Malaysia to thailand
“The following piece is about a trip we took from Malaysia to Thailand in 2019. We rode Small Bikes over 2,500KM between 2 countries. Reading this article will make more sense if you watch the video first.”
Written by: C Blackmore.
For years I had wanted to do a ‘long distance’ trip on Small Bikes. In New Zealand we’d quite often ride 500-600km in a weekend but the need for a longer trip always lingered heavy in the back of my mind. Having spent a couple of years in South East Asia, it was always a logical choice to make a plan in that part of the world.
Of course, ‘long distance’ means different things to different people. People have been riding around the world for a long time. People like Kanichi Fujiwara; who has travelled a majority of the globe through different trips in the 80’s and 90’s. He rode around Australia on a Honda Motra – over 24,000km’s in one go. He rode a Honda Gorilla through the Americas and even an electric Yamaha bike in the early 00’s for a long period covering upto 180km a day by switching batteries.
Then of course the legendary Ed March; who did an incredible solo trip from Malaysia to the UK on a Honda c90 and then did a large part of the Americas starting in Alaska and heading south – also on a humble Honda C90.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the luxury of time on my side, so with about 3 weeks up my sleeve I convinced 2 of my best mates in New Zealand to buy a ticket into Malaysia and out of Thailand for a Small Bike adventure.
The plan was set, we’d buy bikes in Kuala Lumpur and ride all the way to Bangkok. The route we’d looked at on google maps was around 2000km end to end. We allowed 7 days of riding, a few days at the start to get ready and a good portion in Bangkok at the end of the journey. By the time we added flying time to and from the countries our 3 weeks was eaten up fairly quickly.
But why this route? Well, why not. Years ago, British TV show Top Gear all bought Small Bikes and rode from the South of Vietnam to the North. It’s a wicked concept and since the release of their Vietnam special, the route has been done by people from around the world. Usually people start in either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, buy a well used bike of some sort for a small amount of money and limp it to the other end of the country. While this appealed to us, there weren’t many unknowns if we chose this option. It was well documented, all within one country and you had a fairly good idea of what you’d be in for before you even left.
The first draft route idea
The Malaysia to Thailand idea came to me one day while working. If we could some how get a bike in the capital of Malaysia then riding to Thailand wouldn’t be an impossible goal. A quick search on google maps only made the idea seem more feasible. The distance wasn’t huge and it could be done in a fairly quick manner. Being a fan of doing the lesser known/popular thing in life it was set. We’d do Malaysia to Thailand.
Immediately we faced a few problems. Renting bikes proved to be impossible. No company wanted their bikes to leave the city they came from let alone head to another country. Even if they did we still faced the issue of how to get them the 2000KM back to Kuala Lumpur in a timely matter and in one piece. After a bit of research, I figured we could probably buy second hand bikes at the start and take them all the way.
The price for a bike didn’t seem to be out of reach based on local Malaysian vehicle sales sites, the country allows ease entry for our nationality and legal vehicle ownership seemed to be a possibility.
Mid-February rolled around and the 3 of us flew to Malaysia. Usually an 11 hour flight, we spent about 2 hours on the tarmac before taking off while the plane had mechanical issues. I’d sorted a driver to pick us up at the airport and help us out for the first day with visiting bike shops. After a delayed arrival our driver was waiting for us and we left for the centre of Kuala Lumpur. That day we had one mission and one mission only. Buy some bikes!
Running on little to no sleep and a couple of airplane meals we dumped our luggage and left for the first bike shop. Prior to flying I’d tracked down a few locations that seemed to sell second hand bikes. I had about 6 locations saved, all quite spread out. The first shop we went to was really well laid out. They had 2 floors of bikes lined up. There were Hondas, Yamahas, Suzukis among the local brands such as Modenas and Taiwanese imports like SYM. While this shop had a wealth of bikes on offer, the stuff in our price range was all old, tired or already sold to locals. We all picked a worst case scenario option from this shop but decided we needed to keep moving. One of the bikes they tried to start for us didn’t even have the carburettor bolted on properly and threw fuel all over the shop floor. While they tried to fix that we moved onto the next location.
The second store was interesting. It had a few second hand bikes outside but the majority were brand new bikes. The workers didn’t seem too fussed on helping us look at the bikes they had and we then noticed engines being stripped and rebuilt on the side of the road with buckets of soapy water to clean them off. It was amazing to see people make do with what they have, but we again decided to move on.
