Penang

Yay - having had this island in our sights for the last week - we made it, that 44km sure took along time.  So heated words about direction, some quick dives for the loo after breakfast, two flat tyres and fighting off 50,000 Malaysian scooters for our place on the ferry - we got here.

We were unsure what to do as far as stay in town or go to the resorts, we have had differing opinions from Malaysians about the state of the beach towns, so we have stopped in Georgetown to sort out our business and will take a reccee out to the beaches tomorrow and then decide.

Georgetown is great though, really busy, our hotel is on the edge of Little India and just heading into Chinatown.  We had the yummiest curry for tea tonight and then went for a walk through the streets, it is Thursday night and the place is humming, we couldn't help but wonder what we would have been doing and where we would have stayed if we were here as backpackers (in our day), but we were pretty sure that by that time of night it would have involved a bar and some beers!!  How times have changed!  But we are so proud of our boys and I think we say it everytime we go through a big town, they just ride like pros through the traffic, switching lanes - even indicating - not sure where they get that from!  Jake and Dave had a Garmin type disagreement today - we'll never know who was right, but Dave did the manly thing and let Jake have his moment and Jake led us to the Ferry, it took me back to my childhood - Mum and Dad arguing over the map in Christchurch!  It all turned out good.

Lots of love to you all, have a great weekend.  Happy Birthday to Bid and best wishes to Sarah at the Marlborough Junior Tennis Tournament.
Team Thomas
xxxxxx

95 bottles of beer on the wall!! Phhsst we wish

No not beer but almost as exciting - 95km completed in one day.  Man we were humming, we had enjoyed a big rest the day before after our measly 37km, took some tips and inspiration from the Tour guys, got a humungous breakfast into us after about 11km and then we started doing rotations.  One km each at the front and we're very pleased to be able to report that every member of Team Thomas pulled their weight!  It was just one of those days when everything clicks, even with Jake's obligatory flattie, for lunch, followed by Dave's for afternoon tea we were really pleased with our efforts and looked forward to a nice cruisy into Butterworth to catch the ferry to Pulau Penang.

During our ride the geography changed with a few more Butiks and a bit more jungle rather than Palm Oil Planations.  It was a pleasant change of scenery.  We were now proudly flying our Malaysian Flags from our carriers and in fact looked rather a lot like a bicycle-cade ourselves.  We're not too sure if this got us more toots or not.  The thing about the toots is a crack up over here, some people just about fall out of their cars to toot and wave to you and welcome you to Malaysia, sometimes trucks use the toot as a I'm behind you and sometimes they toot cos you're in the way!  The best thing about the trucks is that they will tootle along behind you until they can pass.  Unlike in NZ where they will push you off the road - given half the chance.  Is that fair??  Not sure, can't say we've done enough cycling in NZ, but that's what it feels like.  Another brilliant thing is that all the roads here are asphalt instead of tar seal, so they are so much smoother and easier to pedal on - providing you miss the potholes.

Big decision when we got to Parit Bandar - 44km to Butterworth, turn off to the town (2km) or continue and hope for a hotel.  We turned off - and gratefully settled into the Hotel Damai which was lovely (ish).  Any hotel is lovely after 95km!

Le Tour De Langkawi - ooh race day!

We settled into our hotel we succumbed to the boys request for the deferred Western Food night (owing to the unavailability the previous night).  The big colonel on the side of the Tesco's building was calling them mighty loudly!  They had KFC at the big Tesco food hall and I mean big - it was massive - especially compared to all the other mini marts we had been in during the last week.  Myself and Kim couldn't bring ourselves to eat that shite so had rice - again, then Kimbo had to have a wander around the supermarket, because it was Tescos.  I dutifully followed!

The next day we weren't too sure where we were ending up, there seemed to be a shortage of big towns after about 40km and before 100km mark.  So we headed off towards Taipin, we stopped at a roadside stall for breakfast cum lunch after 17km.  You had to constantly stop flies landing on your food and keep the special fly lid firmly on your cup of tea.  Jake commented that we would need to make sure we had a good shower tonight to wash all the maggots out of our hair - Michael stopped eating at that point.  

We had been a bit excited to see earlier in the week that the Langkawi Cycle Tour - Malaysia's answer to the tour de France was heading our way.  We started passing alot of support vehicles (heading in the opposite direction) as we rode along.  The next town was called Pantai Remis and we noticed it was all set up for a stage sprint of the race, there were marshalls out and loads of Police about.  So we parked up and had a coke and the boys had some roti and settled down to wait for the bikes to appear.

