Komodo Dragon, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

As I cycle through South East Asia my 7000 km route will take me through 6 countries.  On the 4th of July 2016, I will  start pedaling from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and I will head south into the beautiful Mekong Delta and through Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and into Indonesia.

The interactive map below outlines the route that I plan to take as I set out from Ho Chi Minh City on the 4th of July 2016.   Please click on the map symbols for more detail about each leg, and zoom in for a closer view of the exact route that I plan to cycle. (the initial map load time may be slow depending on your internet connection)

Zoom in on the map for a closer view of my route  

As we all know, best laid plans have a habit of constantly changing along the way and so I expect the same to happen with my route.  For the start of the Asia leg of my cycle I do not expect there to be any variation in the countries that I travel through because the narrow shape of this part of Asia means that there is only one real route choice.  Once I reach the islands of Indonesia though there is a whole plethora of islands to choose from, and so once I arrive here my route will probably change. If so, I will update the map above to reflect any major route changes.

Vietnam

The start of my cycle from Ho Chi Minh City will actually be a bit of a false start because on the 4th of July I will only be cycling 80km south into the Mekong Delta where I will then stop to see friends for a couple of days.

If you have had the good fortune of already visiting the Mekong Delta you will understand what a beautiful landscape and amazing way of life the people who live here have.  I am not the biggest fan of Lonely Planet travel books but their description of the area does capture the unique lifestyle and culture that you find in this area:

The ‘rice bowl’ of Vietnam, the delta is carpeted in a dizzying variety of greens. It’s a water world that moves to the rhythms of the mighty Mekong, where boats, houses and markets float upon the innumerable rivers, canals and streams that criss-cross the landscape like arteries.

The bustling commerce of its towns contrasts sharply with the languid, almost soporific pace of life in the countryside. Here buffalos wallow in rice paddies, coconut- and fruit-laden boats float slowly along the mud-brown waters, and two-wheeled exploration of the narrow lanes is amply rewarded with a true taste of rural hospitality (and delicious river fish).

Elsewhere, mangrove forests teem with a wealth of bird life and bristle with the remains of Viet Cong bunkers, ornate Khmer pagodas and Buddhist temples reach for the sky, while off-coast islands offer white-sand beaches and tropical hideaways to some, and pirate havens to others.

Life in the Mekong Delta, Ben Tre, Vietnam

I love a spot of promenading and the Mekong Delta is a great place for both this and exploration of the unlimited waterways by wooden dugout canoe. After a couple of days of visiting friends my cycle will start in earnest and who knows where I will sleep that night….

From Ben Tre, I will cycle directly west and cross the Cambodian border.  As I have cycled this way before I do not intend to spend that much time visiting places en route, and so will cover the 200 km to the border in just a couple of days.

Cambodia

I will cross the border with Cambodia at Chau Doc.  As soon as you cross the border from Vietnam the differences are stark; missing are all the signs of prosperity you see everywhere in Vietnam – outside of the main cities people still live in wooden huts rather than concrete buildings, electricity becomes scarcer, and the majority of people are definitely much poorer than in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.

Unsealed roads and village life in CambodiaHaving previously experienced cycling on the main highways in Cambodia then you are often taking your life in your hands.  The car and bus drivers are not really worse than any other country in Asia but the road infrastructure is limited which funnels traffic onto the few roads which are sealed with tarmac.

The main roads also tend to be much narrower and often do not have a sealed motorbike lane on the side.  This means that when vehicles are suicidally overtaking each other then they do so in the lane you are cycling and so head directly towards you with little thought of swerving to avoid you; it really is a case of the biggest vehicle on the road has right of way.

From Chau Doc I will head inland avoiding the highways as much as possible and cycle towards Kampot.  A fellow British cyclist and his girlfriend – Fraser and Trinh – will be leaving Ho Chi Minh City a week or so before me, and as Trinh is new to cycling they will be covering less distance per day. So by the time that I arrive in Kampot I should have caught them up.

We will then spend a week or two cycling together.  To avoid the main highway out of Kampot we intend to head inland towards Kirirom National Park.  On google maps there is a track to the National Park from Kampot and so it looks like we may be making our own route through the forest for this section of the ride.

To the north of the Kirirom National Park is the Cardamom Mountain Range.  This covers roughly 6% of Cambodia, and is home to most of the country’s large mammals and half of its birds,reptiles and amphibians, including globally endangered and threatened species like Asian Elephants, Indochinese tigers, Malayan sun bears, Pileated gibbons, Siamese crocodiles, and Irrawaddy and Humpback dolphins. The Cardamoms include a vast ecosystem from dense evergreen rain forest to lowland swamps to coastal mangroves.

Unfortunately, development of this region, like in most other parts of primary rainforest, is now in full flow and upwards of a dozen hydroelectric projects and other projects threaten to destroy one of Asia’s last eco-frontiers.  Needless to say, I am glad that I will be going to see this before the local communities and landscape are changed for ever.

After visiting the Cardamom Mountains it will be time to get back on the highway and pick up the pace for a quick border dash to the land of smiles.

