This post is dedicated to gorgeous Joe Pollock who sadly passed away last week. Thoughts and love to Becky, Cherie, Vicky and the wider family. He was a beautiful man, who’ll be missed by many.

Step outside, 70-80% humidity, 30-40 degrees C…she hot! Getting on a bike for 5-6 hours a day…we be loco! Coast and islands of southern Thailand and Northern Malaysia, a sublime tonic.  Dusky leaf monkeys, black giant squirrels, Great horn bills and the ever present massive monitor lizards, our cycling companions.  Bathed in a back drop of dazzling green and emerald ocean blue. Fuelled by heat, humidity and operatic daily (ish) thunderstorms.  When the going gets hot, the sweaty-smelly-middle-aged cycle tourers get going 🙂

Arriving in Bangkok, she’s big, hot and overflowing with tourists seeking the delights of Siam. We stayed near Benchakitti park, with its beautiful skywalk and lake. Cooler evenings absorbing the sunsets, illuminated skylines and multicoloured neon reflections. A perfect city oasis. 

A few days into our stay I got the gift that truly keeps giving, COVID the house down, nice. By the time we boarded the sleeper train from Bangkok to Surat Thani, B was feeling wobbly.  Bunking down, shaking like a shitting dog, paracetamol and ibuprofen combo by my side.  A dark dawn in Surat Thani and poor Donkey was taken down proper.

We’d planned to cycle to the Cheo Lan reservoir to celebrate our 12 year anniversary.  Instead, hauled up at the closest budget motel, spitting distance from the motorway and near a 7-11 minimart for provisions.  Just in time, this version of VID had two ‘peak’ days where your only option was to moan, lay on a bed and slowly-seep . Waving in our relational milestone with a steaming (literally) dose of reality, good times.

For anyone who’s lucky enough to have shared their life with a friend or partner, time seems both too fast and too slow.  Donkey and I are lucky.  Our passion for adventure, life purpose and love for each other, the perfect match.  A shared understanding that getting to know one other, like getting to know ourselves, is a lifetime undertaking. The prosaic formula of everyday life, can sometimes make us forget how magic the friends, family and partners we have are.  Everyone we love is a mystery waiting to be seen. Our constant curiosity the only limiting factor. Getting on the bikes together again after 12 years has been a gorgeous reacquaintance and reminder of why we’re on this journey together.

A slow cycle to the reservoir as B got his mojo back, revealed our lungs were pretty beat. B would travel in a taxi for the next couple of days with all our gear, and I’d cycle on unloaded. With 24 hours a day together on the road, ‘me’ time is another essential ingredient for us both. These days a gift of undisturbed silence.  Cycling through rural Thailand, gum trees and ferocious guard dogs my only companions.

Both back on the bikes from Cheon Lan reservoir.  Hot meandering cycling to meet the coast and begin island hopping. Land bubbling up around us as mountains pierced our horizon. Leaving by ferry from Ao Thalame, the epic limestone karsts of this region bought us back to our first adventure in Halong Bay. Sheer sided mountains, breaking the water, towering up with occasional crescent gold beaches hugging their bases. Being back by, and on, the sea, another happy place for us.

Koh Yao Noi is quiet and relatively undeveloped.  Since COVID, travel in southern Thailand at this time of year is driven by booking.com.  Assuming we’d be able to get accomodation on the island, it was a stressful first couple of days to finally find an empty bungalow for our time there.  Relaxing; Brian christened his anniversary-present-hammock in the shade of Six Senses beach #hammotime, Great hornbills glided over our ambling cycles, Tommy had an edible or two and the beat got down to island time.

Heading towards Malaysia the South of Thailand becomes more Muslim, bringing delicious culinary additions.  New flavours a non-stop delight.  Always choosing to eat where the locals go, sampling whatever’s on offer, an adventure of it’s own…yum!  Hauling up in cafe’s gave us the chance to plan and book ahead for coming weeks.  Unusually for us, leaving the island with the next 3-4 weeks accomodation locked and loaded.

