Category: Biking South East Asia

Another very long & hot day. I was beginning to get worried at 70 miles that I would be able to find a hotel at all! However at 87 miles the Hotel Huang City in Hutan Melintang loomed into view, so I quickly paid my £12 and checked  in with the very giggly girl receptionists.

The main preoccupation of the day was trying to find air conditioned places & cold drinks, preferably together 🙂 7/11 stores are good but they have no seating inside so you have to eat/drink the goodies on the hot pavement. I did find one gorgeous garage that had a small table & chairs inside, in fact I could have stayed in there for hours…

The roads were infernally busy especially with old Chinese Tatra tankers & trucks  belching out black smoke.  Plus the motorcyclists weaving around. The scenery wasn’t to great, once again miles upon miles of palm oil plantations (I guess that is what was in the decrepit old tanker trucks) although at one point I skirted some mountains that looked jungly.

I’m beginning to wonder that maybe I should have stayed on the Eastern side of the country as that doesn’t seem to have any major highways, equally it probably doesn’t have A/C or Western style cold drinks, although that’s pure speculation.

The new saddle has done the trick and I no longer am getting a sore behind, so having a shiny saddle is good for your shorts to slip on, rather than the shorts sticking on the saddle & trying to slip on your bottom thus making  it sore. Probably the secret to the Brookes saddles 🙂

Strava now  reckons I’ve done 2,127 miles of pedalling & 47,643 vertical feet, which according to my reckoning only  leaves another 400 or so miles to do 🙂 in the next 11 days.

Here is todays Strava:

The pics of the day are here

I finally made it back to the Malay peninsula at Butterworth today. That means I missed about 300 miles of biking in mainland Thailand by using the ferries and visiting the Andaman Sea islands.

I woke up with a touch of the runs, first time since leaving home almost certainly some food from a dodgy street stall in Georgetown, fortunately I was staying local, with the only goal today of getting back on the mainland via the short ferry to Butterworth,

Georgetown is obviously backpackers paradise stuffed full of budget hostels etc not really my scene though, although The Camera Museum was well done, I liked the loo roll holders made to look like like old 35mm film canisters & the zoom lens coffee mugs. It’s interesting that the grandkids will have no idea about old film photography they are already perplexed why TV’s don’t have touch screens.

I managed to get a new saddle for the bike as the cover was ripped off in all the lugging about on boats plus I delivered a theory that the rubbing on my behind was caused because my shorts couldn’t slip against the saddle. Whereas on my Brookes one at home it can (Hot tip – Always take your saddle with you on your travels 🙂 ) Tomorrow will be the test for the saddle and me as the days are now really hot & humid.

Once i had negotiated my way around the dual carriageways I checked in at the Lodge 18 Hotel in Butterworth, then explored all the amazing electronic component shops etc in the neighbourhood, buying a temperature & humidity meter plus a 14mm spanner in case I have to adjust the saddle.