We discovered a new and quite welcome philosophy prevailed at the Hotel Femina with regard to check out times. Here, the rule was that checkout occurred exactly 24 hours after check in. This worked perfectly for us, since we had an overnight train to Cochin that evening, but would be free to leave our things in the hotel room, and use it to clean up after the day’s wheel.

We breakfasted at a south Indian coffee shop, which we quickly found was a local institution. Its interior was well lit by skylights, and it was crowded with many, many people ripping into vadas, idilis, and dosas.

And well staffed by uniformed and quickly moving servers. The manager of the shop quickly noticed and greeted us, showing us to a table that had been vacated just seconds before. Our server, perhaps the only one in all of our travels in India who was a female, wiped our table down with water and an open hand.

We ordered a couple of idli and vada, a few dosas, and cup after cup of scrumptious South Indian coffee. Feeling refreshed, and quite content to be once again in a land of large portions, we hit the streets.

We wheeled north into the city, bouncing our way over crumbling concrete streets, which dissolved from time to time into gravel, dirt and sand. Our first waypoint would be a temple complex in the north of the city, but we were unsure of the exact route.

We knew that once we got close, we would be able to see the thing looming in the distance and chart from there, but first we needed to traverse the five or so kilometers of city, which lay in a tangled patchwork of poorly maintained streets between us and the northern outskirts.

We called a waypoint to consult a local street coffee vendor and sample his wares. Before we could even order coffee, we had a attracted a large crowd, all of whom were men dressed in a kind of man skirt called a lungi, most of whom where silently scrutinizing the speed TRs with hands crossed behind their backs.

One emerged from the crowd, explaining to us that he was the manager of a painting operation, which was at work next door slathering the interior of a shop with electric orange enamel. He asked us to survey his men’s work, and insisted on buying us coffee (which we nervously drank from a couple of sticky communal glasses).

He then commenced a long chain of introductions, first introducing us to  his team of laborers, followed by most of his extended family, who, for one reason or another, all seemed to be walking by at that time.

All the while, the crowd of people standing around us was growing larger and larger. They were ringing the bells on the Speed TRs and clicking the shifters. When we finally had gotten through the pleasantries and began asking directions to the temple, we hit a roadblock in communications, culminating with the painting manager insisting that he would travel with us on his motor bike to the temple. We did our very best to decline this offer graciously, tried to pay for our coffee, thanked the giant crowd for their kind attention, and remounted the cycles.

Through a system of extemporaneous field commands, we were able to make our way out of the city and into the farmland that encircles Trichy. Strangely enough, the roads actually seemed to improve out here, and as we rode, we waved and helloed with everyone we passed, young and old, even if they were in the distance, operating a piece of farm machinery. Speaking of the distance, there, in it, was the temple. Looming tall and ornate in the hazy pollution. We were certainly heading in the wrong direction, but we now knew where it was, and that was an important step.

We briefly entertained the idea of cycling along the outskirts of the city in order to reach the temple, but as it turned out, all roads lead into Trichy,  so we had to ride back into the city, in order to get out of it on the northeast side rather than the northwest. By now, we were beginning to know our way around, and made short work of the crumbling streets, sending up our own clouds of the red sandy soil of Tamil Nadu.

Suddenly a man ran out into the street, eyes wild, and waving his hands in the air at us as if to say “Stop the show! Hold everything!” We dutifully brought the speed TRs to a halt next to him, where he began to scream to us. “A great man! Only one great Man!” He then violently pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to show us a tattoo on his arm.

“Only one great man! M.G. Ramachandaran.” The tattoo was of a somewhat blurred male head with sunglasses. “One!” he screamed again, holding up one finger, “Only one Great Man!”

“We non-verbally agreed with him, and repeated the name, M.G. Ramachandaran. Upon hearing this he most vigorously shook both of our hands and we were off wheeling again. The extremes of experience indeed.

Here, dear reader, you might be interested to learn: MG Ramachandaran, or MGR as he is more colloquially known in Tamil Nadu was an actor, film producer, and politician. From 1977 until 1987 he was the Minister of Tamil Nadu. For more info, I highly recommend the wikipedia article on this fellow. We found it quite engrossing when we devoured it on the wikireader.

Back on the road, we found our way onto what seemed more like the correct route, marked by much more intense traffic, and a great number of tour buses. Like tributaries into some great river, we channeled from road to road, until we finally found ourselves joining a boiling mass of all types of traffic to cross a great bridge over a large dried out lake.

So intense was it that on the other side, we decided to stop for another cup of delightful South Indian coffee, and some small chocolate flavored shapes, designed no doubt by some chemist to remain unmelted even in the boiling south Indian heat.

Refreshed by our coffee break, we bid farewell to the small crowd which had once again formed around the Speed TRs, and pedaled toward the temple, which loomed larger and larger in the distance.

When we gained on it, we found the place to be much more of an elaborate conglomeration of structures than anticipated, with many ornate gates and sub-complexes.  I’ll let the photos below speak for themselves.

Wheeling around the complex proved to be laden with obstacles and activity.

Back on the road, it was nearing time to call it quits, lest the exertion and the intensity of the sun induce the kind of fatigue that brings with it imprecise and dangerous wheeling habits.  We looped back, passing schools and byzantine village paths.

To return to the city though, we needed to wrangle once again with some 5km of tangled, crowded, and crumbling roads.

At first, we found ourselves stuck in a massive traffic jam, sandwiched between giant buses, cargo trucks, and auto rickshaws in a great cluster of gridlock, but with our more nimble steeds, we were able to slowly make progress where others could not, and soon we had found our way to a great flyover, which allowed us to soar over the city on well paved, elevated, startlingly empty highway.