By now it was getting towards lunch time, our driver stopped at a local hole in the wall restaurant and ordered us a banquet of chicken feet and other processed meat shapes - all steamed while you wait. Stomachs full and minds opened, we made haste for the third shop of the day.
This shop was pretty small and you’d have missed it if you weren’t specifically looking for it. They had around 15-20 bikes all in a tiny open front show room. In the first row there were a few Honda’s and a couple of Yamaha’s. The bikes here had clearly had some effort put into making them look good. It seemed like they all had new plastic kits and seat covers, the engines were all shiny and most of all they weren’t asking ridiculous prices. It was there 2 of us decided on Honda Wave 100's (one red, one black) and the other chose a decent looking Yamaha Lagenda 110. We wanted these models for specific reasons – by now we’d figured out selling the bikes in Thailand wasn’t a realistic goal due to having Malaysian registration and plates. If we could sell them it would be for a very low price. No matter what happened the purchase of the bike, it was going to be a sunk cost. Knowing that, we all chose models that had specific items we wanted to re-use once the trip ended. The shop was awesome, they helped us change the bikes into our names and 2 were ready to ride away that afternoon while the other needed to pass an inspection the following morning before we could take it away.
Upon picking up the last bike, we stopped back at a local bike mechanic that I had met on a previous visit to Malaysia. Last time it was a flying visit and this mechanic had helped source alloy mag wheels for an older build in New Zealand. Thankfully he recognised me and I introduced him to my friends along with our new purchases. From the second I bought my bike I knew I wanted a set of alloy mag wheels for the trip – so I got the exact same pair I’d bought last time, I chose new Maxxis Diamond tyres, I got the forks rebuilt and the oil changed. The Yamaha already had mag wheels so he just got his forks rebuilt, rear shocks adjusted and the engine oil changed. The last of us was hesitant for a while, but after seeing my bike finished and ready to go he decided to do the exact same thing. The differences between Small Bike scenes in Thailand and Malaysia were interesting. While people in both countries ride very similar models, it was uncommon to see a bike with spoked wheels in Malaysia. A majority of the bikes we saw had some kind of alloy mag wheel swap. Another popular feature in Malaysia was the ‘knee baskets’. Instead of a front basket, almost all Malaysian bikes had a plastic moulded or wire cage basket right in front of your legs bolted below the ignition switch. You could even get lockable ones. They were such a good idea for storage that we all had them on our bikes for this trip. Top boxes were another popular option. More often than not bikes had a topbox on the back for storage. Givi actually have a factory in Malaysia so they were cheap to buy and fairly safe for keeping valuables in. In Thailand almost no one has top boxes, the ‘knee baskets’ didn’t exist at all and most people had spoked wheels. Whilst being side by side and riding the same bikes, both countries had vastly different styles.
Before we left the city, a purchase of aftermarket items for the 2 Honda engines was in order. We knew we wanted to keep these iron lumps so why not get some toys for each one while we had the chance?
With all the bikes sorted and some time on our hands, we took the opportunity to head to Batu Caves for a test ride. Recessed into the side of a giant rocky mountain, a huge natural staircase painted with bright colours led us to a massive cave system half way up the cliff face. We quickly realised this place was actually a temple. From the base you couldn’t see this cave existed. Once you mastered the climb a family of wild and slightly aggressive monkeys greeted you along with some areas for prayer and a couple of gift stalls. This was well worth the trip and gave us our first taste of Malaysian highway riding - fairly tame compared to what we would experience later in the journey.
Day 1: Kuala Lumpur – Penang
Our first day on bikes was set to be at least 400KM in distance. We woke up early, and left around 7am. Following a compulsory Petronas Towers photo we hit the road and settled in for a long day on the bikes. We’d all sourced phone mounts for this trip. So each person took some time leading with google maps open giving us the general direction. That’s the beauty of modern travel, we could have just winged it but with a limited time to complete the whole trip we utilised technology to make navigation a non issue. Well, mostly a non issue…after about 2 hours riding, the red Honda Wave was making some terrible noises from the front end unbeknown to the other two. At a traffic light I smelled rubber burning and my vision instantly shot to my rear tyre. Sure enough it was rubbing against the swing arm. I’d lost the nut on my right side swingarm adjuster. We limped to the next town a few KM’s up the road for an emergency repair. I pillaged a nut from my topbox mount and one from the seat mount. My axle nut was almost backed off all the way too. Turns out we should have spanner checked the work done by local mechanics, a lesson we followed for the rest of the trip. It was here we found out about the issues with the red Honda Wave. Deciding it was wheel bearing failure, we nursed it to the next shop we could find where they promptly popped the old (and destroyed) wheel bearing out only to replace it with a hammer and brute force, though the bearing replacement was fine for the rest of the trip. We also sourced a washer for the red Honda’s front axle as the brake plate seemed to be rubbing excessively. The washer didn’t help so it was back to normal and eventually the front end self clearanced enough to stop being an issue. It was about this point I realised my google maps had been set to 'No Highways' so we had been taking a beautiful and scenic, but much longer route. My app was saying we’d arrive in Penang about 8pm whereas turning off ‘no highways’ had us arriving at a more respectable 3PM.
