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2Up and Overloaded on What You Need to Know about Motorcycle Travel in Southeast Asia · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
0:09
Speaker 1: Ashley Jordano, and today I have some guests that we're
0:14
Speaker 1: here in twenty twenty one. I still cannot believe this,
0:18
Speaker 1: but we have Tim and Marissa No Tier of two
0:21
Speaker 1: up and Overloaded Adventure motorcycle extraordinaries joining us. From where
0:29
Speaker 1: are you guys, Thailand?
0:31
Speaker 2: We are in Kotaquina Balu, which is a big city
0:35
Speaker 2: on well a decent size city on the island of
0:38
Speaker 2: Borneo in East Malaysia.
0:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, awesome, Saba and Saba is incredibly, incredibly beautiful, and
0:48
Speaker 3: we actually caught it at a time where we're in
0:50
Speaker 3: the middle of Ramadan and Chinese New Year, so there's
0:53
Speaker 3: every day is festive.
0:55
Speaker 4: Oh fantastic.
0:57
Speaker 1: And you've been in that area Central Asia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao,
1:02
Speaker 1: Vietnam for about two and a half years, touring around
1:06
Speaker 1: by a motorcycle.
1:08
Speaker 3: Yeah. Our plans always kind of go astray as far
1:10
Speaker 3: as timeline goes. I mean, our total around the world
1:13
Speaker 3: adventure was only supposed to be like three years and
1:17
Speaker 3: eight and a half years later here we are because
1:19
Speaker 3: Southeast Asia was supposed to be seven months and two
1:24
Speaker 3: and a half years later. But when we really like
1:27
Speaker 3: a place and enjoy the writing, enjoy the people and
1:30
Speaker 3: the scenery, we're lucky enough to have more time than most.
1:35
Speaker 3: I always say we have more time than money. And
1:38
Speaker 3: there's a lot of outcome, but not a lot of income.
1:41
Speaker 3: But it's been really nice to be able to absorb
1:44
Speaker 3: all the cultures in the countries that we've gotten to
1:48
Speaker 3: love so much now that yeah, it's worth staying at
1:53
Speaker 3: a place when it's incredible.
1:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. Unfortunately, Southeast Asia has a lot of challenges for
2:00
Speaker 2: overlanding when it comes to bring vehicles in borders. There's
2:04
Speaker 2: a lot of islands, so we've had to meet all
2:08
Speaker 2: of these challenges. And also I feel like as we
2:12
Speaker 2: travel over the years, we do like to take a
2:14
Speaker 2: lot of time to rest. Between our travels are more
2:18
Speaker 2: intense times of traveling, and so we have taken like
2:22
Speaker 2: five months at a time to just relax and get
2:27
Speaker 2: work done in Malaysia, for example. So Malaysia's been a
2:31
Speaker 2: really good home base between those times of travel. But yeah,
2:35
Speaker 2: we have now completed every country in Southeast Asia except
2:41
Speaker 2: for the Philippines.
2:44
Speaker 1: Oh wow, fantastic stuff. And so before you got to
2:50
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. You guys had done a pan am trip
2:53
Speaker 1: on motorcycles and Southeast Africa, I believe, and then up
2:58
Speaker 1: to Alaska. Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything there. What made
3:03
Speaker 1: you decide to what made you decide to head to
3:08
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia next?
3:11
Speaker 3: So South America is still one of my favorite continents
3:15
Speaker 3: in the world that we've been to. And there's a
3:18
Speaker 3: whole lot of landmasks we have not been to yet,
3:21
Speaker 3: so that still has a little asterisk on it because
3:23
Speaker 3: we have yet to complete everywhere. South America has deserts
3:27
Speaker 3: and mountains, vistas, you know, not a lot. It's not overcrowded,
3:32
Speaker 3: and a lot of places. You can still go to
3:34
Speaker 3: cities and buy a brand new Apple laptop though, you know,
3:38
Speaker 3: some of the bigger cities. But I think once we
3:40
Speaker 3: got to like Patagonia right YUSHWAYA, I was like, oh man,
3:45
Speaker 3: it's cold, there's mountains rah rah. But then it's like
3:48
Speaker 3: Africa wildlife. There's no there's no like big game in
3:52
Speaker 3: South America. And so then we thought of what we
3:55
Speaker 3: hadn't seen, and a lot of that was in Africa.
3:59
Speaker 3: Huge you know, vast landscapes of Namibia and all these
4:04
Speaker 3: things is what we were daydreaming of. And then when
4:07
Speaker 3: we were in Africa for so long, like our mindset
4:11
Speaker 3: was like, I don't know, it's not that we get
4:13
Speaker 3: used to what we are, but you're always kind of
4:14
Speaker 3: chasing the you know, the thrill and you know the
4:18
Speaker 3: tropics and jungles and orangutans and probiscus monkeys. You know,
4:24
Speaker 3: that was Southeast Asia. So it's not that we always
4:28
Speaker 3: want what we don't have, because we always love where
4:31
Speaker 3: we are individually as well, but it's always kind of
4:34
Speaker 3: looking forward to like now we've been in Southeast Asia
4:38
Speaker 3: for so long, like I want to see deserts again,
4:41
Speaker 3: so either Middle East or like we're from the States,
4:45
Speaker 3: zero castles in the States, I really want to see
4:48
Speaker 3: a castle, you know, so like you know, Western Europe,
4:51
Speaker 3: but Western Europe's got is a little bit more financially higher,
4:56
Speaker 3: but I want to you know, I want to see castle.