Back to the mainland, wound down, rolling to our next island.  Three hot days peddle before heading to Koh Jum from the from Laem Kruat Pier.  En route, cycling through Krabi, a notorious holiday destination, pumped to the gills with tourists.  A perfect reminder of cycle-touring-benefits, a mere few peddles and no sooner were we in the baying crowds then we were out again, just Donkey and Horse.

Koh Jum made Koh Yao Noi seem busy.  Ramshackle bungalows hanging on small cliffs in wee forests above beaches, Robinson Crusoe heaven.  Booking ahead, we left wanting so much more of this gorgeous place, alas the wheels had to keep on turning.  More mainland cycling then the ferry from Hat Yoi to Koh Mook.  Another small island, significantly more developed than Koh Jum, with a chance to take a few hikes up its jungled peaks.  The climbs bought a bead on, B’s hammock had a post hike workout, sandflies on the beach had a ‘take-out’ on his scrumptious Irish legs #handsoffbitches.  Heading on, his legs were ridden, scratching bringing no sleep for a few nights, but the scheduled planned, we had to keep trucking.

This planning and set schedule, heat and humidity have been a big challenge and change on this leg of our tour.  Having to be somewhere at a given date and time, brings a different vibe.  A knackered Donkey and Horse rolled in to Pak Bara for a couple of days rest before the hot border climb and crossing to Malaysia.

Along with the culinary change with an increase in Muslim population, the unwanted attention I got in Morocco has unfortunately bubbled back too.  ‘That’s a gay’ a delightful father told his sons on the table next to us. No matter what I wear, how I walk (ok, occasionally mince) and talk my rainbow rightly and brightly shines through.  We’re obviously sensible lads in terms of PDA’s but having an aesthetic that seems to fuel comment and laughter, amount to micro aggressions that wear one down.  More so than ever, we live in a time where kindness, compassion and empathy to our fellow man, woman and all those in between will help us reconnect to find the collective way forward.  This change, again reminds me of how lucky we are to live in a city where queerness is the norm, all hail Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington, Aotearoa :)).

Then the last sunrise cycle through the forests of southern Thailand and we’re in Malaysia.  All our planning had omitted to reveal it was the month of Ramadan, meaning most markets stalls and restaurants in rural areas were closed until sunset.  Not the healthiest diet of 7-11 treats to keep us going #donttellmothers.  Luckily our first island hop from the mainland to Langkawi, bought tourists and the Chinese and Indian Malay communities.  A culinary tapestry, the foundation of this country, meant there was also plenty of scrumptious food to be found.

Scooter time again to make the most of this island.  Exploring Telaga Tujah waterfalls, badgered by marauding Macaques on Sandy Skulls beach and whiling the hammock-life away on Tanjung Rhu peninsula.  Mornings watching the Dusky leaf faced monkeys swing through their daily loop around the fruit and blossoming trees of our base in Pentai Tengah.  Getting up before sunrise on our last day to catch the ferry, bowled over by the giant silhouettes of the native Flying Fox fruit bats.  Amazing the (nocturnal) life we often don’t see.

One last time to the mainland, the mercury rising, our padded shorts holding fast for another biblical drenching.  As conurbations grew, dining markets become the norm.  Chinese and Indian mash-ups bringing delicious gluten free appam, curry mee and rice porridge.  Finally arriving on Penang, staying in George town, these cultures mesh into a wonder of pallette-party-time.  For those who know London, imagine Brick Lane (Indian), China Town and Green Lanes (Arabic), all folded into the aromatic bosom of Thai and Malaysian cuisine.  Then imagine these suburbs a mere block from one another.  The food here really is extraordinary. B’s had Michelin samosa’s, I’ve had satay that’s got me weak at the knees and the curry has been a taste of paradise.

We board the ferry to the mainland tomorrow, continuing the journey south.  It will get hotter and more humid, we’ll get juicier and definitely thicker on the food of the multicultural Malaysian gods, and the big wheels will most certainly keep on turning.

Biggest love as always to the friends and family who share this journey with us from afar, you’re here in every spin of the peddles.

D&H / T&B