On the 6th of April 2005, cousins Jamie Mackenzie and Ben Wylson set off on their bikes on a journey which will take them to over 50 countries and to every one of the worlds great continents, all without the use of an aeroplane.
Sunday, January 29, 2006: Little Ben
Full of City and looking for seaside pudding, we left Kuala Lumpur on a busting-at-the-seams-with-traffic highway for a town called Port Dixon, a little south and a little west of the capital. Our craving for the sea and its sorbet-like refreshment properties made the scorching journey pass fast.
Port Dixon threw two disappointing surprises our way. Firstly - and this nearly knocked us off our bikes with the shock - there was no beach. Secondly, the quaint- sounding Port Dixon was a non-descript pile of ugliness. The next day - when our thirst for the big undrinkable water was a tenth of what it was - about 2 miles outside of Port Dixon, we found a stretch of white sand with mushy pea-coloured sea. The beach seemed a little odd in that there was nobody on it, not a soul; there was space for thousands. We bounded into the sea, arms swinging, dived into the mushy peas and then noticed the reason for the lack of beach goers: two sewage pipes of substantial diameter ran from a cluster of houses on a near-by hill, under the road, under the beach and into the water. Freshly doused in human excrement, we continued our journey.
Our intention was to stop for the night at Some Point. However, Some Point never appeared. Not finding a logical place to retire, we aimlessly continued on our bikes along the winding coast road all the way to Malacca, that imaginary-sounding place which conjures beautifully images of tea, spices and the great East India clippers pounding through foaming white-water seas teeming with Buccaneers. Arrh!
Our Guesthouse, Shirah's, provided the perfect bike-buffing, saddle-polishing facilities needed to get the bikes looking their Sunday best for the display ride into Singapore. By the time we had finished cleaning, it hurt the eyes to look at them, so intense was the glare from their frames. This process of making the bikes look better-than-new took an entire day, during which we lost who knows how many litres of body fluid and forgot to eat entirely. Jamie - who was visibly thinner for his efforts - took a step back and looked with affection at his handiwork. With rasping voice he said, "It is done."
Our Party numbers have increased yet again as two more visitors have joined our merry band. After Sari, brother Jack, Huskinson, Monty the White and Pat and Bron come the great Murrell, Little Ben -actually taller than Big Ben (Ben)- and his friend Alex. Little Ben - at the beginning of his own world journey - has known Big Ben all his life. The son of Gill and Andy - friends who became family - he and Alex are welcome visitors. Little Ben's face warms the heart when you see it for he carries in it a bit of home, Friday evenings with the liquor tray, the bass guitar and a tambourine.
Monday, January 23, 2006: 8000km barrier broken
From within the Malaysian capital
Ben and Jamie cycled into Kuala Lumpur two days ago to take their odometer reading to 5400 miles (8000 km).
From the urchin-ridden Pangkor Island they set out on a Free Wheels East two-day epic. In 34-degree heat they powered towards the capital with a breeze kindly pushing at their backs, cruising at 18, 19, 20 mph. With sweat drenching burning bodies, stinging eyes, running salty from forehead to nose, from nose to lips and from lips to mouth, they saw an image of the future like a pair of needles as it pierced the horizon and began to grow taller, taller, and taller still! The mighty Petronas Towers.
No-handed, air-punching exhilaration! The towers got closer as Free Wheels East entered an urban landscape of Mono-rails, fly-overs, expensive cars, plush buildings, plastic people, the bold, bright domination and overwhelming colours of the pristine corporate machine. Another of the world's great cities conquered.
Sadly though, not more than 30 miles from this giant Kuala Lumpur, are shacks with bridges over moats of raw sewage leading to rat-infested dwellings. Although not as great an example of the contrast between concentrated wealth and poverty as the major Chinese cities, Kuala Lumpur is the economic sponge of Malaysia, a diamond polished and re-polished by its patron -the rest of the country- to be displayed and admired by the world.
Website to be updated
Thanks to the efforts of Guy Campbell, a friend of FWE, this website will soon take on a new, more functional design. The gallery section is to be updated and a guest book added for you to give your encouragement, praise, kind words and sweet-nothings. Ladies and gentlemen, we stand poised with our mice on the edge of a new era of reality internet entertainment! Grip your keyboards, the renaissance is nigh.