5:00
Speaker 3: So it's just our reasoning behind where we want to
5:02
Speaker 3: go to next isn't necessarily logical, but it's just fun
5:09
Speaker 3: to know. And when we're over land, you know, there's
5:12
Speaker 3: really only one way to go, but this little pocket
5:15
Speaker 3: of the world is so far away that, you know,
5:18
Speaker 3: we flew here and then got some bikes here. There
5:21
Speaker 3: are other people that go all across Asia and can
5:25
Speaker 3: enter through various points, but we kind of had this
5:28
Speaker 3: be a fly and ride.
5:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the time we were coming out of Alaska,
5:34
Speaker 2: we had been in a lot of cold for a while,
5:37
Speaker 2: a lot of barrenness, which was so beautiful and so stunning.
5:41
Speaker 2: But Southeast Asia is really the opposite of that. And
5:43
Speaker 2: I think we're always chasing kind of like different stuff
5:46
Speaker 2: every time. And yeah, we had a friend, well, Greg
5:51
Speaker 2: and Melanie Terp and they were going to purchase a
5:55
Speaker 2: motorcycle in Jakarta in Indonesia and take it around for
6:00
Speaker 2: a couple months. And then they said, hey, we'll sell
6:03
Speaker 2: you that motorcycle if you come to Jakarta and we
6:07
Speaker 2: were like, oh, yeah, let's do that. This is a
6:09
Speaker 2: new region that we haven't really thought about. I haven't
6:12
Speaker 2: thought about getting a motorcycle and taking it around Indonesia before.
6:17
Speaker 2: That sounds amazing, And so that is exactly what we did,
6:22
Speaker 2: and that began our whole Southeast Asia journey, which is
6:25
Speaker 2: like completely different from our other travels because our other
6:30
Speaker 2: travels were very much on one motorcycle. It belonged to
6:34
Speaker 2: us and we were crossing borders. But for Indonesia and
6:39
Speaker 2: other countries in Southeast Asia, some especially at the time,
6:43
Speaker 2: you couldn't go through China, you couldn't go through Me
6:45
Speaker 2: and mar and so it was really isolated. Getting your
6:48
Speaker 2: bike over there was difficult. For Indonesia, you need a
6:52
Speaker 2: carne It just didn't seem practical to have our own
6:55
Speaker 2: motorcycle here in this region. So we decided to purchase
6:59
Speaker 2: that by from Greg.
7:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the bike we bought from him was a
7:05
Speaker 3: Bajaj Pulser two twenty and I don't think they'll have
7:08
Speaker 3: responsor us. They are Umbrella owned by KTM. But uh yeah,
7:14
Speaker 3: but it's not It wasn't our favorite bike we've ever had.
7:17
Speaker 3: It was the cheapest bike we've ever had, so that
7:19
Speaker 3: fit in well. But bringing our KTM eleven ninety adventure
7:24
Speaker 3: R through the streets of you know, Java and Southeast Asia,
7:29
Speaker 3: that like that's like driving you know, an Earth Roamer
7:33
Speaker 3: through downtown Chicago. You know, there's it's got its place
7:37
Speaker 3: and it's awesome and we definitely love it, but you know,
7:40
Speaker 3: not not in congested areas of the world. So yeah,
7:44
Speaker 3: we bought that bike, and yeah, we loved Indonesia and
7:48
Speaker 3: it's been just we kind of fell in love. This
7:51
Speaker 3: is part of the world right off the bat.
7:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was definitely very different from we had just
7:59
Speaker 2: come out of the pandemic. We had just come out
8:01
Speaker 2: of Alaska, and Java itself was quite the shock for
8:06
Speaker 2: us because it is probably one of the most congested
8:11
Speaker 2: areas in the world. Indonesia has a huge population, and
8:15
Speaker 2: I think seventy percent of that population just lives on
8:19
Speaker 2: the island of Java, and so it is extremely condensed.
8:23
Speaker 2: There are people everywhere and they are the friendliest, most
8:27
Speaker 2: wonderful people. We started in West Java and absolutely nobody
8:32
Speaker 2: goes to West Java. It's beautiful, but it doesn't have
8:36
Speaker 2: any big major sites that people think of. Everyone goes
8:40
Speaker 2: to Bali, you know, and there are some things in
8:42
Speaker 2: East Java that people do visit when they come over
8:45
Speaker 2: from Bali, but nobody goes to West Java. I always
8:49
Speaker 2: say that if you ever feel bad in life, just
8:53
Speaker 2: go to West Java. You will be treated like a king.