It was ages before we saw any action - but we knew they were near.  Finally all the promotional cars turned up - this was called the Cavalcade, about 30 or 40 cars all lined the main street, some had hot chicks in them, others had daughters of sponsors (the ugly ones!) in them.  They all jumped out and started madly handing out flags, fans, drink bottles etc.  There was heaps of media there as well so that was pretty exciting as they were keen to take photos of the kiws - im pretty sure they thought we were the NZ cycling team, particularly as we got clapped as we rode into town - backwards.  Finally the cyclist came through - and as you might know cycling isn't the most exciting spectator sport it was blink and you miss it.  There were two leaders then the Pelathon probably 2minutes behind.  We then went off to find a hotel, as we couldn't be bothered riding any further that day, a measly 37km.  It was good to chill out for the rest of the day.

That night we went to a pretty much non english speaking hawker centre for dinner.  We had great fun explaining and pointing at other diner's food, combined with the the ingredients to get our food and drink order in.  It was another great feed.

Sabak - Sitiawan

Wow 90km was on the table for today.  It didn't need to be but we like to head towards the towns which are denoted on the map as being blue squares.  Apparently that means the main town in the district.  It nearly caught us today though as it is at the end of a dead end road - just before we headed the 9km up the road we stopped at the garage and checked.  Whew that was 9km in and more importantly 9km back out we didn't need.  We checked into Lee Garden Hotel which is a Chinese run family hotel, they always seem to be really good for us.  The mileage isn't a problem for our legs and puff, but we all seem to suffer a fair bit from sore backside affliction which is pretty annoying.  Especially as you don't even get relief when you get to your accommodation, it still hurts to sit down.  But ever optimistic we think it must improve. Today on the road as well as covering  83km we had Michael struck down with severe stomach cramps and no energy to continue, it was blazing hot and 30km short of our destination.  We jollied him along and as we were all trying to get some relief in the shade of a solitary tree, DT spotted an old motorcycle inner tube hanging from the tree - weird I know but there is so much rubbish about, there is always some sundry which could come in handy!  He did the quick McGuyver with the Leatherman - a tool for every occasion and fashioned a towrope which he looped over his seat and towed Mick along.  It worked well for about 20mins until..... Jake got a flatty, luckily we had one more tube with no hole in (we've been through 5 already and have some housekeeping to do obviously).  So Mick and I carried on - not with the tow rope, I don't think I could cope with that while the boys sorted out the tyre situation, we came to a roadside stall and ordered a creaming soda each while we waited, after a bit he perked up, the boys arrived and we were back on our way.  Two things I'm thinking as we set off, that's not good, what will the third mishap be.  Luckily we got around the corner and it started to bucket down - also luckily there was a bus shelter just there.  We took refuge for about half and hour and continued without mishap.  But it all added up to a long day.  Lots of love to you all, thanks again for all the emails, facebooks and comments.  xxx

Klang - Kuala Selangor - Sabak

"What only 50km?" - easy, and it pretty much was.  Same old, same old scenery.  More of that Palm Oil monoculture.  The town of Kuala Selangor was a bit confusing, but we found out later there was a new town and an old town.  We ended up in the old town which was really lovely.  There were heaps of monkeys in the park opposite.  Sam and Mick went over to investigate and said there was a guy walking past with a packet of chips in his hand, the monkey swooped down, (yes monkeys can swoop) grabbed the bag, scarpered back to his tree, opened the bag and ate them.  Pretty much a crack up!  I have to say they were very tame, Michael held out peanuts to them and they were so delicate when they plucked them out of his fingers.  They didn't even touch him, I don't think they wanted to get boy germs!!

We were up bright and early the next morning for day 2 post rest ride.  What a horrible day, I'm sure it was a gentle uphill, as the 65km seemed to take forever.  But finally we arrived in Sabak.  It is on the banks of a river and has a museum as its tourist attractions.  Other blogs I have read by people who rode through the town complained about how hard it is to find accommodation.  We went to the Hays Resort which seems 'flash as' as you ride in, beautiful gardens, imposing entranceway.  But in reality it is looking a little tired.  We didn't care though, it claimed the honourable title of cheapest place to say so far!!  But the best bit had to be when we left this morning, we got all loaded up, pretty much in the dining room with our bikes - as that's where we had stored them the night before.  The boys were muttering about breakfast and I just assumed it would be way over budget - well anyway I went and asked and heard the magic words - 'breakfast included'  We had rice, we had cereal, we had toast, we had teh - and what's more we cycled like demons for the first 2 hours today - what a difference some decent kai makes!

Klang - KL return please x 5

We really loved this KL.  It was vibrant and busy.  We stayed in Klang which is a feeder (satellite) town about one hour by train out of KL and commuted in for the day on Friday.  Once again we loved the Malls and the westernisation of everything.  I know that's not in true traveller spirit - but man they had every shop there - it was great! - although we still went Hawker Stall for lunch - cos we just can't get enough of that and also the Western food tastes like shite.

