China vs Malaysia

While in rural Laos with little to do, we had a long time to ponder about our future travel plans. The original route was to head back to Hanoi in Vietnam, sort out our bags which were with a friend there, and then head northwards to China. This would give us 2 months in China before our train booking from Beijing to Moscow.

There were a few issues that arose that made us rethink our plan. Firstly we were not too sure about cycling in China. We had met a couple that raved about cycling in China and were very convincing, yet the sheer size of China is a bit daunting to tackle on bicycle. We thought it would be better to travel to most of the places we wanted by train.

The other main factor which influenced our choice of travelling to China was how Chinese people are frequently compared to the Vietnamese in nature. While there are some very friendly Vietnamese, as I'm sure there are Chinese, we discovered after 5 weeks in Vietnam there is a general attitude to rip off foreigners in any way possible. While this was not the case with every transaction we made in Vietnam, it happened more than a few times a day which really got on our nerves. I view double pricing as a form of racism and it was something that we didn't want to be a part of. So when many other travellers we have met say this is also the case in China, we started to think seriously about our decision.

We originally allocated 2 months in China, which is a pretty long time if we were not enjoying ourselves. Also getting out of China is quite expensive if we wanted to shorten the two months.

So one day while cycling through a part of Laos we came up with the idea to cycle down the east coast of Malaysia. When we were in Malaysia in December, we both absolutely loved the people and the food. Last time we only travelled up the west coast of peninsula Malaysia, and so there was still a lot for us to explore. Being on bicycle for this trip would also make it quite a different experience from the last. We did some research to see if this was possible, and discovered a super cheap airfare on Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur to Macau for $150nzd. This meant that we could travel south from Bangkok to the North-East of Malaysia to Kota Bharu. Then spend 5 weeks travelling down the east coast to Johor Bharu, possibly Singapore, and back up the Southern-West coast to Melaka and finally Kuala Lumpur.

We were both really excited about this idea, and so we just decided overnight to change our plans and head south to Malaysia. We still both wanted to see China, and we still need to get there for our train departure, but we thought 1 month instead of 2 was more sensible if we don't like it. Then if we do turn out to like it after all we can always go back there at a later time.

The flight was soon booked from KL to Macau for May 20th which gives us 5 weeks to travel down the east coast and then to KL. A perfect amount of time to explore the beautiful beaches and islands along the coast, while eating lots of delicious Malay dishes and meeting friendly people.