Some of you may have noticed a bit of a break in my blogging recently. Basically, after finishing off my cyclen ride in Kuala Lumpur I decided to have a bit of a break from social media while I let the achievement sink in and enjoyed some down time.
So, to update you, here is a brief summary of what I have been doing since my last post:
In Kuala Lumpur, I followed the self-guided walking trails set up by the tourist office around colonial architecture, through Chinatown, little India, and through the busy streets of the modern town. I learned about Malaysian history in the national museum, saw birdlife in the city avery and perused the exhibits in the Museum of Arabic art. I also collected a bike bag sent to me by possibly the nicest man in South East Asia (more about that in a minute,) and finally braved the journey from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore by bus with my bike in tow, including TWO HOUR queue to get through customs, during which I had to drag around the combined weight of my bike and all my bags – booo! 😦
By the time I got to Singapore, I was unsurprisingly a little tired. Happily for me, the hostel I had found to stay at was AMAZING and staying just for a few days made me feel entirely refreshed and happy. The facilities weren’t anything fancy, but the SK, the guy who runs it treated every guest like an old friend and made the whole place feel more like staying at a friend’s house than in a hostel. Even better, he is a cyclist himself and likes welcome other cyclists to stay his the hostel and help them along on their journeys. Prior to arriving, he had answered my questions via email about transporting my bike, reccomended a bus company that would transport it, and even arranged for his friend who was travelling from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to pick up a soft bike bag that he had and deliver it for me to use! While I was there, he helped me take apart, clean, and box up my bike ready for transporting it to New Zealand. I also shared dinner and drinks with him and some other guests on New Year’s Eve, before going out to watch the fireworks. On New Year’s Day, I started my year with a double park run (7:15am and 9am) – a plan that was made over beers with one of the other guests the previous evening, and an amazing way to start the new year!
After a few days of sight seeing in Singapore, I finally made the journey to New Zealand where I was greeted by my Aunty and Uncle, Carol and Graham, who are very generously letting me use their house as a base while I am journeying through New Zealand. The next few days with them were filled sunshine, walks along the beach and around the shoreline, a trip out around New Zealand’s idylic coastline on their boat, and being able to relax in a way that felt like luxury after being on the go for so long. I was also able reunite briefly with Fiona, who I met way back at the start of my trip on the journey from Poland to Russia, and has been travelling around New Zealand for the last month or so. I also took my faithful steed Shirley in for some TLC at the local bike shop.
Since Monday, I have been joined from England by my partner in crime, John, and on Thursday we set off on a joint kiwi adventure! Stories from the road to follow… 🙂
Dancing in the Dawn 