Bring in spitting and eating chewing gum, (which I might add are absolutely necessary in an Asian country) and you realize that things could get expensive.

Getting a bike across the border from Malaysia to Singapore should be simple enough, however it involved crossing the border twice, a visit to the AA, half a dozen pieces of paper and more patience than I am usually credited with having. One of the hoops that I had to jump through was to buy a passcard for the toll roads. The only downside of the passcard system is that in order to pay, a small electronic box must be fitted to one's car or bike and these are not available to foreigners! I was advised to avoid the chargeable roads so as to avoid a fine equivalent to around £25 each time I passed a toll road monitor. I was soon to find that avoiding them was pretty much impossible as there is no warning as to which roads they are on and there is no option to turn off. I had my photo taken by around half a dozen toll cameras and then decided that things were starting to get expensive given that all that I was doing was riding 10 miles from the border to my hotel! The only option was to duck into a petrol station and wait until it got dark. As a motorcycle rider, it is generally advisable to travel during the daylight, but on this day, I was a fugitive and had to stay off of the roads until after 8pm when the toll system was switched off. Finding a hotel in the dark without a booking, with no map, at the right price with safe parking is no easy feat, but by 10pm, I was installed in an overpriced hotel in the wrong part of town with not terribly safe parking. It turned out to be fine, but I was scared to ride my bike in fear of the dreaded toll roads which I was unable to be charged for in any way other than by a fine! I travelled on the rail system for bulk of my time in Singapore and even managed to track down the officer in charge of the road toll system. After a brief sob story about my trip, the charity and how I was a poor, victimised foreigner, they agreed to 'knock off' the fines. Phew.

The next couple of days were spent arranging shipment of my bike to Darwin, Australia, which was pretty straightforward, but required plenty of running around to get stamps and carry around scraps of paper to here, there and everywhere.

I did manage to catch up with a couple of old friends, which was good, before booking a flight to Bali for a week for a well deserved holiday whilst my bike makes its way to Australia. It will be another traumatic week of beaches, sunbathing and eating, but somebody has to do it!

Kisses from KL

Landing in Kuala Lumpur (KL) airport as the sun rose, I was eager to find out when and if the bikes might actually turn up. It would be a couple of hours before any offices opened but the civilised airport with 'proper coffee', pastries and wifi was a welcome means of passing the time. When office hours finally did seem to be in sight, I made a call to the cargo offices, who duly explained that the bikes had been held up in Colombo, Sri Lanka (where they had been due to have had a connecting flight) due to problems with the dangerous goods paperwork. Things didn't look good and it looked like the problems from India were to take yet another final sting and a flight would have to be taken to Sri Lanka to sort out the current mess.
An hour or so later, a call finally revealed that the cargo officer had had a wander around the terminal and 'found' the bikes. To say that this was a relief would be something of an understatement.
Immediately racing around to the cargo terminal, a convoluted process to get the bikes released was anticipated. In practise, it couldn't have been easier. A bit of running around, a stamp here, a signature there and a little reconstruction to put the bikes back together and some vital fluids to make the bikes 'dangerous' again (i.e. fuel) and we were ready to go.
It was at this point that Malaysian hospitality started. The cargo officer enquired if we knew where we were going to and subsequently offered to drive us to our hotel with us to follow. Whilst we would have eventually found it, it did manage to save us well over an hour of getting lost.
Wandering around KL, everything was new and exciting. In reality, everything was merely clean and civilised with air conditioned shops, cars that didn't try to mow you down and a 20th century attitude to business. I was back in the Western world, but with a feel of the orient. Walking past people, I would often have 'kisses' blown at me. Coming from men, I was a little troubled by this until I worked out that that is the way that Malaysians attract your attention. Rather than calling out, whistling or honking their horns, they put their lips together and squelch a kissing sound! Not something that I can get used to without chuckling to myself.
KL turned out to have some pretty knowledgeable mechanics, one of whom managed to fix a problem that I didn't even know that I had (so, many thanks to Sunny from Sunny Cycle!). Keeping the technical stuff untechnical, Sunny cleaned out something in the engine that was clogged up from dirty fuel and now it feels like I have a new bike. Put that together with marvellous roads, sun and a fresh set of my favourite tyres (the last set lasted for 18,000 miles which is 3 times that which you could usually expect) and I was in motorcycling heaven.
Heading up through the winding roads of the Cameron Highlands (although I think that the 'wetlands' would be more apt) to visit the tea plantations, the temperature dropped to a pleasant 16 degrees. This is a stunning part of the country with some of the best roads that I have seen since China, almost 4 months earlier.
Probably the riding of the best road coincided with my birthday as we headed down to Palau Penang (Palau means island) which is joined to the mainland by something like a 4km long bridge. As I was unpacking my bike at the hotel, I heard the rumble of another 'big' bike. When I looked up, I was surprised to see another overlander. It had been over 4 months ago, in Kyrgystan that I had last seen another person venturing around the world on a motorcycle. Mick, a Scotlander has been all over Africa, North and South America and was on his way back home after almost 2 years.
It was in Penang that I was introduced to 'hashing'. At first, I was a little concerned by a sport with such a name until it was revealed that the only vice involved was drinking copious amounts. Hashing involves running around the countryside, searching for pieces of paper and getting very muddy and lost before returning back to a party at someone's house and enduring a unique ritual. This ritual involves being made to sit on a block of ice, being sung at and being forced to drink a can of beer whilst having icy cold water poured over your head. My life is now complete!
After the exhaustion of, well, pretty much nothing, it was time to hit the beaches of Langkawi, a 2 hour boat ride away. Here the beaches finally resembles the ideal. White, fine sand (no rocks, syringes or tat-sellers), warm blue seas and excellent food.
From here on, I suspect that idyllic beaches will feature more and more as I head through Indonesia and Australia. If you suffer from jealousy and aren't enjoying the winter, I suggest that you stop reading these trip updates or jump on a bike yourself and head on out here! That said, I am sure that there will be plenty more obstacles to be overcome on the way through Indonesia.