Gallery of Jim Blilie's Photos:

World Bicycle Tour, 1990-1992

The Big Show

Part 7:  Malaysia

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning

all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas

and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts

of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues

from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can,

begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."  (Often attributed to Goethe)

  This page is under construction.  I'm still working on a text for each segment of the

trip and scanning in some negatives and maybe a few more slides hidden here and there.

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These are THE BIG SHOW of my slides from my trip around the world with Jeff Mellor, 1990-1992.

There are many more slides in this set than on the main world tour page:  About 2600 total.  I spent

some time in late 2009 going through all my slides from the world trip and I selected many for scanning.

The results are on this page (slide shows).  Many of these have been seen only by me and many of those

I hadn't seen since 1993.  The trip itself is outlined below.

These are scans of my Kodachrome 64 (and a very small number of Ektachrome 100) slides

From Jim and Jeff Mellor's bicycle tour around the world from Nov-1990 through Oct-1992

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010 All rights reserved

I used a very nice, yet inexpensive scanner, the  Epson V500  I like it very much.

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Malaysia 14-May-1991 to 27-May-1991, 495 miles

These shots are from our tour tour through the east coast of Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia).

We entered Malaysia by riding over the causeway from Singapore on our bikes; this was our

first border crossing actually on the bikes.  We rode through Jahore Bahru where I was run over

by a car only 30 minutes into Malaysia.  We bent my forks back into shape, a little Chinese guy

in a bike shop built me a new front wheel, and we rode on out of Jahore Bahru, somewhat

sobered by the encounter.

The rest of Malaysia was paradise, except for the heat and humidity.  Just north of the equator,

bordering the South China Sea, Malaysia was everything we'd expected from the tropics.

It was around 95°F to 100°F during the day and it only got down to about 85°F and 100%

humidity at night.  We did not have air conditioning; but we learned to sleep with no covers

under ceiling fans going full blast.  As long as the air moved, it was tolerable.

The people of Malaysia were wonderful, friendly, and welcoming.  It's an officially Muslim

country; but aside from women with head scarves and signs in both the Roman and Arabic

alphabets, you wouldn't notice it.  Except for the call to prayer of the muezzins.  The first

time you hear that at 5 am, before sunrise, you know you're "not in Kansas anymore."

We took the east coast highway all the way from Singapore to Thailand.  It was a very well-

maintained road and really a joy to ride.  Very little traffic (most of that is on the west side

with Kuala Lumpur.)  The east coast is very rural and mostly you ride through jungle stretches

in between large groves of rubber trees, oil palms, and coconut palms.  The villages are small

and simple, with a few medium-sized cities.  Most rural people's homes are simple wooden

floors and walls raised on stilts above the ground and roofed with corrugated steel sheeting.

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For the slide show:  

Click HERE.  Then:

Click on the first picture (upper left picture) on the black photo album page and then

Click the "play" button at the upper right of the view panel to start the slide show.

Enjoy.