It was mostly trouble-free riding from here. We joined the main highways which were consistently smooth and had lots of room for us on the shoulder. The highways seemed to have rest stops approximately every 20KM and gas stops approximately every 50KM. All stops had some kind of food on offer and a bathroom. Due to the mornings delays we stayed on here for the rest of the day. We encountered groups of people at several rest stops that had seen us riding and wanted to chat about the trip. As the day wore on we got closer to Penang. Penang is an island which is connected to the mainland by a 24KM long bridge on one end and a 14KM long bridge on the other end. We approached the longer bridge by 4PM and started to ride across on the dedicated motorcycle lanes. Being on the very edge of the bridge we had an amazing view over the ocean here. At one point we even stopped for a quick photo. As we set off riding again we heard a roar behind us only to be passed by patched gang members on giant Harleys, just a nod and a wave received.
It took around 35-40 minutes to cross the bridge and we encountered evening commute traffic once arriving on the Island. In the stop start traffic we lane split where we could but the Yamaha kept stalling, we came to a red light and it was taking 5-6 kicks to start every time. Finally we spied our accommodation in the distance, right in the heart of George Town. After dropping our bags off we went back down for a look at the bikes. 400KM was a long way at 75-80KPH. It was an 11 hour day in 35 degree heat on long straight highways. On a closer inspection of the Yamaha it turned out to be missing a carburettor mount bolt and the other side was stripped. Barely hanging on and due to depart early in the morning we needed to find a fix and fast. The guest house worker pointed out a mechanic shop about 1.5KM away. The carburettor was off the Yamaha and we took it down to the shop expecting to be told they couldn’t help. But this was Malaysia, not New Zealand. People would try do things then and there if at all possible. The shop owner came out and looked at the carb; told us to wait 20 minutes and pay the equivalent of $20 NZD. Sure enough the carb mounts had been sorted. Drilled out and re tapped with new mounting hardware we were good to go. The bike was reassembled and we finally set off for a quiet meal at about 8.30pm.
Day 2: Penang - Songkhla
We had an early wake up ready to head to the Malasyia/Thailand border around 200KM away. Leaving before sunrise and only stopping once for fuel, we arrived near the border by 10am. Before the border are a tonne of restaurants which also sort your border crossing paperwork. We decided to stop here and grab some food, hand over our documentation and let the professionals organise it. A few minutes and not much money later we had our documents in order and headed for the border only a few kilometres away. The crossing was a pretty easy process, the Malaysian side had security first who asked to check out documents before sending us to the drive through immigration booth. With the passport stamped, we went to the Thai side and parked our bikes. There was an office we had to line up in and it took about 20 minutes. We almost made a huge mistake and didn’t hand over our bike documentation as the immigration staff thought we were just walking across the border. But sure enough everything was sorted and we could head through to Thailand. The Thai side of the border was laid out in such a way that if you weren't aware of the requirements you could quite easily just ride straight into Thailand without getting your passport stamped. Thankfully we had done our research and fluked it through successfully. Land borders are always a weird one for me. Coming from NZ we don't have any. So being in one country at 11am and another 15 minutes and 200m away is something I'm still not used to.
Once we crossed the border the first port of call was a new sim card. With that sorted, we rode for 1.5 hours to meet an internet friend turned real life best mate. His name is Nuttawut, and he's a massive fan of Small Bikes, specifically Honda Chalys. He's chopped a few, won awards for them and was finishing a chopped frame build at the time. We met Nut in a local shopping mall. He only spoke a few words of English, but combined with my basic Thai it was more than enough to get along and make a plan for our night together. We followed him to his house near the ocean, checked out his incredible Honda Chaly build, met the family and then he drove us to a local ‘Classic bike’ night.