Why were the other hoards of traffic not taking this route as well? We may never know. But it allowed us to make very short work of the return. Taking us directly to the train station: an important waypoint for later that evening.

And from there, it was a short 5 minute wheel back to the hotel.

We enjoyed the last bits of our 24-hour stay at the Hotel Femina, lounging and working or correspondence.  The battery backup power supply provided ample current to support the blogging session.

As the sun set, and once again, the street vendors lit up their hissing gasoline lanterns, we climbed on our cycles, fully loaded down with gear, and made our way to the station. Our train to Cochin was easy to find, and in stark contrast to our experiences of India on the pilot study, essentially on time.

As the engines started up, and the giant iron snake began to hiss and squeal its imminent departure, we hurried to purchase some Lays Magic Masalla flavored chips (very highly recommended), some Indian spicy fried lentil snacks called Bhel Puri, and a few packets of Good Day Cashew biscuits.

Now, dear reader, I must note, we had no plan for how to deposit all our luggage onto the train. And as we struggled to enter the 3rd class A/C compartment fully loaded with packs and cycles, we made quite a spectacle of ourselves. Bubbling spurts of Tamil and Malayalam punctuated with the word “cycle” followed us everywhere we went. When we found our seats, there was certainly no place to store the cycles and almost too little space for our packs. Luckily, our fellow bunk-mates were quite friendly, assuring us that we would figure it out, and inviting us to sit down. The two fellows were traveling together to Kerala, and were just finishing a vast meal that had been packed by one of their wives. Seeing our sorry stash of Magic Masala chips and Good Day Biscuits, they began to quite vehemently offer us some of their food.

We, of course declined, though it looked very good. They countered with even more vehement offerings, and assurances that they were quite full (which I believe they actually were… it was a huge meal) and began to refer to a newspaper wrapped, twine-tied packet of “surplus chapati.” Well, I’ve never been one to look a surplus chapati in the mouth, so we accepted, found them to be warm, slightly crisp and some of the best chapati of our lives, and began to relax into conversation with these two fine blokes.

Soon a fellow introducing himself as the compartment mechanic, came over, followed by another who after some misunderstandings we confirmed to be describing himself as the Ticketeer. The mechanic offered us a solution to the cycle storage problem. For a small tip, he would allow us to store the cycles in a pile by the rest rooms at the very end of the train where, there being no further cars, the rear door was replaced by a the kind of roll-down security door used to close down shops in Greenwich Village at night.

This seemed like a good solution, so we did so and returned to find the Ticketeer still waiting, harboring little interest in our tickets, but much in our story. We chatted with him about AsiaWheeling and about his previous life as a field hockey champ until he was called away by the arrival of more passengers, namely two young water filter moguls, who demanded masala dosas and chatted with us late into the night about the Indian water filter business. Let me assure you, dear reader, the Indian water filter market is doing just fine.

As the train rattled on into the night, our bunk mates began to call their families to wish them goodnight. They then dutifully passed the phones to us, where on the other end I found myself chatting with the very small and adorable voice of Indian school-girls, who explained to me in English that she liked to sing, and that she was 10 years old. Finally, when we had all said goodnight — our bunkmates, their families, the Ticketeer, the water filter guys, the mechanic, and the drunk fellow who was seen frequently walking back and forth between the bathroom and his seat, we removed our shoes and set up the bunks. It was time to sleep.

And as the train rattled on into the night out of Tamil Nadu and into Kerala we slept the sleep of those who, more foolish, might think the deck was full of aces.

Our last morning in Malaysia began with a visit to the restaurant that had produced the delightful Nasi Lamak and coconut rice pancakes that Smita had brought back for us the previous morning.

The place turned out to be a splendid little roadside stall, a few plastic table s with an outdoor kitchen, a crack squad of fellows, yelling at each other, and some very serious dedication to the speedy delivery of Indian-Malay grub. It was Chinese New Years Day, and the city was pretty deserted.

Most of the clientele there seemed to have a celebratory Sunday out with the family feel. The coffee was incredible. The food was as good or better than we had remembered it. Ah, KL.

So splendid was the place, in fact, that we were tempted to linger there for some time longer than scheduled. Long enough, in fact, that we were rushing to purchase a few snacks at a local wholesale grocer, and wheel back in time to pack our things up for the cab ride to the airport.

We collapsed the speed TRs in the parking garage at Smita’s residence, taking longer than usual, as we were for the first time, using a set of foam protectors which Tan from My Bike Shop had provided us . Meanwhile, Smita sprung to action arranging and negotiating with the cab company. We were sad to be saying goodbye to Malaysia and KL in particular. Kuala Lumpur had earned a firmly applied asiawheeling stamp of approval. But the open road and the wonders of India beckoned, so we bid Smita a fond farewell, and off we went.

Our AirAsia flight departed from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal, which was some distance from the airport proper. The entire terminal, it seemed, was there primarily for AirAsia flights, and we struggled some time to find, in rather low light and among what must have been nearly a hundred AirAsia counters (some for check in, some for baggage, some merely staffed for the sake of staffing) the appropriate counter for our flight to Trichy. We were finally able to find our counter, which was behind another seemingly random security checkpoint, and made all the more obvious by the large line of Indians, sporting lungis and saris, which poured out from a small counter, that may have at one point proclaimed check-in for the flight to Trichy, but now just displayed a 404 Firefox error message.

Most of the line turned out to not be a line, just people standing around chatting, so we were able to work our way quickly to the front, where, in an act of great kindness, redeeming them from all sour feelings over miscommunicated departure times, minute portions, and confusing service personnel, AirAsia waved the “sports equipment fee” for our speed TRs, marking them as merely fragile luggage and sending us, smiling, over to the luggage loading booth, where we patiently waited for a group of young children to climb off the baggage conveyor belt, where they had been most violently enjoying themselves.  Where were their mothers at a time like this?