8:56
Speaker 2: They will roll out the red carpet. They are the
8:58
Speaker 2: sweetest people.
9:00
Speaker 3: We felt like justin Bieber and Lady Gaga or something,
9:04
Speaker 3: because just like you get gas, it's mandatory selfie time.
9:07
Speaker 3: Every time we get food, mandatory selfie time, like little
9:11
Speaker 3: schoolgirls just running around you just like you know the
9:14
Speaker 3: Fab four, you know, pull land in a plane. It
9:18
Speaker 3: was it's really incredible feeling. It is super hot in
9:22
Speaker 3: this part of the world, especially having come from Alaska.
9:25
Speaker 3: Like the airport terminal doors opened and it was just
9:28
Speaker 3: like we landed on Mars and I was like, whoa,
9:32
Speaker 3: this is this is a lot, you know. Then we
9:34
Speaker 3: rented the bike and the traffic was pretty congested. Again
9:38
Speaker 3: comparatively speaking, we just got back from like Alaska. But yeah,
9:43
Speaker 3: it's been it's been incredible, and there's been beautiful, beautiful
9:48
Speaker 3: parts of this I mean Java alone, there's borabudor there's
9:52
Speaker 3: the Pramenan, there's you know that. We can spend twenty
9:55
Speaker 3: minutes just naming all the incredible sites. But it's it's
9:59
Speaker 3: been absolut wonderful, from culture to the local people. The
10:03
Speaker 3: food is sometimes hit or miss, but that's that's a
10:06
Speaker 3: lot of places in the world. And again, no one not.
10:10
Speaker 3: We always used to say, and it's still held true
10:12
Speaker 3: that like Colombians were the nicest people we ever met,
10:16
Speaker 3: and sadly, I don't want to offend the Colombian audience,
10:21
Speaker 3: but that they have been knocked down one tier by
10:24
Speaker 3: the Indonesians. They are just so kind and grateful and
10:28
Speaker 3: it's just incredible.
10:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting because with such a high population
10:34
Speaker 2: and so many people that are living so close together,
10:38
Speaker 2: and it's not like they are incredibly wealthy. Some people
10:41
Speaker 2: really don't have very much, and yet the crime rate
10:45
Speaker 2: is almost non existent. They're just so nice, so friendly.
10:49
Speaker 2: It felt so safe. It just really felt like a
10:52
Speaker 2: place where people were living in harmony.
10:55
Speaker 3: It really helps when no one wants to steal your
10:56
Speaker 3: bike though.
10:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.
11:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, just parking the bike anywhere, you know, I think
11:03
Speaker 1: that's a big consideration. If you have an overlain vehicle
11:06
Speaker 1: of any sort, you know you're parking in a different way.
11:11
Speaker 1: No matter where you are, you're always cut your eye
11:14
Speaker 1: on it. Or it doesn't matter where it is in
11:16
Speaker 1: the world, you always have your eye on it. I'm
11:19
Speaker 1: curious from a logistics standpoint, coming in to Java, when
11:23
Speaker 1: you bought the bike from your friend, how easy was
11:27
Speaker 1: it to get a visa for a longer stay, and
11:31
Speaker 1: then how easy was it to do the paperwork to
11:33
Speaker 1: purchase the bike from them and then do the any
11:37
Speaker 1: other paperwork that you need to do just for folks
11:39
Speaker 1: who would like to kind of recreate the process.
11:42
Speaker 3: So we didn't actually own the motorcycle. It was all gotcha,
11:47
Speaker 3: kind of loose paperwork that your name isn't really anywhere,
11:51
Speaker 3: but you have a letter, a very non official looking
11:54
Speaker 3: letter that could just be you know, like I'm letting
11:57
Speaker 3: this guy borrow my bike, Joe Shmo.
12:00
Speaker 4: Gotcha.
12:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the good news is we it wasn't a
12:05
Speaker 3: huge investment for us, so and we trusted the people
12:08
Speaker 3: who we trusted. Greg and Mel obviously are our buddies,
12:12
Speaker 3: and we kind of had a middleman that set a
12:14
Speaker 3: bunch of stuff up in Jakarta for us, and so yeah,
12:18
Speaker 3: we were in good hands, but we did not own it.
12:22
Speaker 2: No, we didn't own it technically because we could not
12:24
Speaker 2: take the motorcycle outside of Indonesia. And this was a
12:27
Speaker 2: big deal because we really wanted to explore the island
12:31
Speaker 2: of Borneo, which is broken up into three countries. It's
12:35
Speaker 2: mostly Indonesia and then the top portion is Malaysia and
12:39
Speaker 2: then there's this little country Brunei. But we knew we
12:42
Speaker 2: weren't going to be able to take the motorcycle out
12:44
Speaker 2: of Indonesia. We basically owned it within the borders of Indonesia.
