Merry slightly belated Christmas from the Emerald City and a Happy relaxing Boxing Day.
I love flying into Sydney.
Just before you arrive you cross over the deep shadowy Blue Mountains, then swing out over Port Botany and u-turn in over the suburbs, with lawns and gardens glowing an irredescent green.
As you walk out the airport you hear cicadas and know its going to be a hot one.
I love this city in summer – the smell of mangos and peaches in the shops, salt on your skin from a body-surf, grass ticks from bush-walks around Kurringai, near misses with snakes, sharks, heat stroke, sunburn…
So I am romanticising, but it is awesome and I’m considering the possibilities of an Ozzie bike trip, or Sydney and surrounds bike trip for next year.
The new year is also just around the corner and its time to start dreaming up all good things for 2019. My tip is Georgia (not the one in the USA). We have one trip in June/July and I really urge you to get there before everyone else does! It’s got that early 2000’s Croatia buzz about it still.
Apart from dreaming up more off-beat bike and food based trips in destinations you’ve barely heard of, my resolution is to write to you in a (more) regular newsletter format, propagandising the wonders of bike travel, and passing on a few handy travel tips along the way.
I love bike travel but I’m also dabbling in hiking, photography, shaman rituals, Tibetan birds and Southern Chinese textiles – for those less enamoured by bikes too.
So here’s the jump on the New Year with a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays Bike Aways Newsletter featuring:
– Cow spotting in Hong Kong
– Hong’s Great leap Forward into the future with a bullet train station that will change travel to mainland China forever
– a rant on how much safer for traveler Myanmar is than I think people are imagining it is;
– Bhutan versus Georgia for unique new Bike Aways destinations
– An interesting instagramability versus alcohol affordability comparison on peoples motivations for travel
After you’ve read this newsletter with maximum attentiveness, hit reply and tell me which bits you like (be effusive), which bits are boring (be mild and brief) – or if you want out of Bike Aways letters altogether hit reply and say thanks but no thanks.
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Cow spotting in Hong Kong
I was watching the cows pow-wowing on the soft sands of Ham Tin Beach this September gone by thinking how spoilt those of us living here in the New Territories of Hong Kong are!
There’re hundreds of miles of walks across Hong Kong, Saikung’s ones offering ridge-line walks with drone-eye-views of this green and blue side of the city and encounters with and the ancestors of Hong Kong missionary-reared dairy cows wandering the old stone and dirt trails that once connected Saikung’s Hakka Village.
They also come into town lured by the scent of barbecue, trampling picnics here and there.
Who would’ve thought this in practical and efficient Hong Kong?
As I walked the first five sections of the Maclehose last month, I started piecing together unique accommodations and camping experiences that would segue with Hong Kong’s most picturesque walks.
On my list I have one campsite, including Ham Tin (check out the soft sands in the picture below); a night in a cage house, just a short walk down from Hong Kong’s iconic Lion Rock; a night in the iconic Chunking Mansions (might not be grunge enough anymore), and Ive heard good good things about a new boutique hotel in the stilted old school ( think Bruce Lee in fist of fury) Tai O village on Lantau.
West Kowloon’s New Super Bullet Train Station is going to be a game changer in cheap weekend getaways to the Big C
Six ago I tested the new High Speed Rail from Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Station to Xiamen, on my way to leading our Fujian Tea and Tulou Eco Ride Weekend getaway.
It’s now just four hours from Hong Kong to Xiamen!!
This is mega-fast.
In 2006 – I caught a 13 hour boat ride on the Jimei (a wonderful journey in its own right but only once a month). And on our first Bike Aways trip we all caught the overnight train – a mere 12 hours to Xiamen.
Now the train really is faster than a flight from Hong Kong. if you are joining our Bike trip in the Fujian Tulou you can streamline your arrival by getting off one station earlier in Zhangzhou, where we’ll pick you up and drive you out to the Fujian Tulou Homestay.
This saves an hour in the transfer out to our Tulou Homestay in Yongding County, not to mention an airfare and typical delays due to air traffic jams.
I’d bought a first class ticket the night before. There were no queues and about two hundred orange shirts to help you out.
This is just one more advantage – the upgrade to first class is around USD20 only!
Are customs clearance and check in any quicker you ask ?
They say 45 minutes when you buy your ticket, I say leave at least 60.
Here’s a map of lines connected directly to Hong Kong.
There’s hundreds of trains to Guangzhou which you can now connect you with everywhere else.
A Flautist for Breakfast in Chiang Mai
My favourite time of day is dawn, and my favourite special-occasion treat has got to be the excessive hotel breakfast buffet’s served up at ridiculously expensive five star hotels.
So when my friend Mandy*, who I was staying with and working for recently in Chiang Mai called out to me at 6 am in the morning telling me to dress a little decently for a surprise birthday breakfast, I was more than excited.
Who is Mandy?
Apart from being a fantastic friend, she is also the dreamer-upper of Eat Chiang Mai – a destination dining start-up through which future Bike Aways rides in Chiang Mai are being mapped onto a trajectory of Massuman curry (there’s an incredible one out near Wat U-Mong) along the edge of Doi Suthep National Park), Khao Soy (I like the one at Warawot Markets), mango sticky rice, and spicy papaya salads
We arrived at a palace known as Dhara Dhevi just as the sun was rising and were ushered royally through pavilions of aspara statues with temple bells tinkling in the potted Bhodi trees, glittering mosaics, and exquisite flower arrangements from the recent Loy Khrathong festival.
