I have managed to cut down the material from the bike ride Nicholas and I did from Bangkok to Singapore.
When I can get to some great bandwidth I’ll upload the HD version.
On July 12th 2009 Nicholas Ward and Adam Teale left Bangkok Thailand and rode their bicycles south through Thailand and Malaysia, and after 2100km and nearly a month of riding, made it to Singapore
Here it is via Vimeo:
Dude, where’s my Jakkayarn? from Adam Teale on Vimeo.
Download the 854×480 h264 version
A month ago I’d not have imagined I’d be typing up a blog entry from Indonesia amongst travels with one of my best friends.
Whilst on the “Dude, Where’s my jakkayarn?” tour from Bangkok to Singapore ride I was lucky to catch Liam on iChat and after a few minutes managed to convince him to come on an adventure to somewhere in Asia. It turned out that NIN were going to playing in Singapore around the same time I was going to be there, so it didn’t take much to get Liam over!
View Indoneville in a larger map
Our brainstorming ended us up with an idea to go to the island of Java, Indonesia. So after a few days with the flu in Singapore we managed to get a ticket with Air Asia to Bandung – the fourth largest city in Java (or was it Indonesia?). Cool temperature, lots of smiles, lots of motorcycles, and I think Bandung is surrounded by mountains but can’t make them out for all the smoggy air.
There are so many rice fields.
A big reason for coming here to Java is to try to see some active volcanoes, ideally some lava. It looks like Gunung Bromo will be one stop, and maybe Gunung Semuru.
“Garut! Garut! Garut!”
We left Bandung the next day one a little bus to a place called Garut and then to a nearby place callled Cipanas. The bus ride was amazing. Impressive mountains and rice fields all the way.
It took 2-3 hours to cover the 60km or so to Garut and Cipanas.
Cipanas is known for it’s hot springs and nearby volcanic sites like Gunung Telagabodas. We decided it was going to be a days effort to go check out the crater and it seems like there will be more possibly cooler volcanoes along the way. So we bused it last night from Garut to Tasik Malaya – an over packed night time rollercoaster ride!
We’ve been really lucky so far to get from place to place. It’s very affordable and everyone we’ve met so far has been very friendly and some have been curious about if we are scared of the bombings. I just tell them Liam is a terrorist and we all seem to laugh, except Liam.
Yogyakarta is cool. There are lots of places to check out in the city and within 50-100km. And if you are into it there is a lot of Batik art.
We were fortunate to meet some folks from Sumatra who showed us the sites of Gunung Merapi and the ancient Hindu temples at/of Prambanan.
The next day Neville and I headed out to Borobudur.
Staying at the Loseman Anda – 40,000RP / night close to the Tugu train station.
Yogya to Malang – train 1.30am, RP150,000. Was late. Good seats, blankets, pillows.
Malang to Cemorro Lawang via Probolinggo – blue microlet from train station to Arjosari bus station – RP2500pp.
Arjosyro to Probolinggo (Bayuangga) – RP23000pp.
Probolinggo 2 Cemorro Lawang -RP50000pp but normally RP25000pp.
Jeep to lookout RP350,000 4people.
Then we Gunung Bromo – what an amazing place to see. A neighbourhood of volcanoes living in one massive crater. A pricey place to stay – The Lava View hotel – 400,000RP/night but it was highly recommended and stares straight out to Bromo.
We then took a killer over night bus from Probolinggo (paid an extra 25,000RP to get on the comfortable bus but we didnt end up on it) to Denpasar Bali. Poor Nevs and I were squashed up the baack of the bus in between the toilet, luggage and some guys on their way home for Ramadan. It was pretty uncomfortable so we ended up getting on another bus mid ferry ride across to Bali – the bus we were meant to be on!
The rest of the week we went to Aussie invested Kuta beach, then up to Ubud.
Some prices of the fares we took from Yogya(karta) to Denpasar Bali:
Yogya to Malang – train 1.30am, RP150,000. Was late. Good seats, blankets, pillows.
Malang to Cemorro Lawang via Probolinggo – blue microlet from train station to Arjosari bus station – RP2500pp.
Arjosyro to Probolinggo (Bayuangga) – RP23000pp.
Probolinggo 2 Cemorro Lawang -RP50000pp but normally RP25000pp.
Jeep to lookout RP350,000 4people.
Cemorro Lawang to Probolinggo minivan – RP25000pp
Probolinggo (Bayuangga) to Denpasar AC bus overnight – RP125,000pp
Could this be it???
Yes.