Friday, January 20, 2006: Team member survives mauling by man-eating monster of the deep
The water was warm, there was a light breeze blowing, the sun was simply radiant and there was a delicate hint of fresh mango floating in the early afternoon air; it should have been a lovely swim.
'Cor, struth, this current's a might strong, isn't it?' Ben said as he thrust out another powerful stroke towards the island that lay a kilometre off shore. 'I know, it keeps trying to push us back in,' came the reply. Suddenly, without warning, there was a frantic thrashing in the water some distance in front of Jamie...it was coming from Ben!
'Quick turn back, we must turn back...it got me.' Ben was riddled with agony, his face grim with pain, torture and suffering. 'What is it?' asked a rather alarmed Jamie. 'Quick! Flee, swim like an eel, there isn't much time!' We turned and swam, kicking up an almighty white water as we powered through the emerald green. Jamie reached the shore first and collapsed, out of breath, on the golden sand. He turned in time to see Ben dragging his almost lifeless body through the surf, pulling himself inch by hideous inch, hand over determined hand to the safety of the beach.
'I can't...go...on...much further,' Ben whispered between gasps and gulps. 'I think this is the end...tell Mum and Dad I love...' but as his head dropped his words failed him and he sank into the sand.
Moments later he came around, blinking at the sun and wincing in pain. 'My foot, my leg, in fact my entire body is numb.' His eyes were rolling in his sockets like balls in a Camelot Lottery machine. 'Something got me out there, something menacing and terrible.' Several locals had seen the commotion and a modest-sized crowd of on-lookers had now gathered around the stricken Ben.
'I think the main assault was targeted at my left foot,' Ben said. The locals looked, the locals gasped, the locals gibbered and clucked like angry chickens in their alien tongue and eventually one said, 'What we have here is a seldom-seen act of thuggery by a Sea Urchin, or the 'Devils of the Deep' as they are known in these southern regions.' The short fellow cleared his throat and continued: 'It appears that the blighter stung you here, here, here, three times here and, wait a minute, ah yes, twice over here.'
Lemon juice was applied to the afflicted area and after five minutes the pain had subsided to a bearable level but the damage had been done and neither Ben nor Jamie took to the water again that day.
The ghastly attack took place on Pulau Pangkor, a small island 150kms south of Pinang. After several days biking FWE had made the island and were enjoying a day's rest before the final push to KL would begin.
Today the team are in Sabak Bernam; holed up in a musty hotel on the edge of town with straw mattresses and blood stains splattered across the walls. The toilet has a resident floater and the shower oozes orange rust. Would you believe, the place is named the 'Swan Kee Hotel'!
Sunday, January 15, 2006: Malaysian Scout
Farther and farther south we pedalled, our Global Positioning System giving us readings a matter of only 6 or 7 degrees north of the equator. Soon we reached Hat Yai, the last large town before the Malaysian border. Hat Yai is the gate way to that area of Thailand so well publicised around the globe for its terrorism. "Stick to the main road and you won't have a problem" was our most common piece of advice. We stopped about half way to the border for a lunch-time bite at our first Muslim eatery. Promptly we ordered two portions of "Cow Pat Moo" (Pork fried rice). What a stupid thing to ask for in a Muslim restaurant! Cow Pat Moo became two Cow Pat Gei (Chicken). We rejoined the highway having deviated and survived!
As we approached the Malaysian border memories of our time in Thailand flooded my mind. I wondered what the road ahead would bring.
The border itself was a quick, informal stamp of the passports giving us a free three-month visa, one of the perks of belonging to the United Kingdom. From then on there was but one cycling option: the main highway, again. The highway was very different to its Thai equivalent: grass verges and deciduous trees flanked the tarmac, the central reservation was a topiary display of dark green shrubs cut to look like hundreds of mushrooms stretching into the perfectly straight distance.
Road kill tarnished the pristine scene, every other revolution brought a squashed frog, a squished snake or a brained bird. If you didn't look where you were going it would be a bumpy ride. An almost undetectable tailwind set our cruising speed at 17 miles per hour. The mid-day sun beat down on the shadeless road. Our Casios registered 34 degrees.