Breakfast spaned Asia and Western Europe, but honoured the US with its mountain of crispy bacon, and even felt a little Bondi Beach with its juice bar listing the health benefits in its juice combos.
Traditional flute music seemed to be being piped throughout the grounds which consisted of a lake and vast lawns, which you look down on from the breakfast terrace. As I stood up (for my seventh round of the buffet, I realised that the music was being piped through an actual piece of bamboo by a flautist sitting astride a water buffalo like one of those airbrushed black velvet scroll images from the 1960’s.
Mandy’s eyes were spinning at this feudalistic fantasy, but I lapped it up like a Lana Prince being hand fed a peeled mangosteen.
This won’t be included on our upcoming Bike Aways Chiang Mai rides – we have an eco reputation to maintain – but its worth staying on another day for! Or an awesome birthday gift.
Cheesey Downhills from Bhutan to Georgia
These two countries feature massive snowy mountains as the eye candy of your ride, and if you are the masochist cyclist type – you are welcome to cycle up them. We’ll set an early morning alarm for you. But if you’re more the sleep in, linger over seven coffees and get a lift to the top type of cyclist, you might also want to consider joining us on our Bhutan / Georgia for lazy bikers journey this coming April. On our first Georgia ride in June this year, we started every other day with a transfer up to the top of the most heartbreaking elevated passes, maximising the beautiful synergy of gravity and free spinning bicycle wheels.
Downhills still have humps in them, and flat bits when you’ve gotta peddle through, and even lazy people like to work up an appetite for cheesey deliciousness – so we found Georgia to be a very attractive template which we will repeat in July this year, and also transpose onto Bhutan in May.
Cheese is the other common denominator of these two countries. Melted over carbs, Yum!
Unique to Bhutan: houses adorned with giant penii, monks in Argyle socks, Carbon negativity
Unique things about Georgia: it’s the worlds oldest wine culture, its alphabet is unique and t’s derivation a mystery; harmonious choirs are popular and common.
Myanmar – Safe as houses
I feel priveleged to have led two trips to Myanmar in the last ten months. Tourism numbers have plummeted this year due to negative press.
Big thanks to those of you who came anyway.
Everyone is grateful, including the little monkeys on Mt Popa, who rely on you for bananas.
And us bike tour guides.
I’d go back in a heartbeat. I hope to get numbers up high in our Chinese New Year Trip Feb 2-10.
Its safe as houses.* (Insert fine print: those rickety ones on Inle lake with bamboo matt walls. Winky emoji)
You’re almost certainly safer than anywhere in the USA, Paris, London, Sydney.
The people will kill you with curiosity, and shy smiles.
In Hsipaw I chanced upon the nephew of the last Shan king, recently returned to his palace from military imposed exile, railing against the military again.
He wasn’t scared at all, and he said that Myanmar people love foreigners cause every time they see one, it feels like things are getting better.
Shortly afterwards I motorbiked into the Shan army occupied hills near Kyauk Mei (currently under ceasefire) to be warmly greeted by the Shan Army.
Writing that down sounds crazy, but it always does when you’re not there.
What you’re not safe from is getting fat. On our bike ride the bikes are really just a way of working off a bit of energy inbetween meals.
There is a tonne of veg tables and fish, and a bunch of it is fermented ( ever heard of a green tea leaf salad ?) so don’t worry too much.
Check out the menu here: http://bikeaways.com/destinations/myanmar/
Alcohol Affordability versus instagramability
In a choice of the following five reasons to travel for Millenials (18—33 year olds) Instagramability reportedly takes the cake according to the UK Independent
I’m as interested that 24 percent of Millenials prioritise Cost/Availability of alcohol for their holidays and only 3.9 percent rate opportunities for sightseeing.As for cycling opportunities…
How ‘Instagrammable’ the holiday will be – 40.1 per cent
Cost/Availability of alcohol – 24 per cent
Personal development – 22.6 per cent
Chances to experience the local cuisine – 9.4 per cent
Opportunities for sightseeing – 3.9 per cent
#BikeAways #BikeAways #BikeAways #BikeAways
I am addicted however to the likes Ive been getting as I’ve too started taking Instagram seriously. I’m not at influencer level yet but the most liked is Yangshuo Bike Festival environmental officer Merrin Pearce gazing over the tea mountains of Fujian as they recede into pleasing pastels of blue (61 hearts).
For the 24 percent of Millenials who chose Cost/Availability of alcohol, I’m sending my own list of grog prices in Bike Aways destinations summarised as follows:
1 litre Bottle of Special 12 yearly Mandalay Rum – USD 2
5 Gallon gerry -can of homemade rice wine from the subsistent Miao in Guizhou -USD 5
Can of Fujian made Sedrin beer as your pulling in to our Fujian-Tulou homestay – USD.08
Bottle of Saperavi from the corner store in Tbilisi, Georgia – USD 5
Passionfruit flavoured Rice Wine shots in the Longji Rice Terraces – USD 1.20
Do follow Bike Aways on Instagram if you’re a fan of scenery with a bike tucked in somewhere.
Thanks for reading. Hit reply and say hi and have a great Christmas and holiday period.