This event was insane! It puts a new perspective on what you 'can' and 'can't' do when modifying bikes. These guys had no rules, they just made it work. Classic bikes in Thailand are very different to what the western world considers to be classic. The Thai scene is logically centred around the bikes from their immediate past. Mainly models from the 70’s and 80’s – the display was essentially all Small Bikes. Vertical 150cc motor into a Honda Cub frame? Simple, just weld it in! Add more chrome to distract from the engine mounts, cut some wicked shapes into the leg shield, add 1000 spoke rims and boom. Job done. Some of these guys were riding their bikes 100KM + to the event, then polishing the heck out of them there, even going so far as to clean the whole tyre so no dirt was on the tread.
Those that dared, entered their bikes into the judging area. We were even lucky enough to be able to see the bikes close up, this was beyond incredible. They had modern bikes with engine swaps, classic bikes with incredible detail, they had an ‘original’ category which was judged on how much had changed from the factory and the condition it was in. They even had a rat bike category which featured a Honda Dream 100 covered in giant speakers!
Being the only foreigners at this event, it was inevitable that the locals pulled us onto the massive stage. In my poor Thai skills I said we'd come from NZ and we loved all the bikes. I’m pretty sure no one understood what I said but at least half of the local Small Bike gangs gave us patches and stickers for their clubs along with copious shots of straight Thai whisky style home brew.
Eventually we managed to escape and get back to our host’s place for a good sleep before leaving for Krabi the next morning.
Day 3: Songkhla – Krabi
This was a fairly decent day at 350ish km. We had breakfast with Nuttawut before leaving and hit the saddle around 9am. Nut’s place is in Songkhla Province, his small town is right next to the ocean meaning we were on the East Coast of Thailand facing the Gulf of Thailand. Our destination was a beachside town further north, but on the West Coast of Thailand we would be facing the Andaman Sea. The days ride was pretty uneventful. We got our first taste of Thai Highways. They couldn’t be any more different from the Malaysian highways if they tried. Your average Thai highway was at least 2 lanes each side, usually separated by a deep dusty culvert. Every few kilometres there will be a chance to U-turn which consists of slowing down in the fast lane, hoping everyone behind you notices, going between the 2 sets of lanes and waiting for a gap to pull out between the thick stream of traffic exceeding 120KPH easily. Malaysian highways were smooth, well paved, always had a centre barrier and the rest stops were regular. Sometimes the Thai highways would have a shoulder for us to ride on but otherwise we had to stick to the left lane. Thai law dictates bikes must always be in the most left hand lane at all times so you’re often competing with giant trucks maintaining the same speed as you. You can’t relax for a second riding on a Thai highway, that second could easily be your last.
At one point after a food stop I noticed my rear end becoming loose in the corners. Sure enough the tyre was going down. It was our first (and only) puncture as a group. I checked maps for a motorcycle repair shop near by and nothing came up due to everything being a different language. Getting off the main highway, we eventually found a car tyre shop who pumped up the tyre for me and we nursed it till a motorcycle mechanics appeared on the roadside. This little shop was in the middle of nowhere between 2 small towns. I pointed to my puncture (it was a tubeless rim/tyre and the puncture turned out to be a small sharp piece of bone) and these guys got straight to work taking the tyre off and adding a tube. They were having a good hard look at the Malaysian produced version of the ever popular Honda Wave 100 - a staple bike in Thailand – but only available from the Thai Honda factory. They rarely use topboxes in Thailand so they were fascinated by the rack and top box set up we had going on. They left the chain pretty loose, and on the remainder of the ride to Krabi there were a few weird noises coming from the bike in first gear - it took a few days to figure it out what was actually the issue. I noticed that when hitting full throttle on take off in first gear there was a loud clunk. For 3 days I assumed it was an issue with my gear box and avoided first gear wherever possible.
Eventually we arrived in Krabi and headed straight for our accommodation. This was our first major taste of mass commercialism and tourism since the trip started. There were less locals than foreigners in a town for the first time since we started and it was a bit of a shock to the system after having been the only foreigners that previous night at the Classic Bike show. After dropping off our bags we went and joined the other hoards of tourists near the beach. We ate dinner, found a bunch of classic American cars parked up at a local market and explored the general area before calling it a night.