A family sat on the veranda of their house under the shade of an awning. We noticed a hole in the wire fence and a bridge across a ditch that separated us from them. "Maybe they'll give us some water," said Jamie. We were both running dangerously low. "Good idea," said Ben. We made for the hole in the fence. They were a kindly lot, filling our water bottles and allowing us to drink as much ice cold water as we needed. We nearly drowned in five glasses each. An old lady, elder of the family, watched over us with beady eyes. She had skin like that of a naked mole rat, and in between her top lip and chin -her lips had long disappeared- she revolved a smoldering bit of some sort of rolled up paper. We made to leave, and as we did so the old woman threw her head back and let fly a deep, hoarse, but surprisingly loud laugh. Cycling away, we could hear her cackle floating on the breeze. I wondered for a second weather she'd put a curse on us.
The Malay highway 1 engineers failed to build enough service stations, methinks. Often 30 miles separated the water, wee and eating holes. It was too much for us. At the end of our exhausting, brain-boiling, trans-national day our T-shirts were ridged with salt. As if over-starched you could've stood them upright in the Tate Modern as filthy, crinkled, contemporary works of art. "No more highway one," said Jamie. The decision was unanimous. Functional A to B-ing was over. We proclaimed that from then on we would only take easy, pleasant roads.
A new day. The call to prayer resounded in our Motel room and around the nowhere town we'd stopped in. It was time to re-mount and make for Butterworth -on the mainland- home to the largest bridge in Asia, connecting the Malay peninsula with the multi-cultural Pinang Island, somewhere we wished to explore.
Three boys on a motorbike followed us on a track running parallel with the highway. One of them yelled "Hello!" We called "Hello!" back. To our surprise they all stuck up their middle fingers and called in our direction a stream of well-practised expletives, with impressive pronunciation. I was wondering whether I knew such rude words at their age when I heard a shot. Jamie had drawn his cap gun and was firing madly in their direction. Flames shot from the magazine, smoke swirled around, he burnt off a whole ring of caps! I nearly fell off my bike with fright. The boys looked taken aback, all white in the face. Then there was laughter from the motorway and the track and the boys accelerated away in a cloud of dust, swearing both physically and verbally all the way in-between raucous laughter.
Falling short of the island by about 30 kms, we once again looked for somewhere to rest our weary heads. A moment of head scratching indecision at some traffic lights resulted in our being hailed by a Malaysian fellow of tubby proportions. "You want to stay at my place?" he said. "I am a Scout leader, you can come and stay at my den." As he spoke he saluted with the famous and ubiquitous Scout salute, the three middle fingers held erect, the little one held back with the thumb. Ben said, "I used to be a scout!" while saluting back.
Following the man in his car, I studied the business card he'd presented us with. He had the most impressive credentials I've ever seen. His name: Dr. Nazri, the most highly qualified Scout Leader, Military man and intellectual in all Malaysia. The letters after his name took up two thirds of the business card.
Soon we arrived at the Den. A look-out tower dominated the Scout skyline. There was a lake with canoes, flying foxes, obstacle courses and football fields. A gaggle of young Scouts came out to see us. Each, in turn, respectfully shook our hands, touching the centre of their chest with their free hand, a custom here in Malaysia. Dr. Nazri explained that he'd set up the entire den, funded it with his own money. We were provided with all the food and drink we could eat, breakfast in the morning and a two-car escort to a press conference next to the George V monument in the near by town. They took photographs and we gave an interview for the local paper.
Since arriving in Malaysia we have discovered that Southern Indian food is everywhere; before arriving at Butterworth and taking the ferry to Pinang, we'd eaten a chicken and potato curry for breakfast, lunch and supper. As yet we still enjoy chicken and potato curry very, very much and have no intent to become tired of it.
We are staying in Georgetown City -as it is called- and are planning our journey south on the "easy" west coast roads. Before turning the light out to sleep, on many a night of late, we've whispered our first excited conversations concerning all the adventures of Free Wheels East so far, and of the little time there is between us and the imminent completion of our second major cycling objective, our arrival in Singapore!
Sunday, January 08, 2006: moving on
FWE is on the move once more! Late in the evening of the 5th January, our packed decommissioned fishing boat departed Mae Haad pier, Koh Tao, for the nine hour crossing south to Surat Thani. Shortly after 4:30am we were dumped on the concrete quay under the lonely orange stare of a single street light. Our Black Thorns gleamed under the warm glow, basking in the pleasure and glory of the recently- received oil bath and full body wax.