We went up the KL skytower which was great to get oriented on how the city is set out.  We managed to find a Borders - yay and got some more books.  We need to find second hand bookshops now though as it is getting a bit expensive.  Jake has downloaded some e-books, but with one laptop that doesn't work either.

Clever old Thomas family managed to leave the city right on 5.30pm.  We ended up waiting 2 hours - not for a train but 2 hours for 4 trains and finally managing to squeeze on the 5th.  Serves us right I'd say, we should have known and left an hour earlier - instead of coffee and more doughnuts!!  Only 2nd time for doughnuts though!!

Melaka - Klang

What an epic ride.  The towns have well and truly began to spread themselves a little thinner on the ground and it was looking like we would have to bite the bullet for the 94ker.  We ended up (thanks to the Garmin (Jake) and Dave with his map) shave 10km off the ride to Port Douglas.  So by the time we got there 3.30 in the afternoon and settled on a hotel at 5pm we were pretty exhausted.  But very pleased with ourselves, we had eaten some delicious roadside food and discovered that the tea now all comes with sugar and milk and lots of it!!!  Surpringly good especially for two drinkers of 'no milk, no sugar'!  We encountered a few more hills which are still not a patch on anything in NZ - thank goodness, but still enough to make you think.  Sam is still King of the Mountain and Kim is Queen - although this is a hollow victory as there are no princesses on this tour and she still ends up last!  Michael is now also attempting to ride no handed and as such has further dramatically increased his mileage as the wobbles are just getting bigger.

We spent a night in Port Douglas, having finally found a hotel, after a hilarious Garmin induced ride through the badlands, where Dave forgot to unclip when he stopped, some kind locals escorted us out, Mickey's pannier flew off while the escort was in progress and Kim got the giggles through pure exhaustion.  Roll on tomorrow..

The next day was the hottest so far and over 82km we managed to slurp our way through an amazing 20litres of liquid and still only have 2 wees per day!!  Once again we hadn't planned on riding so far, but the town we were going to stop at was a dump and we decided to press on.  We also had a moment when we realised we wouldn't get to KL for our Thai visas until Friday and it is a 2 day processing time so we would be stuck here over the weekend.  Dave fixed that one for us though - there is an embassy at Penang!  Yay - I know where i'd rather wait out the two days!  Today we had a leisurely 34km to cycle into Klang.  It is a feeder town just outside of KL.  We are in the Station hotel - which is surprisingly just by the Railway Station, so we will get the train in to see the sights before continuing our journey on Friday. 

Once again many thanks for all your cool comments, I still can't quite manage to reply to them, but am thinking I need to subscribe to something else.  Hopefully it will work.

Lots of love
The Travelling Thomas'

Marvellous Melaka

We absolutely loved Melaka, it was our first day off and we certainly made the most of it.  We booked into a niceish hotel, got some washing done, went for coffee and donuts (first coffee since Singapore!) and a few touristy things as well.  Melaka is a real tourist town and has been for the last 600 years or so.  Apparently a young prince founded the city and it grew into an important and wealthy trading port and we all know what happens to important and wealthy trading ports.  So first came the Portuguese to conquer, then the Dutch and finally the Brits - they were the funniest because for the first 100 years or so they decided they didn't really want it - pretty much ignored it - while they concentrated on Singapore.  Well maybe that's a bit simplistic and I think the Portuguese might have been attacked first and the Brits only went in because the Dutch had a monopoly going.... But the upshot today is an amazing city with heaps of history.  We went aboard a replica dutch cargo ship and wandered around the old town.  There is so much development going on there masses and masses of shopping centres, housing estates, new marina.  You wonder who is going to fill them.  There was one new mall just for IT shops.  The food - as usual was delicious - the best we've had so far!!!  We always say that!  We were a bit apprehesive about leaving Melaka though as our nice neatish 50km spacing between towns was starting to unravel.  The next big town was only 15km away or a whopping (according to Google Earth) 94km.  What to do!  We thought we would just play it by ear.  Michael was having kittens - i can't ride that far....

Muar - Melaka

We set off from Muar after a good chat to the lovely manager of the Leewa Hotel. He was so helpful and gave us lots of information about the area and the road between Muar and Melaka.   Michael's first day as budget boy, it went to his head a bit with wild promises of the type of hotel he would get  -wifi for Sam, big feed for Jake.  Mr Moneybags friend to all!!  So after a brief stop for breakfast - noodles from 7/11 and  some supplies for lunch -nutella, pringles and the softest, best preserved bread to be found outside of America! 

