Robert Beal

Cycling to Gdog’s – Thailand (Part 1 – Phuket)

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Robert Beal

My original plans were to visit Thailand after having done India. This all changed when I decided I would spend Christmas with my brother in Hanoi. Given I didn’t have enough time to cycle India before going to Hanoi, I chose to fit in Thailand instead. Due to budget reasons it meant having to drop Malaysia and Singapore from my travel plans and around 600km of cycling distance. I booked a return flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok, landing in Bangkok on November 7th. Given this was right in the middle of the largest floods in Bangkok for 40 years I decided to see Bangkok at the end of my tour of southern Thailand, so booked another flight from Bangkok to Phuket.

Cycling to Gdog’s – China Completed

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Robert Beal

Yangshuo sunset

Having had such a great experience when visiting China in November 2010, I wanted to include it as part of my cycle tour from an early stage, despite it not being a direct route to Australia. Was it worth including? Partly, yes. It was a very mixed experience full of extreme highs and lows. A coin with two sides, on one side there was a moment when I seriously considered throwing in the towel, and on the other one of the best travel experiences I’ll ever have, being invited to live in a Chinese village. I also managed to clock up 2,730km of cycling, which isn’t far off the originally planned 3,000-3,500km. Here is a summary of my experiences.

Cycling to Gdog’s – China (Part 5 – Yangshuo to Kunming)

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Robert Beal

Having visited Yangshuo before it was nice to be back. It allowed me to visit familiar sites including the Showbiz hostel with it’s awesome roof bar. Many a morning was spent up there drinking coffee, and many a night, drinking beer for 50p a pint, something I was able to re-live. I enjoyed the surrounding area, so using Yangshuo as a base, would cycle off for one day and return the next. One long day south-west to Luizhou (145km) and back the next, and then another south-east to Hezhou (120km) and back. I spent a few days cycling around the closer Yangshuo area (there are dozens of cycle paths) along the numerous cycle routes before deciding it was time to move on.

Flying From China With A Bicycle

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Robert Beal

While on my trip to Australia, I was lucky enough to be able to base myself in Shenzhen (Shekou to be exact, on the mainland near Hong Kong). Having cycled from Shanghai to Kunming (skipping a few bits in the east) I took a bus back to Yangshuo, and then from Yangshuo back to Shenzhen. My original plans were to fly from Kunming to Calcutta, but while crossing China my brother invited me to spend Christmas with him in Hanoi. I accepted his offer but it meant I wouldn’t have enough time to fit India in before Christmas. Instead I decided to reverse my schedule and go to Thailand/Malaysia first, then go to Vietnam for Christmas, then fly to India before finally ending up in Australia.

Cycling to Gdog’s – China (Part 4 – Guigang to Yangshuo)

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Robert Beal

Given the torrid time I had cycling along the coast of eastern China, I decided it was best to skip cycling through the Guangzhou area. Guangzhou has a population of nearly 13 million and is also surrounded by a number of prefecture cities, including Foshan, Dongguan and Shenzhen. The area contains around 34 million people (3x the population of London) and is heavily built up. From reading around it represents one of the worst cycling experiences possible. By skipping it I would miss out on around 200km of cycling which I could easily make up in Guanxi and Yunnan.