12:49
Speaker 2: So at the very end we ended up selling it
12:52
Speaker 2: into a friend just by kind of passing over the paperwork.
12:55
Speaker 2: And now he's the legitimate owner of it in Indonesia,
12:59
Speaker 2: but you can't take it out of the country.
13:01
Speaker 3: And legitimate is loose. It's like, I don't think his
13:04
Speaker 3: name's anywhere on anything, but no one cares. But and
13:07
Speaker 3: as far as visas go Indonesia, we had ninety or
13:12
Speaker 3: sixty days.
13:13
Speaker 2: It was two months sixty.
13:15
Speaker 3: Sixty days, and so every sixty days we had to
13:18
Speaker 3: leave the country and come back. But the good thing
13:20
Speaker 3: about Borneo, which is an island above Java and Bali,
13:23
Speaker 3: is that you have three countries on that island. On
13:27
Speaker 3: being it's Indonesia and then the small little lung shaped country,
13:33
Speaker 3: small little two lobes of Brunei, which is like the
13:36
Speaker 3: world's real life Aladdin's you know, Prince Aly, wonderful he
13:42
Speaker 3: you know, it's just this mosque filled, beautifully little country.
13:47
Speaker 3: And then you have Saba, which is East Malaysia. And
13:50
Speaker 3: so we were able to get onto this huge it's
13:54
Speaker 3: the third largest island in the world, and it's kind
13:57
Speaker 3: of like like Canada, Like most of the Canadian population
14:02
Speaker 3: lives pretty close down South Rahah and then the northern territories.
14:06
Speaker 3: I mean, that's like the equivalent of Borneo. So we
14:09
Speaker 3: went from one of the most congested parts of the
14:12
Speaker 3: world we've ever been to back to being able to
14:15
Speaker 3: breathe and there's rainforest. Sadly, there's a lot of like
14:18
Speaker 3: palm trees and stuff, but the thick of the you know,
14:20
Speaker 3: the thick of the island is you know, rainforests and
14:25
Speaker 3: orangutangs and wildlife, and it was really incredible. So that's
14:29
Speaker 3: how we kind of got around the two month visa thing.
14:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was two different stints, so four months altogether
14:39
Speaker 2: the first two months, and then headed up to Malaysia.
14:42
Speaker 2: We left the bike on the Indonesian side, of course
14:44
Speaker 2: we had to, and then we took a bus over
14:47
Speaker 2: to the next town in Malaysia and then we rented
14:51
Speaker 2: a motorcycle there. So this is part of the problems
14:55
Speaker 2: with overlanding throughout Southeast Asia is that you have to
15:00
Speaker 2: constantly be dealing with the limited visas in some places
15:04
Speaker 2: and also islands. Of course, so that makes travel by
15:09
Speaker 2: road difficult though there is a good ferry system. But
15:13
Speaker 2: then these different rules for every country of bringing vehicles
15:17
Speaker 2: in and do you need a carne or not. Some
15:20
Speaker 2: people are able to do it. Vietnam is a whole
15:24
Speaker 2: other story. But yeah, at that time, we just left
15:27
Speaker 2: the motorcycle in Indonesia, went over to Malaysia, rented a
15:30
Speaker 2: bike there and from Malaysia we were able to go
15:33
Speaker 2: through Brunei several times. It only takes a couple hours.
15:38
Speaker 2: It's a very interesting country. And then yeah, we spent
15:43
Speaker 2: about a month going through East Malaysia.
15:46
Speaker 3: We run a little KTM two fifty just scrunched together
15:51
Speaker 3: is you know, having like a family of five and
15:53
Speaker 3: a little for yours jars or whatever. You know. We
15:57
Speaker 3: were two up and overloaded and scrunched. We looked like
16:00
Speaker 3: the pickles didn't load right on the screen when we're
16:03
Speaker 3: on the motorcycle.
16:05
Speaker 2: But yeah, we had no panniers everything. Imagine we are
16:09
Speaker 2: overloaded and everything we had was on that back back.
16:14
Speaker 3: We had to change your name to two up and
16:15
Speaker 3: packed accordingly.
16:22
Speaker 2: And then once we got to peninsular Southeast Asia, so
16:26
Speaker 2: off of the islands into West Malaysia, which is the
16:30
Speaker 2: other side of the country. There, we had an incredible friend,
16:34
Speaker 2: Faisal who we are forever indebted to, who lent us
16:38
Speaker 2: a motorcycle that we were able to take around from
16:41
Speaker 2: Malaysia to Thailand, Cambodia and law.
16:45
Speaker 4: Nice.
16:45
Speaker 1: That must have been nice to have the consistency.
16:49
Speaker 2: Yes, it was, and that was a Royal Enfield that
16:52
Speaker 2: was a Royal.
