Back in North America - L.A. to Morro Bay

Our last day in Singapore, after packing up our boxes, we decided to take a tour of Singapore's last big museum that we hadn't seen, the Asian Cultures Museum. One of the first exhibits we saw had an old Chinese saying that struck a chord.

This was well timed as the next day we were to leave Asia on a plane bound for LA, and slowly make our way home with the bikes up the Pacific coast. Though we're sad to leave Asia, it's time to at least start moving towards home.

That night our hosts Barry and Laura did a kick ass job of helping us fit in a bunch more crazy asian food before we left. It was sort of a "fear factor" meal as we chowed down on Frog Porridge, Turtle Soup, BBQ'd Stingray and other delicacies.

We made it through the trans pacific flight and amazingly our "hobo luggage" managed to make it intact as well.

After arriving into L.A. we set out to re-assembling our bikes and getting equipped. We had our camping gear (which we did not need for the last few months) and a bunch of bike repair supplies shipped to the local UPS store. Unfortunately when we got there the UPS store had rejected the shipments because they were addressed: Mike Scherman, C/O The UPS Store. Apparently they felt that the "care of" placed too much legal responsibility on them, so could not accept it unless it was re-addressed without the "care of". Ahhhhhhhhh! Feels good to be back! Although I now hate "The UPS Store", I still love UPS. I sorted it out with them instead and intercepted the driver and got our packages the next day and we set out on a beautiful ride out of L.A.

Below is a picture of Jen on the phone regarding a job for when she gets back to Montreal. Although it was kind of sad to think about going back to the real world, it was a pretty spot to take a call!

The weather here is amazing for cycling, and still nice enough for camping. The camp sites all the way up the coast are great! Here is Jen cooking up our supper at one of our camp sites.

An offshore oil rig visible from our camp site.

Jen at sunset.

Riding along happy to be back on the bike...

Scenery so far is great filled with beaches, wineries, strawberry farms, and fun little towns.

Jen riding up a pass...

Well that is all we've got for now. From here on we will be riding north to Vancouver for the next 25 days or so through California, Oregon and Washington states. We'll try to make the next post more interesting. Lots of fun stuff to take pics of here, but we've been kind of lazy with the pictures so far! Hope all is well and now that we are on our way back to Canada hopefully we will see some of you soon!

Feb 28: Singapore & Bali: Re-learning the art of conversation

Though Justin & Chelsea provided a great day and a half of warm-up, the next two weeks in Singapore and Bali definitely helped us re-learn the art of having a good, long, english conversation with someone other than the two of us. Being on the bikes so much, often all by ourselves, has definitely impacted our conversational skills.... the fact that Mike and I have had identical experiences, reading and listening material all year long has led to alot of laughing at 3-word jokes, finishing of each others' sentences and general laziness when it comes to expressing our thoughts and ideas.

Anyway, much thanks to Laura and Barry who were forced to see us over the bulk of the learning curve that was our re-integration into society. Other than that we weren't very productive - we barely managed to go for a run and get either one errand OR one sightseeing activity done each day, but we definitely enjoyed the slower rhythm.

One of our most annoying errands was scavenging bike boxes from the local bike shops and (somewhat sweatily) dragging them through the local subways, locals and security people staring at us the whole way...

We loved the Singapore Zoo... the "cages" seemed almost nonexistent for many animals and we got up close and personal with many of the less dangerous ones - orangutans, lemurs, bats and birds.

The plight of the polar bears in this hot country was a little dismal, though.




Nerds that we are, we also loved the Science Centre... though the plethora of pushy schoolkids kinda annoyed Mike. Judging by the height of most of the displays, but we guessed they might actually be the target audience and didn't complain. :P

In the evenings, we enjoyed quite a few great meals at home and around Singapore with Laura and Barry. We profited from their wealth of experience they have with Singaporean cuisine and tasted some of the best (and only) bone marrow and chili crab either of us have ever had!

Chili crab by the sea...





Bone marrow at the hawkers' stalls...


After a week with Barry & Laura, we were ready to practice our newly-refreshed social skills on a bigger crowd. We jumped on a plane and headed to Bali for Matt's wedding (an old friend from Saskatoon), where we got to hang out with him, other friends from back home, his new wife Lilian and a bunch of their friends from Taiwan.

The wedding was beautiful, and provided a great excuse for a week of relaxation and fun. We spent days by the pool, ate delicious food and had a blast partying in beautiful Balinese villas, pubs and clubs.

The beautiful couple...


Us in the best dress clothes we could rummage up in Bali's shops...


The happy couple with Matt's buddies on the beach.


