Travel Blogging Archives - Page 6 of 40

SE Asia tour continues – Georgetown to Butterworth on the mainland

Posted on March 25, 2014May 28, 2019

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.

Lipe to Penang on the ferries

Posted on March 24, 2014June 13, 2015

Finally managed to extricate myself from the gorgeous island of Lipe although it has to be said the ferry company to Langkawi make very hard work of the border transition to Malaya. As in lets traipse everyone down the Lipe beach & back to get their passports stamped and then dump said 54 passports in one big bag & try and find their owners on the boat 🙁 Total & utter nightmare.

If all passport controls were like this..

Didn’t really like Langkawi very much apart from getting a new SIM – £12 for 4.5GB of data & the Starbucks 🙁 so I rapidly booked the high speed ferry to Penang, excellent, although it has to be said I get very confused by young guys dressed in western clothes dragging along their women in full burqas, such blatant hypocrisy & denial of rights really upsets me.

Penang seems very pleasant and I found The Muntri House homestay very welcoming with the bike taking pride of place in the foyer although not sure about going on a hike in the night to find the loo 🙁 However, it’s only for one night as they are full tomorrow..

Apparently no bikes are allowed on the bridge to the mainland so will have to take a short ferry across to Butterworth on the main peninsula so I can get biking again.

A few pics can be found here although a possible warning if you are of a jealous disposition

Lazy in Lipe

Posted on March 23, 2014May 28, 2019

After staying on Sunset Beach at Ko Lipe for four nights at the delightfully named Porn Resort (Porn is a very common Thai female first name), tomorrow I’m moving onto Malaysia.

Lipe, especially Sunset beach , is very quiet & beautiful with turquoise waters & coral, ideal for snorkelling in . The cabins or shacks are arranged in rows behind the beach, the A row (1000 baht a night) on the beach, B one row behind (900 baht) and C (800 baht) behind them. All very basic but personally I find ideal, nothing to beat a simple bucket for flushing the loo! . Sunrise beach is a lot more developed with concrete apartments/houses and probably costing a tonne more. All the shopping is concentrated in Walking Street a misnomer as the taxi bikes plough up and down it 🙁

It’s all very laid back and really it’s quite a struggle to leave especially with ‘real’ massages at £6 a hour. Today I treated myself to a 3 hour session with one hour devoted to removing all the horrid skin from my feet, one hour on a traditional Thai foot massage and one hour on a very deep back, & shoulder massage – painful but maybe will free up my left shoulder after my bike tumble the other day.

Done a lot of reading especially The Master Switch which is the amazing history of media in the USA ie AM/FM radio, Hollywood, TV etc etc and also of course my beloved internet & will it survive or will it go the way of all past ‘new’ media, ie controlled by a couple of dominant players. Plus a very interesting article on Sergeyevich Termen who seems in the similar vein to Nicola Tesla.

Fascinating for me , and this applies to all my recent travels, is the vast amount of plastic bottles and other rubbish that we generate now and there seems no solution for (apart from Germany & it’s deposit scheme), wandered around the rubbish tip here dreaming of a big magnifying glass concentrating the sun and reducing the plastic to a few blobs rather than acres of bottles 🙂

So tomorrow another country…

Ko Lanta to Ko Lipe on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

Posted on March 21, 2014March 21, 2014

Yesterday I let the ferries take me south rather than the bike, although the sailors kept indicating I should be biking across the water!

The bike went on the ferries OK although i had to pay an additional 300 baht on top of the 1500 baht for me (about £36 in total) for a 6 hour journey by quite fast boats.

A bit of an anxious moment at the end transferring it into a crowded long boat, especially disembarking when a guy lost his balance & fell on the rear wheel! but it seems OK.

On Lepi I was fascinated by the name Sunset beach so I pedalled over the island & found The Porn Resort (not porn in the Western sense I hasten to add) with its delightful beach shacks at 1000 baht a night and with the most magnificent sunset 🙂

Here is the map on Everytrail:

and the pictures are here