16:52
Speaker 3: And Field four eleven. And going from a Ba Bajaj
16:57
Speaker 3: Pulser two twenty to KTM two fifty, like, this thing
17:01
Speaker 3: felt like a brand new BMW thirteen hundred and I
17:05
Speaker 3: was like, wow, this is a motorcycle. Yeah, but yeah,
17:12
Speaker 3: so we had a consistent bike in the nice thing
17:16
Speaker 3: about a Malaysian motorcycle. Again, we didn't own it, but
17:19
Speaker 3: it was all in our name with the proper you know,
17:23
Speaker 3: written letters to say that we could write it. But Malaysia,
17:27
Speaker 3: Cambodia and Thailand and Lao all kind of have an
17:32
Speaker 3: agreement that allows the motorcycles to pass freely between without
17:37
Speaker 3: karnes and any kind of hindurances.
17:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, we still face difficulties, though. I think one of
17:45
Speaker 2: the most difficult borders we've ever come across was the
17:48
Speaker 2: one between Cambodia and Lao, and at the time the
17:54
Speaker 2: relations between Thailand and Cambodia were diplomatic. It has since
18:00
Speaker 2: and down sadly, but at the time we were able
18:02
Speaker 2: to go between the two countries by border, and that
18:06
Speaker 2: was great. We went from Thailand into Cambodia and then
18:09
Speaker 2: we wanted to go up north in Ta Lao. And
18:11
Speaker 2: there's one border between those two countries. And I say
18:15
Speaker 2: this because it was such a terrible border. They know
18:18
Speaker 2: they're the only one. They bribe everyone that goes through.
18:22
Speaker 2: And now that the borders between Thailand and Cambodia have
18:25
Speaker 2: been shut, it is the only way to get into
18:30
Speaker 2: Cambodia by land, as far as I can tell at
18:34
Speaker 2: the moment. So that is a bit of a problem
18:36
Speaker 2: for anyone going through. But it took us about a
18:39
Speaker 2: week to get through that border. We had a lot
18:41
Speaker 2: of different weeks. Some of that stemmed from the fact, yeah,
18:45
Speaker 2: and it was like up this road that was about
18:47
Speaker 2: two hours of really really bad loose gravel construction and mud.
18:52
Speaker 2: So we'd have to go and come back and go
18:54
Speaker 2: and come back.
18:55
Speaker 3: Wouldn't he wouldn't let our motorcycle go through because we
18:57
Speaker 3: didn't have the original title, just you don't need and
19:02
Speaker 3: for people in North America or in you know, Western Europe, like, yeah,
19:07
Speaker 3: your title is very very important, so I you know,
19:09
Speaker 3: but like in some of these other countries were going through,
19:13
Speaker 3: it's just a letter of recommendation if you will, and
19:16
Speaker 3: you have the insurance and you have all the paperwork
19:18
Speaker 3: and rah rah. And I don't like when we wrote
19:22
Speaker 3: down through South American stuff like I didn't have my
19:24
Speaker 3: vehicle title on me even though I was the owner
19:27
Speaker 3: of my own vehicle. But long and short, he wanted
19:30
Speaker 3: some money, you know, and was making up reasons on
19:34
Speaker 3: why we couldn't. But he wouldn't let the vehicle through,
19:37
Speaker 3: but we could go through, and we had to reset
19:40
Speaker 3: our visa, so we physically had to walk to you know,
19:43
Speaker 3: get stamped out, physically get go to lou and then
19:46
Speaker 3: get stamped in and then get stamped out and walk
19:49
Speaker 3: back over get to stamp back in. And then we
19:52
Speaker 3: called Feisel and he sent us his original title and
19:55
Speaker 3: we went back and we were like, now we have
19:57
Speaker 3: the original title, and then what did is sa? He
20:00
Speaker 3: was like, oh, but you don't have something else, and
20:04
Speaker 3: I was like, I forget what it even was, but
20:08
Speaker 3: we ended up just at that point we just kind
20:10
Speaker 3: of gave them some cash. We don't like paying bribes.
20:14
Speaker 3: And sometimes when we're in like Africa or Mexico, you
20:17
Speaker 3: know a lot of people say nightmare stories and it's
20:21
Speaker 3: almost sometimes how I feel is how much is my
20:25
Speaker 3: hourly wage worth? And if I can sit here and
20:29
Speaker 3: disagree with you for an hour and save one hundred
20:32
Speaker 3: bucks worth about one hundred bucks an hour. But if
20:34
Speaker 3: you're just trying to get like ten bucks out of me,
20:37
Speaker 3: I'm not going to waste three hours of my life. Like,
20:40
Speaker 3: so there's a situational bribing. Then we play good cop,
20:46
Speaker 3: bad cop. I bet you can guess which one's a
20:48
Speaker 3: good cop. But you know, I'm like the it says
20:51
Speaker 3: in the rules, the handbook says this, and they don't
20:54
Speaker 3: care about the Handbook of Life. And Bressel will be like,
20:56
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm so sorry. We are so forgetful.
21:01
Speaker 3: We just didn't know.
