Catching up and getting the Runaround…

For the time being, it would seem that I am stuck in Johor Bahru…!!

And with Rory as a host, this is certainly a very good place to be “stuck” in…!!

My good friend and host, the gracious, generous and ever-helpful, Mr. Rory Ko...!!

He has very kindly given me the run of both his home on the 20th floor of the condo he resides in, as well as his office, which is conveniently located on the ground floor of the same building.

The condo has just about every convenience you can think of… There are squash courts and a large swimming pool, a tennis court and a well equipped gymnasium, a small mini-market and enough secure, underground parking to keep the Big Fella snug and dry…

The pool at the Indah Samudra Condominium... And the water is not luke-warm as it has been in most pools we have tried...!!

And then of course there are the views from the balcony and my bedroom…

From Rory's balcony on the 20th floor, we can see across the Strait of Johor to Singapore...

All in all, a safe haven where I will be based for the next few days until I can get my travel arrangements sorted….

Running out of space...!! Have to find a new spot for the rear video camera bracket soon...!!

Having visited Singapore, I must now prepare to leave the mainland of Asia and get across to what might be my final Asian country – Indonesia…

Although I have a cunning plan to perhaps add one more than that to my list…!! Time will tell…!!

It is proving extremely difficult to get an answer from the various agents we have been in contact with in order to get the Big Fella across to Java… They all seem to know very little about shipping a vehicle across to Indonesia, and keep asking questions that are leading me to believe that I may have to ride up to Kuala Lumpur to fly from there…!!

In an effort to steer well clear of Jakarta, I have opted for finding a vessel sailing to Semarang in eastern Java, and ride across to Bali from there…

Java is the most densely populated island in the world, home to almost 120 million people, and that in an area the same size as England…!!

Riders in this part of the world have bemoaned the fact that they were only ever able to cover a few hundred kilometres a day, due to the congestion of the roads in and near the major centres…

By cutting out most of the island, I will hopefully save what little sanity I still possess, and make a quieter and more sedate ride to the ferry crossing to Bali…

My planned route through Java and on to Bali...

There are the amazing temples at Borobudur to visit, said to rival those of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the largest ancient monument in the Southern Hemisphere… There are also the volcanoes of the Bromo region which I wish to see, some of them the most active in the world…

Then of course there is Bali, where I plan to spend perhaps a month, getting my website up to date and preparing for my “assault” on the 4th continent of my Round the World journey… After Bali and perhaps one other country, I will have to all intents and purposes, reached the halfway mark…

By then I will have covered about 80 000 km in total and visited 80 countries… A little behind schedule, but I am no longer too concerned by that…!! The last few weeks must have made that quite obvious…!!

As you can see, I am not looking all that stressed...!!

In between pulling my hair out (ha-ha…!!) and trying to make all the necessary arrangements to keep moving forward, I will try and plug some of the holes in my story and post the odd set of photos and commentary on the GBWT site…

There are so many places I have visited and not yet written about, and now that I can no longer use Trevor and Chenty as an excuse, I guess I better knuckle down and get back to “work”…!!

So look out for more photos and meaningless scribblings in the near future, coming from Phuket, Ao Nang, Koh Lanta, Sangkhla, Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore…

©GBWT 2011