Day 4: Krabi – Phuket
This was planned to be our shortest day of the ride so we decided on a leisurely 10am start. In hindsight the sleep in probably wasn’t a great trade off as the heat in the middle of the day was insane. Wearing long thick bottoms for riding with big boots and a backpack meant for a solid 2-3 hour period in the middle of the day you had no cool air around you. Even at 70-80KPH it was just like sitting in front of a hairdryer. An early departure and half day riding would have been the better choice. This was also the first day we would backtrack. To get to Phuket we had to go north, then West, and then South. Where we were staying was geographically south of the place we stayed the night before in Krabi, we were just on an ‘Island’ to the west that was connected to the mainland by a small bridge. This was the day we met our first police stop of the trip. Coming into the area of Phuket was an unavoidable police stop which every vehicle had to go through. Everyone was filmed by placement cameras on entry to the local area and the same on exit. At this stop we were waved through with a smile.
Before long we arrived in Phuket. It was an entertaining place at night, definitely not my favourite place of the trip but 100% entertaining. I know of people that absolutely adore this place and spend 2 weeks at a time in a 1-2KM square of the Patong Beach front area. Personally, I'd drive myself nuts staying in a place like this for that long. But I can also see how it appeals to a lot of people. The other two both agreed the nightlife of Krabi and Phuket had nothing on our experience heading to a local classic bike show a few nights earlier.
Day 5: Phuket – Chumphon
Knowing we had a massive day in front of us it was an early start. Leaving around 7am, we hit the road and left the Island of Phuket. Our next stop was Chumphon, a popular place for ferries heading to the Islands of Koh Tao, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan.
With 2 main routes to get there we chose the road less travelled. Route 4 took us through multiple national parks. It was amazing to get away from the main highways. We found ourselves climbing mountains between small towns, following rivers, passing waterfalls and more. It was one of the more amazing places visually on the trip.
The riding style that day was a big game of catch up. One person would get in front and sit near full throttle, it took 20-30 minutes of full throttle chasing till you could catch and pass them. Fully loaded our bikes would sit at 75-80kph comfortably but the Yamaha with it’s extra 10cc could hold out with a higher speed for much longer. Even 4-5KPH faster for a few minutes would create a big gap between riders. The last hour or so of the day saw us riding right next to Myanmar, at some points it was only a few hundred metres away. It's always interesting getting close to land borders, people change, faces change, car choice changes. Local transport even changes. Every area along the route seemed to have their own favourites when it came to vehicles, bikes or mass transport. Some provinces would all pile on the back of Suzuki mini trucks, whereas others would use full sized utes with bench seats to cart the locals around.
Eventually we rolled into Chumphon with sore butts at about 5pm. After 10 hours riding we were happy to be staying at a quiet guest house surrounded by coconut plantations. A short trip out for food and we all retired to our rooms to rest for the next day.
Day 6: Chumphon - Samut Songkhram
This was our second to last day on the bikes, all going well we would arrive in Samut Songkhram in the early afternoon. This province is located south of Bangkok. As we had a couple of pre-planned stops before Bangkok it was a perfect place to base ourselves for the final haul.
The run from Chumphon to Samut Songkhram goes through the narrowest part of the country and the highway was our only choice. We left early and hit the road by 6.30am. Once we hit the main highway it was throttle on and keep going. We stopped a couple of times for both fuel and food. The roads were becoming quite busy with trucks and we’d often have to choose between going 50kph, passing on the inside or risking the outside lane hoping no one would fly along at 120KPH. After some solid hours eating distance we were on the outskirts of Samut Songkhram. Here we came across a wicked bike shop that had a new piston kit on the shelf for Yamaha (not that it needed it, but why not?) plus a whole tonne of other parts we didn't need but definitely wanted.
Taking all we could carry on our bikes we left for our accommodation. Done by 2pm, this day was one of our longer ones distance wise but probably our earliest finish. Samut Songkhram is home to Amphawa Floating Market, we stayed nearby and jumped on a long tail boat swapping road for river. The local riverbanks are covered in fire flies after dark and it was an unforgettable sight.
In the morning our last day of riding began, it was time to hit the hay.
Day 7: Samut Songkhram - Bangkok
We left later than usual this morning, around 10am. Before leaving we had visited the local train market, in which a train drives right over the top of the local market, the stalls are pulled out of the way and then they return back into place after its passed like nothing happened. All in all it takes a couple of minutes to pass by. This was absolutely crazy to witness in real life.