21:03
Speaker 2: But yeah, that was a really difficult border. We were
21:08
Speaker 2: able to get it through. And one of the other
21:10
Speaker 2: problems is that Thailand you can only cross into Thailand
21:14
Speaker 2: twice in a calendar year by land, so we weren't
21:20
Speaker 2: able to go back and then go into Lao and
21:22
Speaker 2: then come back into Thailand. I mean, it's perhaps right
21:26
Speaker 2: now you're thinking, I don't know the shape of these
21:30
Speaker 2: countries and how they all intersect, and that's fine. It
21:32
Speaker 2: is very confusing, but yeah, you have to navigate all
21:36
Speaker 2: of these different rules in order to get through. But
21:38
Speaker 2: thankfully we were able to get into Lao, and it
21:41
Speaker 2: was so worth it. It was worth all of the troubles,
21:45
Speaker 2: all of going back and forth to the border and
21:48
Speaker 2: dealing with this madness to explore that country. It was amazing.
21:53
Speaker 3: It was like, you know, and we're in our forties
21:57
Speaker 3: now and we've listened to the tales of of the
22:01
Speaker 3: people who've traveled before us, read their documents and stories,
22:05
Speaker 3: you know, but like they always refer to like it's
22:08
Speaker 3: like traveling twenty years ago, you know, And but that's
22:12
Speaker 3: that's like how Loao is to me. And it's just
22:16
Speaker 3: it's incredible and it's I don't know, the the food
22:20
Speaker 3: is still good, everybody's still really nice. It's just not
22:22
Speaker 3: built up and it's a win, right Like for when
22:26
Speaker 3: I when I traveled the world, I want to see
22:28
Speaker 3: these things like I just have come across it and
22:32
Speaker 3: of course these countries they want tourism and they want
22:35
Speaker 3: you know, a GDP or yeah, you know so so
22:39
Speaker 3: I get it, and I don't want to be selfish
22:41
Speaker 3: by any means, but I really feel like Lao is
22:43
Speaker 3: that perfect mix of you know, there's no Hilton Hotels,
22:48
Speaker 3: there's no McDonald's. It was really it was just the
22:52
Speaker 3: country how I could have imagined it twenty years ago.
22:54
Speaker 3: And again I'm sure that they would want to launch
22:56
Speaker 3: themselves into, you know, creating microchips and computer jobs. I
23:02
Speaker 3: don't know. I've been on the road for too long
23:04
Speaker 3: to know what people do anymore. But it was just authentic, wonderful,
23:09
Speaker 3: and I really really enjoyed Lao for what it was.
23:13
Speaker 3: And so as loosy as the border was, the once
23:17
Speaker 3: you get in it was some of the funnest motorcycle
23:21
Speaker 3: riding we've done in Southeast Asia. So you're going to
23:24
Speaker 3: pull the mic away and be like the roads were bad.
23:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, So okay, I want to be clear about a
23:29
Speaker 2: couple of things. First of all, we absolutely felt head
23:33
Speaker 2: over heels in love with Highland and Cambodia as well.
23:37
Speaker 2: So this is not to say that those countries were
23:39
Speaker 2: any less than law. But Loo is very unique in
23:42
Speaker 2: that economically they are just left alone and behind by
23:46
Speaker 2: the rest of the world. They do not participate in
23:48
Speaker 2: the global economy at all. They have been forgotten and
23:52
Speaker 2: purposefully do not participate. They're very communists. They have two
23:56
Speaker 2: products that you can find in the stores. They have
23:59
Speaker 2: beer lao and so to lloo and everything else. You know,
24:02
Speaker 2: store by store it's always the ten things, the ten
24:06
Speaker 2: you know, the one type of toothpaste, and it is
24:09
Speaker 2: just a different universe there. We came in through the south,
24:12
Speaker 2: so this is not to say that there isn't tourism.
24:15
Speaker 2: There's a lot of tourism happening in low, but it's
24:18
Speaker 2: mostly in the north and in certain hot spots. And
24:21
Speaker 2: where we came in, it was just like little piglets
24:26
Speaker 2: and kittens everywhere, and so rural people were cooking over fires.
24:32
Speaker 2: It was it felt like going back in time, absolutely
24:37
Speaker 2: one hundred percent, like I was living in the past
24:40
Speaker 2: in the most beautiful, idyllic way.
24:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody's like, oh man, I always shows a princess
24:46
Speaker 3: and the Middle Ages, it's like, no, you'd had the
24:49
Speaker 3: plague and most likely you wouldn't be a princess it'd
24:52
Speaker 3: be awful. So when you'd say, like, oh, twenty years ago,
24:54
Speaker 3: but like this, this was a like this was fairly
24:59
Speaker 3: commune or this was communal living. It was there was
25:02
Speaker 3: still harmony, There were still you know, there were a
25:06
Speaker 3: proud people, very very kind, had stuff. They It was
25:09
Speaker 3: a great country to ride through, especially like Peninsular Malaysia,
25:14
Speaker 3: Kuala and Poor. I mean that if you knocked me
25:17
Speaker 3: out and woke me up in the middle of kl
25:19
Speaker 3: I'd be like, oh, yeah, we're somewhere in the States,
25:22
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, but it's very modern in Cambodia,
25:27
Speaker 3: you know, I'm everything is just twisting together in this
25:31
Speaker 3: fabric of my story. But like Thailand had watts and nature,
25:38
Speaker 3: like just every country's got its own beautiful little you know,
25:43
Speaker 3: tweak on. It's it's culture and architecture and it's just
25:48
Speaker 3: all stunning. And maybe Loud doesn't have all of the
25:53
Speaker 3: watts and temples and all that, but the nature was
25:57
Speaker 3: out of this world. You know. We went we never
25:59
Speaker 3: go like ziplining or anything, but we did because it
26:03
Speaker 3: was like this three waterfalls that it was like we
26:05
Speaker 3: were ziplining across like Kong the movie. It was like
26:09
Speaker 3: just incredible, So.
26:12
Speaker 2: Okay, But at the same time, the roads are really, really,
26:16
Speaker 2: really bad. So you say it's a dream to ride through,
26:20
Speaker 2: and I think what you mean is that it's a
26:21
Speaker 2: dream to travel through culturally and naturally, but the roads
26:28
Speaker 2: are horrific. There's some of the worst roads we've ever
26:30
Speaker 2: come across, and they are motorcycle destroying roads, especially up
26:34
Speaker 2: in the north. They are brutal. All it is is
26:37
Speaker 2: Chinese drivers coming down from China that are destroying these roads.
26:41
Speaker 2: They haven't been touched in twenty years. It would have
26:44
Speaker 2: been better if they'd never paved them at all, because
26:46
Speaker 2: it's just chunks everywhere. Yeah, it's very, very difficult going
26:51
Speaker 2: on those roads.
26:53
Speaker 4: Was it muddy there?
26:54
Speaker 1: Like it was? It kind of this combination of road
26:57
Speaker 1: that was once paved and now not paid in potholes,
27:01
Speaker 1: but also like slick mud.
27:03
Speaker 4: I imagine they get some rain there.
27:06
Speaker 3: Absolutely they get rained. Most major highways were concrete asphalt
27:12
Speaker 3: with sections of used to be concrete asphalt. But anything
27:15
Speaker 3: any turn offs now you're on those mud roads. And
27:20
Speaker 3: we did a foolish thing. We wanted to go to
27:21
Speaker 3: this waterfall, but it was raining. So we got there
27:24
Speaker 3: and said we'll come back later. And we went back
27:26
Speaker 3: to our little hotel thing, and then it stopped raining
27:30
Speaker 3: and we were like, let's just ride back. It's seven
27:32
Speaker 3: minutes away. Wear your helmet because we're not silly, but
27:35
Speaker 3: let's wear our little crappy shoes. Let's not wear our
27:40
Speaker 3: boots because that's a pain, right, Let's not wear all that.
27:43
Speaker 3: And then you know, four minutes into our seven minute ride,
27:46
Speaker 3: we're on this mud road and anybody who's ridden a motorcycle,
27:50
Speaker 3: but before you know what happened, you're already on the
27:53
Speaker 3: ground and the bike's five feet away, and you know,
27:56
Speaker 3: I cut my shin up pretty bad because I hit
27:58
Speaker 3: something stupid. My ankles twisted. So just a little life
28:02
Speaker 3: lesson here in the middle of telling our tales. But
28:05
Speaker 3: all to get all the time, folks seven minutes away,
28:08
Speaker 3: that is too dangerous.
28:10
Speaker 5: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
28:13
Speaker 5: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
28:16
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28:22
Speaker 5: you become a subscriber to The Overland Journal print magazine,
28:25
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28:31
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28:35
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28:38
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28:41
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29:03
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29:11
Speaker 5: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
29:16
Speaker 5: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures
29:18
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29:23
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29:40
Speaker 2: Course, we're huge nature people. We love the nature of
29:43
Speaker 2: all of these places that we visited, especially in Low
29:46
Speaker 2: because it was so undeveloped. But at one point in
29:50
Speaker 2: time an ant colony had moved its entire colony, all
29:54
Speaker 2: of its babies, probably its queen, somewhere into my pants
29:59
Speaker 2: in the night. I had them hanging up on the wall.
30:03
Speaker 2: It wasn't just my pants. So we had a couple
30:05
Speaker 2: of things on the wall of this little cabin that,
30:08
Speaker 2: as you can imagine, it didn't really have proper walls.
30:12
Speaker 2: It was basically us I mean holes in the walls.
30:16
Speaker 2: You know, there were bugs everywhere. You had a mosquito
30:18
Speaker 2: net right, and the rest of the cabin was just
30:21
Speaker 2: in nature. And we had our jackets, my pants hanging
30:26
Speaker 2: up on a hook on the wall, and our bag
30:28
Speaker 2: kind of propped up over there as well, our back bag.
30:31
Speaker 2: And they had moved all of their babies into my pants.