For a day trip after the wedding, Mike, Andrew (another friend from home) and I went to a nearby temple on a cliff, famous for its aggressive, thieving monkeys. Luckily, we came home with all our stuff intact.



Mike stares a monkey down...


One fellow visitor and his car were not so lucky...


It was a great first week in Bali, with lots of fun in the sun (but even more in the shade!) Big thanks to Matt and Lilian for hosting us at their beautiful villas and fantastic wedding ceremony, and all the good friends (both new and old) that we partied with all week. Thanks guys for all the fun!

February 14, 2010 - We arrive in Singapore and bask in the glory that is drinking tap water!

We last posted in the Cameron Highlands and since then we have continued our bike down the Malaysian peninsula arriving yesterday into Singapore. The ride down the west coast of the country was really enjoyable and below are some pictures from the ride.

Leaving the highlands we knew we had to descend 2000m, so it was a good time to replace our brake pads which were on their last millimeter of wear.

The two hour descent was mostly through a rain forest. We quickly found out that it wasn't called a rain forest for nothing.

Palm plantations constantly lined both sides of the highway and we would regularly pass palm oil refineries (I have no idea if that is actually what they are called) which we could smell long before we could see. Mmmmmm, oil!

After a couple days biking we arrived into Klang, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur and took the next day to explore the capital. This picture is of me upon arriving at our hotel. The heat was really zapping my energy, so I was more than happy to take the next day off.

A fun group of buildings I saw that grabbed my eye: buildings of all color living in harmony.

An obligatory photo of the Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur, now the world's fourth tallest buildings. They were OK but seemed really bitter about not being the tallest any longer. In an attempt to still sound important they kept on saying they were still the world's tallest "twin towers", but that just made them sound desperate.

Jen eating what became our standard fare: a self serve plate of all you can eat Indian food with fresh squeezed orange juice (about $2.50 a meal). Lucky thing we bike a lot because it is anything but low calorie.

A local mosque in Klang. I think mosques are by far my favorite type of buildings on the trip. They just look so cool. I can't believe the Swiss banned minirets (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8384835.stm). Might as well just ban awesomeness.

The next two photos take some explaining. I saw and heard this apartment above me while Jen was checking us into our hotel with dozens of birds flying into and out of it and had no idea why anyone would let a nice building go to hell like that. We later found out that it is what is called a "Bird Hotel" for Swiflets. This type of birds make their nests out of their own saliva which Chinese people eat for their supposed health benefits and are sold fo $2,000-$10,000 a kilogram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird's_nest_soup). So it turns out that if birds come a knocking, you evict your tenants and even go so far as making the building as "cave like as possible" with high tech humidity control.

Once we knew what sounds the birds make (they use echo location) we started finding these bird hotels everywhere. This one was a luxury type place, custom made and guarded with high fences and video surveillance. Apparently they cost a huge amount and sometimes the birds just don't come, but this one was full!!

Not all rides are beautiful! But ugly landscapes need love too right?

We stopped for lunch one day next to a car wash, so dropped off our bikes to be washed while we ate. They cleaned them by hand for 40 minutes and charged us 60 cents a bike. Today in Singapore I passed a sign advertising a car wash for a special price of $45 so I am glad we did it before crossing over!! The crew at the wash wanted to take our photo before we left, so we took the opportunity to grab one as well. They were really nice and we spent a while talking to them.

Our last real destination in Malaysia was Malacca and it was a really fun town. It had more museums than any city I have seen of that size, an awesome historical district, and as seen in the photo below Chinatown was all decorated for the holidays.

The tourist mode of transportation of choice in Malacca was the tri-shaw, and to attract tourists the drivers pimped their rides with flowers, stereos, fans, etc. This was one of the more elaborate that we saw.

Upon arriving in Singapore we moved into Barry and Laura's place (more on them later as they are out of town right now, stay tuned) and met up with Justin and Chelsea. It seems kind of crazy, but the four of us have been friends since we were about 6 years old!!

This photo is of Chelsea, Justin and Jen in the subway on the way to the New Years fireworks.

The crew at the Lunar New Years show. The fireworks were great, the crowds were orderly, there were more porta-potties than people, loads of free seating, and we didn't wait in a single line for food, the subway or the sidewalk. Only in Singapore. I don't exactly miss the chaos of the rest of Asia, but it does feel odd.

Well that's all I have for photos right now. Jen and I are hanging out in Singapore for the next week or so while we explore the city and take care of a few tasks: job applications, school prep stuff, bike packing, and planning out the next leg of the trip, etc.

Next week we fly to Bali for another long time friend's wedding (no biking there), and then we grab a flight to L.A. to begin the North American edition of our honeymoon ride!

Enjoy the Olympics. Go Canada!