Luggage dispatched, we headed into the terminal and joined another large group of Indians masquerading as a queue, but were in reality, just chatting and passing the time.

After eating a few shapes, we perused the airport bookstore, which was chock full of business-guru books for middle managers like “25 Sales Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople,” as well as a selection of unsettling magazines.

After shuffling around in the waiting hall looking for power and discussing the feasibility of a high-design beverage business, we boarded the flight and were soon airborne.

As an American, one assumes international flights should be long.  So we were quite surprised when only a couple hours later we arrived in India.

Indian customs proved to be a painless and quick affair, consisting mostly of head wobbling, and then we were set free into the baggage area, where we were to spend the next couple hours, tortured by thirst, and waiting as a poorly designed, bent, and crumbling luggage conveyor suffered through many,  many bags.

The machine seemed to have been designed for maximum impact, taking the luggage and first hoisting it up a long ramp, only to send it tumbling down a steep but grippy conveyor which would halt from time to time, sending the luggage on it tumbling under its own momentum, end over end, crashing down to ground level again.

We watched with bated breath, hoping that the cycles could handle the descent. Our bags slowly arrived, tumbling harmlessly down the spout, but the cycles were nowhere to be found. We paced and waited out the agonizingly slow process. Finally we saw our cycles begin to climb the conveyor, then the system stopped. It seems part of the cycle must have been caught in the machinery, or perhaps would not fit through some bottleneck in the interior of the system. Whatever it was, it was in our great favor, as the attendants finally, got up from where they had been sitting observing the goings on, and climbed into the interior of the machine to retrieve the Speed TRs, laying them at our feet, safe and sound.

The airport was tiny, sporting only a short strip outside for both pick-up and dr0p-off. After changing our Ringgit into Rupees at a truly predatory rate, we found chartering a ride into Trichy reasonably easy.  Drivers were plentiful, and, of course, the Ambassador was spacious.

As we drove, Scott selected a hotel from the list in the Lonely Planet, and our driver made short work of the journey.  With all the swerving and honking, we were reminded that we were definitely back in India.

At first the Hotel Femina seemed reticent about showing us the room before we paid. This was, of course, unacceptable, but after some hemming and hawing outside, and consultation with the locals about other options for lodging in Trichy, they relented and showed us a roomy unit with its own private balcony and a serviceable bathroom. “Oh good, a shower and a little sit in the Condor’s Nest,” we thought, thinking back to the many fine hours we had spent on balconies and porches in Indonesia. So we pulled the trigger.

With lodging out of the way, we unfolded the speed TRs and took to the street, finally getting some much needed water, locating a much needed Automatic Teller Machine, and indulging in some incredibly affordable and much needed Indian food. All the while, as we wheeled from waypoint to waypoint, I found myself startled at the degree to which India was. Everywhere I looked there were people, transacting, yelling, sounding horns, working, chatting, spitting, urinating, littering, or just sitting and passing time.  At every corner, Tamil men would question us about the bicycles and interact in all manners of communication.

The traffic was much slower than any we had yet experienced, consisting of mostly auto rickshaws and large noisy buses. Trichy, it seemed, was a transit city, and as night fell, it did not let up one bit. Street lights flickered on, and street vendors lit up hissing gas lanterns, and the city just kept churning.

And it was loud. Rickshaws, buses, bikes, and people, everyone was honking, screaming, and clanging bits of metal together. The traffic whipped up a dust that clung my sweaty skin, and the smoke from engines burning oil, the spicy scent of street vendors stirring great pots of boiling liquid, and the sickening sweet smell of the open sewers all blended together into an invigorating potpourri.

Ah, India. The extremes of Experience at last.

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Our goodbyes to David had to be made through the fog that accompanies undersleeping. It was 5:00 am again, and the Rucksack Inn was still filled with the same six – eight zombie-like Internet users that had been there when I had retired for bed some four hours ago.

As David climbed into his cab to Changi airport, and we climbed into ours to the train station connecting Singapore with Malaysia (mysteriously not connected to the subway system…), we bid farewell to the strange and wondrous chapter of the trip that David had ushered in, with a phraseology that David and I had used in college: “Goodbye forever,” I told him, knowing full well that I would see him in the next year or two. “Yeah, goodbye forever,” David replied.

And then we were off. Our cab driver was extremely polite and efficient, sporting a cab full of flat screen monitors advertising Chinese New Year’s gifts to us. We lugged our shiny new bikes into the crumbling white colonial behemoth that was the entryway to Malaysia, and I sat on the steps playing Mama Rock Me, watching the sun rise on Singaporean Tamil men unloading goods from lorries, and  machines scrubbing the street with rotating brushes.  Inside the railway station, we took stock of our surroundings and confirmed the tickets.

Scott dozed in the giant waiting room, and in no time we were working our way through a system of inspections, detections, and checkpoints, making our way to the train.

The train itself was old, but comfortable, with plenty of space to store the bikes.  The lack of a window near our seats, played a supportive role in our sleeping through the majority of the 14-hour ride.

At one point, we were awakened by a loud, but unintelligible transmission coming from the overhead speakers. All transmissions on the train were ushered in and out by a rising and falling set of tones, which must have at one point or another been quite similar to those used on the metro systems of Hong Kong and London. However, due to some malfunction in the innards of this behemoth of a machine, the train’s announcements were subjected to a kind of radical Doppler shift, creating disconcerting parabolas of tone that were quite effective at rousing both one’s attention and the hair on the back of one’s neck.