Thailand

I will cross the border at Trat and the first item on the agenda will be a bit of beach time. This section of the coast is not as pristine as the pure white sand beaches that you find further south towards the Thai/Malay border but is still beautiful enough to hang out in a hammock for a couple of days.

Rayong Beach, Thailand

From here I will wind my way up the coast towards the crazy party city that is Bangkok.  En route hopefully one of the lads from the Saigon Velominati cycle club that I used to ride with will join me on the road for a few days as he has a house near to Ban Bang Phra which is along this section of the coastline.

Bangkok is a city of many faces.  No matter what you want you can find it in Bangkok – 5 star restaurants and hotels, shopping malls where you can literally shop until you drop and crazy night life which caters for all tastes.  On this trip I will be using the stop here to catch up with friends as well as enjoy the cosmopolitan lifestyle that Bangkok offers.

The traditional side of life in Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok will mark the point that Fraser, Trinh and I say our goodbyes as we will be cycling to different time frames.  I need to have finished cycling through Indonesia by the end of October in order to catch a flight to New Zealand.  whereas Fraser and Trinh have until about the following March to complete this leg of their route.  Having only 12 months to fit in everywhere I want to go means that the luxury of time is something that I don’t really have.

I will head south out of Bangkok and cycle towards the Malaysian border which is 1200 km away.  My route through here really depends on which side of the country is most affected by the monsoon.  With one eye on the tourist industry the Thai’s have in recent years renamed the rainy season as the ‘Green Season’ which lasts from roughly June to October.

The one advantage to the rainy season is that the droves of tourists and package holiday-makers that you associate with this area disappear, leaving an altogether more relaxed atmosphere.   Streets tend to be quieter, beaches and islands semi-deserted; cycling through the forests I expect to hear the sounds of nature, rather than the tour group up ahead.  My wife and I visited this area in October a couple of years ago and went to an island called Koh Jum – we virtually had the island to ourselves.

Afternoon monsoon rain in Koh Jum, Thailand

In southern Thailand the wet and dry seasons do not run at the same time on both the east and west side of the peninsula. On the west coast the southwest monsoon brings rain and often heavy storms from April through to October, while on the east coast the most rain falls between September and December. Click this link and check out the map for an explanation of the normal months for the wet and dry seasons in different areas of SE Asia.

A typical pattern, if one exists, for the monsoon season is sun interspersed with brief, often very heavy and isolated showers which often occur in the late afternoon.  However, I have been in Bangkok in the past and had a week of straight rain and grey skies. Unfortunately, there seems to be little consistency from year to year and so it will be a case of wait and see.

 Malaysia

If Bangkok is a city of many different faces then Malaysia is the example of this at the country level – the commercial and industrial west coast, the cooler central highland tea plantations and the quieter more traditional east coast.

I plan to sample a bit of each of these areas on my cycle through Malaysia and so aim to cross the border from Thailand on the west coast.  Depending on the weather, I will probably head to either the island of Langkawi or Penang to rest the legs. Then after a bit of R&R it will be a couple of tougher days cycling as I head eastwards up into the cooler Cameron Highlands to visit the tea plantations before spending a week or so off the bike and trekking in Taman Negara National Park.

Cameron Highlands tea plantations, Malaysia

From here I will cross to the east coast and will hopefully catch up with another friend from the Saigon Velominati Cycling Club as his mother lives in Kuantan which is the city where I meet up with the coast road which will take me south towards Singapore.

Singapore and beyond into Indonesia

Arrival in Singapore will really mark the point that I have to make my first real route choice as Indonesia consists of more than 17000 islands. I will use Singapore as my springboard for finding a ship to take me further south into Indonesia.  Although, I have not finalised the islands that I will visit the plan is that I will continue to cycle south through Indonesia getting ferries between different islands.

As I write this in May 2016 my plan is to get a boat from Singapore to Jakarta and then cycle through Java, Bali, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara and finish my trip on Komodo.  I have no idea whether I will make it that far or perhaps even further.  Who knows and that is the adventure that I am soooo looking forward to.  No concrete plans as yet for this section of the ride and what will be, will be.

Komodo Dragon, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Whilst I am cycling my wife will continue to work in Vietnam as a teacher, and as it is school holidays towards the end of October she will fly into meet me for a holiday. This is a fixed date and so acts as my only timeline for having to be in a certain location at a certain time.

After spending a week in Indonesia my wife will fly back to Vietnam on the 24th of October, and this seems to be a natural point to end my South East Asian cycling adventures.  So, when she leaves, I will take a flight south from Bali to New Zealand. If I had more time I would have cycled through Australia as well but, having already lived and worked there, I have decided to bypass it and head directly for South Island, New Zealand.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my route through South East Asia and if it looks like I will be cycling past where you live feel free to join me for a couple of days, or if you can’t join me then the offer of a meal, a garden to pitch my tent or even a bed for the night would be amazing.

If you have any comments, tips or recommendations for places that I must visit in any of the South East Asian countries that I will cycle through I would love to hear from you – please leave a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can, or alternatively click here to email me direct!

Finally, I intend to record my journey via blog posts, so if you would like to follow my journey as I cycle around the world add your email address to the form at the foot of this page to receive automatic updates.

Hopefully, I may see you somewhere on the road.

My cycle route through SE Asia – Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
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