At the border	Johore Bahru	I got run over by a car 30 minutes into Malaysia.  Aftermath.  If you look in the upper right corner of the photo, you'll see bikes.  It happened right in front of a bike shop!	Straightening my frame	I just handed the broken front wheel to this little guy and he knew what to do:  Build me a new wheel.
The old rim.	Finally, the open road.	This is how everything gets around in Malaysia and Thailand:  little 100cc motorbikes.	Coming into the town where we spent our first night in Malaysia, Kota Tinggi, I ran my (new!) front wheel into a bridge piling and bent it.  Luckily, the town was big enough to have one for me to buy!	First hotel room (camping doesn't exist in Asia, outside of the high mountains, as far as we could tell.)
	Typical street scene:  Open sewer, which provides a unique and unforgettable smell experience.	Typical Chinese-run shops	Bike shop, motorbike lot	East coast highway
East coast highway early morning (100% humidity)	Very, very humid	Old Japanese WWII pillbox	Oil palm plantation	Rubber tree plantation
Rubber tapping	Typical house and gardens	Hotel room	Typical Kampong view where the highway crossed a river.	Shopping for Durians
The open road	Jungle	Our chance meeting with Frank and Jenni Biscoe, Brits riding the east coast rode in the opposite direction from us.	Oil palm fruits	BMW GS, somewhere on the east coast.  Looks much too clean ...
Coconut palms	A mosque (masjid)	Woman cycling; the bottom ones taken on the fly from the bike	Copper embossing of the rice harvest:  The most important annual event in SE Asia	A rest house (wonderful)
Young woman, she spoke perfect English (many people did not speak any English)	Typical view of the east coast road	Typical rural scenes with coconut palms	Boys and their bike	Coconut palms
A family (waiting for the bus?)	Sunrise	Open road	I guess they mean it
On the road	Hotel room	Kota Bahru is the last city before Thailand	Where else will I get to rest my bike against a coconut palm?
			Water buffalo	Monkeys along the river.  Bizarre the first time you hear crashing in the trees and look up to see monkeys hurling themselves through the trees
Jeff, on the road	Rubber plantation and worker	Typical jungle view	River with fishing boats
An open-air batik factory	An open-air batik factory	View to some of the islands	Guest house room.  It's HOT.	Sunrise
By the guest house	Another sunrise	At "Man and Sam Homestay", Kampong Merang.  Like a very rustic B&B	Study of coconut palms	Study of coconut palms
Man and Sam's nieces	Jeff getting ready, Sam in the doorway	More buffaloes	Study of coconut palms	Roti Man, making our standard breakfast:  The local (delicious) flat bread called simply roti (a generic word for bread).
In process	The final product, Yum-yum eat 'em up!	On to Thailand:  Our second border crossing on the bikes.

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Outline of our trip:

From Nov. 15, 1990 to Oct. 6, 1992, with a five-month break for the winter of '91-'92, Jeff Mellor

and I traveled around the world through 26 countries, mostly by bicycle.  While in the "developed"

world, we bicycled 1000 miles per month, camping each night.  In Asia and Africa, we traveled by

train and bus and used guest-houses.  We encountered 16 different foreign languages, of which we

needed to learn at least the rudiments.  We rode a total of almost 11,000 miles on our bikes, camped out

at least 350 times, and climbed several mountains including Pt. Lenana (16,350 ft.) on Mt. Kenya in

Africa.  We took a three-week, 220-mile hike around the Annapurna Range in Nepal, which included

a 17,700 ft. high pass.  I took 13,000 photographs and wrote 1000 pages of journals.  No experience

in my life, except my university education, can compare with these travels for the depth and breadth

of learning or for the perspective gained.  It was one of the peak life experiences, up there with

marriage, children, university education.

Our trip was through these countries:

[Hawaii:  The Big Island, a 2-week shake-down within the US, started Nov 1990]

Fiji, about 10 days riding around Viti Levu from Nadi to Suva

New Zealand:  Auckland to Wellington via Coromandel Penn. and a loop around the Southern

Alps from Christchurch and back

Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra and Mt. Kosciusko, around Tasmania, bits and

pieces inland mostly bus to Darwin

Singapore

Malaysia, from Singapore to the Thai border

Thailand (no bikes; we sent our bikes to Denmark from Bangkok, not wanting to ride in Thailand,

Nepal, India, Kenya, or Egypt)

Nepal (no bikes)

India (no bikes; just passed through Delhi and Bombay since we were running way behind)

and then on to a long tour of Europe:

Denmark

Germany

Netherlands

Belgium

France

United Kingdom

Then a winter's break at home in the USA from Oct 1991 through March 1992, then we flew

back to Lisbon Portugal in March 1992:

Portugal

Spain

France

UK, we rode from Plymouth to Land's End then from Land's End to John O'Groats at the tip of

Scotland and via ferries to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and on to Norway over the North Sea (with a

detour from Holyhead in Wales over to Ireland and back)

Ireland

Norway

Sweden

Germany (former East Germany)

Poland

Czech Republic

Austria

Germany (Bavaria) and home in Oct 1992 from Frankfurt am Main

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

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Time and mileage table:

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Background image is typical Kampong scene, east coast of Malaysia, May 1991

Last updated:  29-Aug-2010