From what we could tell, this transmission was commanding us to exit the train and go through customs, which we did, exiting Singapore, and receiving a number of stamps on our Malaysian entry cards. Eight hours later, when we next awoke from our slumbers, we were deep in Malaysia. It seems somehow, we had missed the official entry into Malaysia, and had made our way into the country without getting a stamp. We said a short prayer to the gods of immigration and customs, in hopes that this would not cause us trouble down the road, and fell back asleep, rocked by the rails, snaking our way through the Malaysian jungle toward Butterworth.

Butterworth was the end of the line, and the sun had already set when we packed up our things and climbed off the train. We followed our fellow passengers toward the ferry to Penang Island. So far, peninsular Malaysia felt very comfortable. The presence of moderate amounts of rubbish and less well maintained structures was comforting after the sterile polished exterior of Singapore. We were quite surprised to meet a school teacher from North Carolina, traveling with her two young children. It was one of our first clues that Malaysia would prove very safe and manageable. Most everyone we had yet encountered spoke very good English, and even public signage was almost always translated.

We were able to purchase tickets on the Penang ferry for about USD 0.35 and spent the ride over to the island gawking at the very developed, well lit island on which we were to spend the next three days and down at the brownish sea, which was quite visibly crowded with large white jellyfish, pushed aside by the hulking ferry. On the other side of the water, we mounted the cycles, and rode into the city. Penang was well lit, and festooned with red lanterns and banners in preparation for the upcoming Chinese New Year. As we had seen in Singapore, most everyone here appeared to be of either Han Chinese or Tamil descent. The sharp cheek-boned islander ethnicity  we had seen so much of in Indonesia, Borneo, and even on the train ride to Butterworth seemed absent here. Perhaps this is what our Malaysian Bureau Chief, Smita Sharma, had meant when she described these as Chinese straights towns?

Thanks to the ease of communication in Penang, we were easily able to find our way to the Hutton Lodge, an establishment that had been recommended to us by our most esteemed Malaysian Bureau. As would prove the rule, the recommendation was stellar, and the Hutton Lodge welcomed us with a clean room, a nice view of the courtyard, friendly staff, and promises of free breakfast with infinite coffee.

We dumped our belongings on the beds and quickly unfolded the speed TRs to head back out into the fray in search of food. Since we had slept all the way through the train ride, we were operating on just a few biscuits in the stomach, and even without having wheeled that day, we were starving. Luckily, as Smita had outlined for us, Penang was a food lover’s destination, sporting a new style of restaurant, which AsiaWheeling had not  yet experienced. It was a kind of emergent restaurant, where the many cooks establish small kitchen stalls around a central seating area. Patrons are then issued a table in the seating area by some central authority and invited to peruse the surrounding stalls, from which the many cooks quite vocally tout their wares. Diners select foods that look appealing, order, and the food is brought to the table.

We feasted that night on fried chicken wings, a local fried noodle dish by the name of Char Koay Teow, and some strange medicinal soups from a Chinese vendor. With the exception of the soups, which were just a little too medicinal for our liking, the meal was delightful, and we climbed back on the bikes, ready to get a little shuteye after our long day of sleeping on the train.

Our night at the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha in Legian, Indonesia droned on at a snail’s pace, as we tossed and turned, attempting to sleep over the roaring laughter and screeching conversation of drunken Spaniards courting similarly intoxicated American women around the nearby pool. Our fan buzzed and creaked overhead, while the coil of mosquito repellent incense which we had lit smoldered apologetically amidst the late night din.

Needless to say, we were happy when the sun began to rise, and though the aforementioned noise seemed to switch seamlessly from crazy hour carousing to young children splashing and yelling in the pool, we were at least free now to get up and wheel a little.

The breakfast at the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha proved quite tasty. Though we were forced to pay a little extra to flesh out the free breakfast with an egg, the addition of infinite cups of coffee was quite welcome.

In good spirits despite our lack of rest, we initiated beach mode and took to the streets, arriving in short order at the sea.

Though in the sunset it had been glowingly idyllic, we could see in the light of day that Kuta Beach too was a fascinatingly post-apocalyptic sight. We made our way across refuse blowing in drifts in the sand, waving good morning to the many fellows who made their living wearing Coca-Cola and Billibong branded shirts while raking up the evidence of yesterday’s defilement of the beach. We entered the surf to find that with each wave, we became entangled in rubbish, plastic bags mostly. We waded out some waves, and body surfed for a while before the sight of what looked like medical waste in the water turned us back toward land.

Back on the cycles, we explored the north of Legian. We worked our way along a surprisingly Sanur-like beach path. This one was about five times as wide, sporting the same gray brick and barriers every kilometer or so, which required us to hoist the speed TRs up and over before continuing on.

After we reached the end of the path (where we found a large tower advertising sunset bungee jumping), Scott called an Uber-Rausch and we worked our way back toward the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha along the meandering back roads of Legian. One of our missions for the morning was to find some kind of protective system for our derailleurs. One lacking of the Speed TR is its vulnerability to damage on the derailleur during transit. So far we had been lucky, but from the scratches and damage to the bags that held the bikes while they rode in the belly of the airplane, we knew we were playing with fire.

We tried a number of solutions, including a variety of local wooden hats. Finally, we found a couple of plastic bowls (Melamine Ware brand) and a ball of twine that we decided would serve as a stopgap in our search for a better solution. Armed with this equipment, we checked out of the hotel, and after picking up our laundry, we decided to wheel to the airport.

Though this was our longest trip to date on the cycles while fully loaded with our inventory, it proved surprisingly easy, in part due to the flat terrain and in part to the friendly nature of the local motorists. This is not to say, however, that we did not make quite a sight arriving at the Balinese airport by cycle. The guards at the front gate, sported looks of 50% grin and 50% befuddlement as they flagged us through the bomb check station.