WE MADE IT TO SINGAPORE!!!
But what a hell of day!
I was joking about having some contracted some kind of disease yesterday. But today I felt very ill all day. But it could just be fatigue combined with lots of mosquito bites. TIme will tell.
After working out what would possibly be our last route to take we said cheerio to Batu Pahat and headed to Pontian Kechil.
Luckily as we got into the ride my flu symptoms started to go away ad we were able to get some distance covered.
(The entrance to Singapore we think we should have taken).
After 100km or so we made it to the home stretch and everything was coming up roses. The guy at the toll booth / customs to exit Malaysia let us through without having to pay.
(free exit)
So here we are, passing into Singapore Immigration. Everything looked great. Until a couple of officials came running up to us and looked very worried.
We’d joked about how we’ll probably accidently break the law in Singapore.
Before we knew it we were inside explaining why we had ridden our bikes into Singapore.
Apparently it had been 20 years since the last time someone rode in through this bridge. Why?
Well it turns out …. IT IS ILLEGAL!
The Customs officials were going to send us back to Malaysia to reenter Singapore from the Jahor Bahru entrance. If I hadn’t just cycled 120km I’d have been ok with it but I was exhausted.
LUCKILY after a few phone calls to their superiors the Customs guys let us through and escorted us to the highway (which is also illegal to ride on).
(Tiger beer brewery!)
Awesome – Nicholas and I got flat tyres within 5 minutes of each other . It felt like we were never going to make it to Singapore!
So here we are. We made it to Singapore!
It feels weird. It’s been nearly a month on the road. We’ve ridden something like 2100km!
I have felt better.
Total KM: 150km
So close to Singapore! Nearly the home stretch! That’s if can make it…
I am covered in some sort of bites, assuming them to be mosquito bites, but yes I’m not a doctor. Fingers crossed I don’t have dengue, n1h1, malaria or any other excellent disease.
We said goodbye to Steven and the Shirah’s guesthouse and continued towards Singapore eventually stopping at a town called Batu Pahat.
Got some great vegetarian food here with ‘fake meat’ (why even bother?).
BP is a pretty decent sized town but was a bit of a struggle to find a place to sleep. Ended up in a brothel but the price for the room inc. girl for the night was too high. 🙂
Ended up at the cheapest place we could find called “Fairyland” – 30RM.
Total KM: 95km
An update from the road – day 01 of our ride from Bangkok to Singapore:
http://dudewheresmyjakkayarn.wordpress.com/
In less than a week 2 average dudes will head off from Bangkok, via Malaysia, to Singapore, by bicycle.
View Bangkok to Singapore in a larger map
Follow our journey!
http://dudewheresmyjakkayarn.wordpress.com/
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/bkk2sin
We are currently trying to attach our blog to a charity – would be great to raise some money for a good cause somewhere in SE Asia.
We have a blogg, thanks to Mr. Teale here the blog is going on! I’m still working at the office while he’s having the time of his life in HK!! lol anyway it’s 19.28 thailand time, and still waiting for the clients comments,
can’t wait to go to Singaporee!!
Here we go!
So, what the hell are we doing?
Riding a bicycle from Bangkok via Malaysia to Singapore. Duh!
Well a few months back when I was traveling I had the good fortune to meet a bunch of crazy people. Crazy people doing crazy things. Well crazy to me at the time. People such as a French guy called Yann. I met Yann in Iran. Yann told me he rode from Singapore, via China and all the *stans, to get to Iran, and was continuing on home to France. At that point he’d covered 18,000 kms. Oh yeah, he did it on a $S300 mountain bike. 🙂
Meeting people such as Yann has led me to wonder why I am not doing such cool things as these folks. So on my way back to Thailand I decided I was going to buy a bicycle and ride to Singapore. I figured if I could at least to something like this I would be guaranteed fame, fortune and all the beautiful ladies of the world! Well not really, but probably. 🙂 It turned out that Nicholas, & our good friend & resident bicycle guru Boat, were getting their bicycle on too, and were pretty interested in joining me to Singapore.
After some slight delays, such as having to work, here we go.
July 12th 2009 we set off from Bangkok en route to … Hua Hin i think – is that right Ward?
* I’m sitting here at my Dad’s place here in Hong Kong, preparing for the ride with a egg tart in one hand, and a vodka & soda in the other. You see I was just informed that Nicholas, the half farang half thai guy who is doing this ride with me, has just bought a brand new bicycle. And he is riding it. I am not doing anything at the moment and I know this will be to my detriment. Oh well 😛
