After leaving Borneo, the Sixglobetrotters arrived in Singapore. Discover their continuing adventures below.
A short stop in Singapore
While our truck spent three days crossing from the island of Borneo to the peninsular part of Malaysia, we flew to Singapore! The city won us over straight away... the charm of the formerly colonial districts in the centre, the cultural diversity highlighted at the Peranakan Museum, which tells the story of the particular mix of children born to Chinese and Malay parents, a bright, clean, safe, eco-friendly city, ambitious and successful architectural projects. You can't help but be impressed by the greenhouses and giant trees of "Gardens by the Bay", the landscaping along the river, and the incredible view over the Strait of Malacca, the maritime motorway, from the Spago Bar atop Marina Bay Sands, the city's futuristic, iconic building.
On the road to Malaysia
Still, we had to come back down from this perch to catch the night bus that was to take us to Kuala Lumpur and pick up our truck there. Luckily, Malaysia is generous when it comes to visas — we entered for the 4th time in the space of 2 months, and each time we've received a new free 3-month visa on arrival!
Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, we're finally in a country where we can stay longer and where the cost of living isn't too high: the perfect place, then, to put the truck in a garage and carry out all the repairs, big and small, we'd been putting off all this time! We're also planning these repairs before heading back to Europe, where labour is far more expensive, and ahead of selling the truck in a few months.
Servicing and repairing the truck
The Iveco garage in Kuala Lumpur welcomed us, not even blinking when we told them we planned to live in our truck for the entire duration of the repairs! We were the garage's only customers, set up on a concrete slab (so no insects, scorpions or other snakes), in the shade, with powerful fans, an electrical hook-up, the garage's lighting in the evening, a shower, toilets, a tap nearby, a guard day and night, and on the weekend we even hung up the hammock! In short... almost a dream campsite... We stayed there for a week while we did a big weld on the front cab, which was cracking, changed a wheel bearing, checked the whole braking system, replaced a leaf spring that had been broken since Mongolia, changed a few rusted or broken cables and springs, and replaced a completely shattered wing mirror.
Travelling through Southeast Asia
So it was with a truck as good as new that we set off on our loop through mainland Southeast Asia. We started with a visit to Malacca, a charming little town with a colonial past, where we met up again with two families we were supposed to cross China with! There were six adults and nine children marvelling, dumbfounded, at the size of the shoes (7 cm) once made for mandarins' wives, one of the last makers of which is still found in this town.
In Kuala Lumpur, between sightseeing, we made the most of a capital city's amenities to get on with our professional paperwork: certified copies of diplomas and official documents at the embassy, printing, and above all sending all these precious papers by DHL to Europe. And in the evening... everyone rested at the foot of the Petronas Towers.
Leaving the capital, we stopped at the Batu Caves, the largest Hindu shrine outside India, which brings together several temples inside caves. The place is well worth the detour, whether for the gigantic statue of Murugan that greets you there, the monumental staircase leading up to the caves, taking part in the construction of future temples by carrying buckets of sand while watching the artists at work, or trying to capture the antics of the hundreds of macaques living there.
From there we headed to the north-west coast of Malaysia, to Kuala Selangor. Going a little way up the river from the village on a night outing, you can see one of the largest colonies of fireflies in the world! Thousands of them flicker along both banks of the river for 5 km, giving the impression that someone had come and hung Christmas garlands all along it...
Continuing up the west coast through the old colonial towns of Ipoh and Georgetown, we finished, in reverse, part of the spice route gradually mapped out by European explorers. In Georgetown, we took the opportunity to visit a spice garden to better learn to recognise the plants that once grew here, whose fruits (nutmeg, pepper, ginger, coffee, but also rubber, etc.) were shipped all the way to Europe.
Future Malaysian globetrotters
Heading further north to the island of Penang to visit Entopia, an insect paradise and a particularly well-stocked butterfly house — including Atlas moths, among the largest butterflies in the world — we had a funny adventure. Fairly late in the day, and after several hours on the road, we parked near a spot where we hoped to still find a few food stalls open for dinner, and were getting ready to spend the night at this not particularly appealing roadside camp. But no sooner had we set foot on the ground than Nicolas was approached by a young man who started showing him photos of a motorhome on his phone. He spoke very little English but seemed to want to invite us to dinner. Not entirely sure of his intentions, we tried to dodge him, but he called his wife (Wendy), who spoke very good English and confirmed: she was expecting us for dinner. So, we got back in the truck and followed the young man. A few minutes later, we arrived in front of a large Chinese restaurant, where his wife and two children were seated at a table, waiting for us! It took us a few minutes to understand what had happened: Wendy had been working at her computer and saw our truck go by through the window. Within a minute, she'd sent her husband to follow us and invite us. In fact, a few years earlier they'd met a family travelling around the world in a motorhome and thought the idea was so wonderful that they'd since started saving up to set up the same kind of project! As the Malaysian motorhome market isn't developed yet, they'd gone to China to scout it out and find a vehicle. So they jumped at the chance to talk with us and exchange plenty of information needed to prepare for this kind of trip.
Two birthdays at once!
Leaving these new friends behind, heading towards Thailand, we celebrated two rather unusual anniversaries: our 1st year of travel on 1 April, and having covered 40,000 km — the equivalent of going around the Earth at the equator!