We arrived at the international terminal, and quickly began to disassemble our cycles, struggling briefly to attach the plastic bowls, attracting a small crowd, receiving reprimands for attempting to use the wrong kind of baggage cart, briefly alarming the security guards with the ukulele, and finally making our way toward the Air Asia counter.

At the counter, we were somewhat furious to discover that we would need to pay an extra $15 dollars each to transport the cycles (sports equipment charge…). After quickly recovering from that unanticipated expense, we were hit with another, when we learned we would need to pay approximately 30 bucks each to get out of the country. Luckily, we had, in anticipation of the unsuccessful trip to the Gilis, taken out a fair bit more money than we had spent. But it is worth noting, dear reader, that had we been out of cash, this might have become quite a sticky boarder crossing.

On the other side, we found many small shops, and restaurants, where food and drink was valued at 500% to 1000% greater than the normal Indonesian level, and at the end of the terminal our gate, which required another complicated security check. We had loaded up on drinks for the plane, which we were now forced to consume on the spot or discard. As the snaking security line for flight QZ 8496 to Singapore wore it way down, we engaged in the bizarre and fraternalistic practice of consuming as much liquid as possible in the shortest amount of time, upon which we had to submit our bottles to the recycling for security reasons. With my belly expanded to full capacity and glugging with our prematurely purchased beverages, I thought about a scene from the movie Charlotte’s Web, with which my sister had quite the affinity during my youth.

Meanwhile in the Denpasar airport, a uniformed man was intently scrutinizing my ukulele case, which turned out to still be holding the bike tool from our last wheel. The fellow explained that we could not take such a tool on board (perhaps for fear we would loosen all the Allen bolts on the aircraft?). We frowned at each other, and I tried to explain the importance of this tool and the mission of AsiaWheeling using sign language. He still frowned and refused, plunging his hand into my bag and removing more materials that he now seemed to consider forbidding. He then held up the ukulele pitch pipe and sternly questioned me as to its function. I began to blow into the pipe, producing a sweet note, which appeared to temporarily transport the fellow to a distant and dreamy place. He began to walk slowly away from me, still clutching the bike tool, with the distant gaze of a moth approaching a candle. Then suddenly he snapped around, and without a word replaced the tool in my bag, smiled a large and very Indonesian smile and bid me safe travels.

It’s a magical world we live in, dear reader. A magical world.

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The breakfast provided by this place was perhaps the best we had experienced yet, with a nice pile of fried rice, an over-easy egg, a piece of Kentucky fried chicken (quite literally), and a mound of very mildly fishy wafers. The coffee was excellent, and made with just the right amount of sweetened condensed milk. Wifi was plentiful and lightning fast, which always puts us in a good mood. It seemed that the departure from Surabaya would be much nicer than the entry.

With our entire inventory strapped to our bodies, we took to the streets and made short work of the kilometer or so to the train station, cat calls and “hello misters” aside. When we got there, we yet again attracted an unprecedented crowd of observers as we packed up the cycles.

Inside the train station, we loaded up on water and Indonesian snack cakes from the “Holland Bakery” and other little bodegas.

And in no time we were settling into the ride.

Our seats were the very last on the train, allowing us to get up whenever we pleased and take in the retreating view from the back of the car.

We snacked contentedly and worked on correspondence for you, dear reader. I made sure to take breaks to go play my ukulele in the caboose area where Indianian business men were lounging and smoking clove cigarettes. For obvious reasons, the songs “City of New Orleans,” “Hobo’s Lulluby,” and “Long Train Running” were on heavy rotation. The Indonesians proved very forgiving, and tolerated my playing in a most hearty way, at times humming along in an interesting and dissonant fashion.

Meanwhile, we were witnessing a change in the terrain which whipped by outside the squeaking and leaning train car. For the first time, we began to see crops other than rice: what looked like sugar cane, fruit trees, palms, and even a type of tropical coniferous forest flying by our periphery. Anyone who knows about tropical coniferous forests, by all means, please share with us in the comments.

Slowly but surely the train was emptying out. We struggled to explain why, as most of the stops appeared to be little more than jungle road crossings. Despite this, huge numbers of well dressed people with laptop bags would depart the train. Finally, still somewhat puzzled, and after some seven hours of travel, the train arrived at Banyuwangi, another small station, where we were to find a bus waiting to take us to the ferry and on to Java.

The air was sticky and the scent of the sea was strong, as we lugged our Speed TRs down the platform, and around a corner toward the road. Two fellows seemed to be officiating the loading of the only bus, and generally orchestrating the human traffic. Neither of the two was uniformed, and neither appeared to be the driver. But both came over to us and requested our tickets. Scott found cause for pause, at the demand from such a dubious officiate, but eventually, as it seemed they held the keys to this kingdom, we relented and turned over our tickets, loading our belongings into the belly of the bus.

Onboard we careened maybe 500 yards before the bus stopped in order to be boarded by some five or six peddlers, selling everything from snacks to fake Ray-Bans. Knowing full well there was a pair of devastatingly handsome Maui Jims waiting for us in Singapore, we opted to continue on with our current eyewear.

After the sales sweep, the bus yawed its way onto the ferry. and everyone was encouraged to get off. The ferry was quite interesting, and may have been held together primarily by white and green paint.

After inspection of some heavily painted over characters, and some of the framed signage, we determined the ship to be an old Japanese ferry later purchased and relentlessly painted over by an Indonesian ferry company.

The engines sounded labored and seemed to be burning a fair bit of oil, but nonetheless propelled the ship forward, which I guess should be enough for anyone.