The boys make us laugh, they all have their own distinct riding style - Sam likes to be up front - especially at the lights - he will position himself at the front and try to beat everyone (cars, trucks and motorbikes) across.  Same with hills, they are a personal challenge which must be ascended in the shortest possible time.  When we are cruising Jake mostly rides with no hands, we suspect he is training himself to be able to read while cycling by the time he gets to Thailand! Michael has ridden probably half as far again as everyone as he weaves his way down the highway, making sure he hits every bump and pothole within his path.

A battle of wills is heating up between Dave and Jake.  Basically Jake understands the Garmin (GPS) and Dave doesn't!!  Any disputes are usually resolved by Dave saying 'put that effing thing away' and riding off in the direction of his choice.  Of course we all follow (chuckling!).

Singapore - Muar (273km)

You know how you see those reality shows and you think they are just doing the dramas for entertaining viewing?  Well I felt like i was in the middle of one at 7.30 Weds morning.  We are finally packed up at our Singapore hotel and ready to pedal out into the great unknown!!  One last thing to do - take our malaria pills it doesn't matter that we should have started them 3 days ago or that we haven't had breakfast yet - it should be fine!!  Ya reckon??  First Mick goes - I feel sick :{  then sam is sick :{ :{ then mick is sick and again and again.  You can just imagine the voiceover Will the Thomas family ever leave or will they be forced to spend more nights in expensive hotels.  Well a bottle of coke and a couple of biscuits later she was all good and we were off with no regrets - just a bit hungry.  But it was okay as DT got a flatty about 5km up the road so we had plenty of time for breakfast!!  The third one he had changed in 3days!!  Not what we imagined.

Everything since then has been plain sailing.  We have been so impressed with the vehicles on the road and feel much safer cycling here than in NZ - now I know what all those tourists complain about (NZ roads).  We have finally got down to the budget part of the holiday which has been interesting but definitely character building!  We have assigned the boys jobs - Tourleader who wears the Taonga and decides on stops and food.  Mapman - who checks out the maps and Garmin and Budget boy - This is the prized position as they get the final say on how much food we get and the level of hotel we stay in.  They are all doing brilliantly and it is a bit of a comp to see who can save the most.  Except for Mick he is Mr now now now!

As far as the countryside goes it is great for cycling as it's flat, but not much to look at, just banana and coconut palms with very few publicservices.  There is a huge gap between wealthy and poor.  But one amazing thing we noticed was the amount of car washes there were. Even in the poorest towns, then we noticed (amazingly) that all the cars are spotless.  I hate to think what they would think of skip of a car!!  It is pretty funny cycling throught he villages (Kampungs) and everyone calls out, people stop us in thestreet and ask us where we are from, some people even drove passed today taking pictures of the boys!!  One little girl called out to us 'hello friends'.  Everyone speaks about 3 different languages which puts us a bit to shame especially when I responded Selamat Pagi to her - which is fine as it means Good morning - unfortunately it was 6 oclock at night!  You live and learn!

Chinese new year here at the moment so that is pretty exciting, hopefully if we can stay awake after 8pm we can soak up a bit of the atmosphere.

Lots of love to you all and thanks for the feedback we love hearing from you.  Sorry I can't reply to your comments.  But it just doesn't seem to work for me i've tried about 3 times and I always bomb out.
xxxxx
The touring Thomas'

Oops - sorry posted ours and michaels on Family blog - I will get the hang of this!

Sweet Singapore

The flight was real cool, cos we got to watch movies.  We got up at 3am in Auckland and didn't go to bed here until 2am Auckland time the next day.  All of a sudden allnighters don't seem like such fun.  I was feeling pretty sick by that stage.  Best bits was going on the cycle only route.  Funniest bit was when I fell right on my backside into a wet puddle when I skidded on the wet footpath.

SINGAPORE SLING

Wow what a place!!  We arrived here at about 6pm local time last night and didn't have enough time to assemble our bikes and ride in.  Thank goodness, I'm not sure my blood pressure would have coped as when we did ride in, it took us a couple of hours.  So we put them in storage and returned the next day.  Kim discussed our route with the toilet attendants at the airport and they said that we should just follow the buses as they all head into town.  Next thing we were on a motorway in torrential rain!  Great fun though, the kids were amazing, and managed to survive the trip.  Luckily about 3km from the airport was a 12km cycle pathway that took us almost into the city along the beachfront.  When that finished we took to the footpaths, along with the locals, much more sensible ideas as the cars all whizz along.  We were the very relieved Thomas's who finally got back to our hotel.  We are all loving Singapore, the people are so friendly and everything is sooooo clean.  We are chewing through our cash a bit though, so the sooner we leave the better probably.  Chinatown and waterfront tomorrow, looking forward to that, then Hit the Road Jack to Malaysia