It felt so strange taking to the saddles again after riding our Honda Dreams (Simply Elegant) for the past 11 weeks; very perched and somewhat hunched! We didn't see any point in delaying our departure and so with polished rims, tightened nuts and buffed...well, you get the picture, we set off once again; reading the map, taking compass bearings, asking directions from locals, travelling in circles and eventually tracking down the 401 which would take us all the way to Sichon on the east coast; a gentle 50 mile jaunt down the track. By lunch we had broken the back of it and by the early afternoon we had arrived. The usual problems of finding accommodation ensued; jumbled messages, poor directions, false information, in-accurate distances, un-reliable map depictions and of course, lots of rain, all resulted in a sorry and soggy end to our first day back.
By night-fall the clouds had parted and a brisk wind blew down from the mountain behind us. We finally came to rest in an abandoned and dilapidated resort with no running water, a creaky fan and two cockroaches. Our tumble-down temporary shelter was right on the beach, so ignoring the bite of the wind and chill of the thundering black water we went for a night swim in the ocean and washed all our woes away. It was as far from the comfort zone that we had been used to as we could ever get.
The following morning we retraced our steps through the swollen paddies, mangrove swamps and banana plantations to the town and struck out due south towards Nikhorn Si Thammarat. Buddhism is gradually giving way to Islam; the cheery waves, smiles and friendly hellos that are regularly thrown in our direction are gradually, bit by bit, warming our hearts and increasing the affection that we once held for our dear old steeds.
The deplorable state of the dogs, however, is growing increasingly worse. These kind people obviously can't find it in their hearts to put some of the poor beasts out of their obvious misery. Some of the mutts are just walking bags of bones, bald and covered in sores that weep pus, blood and mucus. In some woeful cases a 12-bore shotgun would surely be their best friend. Some, however, are still well maintained by their owners and it is due to several recent scrapes with these more active ones that we have finally bit the bullet and invested in a couple of semi-automatic hand guns...cap-guns, that is! The eight-shooter stubbies nestle in the lid of our bar bags, always at the ready and fully loaded. Ironic, that since purchasing the orange, plastic beauties, that we haven't actually had a single K9 fiend even look twice at us.
We arrived at Thammarat late yesterday evening, again in the heavy rain and soaked to the gristle. 'Come on, a nice hotel I think,' Ben said, ' we deserve it'. We checked into the fanciest one in town. Folks, you aren't gonna believe it but the room has a shower, a bath and hot water! We are in heaven. We also have a spanking new Panasonic television and in the few hours we've inhabited the room, have watched The Perfect Storm, Double Trouble, Volcano, some Morgan Freeman flick and a weird version of Dracula. We were due to leave this morning but during breakfast, shortly prior to check-out, it was decided that we needed to stay a day longer in order to consolidate, do a wash and wallow in the steel tub a jot longer.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006: the magic of the Dragon Bar Cup
2005 was an epic year for FWE; so many highs, a few lows, countless adventures and oodles of excitement.
The festive period provided the team with the perfect conclusion to their first calendar year away from Blighty and to a fantastic stay on the magical island of Tao. With surprise special guests and old university friends Bronwen & Pat, who, to the shock and delight of all concerned, bumped into Jamie one sunny morning, and fellow established Tao-ites Ken & Barry, we have enjoyed a distinctly purple patch of merriment in recent days. The good times have rolled.
Nightly excursions to our favorite watering hole gave birth to the D.B.C. (Dragon Bar Cup): a blue plastic water bottle top with a crumpled red straw twisted and contorted and wedged inside was the nightly prize for the fierce and fiery Pool contests that took place with the dynamic Canadian duo Ken and Barry.
With our freshly--assembled gaggle of dear chums, 2006 was born in style. Resolutions were made and broken in the space of a night, predictions forecast and the single hope that the New Year should be as rewarding and grand as the old.
Much to the regret of the team, Bron & Pat departed Tao yesterday afternoon, soon to return to their life of teaching in Japan, with Ken and Barry hot on their heels on their trek back to Bangkok. We too are in the final throes of preparation for departure. On January 5th the team will bid a fond farwell to their adopted home, set sail for Surat Thani and commence the quest for Singapore.
contact us | news | travellers | gallery | sitemap