With Bali looming ever closer in the misty distance, we wandered the ship. Of particular interest was the on-board prayer room, or Musholla, and the instant noodles stand, the owner of which proclaimed his wares by clanking a spoon against a bowl, an amazingly loud and surprisingly nautical sound.

Eventually, the same fellows who had been running the show (one of whom was wearing a tee-shirt proclaiming him the cast iron specialist) called for everyone to return to the bus.

We climbed in and soon we were lumbering toward a kind of customs station. The cast iron fellow approached Scott, and motioning to a woman, suggested that she should sit next to him. In the only half full bus, I was puzzled by this, but Scott assured me that everything has a purpose. So he shared his seat with the woman, and soon all the Indonesians were asked to exit the bus. You see, dear reader, all Indonesians are required to carry their KTP cards, as part of a national identification system. We, as foreigners stayed on board, having no KTP card and being cash cows not worth hassling, and so its was with this woman.

It was then that it occurred to us. This was some kind of a person smuggling technique. The woman would be assumed to be Scott’s companion. When we had made it to the other side there was a small hurrah shared between the cast iron fellow, the woman, and the other official, and the woman resumed her seat next to the two fellows running the show. AsiaWheeling is always glad to be of service, but if anyone else would like to conjecture as to what might have actually happened here, please let us know in the comments.

Then commenced an unexpectedly long bus ride, made all the longer by my increasingly vehement need to urinate. Four hours, six naps and one endless, meandering ride over a mountain later, we arrived in Denpasar, the capital of Bali. We had determined on the train that we should not sleep in Denpasar, rather we should make our way to the nearby beach town of Sanur. So we loaded our cycles into what I am pleased to announce was the first taxi cab ride of AsiaWheeling (pilot study excluded) and arrived in Sanur 30 minutes and one closed road later.

The Illustrious Mr. Fu had taken the liberty of making us a reservation at a splendid place by the name of Prima Cottages, and though we made some puzzling wrong turns in violation of signs pointing us toward the hotel (that is until it quickly became obvious that our cab driver did not read and required our assistance in the signage department) we arrived in one piece and while somewhat frazzled from the day of travel, in good spirits.

Though it was called the Prima Cottages, we didn’t have a cottage. But what we did have was a very nice and clean room, with comfortable beds and a very clean bathroom. Right outside our room, there was a beautiful tropical garden and a very inviting pool.

It seemed a Bintang was in order. Bintang means “star” and is the local brew in Indonesia. Unsurprisingly, it is a subsidiary of Heineken (the Dutch still play a big roll commercially here), and the label design is very Heineken-esque.

It’s very expensive by local beverage standards (likely due to Islamic influence on Indonesia’s government reflected in alcohol tax) and rather seltzer-like, but we felt we had earned it. So we unfolded the cycles and rode into town, to buy a bag of meat flavored potato chips, and a couple bottles of the stuff. So we put our feet up by the pool, cracked into the ice cold Bintang, stared up into an infinity of blurry dark humidity speckled with dim stars, and relaxed into the end of a very long day.

The alarm began ringing at 6am (playing the theme to Sim City 2000; if you know and love this tune as well, please let us know in the comments) and Scott and I pulled ourselves out of the warm, slightly sweaty, and intensely patterned comfort of our beds at the Setia Kawan. Knowing we had a gnarly wheel ahead, we ordered the house Indonesian breakfast and laid in to our piles of sweet fried rice, sunny side up eggs and fishy crackers. We had been struggling to warm up to the fishy crackers, but with the wheel ahead, we decided we needed all the calories we could get, so down the hatch they went as well. The ride was to be a little over 35 kilometers to Borobudur, and another 35 back, making it one of the more intense of the wheels of AsiaWheeling to date.

Outside our hotel, the sun shone bright, and the sky lacked even a hint of rain. Bolstered by the solid breakfast, we set out, wheeling hard northward. Part way into the ride, Scott’s chain began to squeak (all the previous day’s rain no doubt), and we began pulling over at little roadside shops, many of which, amazingly, did not have any lubricant, claiming their specialty in tires or radiators did not necessitate the keeping of such materials on hand. In the end, we found an auto grease-covered auto mechanic who was able to give us a little used motor oil, served from an old honey container, for free no less, which solved the squeaking quite nicely, albeit in a very sticky and black way.

We wheeled on through the morning, passing endless small businesses that survive from the traffic on the road to Borobudur. Most were selling either automotive supplies and services or snacks and souvenirs. The vast quantity and diversity of Indonesian souvenirs is quite amazing, perhaps amplified by the fact that, as we have come to understand, they are all made in the Jogjakarta area. At one point, we passed a uniformed group of school children out for a morning jog. Needless to say, we were a big hit with them.

Finally the urban sprawl died away and we were once again surrounded by rice fields, furniture workshops, and smallish compounds full of fellows chipping away at stone to create ornate garden statues, and smaller souvenirs.  At one point we called a waypoint to investigate what appeared to be a large ornate cemetery in the distance. A fellow came up to us and immediately began teaching us Indonesian at an alarming and incomprehensible rate, while his compatriots struggled to fix their truck which had developed a number of debilitating problems. The fellow had progressed to lesson 7:  how to say “Barak Obama was used to live in Indonesia. Big ups Obama!” when we began to get restless and suffer from short-term memory overload.

Back on the road, we had been directed by the fellows at the Setia Kawan to follow the buses, and so we did, taking a few turns, and from time to time stopping to confirm with a local that we were indeed headed for the great temple. Soon we began to see smaller temples in the centers of villages along the way and were sure we must be almost to that greatest of Buddhist pilgrimages. In preparation, we stopped at a little shop, and loaded up on water and indulged in some little snacks. It was only 10:00 am but we were starving.