We also had time to check out a couple of cool local temples before hitting the road for the LHM Motorcycle Museum in Kanchanaburi. We got stopped by a police checkpoint just out of town, the first ones to actually care on the whole trip. They checked our licenses etc and I managed to talk our way into a photo instead of a bribe. All the police on the trip were armed, so we just did the classic smile and wave technique.
Once they sent us on our way one of the guys started beeping at me, about a kilometre down the road I stopped and realised my topbox was gone. I mustn't have secured it properly that morning and it had come off somewhere. But where? I swore I had it at the checkpoint just before so I rode to the next U-Turn and went as fast as I could back to the checkpoint. I had to back track past it as the median barrier was unpassable till the next U-Turn. When I was riding past I notice the police were all packing up and I started to worry I wouldn’t see my topbox again. Sure enough when I got back the checkpoint was gone. Thankfully they had stopped up the road and left my topbox with the other two. Probably lamenting at how stupid I was the whole time. While Thai police can occasionally get a bad rap, we found them to be quite accepting of us on this trip.
We rode on to LHM Motorcycle Museum and proceeded to be mind blown at the display of Small Bikes. From 1959 c100's to the wicked array of 80s and 90s 2 strokes. We were in our version of heaven. Bikes literally lined the walls around the whole place, all Thai released models. There were plenty of machines we had never seen before in person. It really cemented just how integral Small Bikes are to this part of the world and how much they changed the life of local people after they became common place in their society.
We also stopped at local bike parts shop which had all the eBay style classic parts for Honda Super Cubs, C110s, C200s, Monkeys, Chalys, old Suzukis, Yamahas and more! All of the parts were reproduction and they were incredibly well priced. We were close to Bangkok but still had no luggage space so we organised for the shop to forward stuff to our accommodation in the city. It was hard to not leave with one of everything!
From here it was one last haul into Bangkok. Riding into Bangkok is hard as most of the roads are tollways, which bikes aren't allowed on. We had to put ‘No highways’ and ‘No toll roads’ on google maps and hope it would take us the right way. After getting semi lost and having to drag our bikes over a wall because we missed a turn off, we arrived in the city at about 4-5pm. And that was it. All in all the distance ended up being around 2500KM. It was such a surreal feeling.
Riding into Bangkok itself is a big moment, the whole city is so vastly different from the rest of the country. It’s more modern than you would expect. The city sprawl was never ending. High rise buildings were everywhere and it was very clear very quickly that we were in a city with millions of people.
Combining that with the emotional toll of the trip being over and it was a very humbling feeling riding to our accommodation in the heart of the city. The trip we didn’t know if we could do was finished and it was time to celebrate!
One of the guys had to leave a few days after we arrived while the other stayed for another week in the city. We spent the next few days exploring the urban mass that is Bangkok. Public transportation was so vast and easily accessible that we barely used the bikes. The city can feel intimidating at first but once you let go and let Bangkok take over it’s a really fulfilling place to be.
But what happened to the bikes? They no longer exist! We kept the bits we needed from our old friends. They had served us so faithfully during the journey. We had a few issues here and there but generally we made it without any huge hurdles. Oh, and we figured out what the big clunks coming from my bike were….
The front sprocket was so worn that the chain needed to be adjusted tight for it not to slip. We figured this out the day before arriving in Bangkok when a chain adjustment gave me back use of first gear. Till that point I was almost convinced it was a gearbox issue.
Overall the trip was absolutely perfect. We all learned a lot and we all said we’d do it again immediately if we could. However, a couple of changes would possibly be more time spent on the route. 7 days was easily attainable but if we had used 2 extra days then we would have had to ride for 10-12 hours some days and we could have spent a lot more time checking out the local sights. Also the cost of buying a bike and not being able to recoup much of the price makes it a pretty expensive ‘rental’ if you split the purchase price by the days of use. However if we had a month we could easily have done a route into Thailand and back down to Malaysia where selling the bikes would have been an easy thing to do. The other thing was engine size. A 125cc would have allowed us to cruise closer to 85-90KPH which would have made a massive difference in the length of some days on the bike.
I have no regrets at all from this trip. Not even a year later as I type this out.
We’ll definitely be back riding in South East Asia as soon as we can.
Maybe next time you could come with us?
