This is Ginny reporting from the 11th floor of a high rise building in Singapore. A few days ago, Sam and I went our separate ways as he headed off on his bike to finish the final leg of our trip from Penang to Singapore, while I opted for the much cushier mode of airplane travel. It didn't take long for me to remember why Singapore is a dream of a city. I was through immigration and customs in the blink of an eye. And taking the MRT and bus to my brother's place was a breeze (and cheap!). The only real difference from when I was last here in 2015 is the proliferation of dockless bikeshare -- there are five different dockless bikeshare companies here!
Setting the stifling humidity and high housing costs aside, Singapore is a pretty amazing city, in my opinion. The public transportation is phenomenal, the buildings and streets are clean, there is greenery everywhere, bikeways are abundant, there is no shortage of cool shops, restaurants and cafes, the people are friendly, it's very multi culti and the food courts!!! And I've just discovered matcha soft serve. Uh oh.
It's now been just over two weeks since I've really ridden. And it's given me some time to reflect on a question that Sam likes to ask me: Do you prefer backpacking or bike touring? Usually, the answer is the one that I'm not doing at the time. A clear indication that I find both to be challenging. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with both. Since this has been a bike touring trip, I'll focus on that.
Reasons I hate bike touring:
Reasons I love bike touring:
Setting the stifling humidity and high housing costs aside, Singapore is a pretty amazing city, in my opinion. The public transportation is phenomenal, the buildings and streets are clean, there is greenery everywhere, bikeways are abundant, there is no shortage of cool shops, restaurants and cafes, the people are friendly, it's very multi culti and the food courts!!! And I've just discovered matcha soft serve. Uh oh.
It's now been just over two weeks since I've really ridden. And it's given me some time to reflect on a question that Sam likes to ask me: Do you prefer backpacking or bike touring? Usually, the answer is the one that I'm not doing at the time. A clear indication that I find both to be challenging. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with both. Since this has been a bike touring trip, I'll focus on that.
Reasons I hate bike touring:
- Unless you're doing it on a mountain bike, you really can't avoid cars, trucks, buses. And in countries where there aren't many B road alternatives, you'll often find yourself stuck riding the shoulder of the highway and getting absolutely blasted by semis.
- Headwinds. Enough said.
- Really steep hills where you can't enjoy the downhill because it's too steep or the road surface is shit. We had a lot of this in the beginning of our trip. Downhills so steep that you either had to get off and walk the bike or you had to take breaks because your hands were cramping from braking so hard.
- Mechanical issues. I've been rather fortunate, but Sam has had quite a few issues with his wheels/spokes, not to mention a dozen flat tires.
- Aggro dogs. This probably isn't much of an issue in many countries, but in SE Asia, there are so many dogs and less than 1% of them are fenced in. And for whatever reason, they don't like touring bikes. Sam says they just don't like me. Maybe.
Reasons I love bike touring:
- You can cover a fair bit of ground.
- Breeze. In really hot temps, it's massive to be able to create your own breeze. Perhaps this was Sam's intention everyday when it felt like we were time trialing for 5-6 hours.
- You don't have to carry all your own food and cook all your meals.
- People's reactions. At least in SE Asia, people seemed to love yelling out greetings to us as we rode by. When we'd ride through villages and towns, we'd hear hellos from children coming from all directions. I also made some friends with a few young Vietnamese backpacking girls who are making their way through SE Asia selling their handmade wares to keep them going. They first approached me because of my bike. One of them hugged me when she found out what we were doing.
- Camaraderie. When bike tourers come upon other bike tourers, there's this instant bond and you end up sharing experiences and tips. On this trip, we've encountered surprisingly few bike tourers. And you meet people from all over the world.
But I guess why we keep going on these bike trips is because it's just a very unique way to travel. The pace is such that you are moving slowly enough to really look around and absorb what you're seeing. It allows you to engage more with your surroundings. You hear and smell things, for better or worse, you wouldn't normally in a car or bus. And as opposed to just hitting the main towns on the 'banana pancake trail', you go through everything in between, where you get a bit more authenticity.
So despite having a rather rough go towards the end of this trip, I'll be back on the bike...somewhere with a more agreeable climate.
Until then, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of Singapore.
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