We sucked down three liters of water, some soft drinks, and a package of Indonesian pastries, and soon we were off again.

Borobudur was incredible. Generally, AsiaWheeling attempts to avoid the touristy activities. But for this we’d decided to make an exception. I’ll let the photos and videos speak for this place, though if you are interested in more of the history, I highly recommend the wikipedia article, which we devoured on our WikiReader..

Luckily, we had coordinated our outfits such that we were both wearing the AsiaWheeling uniform.

Before we got too far into the wheel back, we stopped at the same little shop. The owner seemed happy to see us and even more happy when we purchased another three liters of water, a can of Pakari Sweat and some fake M&Ms. These calories proved just barely enough to get us back into the Yogjakarta area, and once we were about 10 miles out, the hunger started to take a very strong hold. Our reality became distorted, and we struggled not to become unhinged beasts on collapsable bicycles.

We had heard from the beautiful and well traveled Mai Mitsuboshi that in the vicinity there was a restaurant that specialized in all variety of mushroom dishes. This was to be a waypoint, and we had even gained the name of this place during our dinner with the Yogyakarta rainmakers two nights before. Unfortunately, it seems that the sweat and grit of the road had claimed this scrap of paper, leaving us with only knowledge of the theme and approximate location of this restaurant.

We began pulling off the road from time to time, attempting to communicate “mushroom restaurant.” As you can imagine, this was met with at times hilarious, but none too productive results. Finally, rabid with hunger and at our wit’s end, we pulled into General Electric’s Indonesian headquarters, the first fellow we spoke to took pity on us, in our ragged and disoriented state, flagging down a nearby driver, who questioned us some more, and then, may the angels sing his praises, related to us the location of the restaurant.

It was about two kilometers away, and we tore into the wheel. A new kind of electricity filled us at the thought of food, and we made very short work of the trip, despite the fact that it was all uphill, and the sun was beating down on our already quite burned skin.

And, dear reader, we were decidely not disappointed.

The restaurant was shady and dark, with many fountains, and the most enticing aromas wafting from the place. While the parking attendants marveled at the Dahon Speed TRs.

I ordered a refreshing lemon and mushroom drink, and Scott a honey and lime. These were followed by mushroom satay dripping with a sweet peanut sauce; crispy fried mushrooms peppered and served with a red chili sauce; herbed and curried mushrooms complete with rice topped with more crispy mushrooms, mushroom lemongrass soup, and a mushroom and egg dish wrapped in banana leaf, and toasted over a fire.

We tried as hard as we could to savor the feast, rather just inhale it, and achieved some non-trivial success. And then leaned back to relax and enjoy the rise in blood sugar.

The wheel home was glorious. It was almost all downhill, and we flew along, pedaling very little, but covering the remaining 10 kilometers in no time. We had grand plans for further missions, but after such a wheel, we could do little more than relax in the garden at the Setia Kawan and play the ukulele until the sun hung low in the sky and the call to prayer began to sound all over the city.

It rained all the rest of the day in Seoul and we worked furiously on correspondence (as you can see by the date of this entry, we did not finish it all). But, as night fell, the rain ceased and a warm muggy night crept in on the city. Armed with a recommendation from one of the workers at this, our second hostel of the day, we set out upon the wet streets of Seoul. The fellow had drawn for us the characters for the name, and distinctive shape of this restaurant’s sign on the back of an old Yim’s house business card (dammit, Yim).

We initially had some problems finding the place, mostly because the skies opened once again and rain poured on the city, disorienting our searches. We huddled under a single umbrella and approached strangers showing them the card. Unbeknownst to us, we were presenting the character upside down, so each person we showed, took some time to discover what exactly these strange white guys wanted from them. Finally we asked a motorcycle delivery man. He pointed us in the right direction, and seeing the sign and slowly turning our now soaking wet Yim’s house card upside-down our spirits soared with success.

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On our ride out of Tianjin, our driver had a thing for Bon Jovi. Also, this day the smog was so thick it delayed sea traffic.

Leaving Tianjin, city of rust, was like a long goodbye kiss with China. And china had  abstaining from brushing and been smoking packs of cigarettes in preparation.

We had no “clean break” as one might in a plane launching from an airstrip, rather two hours stalled ferry, as our ship was continually delayed due to smog cover. We passed the time gawking at the Port of Tianjin. The acrid fog refused to thin, and when we finally departed, it was half an hour of snaking through the smokey labyrinth of docking canals, as our pilot ship escorted our own “Tian Ren” to the mouth of the Yellow Sea.

It seemed the port was home to a single ferry, ours, and was a place clearly developed for transporting cargo. This cargo was being loaded onto all manner of ships, painted in primary colors that oxidized through the fog into twisted pastels. Cranes poised idle, weather on the dock or mounted to the boats themselves. Names of ports beckoned from the ships’ helm, and mounds of red dust awaited loading adjacent to nondescript corrugated metal containers.

These are the kind of sights that really get me going. Countless blogs cater those hounding over the latest consumer electronics. Most tech guys like watches, mobile phones, mp3 players, and little gadgets. I like the gigantic steel things that enable global trade.

These gigantic unglamorous vessels oddly poetic names like “CNA CCM AFRICA” “Overseas Soverign,” and “Shining star” are owned by greek tycoons vacationing thousands of miles away in St. Moritz, shouting orders at teams of bankers who scramble in New York to value these rusting money machines.You see, the cargo ships are not trivial.Non-trivial to finance. New builds are expensive. The bigger the boat, the bigger the earning potential, the bigger the bet. You must spend a staggering amount of money and engineer a stream of payoffs from operating profits during the lifetime of the ship. If everyone wants ships, everyone will be building them and materials, labor, and dock space will be costly. By the time you’ve finished your ship, Hanjin, Samsung Heavy, Hyundai Heavy have just rolled out new builds too. Atop that, the (roughly) six year American economic cycle has hit an inflection point and supply outpaces demand for your services, dropping the price. Oops. At least now you have a gigantic boat with a nice shiny paint job.

Non-trivial to build. These gigantic things take time, space, a surprising degree of engineering expertise. Korea has a lockdown on this market, producing many ships in Incheon and Busan. Tianjin, too is trying to match the quality and undercut the price, but the Korean Chaebols have experience where the Chinese have a lot of mistakes yet to make. Additionally, these Chaebols are locked into stayed relationships with banks, governments, and may be cushioned by the other constituent firms that make up their holding conglomerate.

Non-trivial to own or operate. How long will the given economic boom last and will it overlap with the life cycle of your ship? Ever dealt with Philippine pirates armed with Russian made machine guns in the Sulu seas? They’re a real pain for your insurance premium (sea piracy and shipping accidents were the reasons Lloyds of London came about). It’s also a pain when Chinese people smugglers, known as “snakeheads,” were paid $60,000 per head to transport illegal immigrants in a shipping container, and you’ve been summoned to court to explain why they were discovered getting off your boat in Oakland, CA, rather than while getting on in Xiamen, Fujian. If the stress is too much for you, you can sell the freighter on the secondary market, like the Hua Run below: Manufactured in Vladivostok by the Russians then purchased and painted over by the Cambodians, ushered to a new home in Phnom Penh for a new life of dry goods transport.

Non-trivial to liquidate. What if the supertanker is leaking crude across the Arctic ? When repair costs exceed the expected future profitability of a vessel, its time for the graveyard. These graveyards are located in Gujarat, India, and Chittagong, Bangladesh. Why? Miles of shallow water near the mainland of these South Asian countries provide a place for the ships to sit lopsided in the sand while skinny, muscular, men are paid USD $1 per day to extract all the valuable scrap metal and disassemble the rusting beast. In industry jargon, this is referred to as “Shipbreaking.”

Assuming you’re not one of these misfortunate shipbreakers, and rather you’re a more fortunate shipbuilder its possible to get the timing right. You can borrow when money’s cheap, build where labor’s both cheap and skilled, and by the time you smash a bottle of champagne on the helm, the ever cycling economy is banging on your door to shuttle iron ore from Perth to Shanghai. That’s at least what Baosteel or Rio Tinto wants. Or it could be GE sending washing machines from Shenzhen, China to the Bahamas, where products sit in untaxed warehousing zones before going to market. A Nigerian oil magnate may send thousands of barrels of black gold from Lagos to Hong Kong. Or it could be shoes, motorcycles, steel pipe fittings, soccer jerseys, and diesel generators from Hong Kong to Lagos by Guinean traders in Guangzhou. There are ships for dry goods, ships to hold containers, and tankers to hold oil. There are even ships specially fitted to accommodate gigantic chemical tanks. Where do you think American food processing facilities off the New Jersey turnpike get their raw materials?

Shipping connects some of the worlds poorest with the worlds mass market middle class, and is overseen and orchestrated by some of the world’s richest. Catching a glimpse behind the scenes of the international logistics market on the Tianjin to Incheon ferry was stimulating and eye opening, driving my curiosity to new levels. As AsiaWheeling’s resident adventure capitalist, I will research further and determine what kind of inefficiencies or injustices exist in this market. Ones that we may address and continue to investigate on AsiaWheeling 2.0.

Back to our storyAs the Tian Ren neared the sunny Korean peninsula, shore birds began to ride the airstream created by the ferry. schoolchildren and ship engineers alike held out snacks which the birds snatched mid-flight with their beaks.

As the birds circled, darted, and arced, an engineering feat riving the natural one of the birds progressed around us.

A bridge connecting the island two bodies of land across many miles of water seemed to erect itself, as large machines filled pylons with cement mix and crane barges lifted road crew trucks up onto the causeway.

Korea was flexing its muscles. Samsung had branded this bridge, and the work itself has changed the way I consider civil engineering and its disciples.

The people on the boat began to buzz with the energy that accompanies a return trip home, and the clean sea breeze of Incheon welcomed us in a way that no burgeoning city in China could. Seoul lay before us, and with it, wheeling, drinkable tap water, post-modern metropolitan nightlife, and a new level of gonzo attitude.

Armed with a makeshift Korean phrase sheet, we dismounted the ship onto a packed bus which spilled into the customs hall.

Dunhaung gritted sand against it’s teeth and pried itself grayly from night into day. We followed suit and hustled out the door and into a taxi. Dunhuang had been something like Agra. Both cities proved great for wheeling, but were hampered by terrible rental cycles and a predatory tourist industry. Both are places blessed and cursed by their most beautiful assets. However, while Agra had been a dump, in any sense of the word you might wish to attribute, Dunhuang was clean and new. We could see crews cleaning and shining things as we drove out of town. But regardless, the same feeling pervaded the taxi as we left Dunhuang that had leaving Agra: thank god we’re moving on. We don’t do as well in the tourist spots here at AsiaWheeling. We just can’t properly express ourselves in such a climate. But now we were on out way to Xi’an. The current home of Gao Jie, chinese wheeling coordinator extraordinaire, and we were excited to have a local to guide us.

We arrived at Jaba’s palace just as our train was boarding and hoisted our belongings into our rather tiny middle bunks in the hard sleeper compartment. We splerped hot bowls of instant noodles, made from Chinese train-samovar water. Scott clutched his stomach and went to sleep. (more…)