30:37
Speaker 2: And they were big ants. Thankfully, I don't think they
30:41
Speaker 2: were biting ants, because they didn't bite us. But the
30:43
Speaker 2: next day it was out of a horror movie. In fact,
30:47
Speaker 2: this lasted for a couple of days because after we
30:50
Speaker 2: were able, yeah, we kept finding them. After we were
30:53
Speaker 2: able to get the ants out of my pants. I
30:56
Speaker 2: had these like pockets in the pants that were for
30:59
Speaker 2: the arm, and they loved those like mesh type of
31:03
Speaker 2: pocket things. They're like perfect little cubby holes for all
31:05
Speaker 2: the babies. And I'm talking about like larvae, right, like
31:09
Speaker 2: the white yeah, yeah, it looks like rice. And then
31:13
Speaker 2: of course they're taking care of all the babies, so
31:15
Speaker 2: the real live ones are there as well. But we
31:17
Speaker 2: were able to get them out of my pants, which
31:19
Speaker 2: I was very thankful for. We had to leave that day,
31:21
Speaker 2: so of course I just had to put them on
31:24
Speaker 2: and we were able to get them out of the jackets.
31:27
Speaker 2: But our back bag is a Moscow motor bag, has
31:30
Speaker 2: tons of pockets and little areas that I didn't even
31:35
Speaker 2: know existed, little corners and crevices. And it was days
31:39
Speaker 2: so we thought, oh, everything's off of the bag. We
31:43
Speaker 2: packed the bag, we put it on the motorcycle. We
31:46
Speaker 2: rode four hours, perhaps four or five hours that day,
31:50
Speaker 2: ended up in another place, and when we took the
31:53
Speaker 2: back back off, it was covered in ants. It's like
31:56
Speaker 2: they just all were born from the eggs or I
31:59
Speaker 2: don't know, oh how, but they just covered that bag
32:03
Speaker 2: and It's like one of those clown car pockets where
32:06
Speaker 2: they just keep coming out, keep coming out. You're like,
32:08
Speaker 2: how many thousands of ants are in this pocket? We
32:12
Speaker 2: had to use hoses and brooms and everything. It was
32:16
Speaker 2: a disaster for quite a while, and I felt bad
32:18
Speaker 2: because I basically destroyed an entire ant colony and a
32:23
Speaker 2: whole city. I know, they were in my pants. What
32:25
Speaker 2: could I do?
32:27
Speaker 1: I know, I'm like, my favorite part of that story
32:29
Speaker 1: is when you said you had ants in your pants.
32:31
Speaker 4: To be honest, I really did.
32:32
Speaker 3: It was that. Literally, I'm quite squirmy, but you know,
32:37
Speaker 3: I had step up as the husband because she was
32:41
Speaker 3: not having it, and so I had to like unfold
32:44
Speaker 3: the pockets from the inside out. And ants they're not
32:47
Speaker 3: like sticky or slimy. But I don't No one likes
32:50
Speaker 3: eighty thousand ants with their little larva everywhere.
32:54
Speaker 1: But I'm glad they weren't fire ants.
32:57
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, yeah.
32:59
Speaker 4: There is.
33:00
Speaker 2: It's good biting creatures in Southeast Asia and venomous creatures.
33:06
Speaker 2: And we started a motorcycle tour in Borneo. We've done
33:12
Speaker 2: a couple of those have've been really great, and one
33:14
Speaker 2: of the places that we go to actually more than
33:17
Speaker 2: a couple. We've now done three of those. We're doing
33:20
Speaker 2: one in just a little bit. Again. We love it.
33:23
Speaker 2: But one of the places we go to is this
33:24
Speaker 2: cave where they have these venomous, highly venomous centipedes that
33:30
Speaker 2: are really really big. Their legs are long, it's almost
33:33
Speaker 2: like non hairy tarantula legs and they jump, they jump
33:38
Speaker 2: and bite.
33:39
Speaker 3: But screw those things. The reason why this cave is
33:41
Speaker 3: so gross is because there's eighty billion cockroaches and it's
33:45
Speaker 3: really it's fun to bring guests to the cockroach cave.
33:49
Speaker 3: There's bats, like there's this pile of material in the
33:52
Speaker 3: cave and you're like, what is that material? And you're like,
33:55
Speaker 3: that's a combination of guano and roaches, and they're like,
33:59
Speaker 3: and it's smells like if you just close your eyes,
34:03
Speaker 3: it smelt like guano and roaches and it was It
34:07
Speaker 3: was amazing.
34:09
Speaker 2: It's definitely a campfire story place, you know, totally those
34:13
Speaker 2: experiences where you're not enjoying it while you're doing it,
34:17
Speaker 2: but the pictures look good because it's a beautiful cave
34:19
Speaker 2: with like a kind of skylight at the top where
34:22
Speaker 2: the sun rays come down, and it is beautiful, but
34:27
Speaker 2: you just have to ignore the smells and the cockroaches.
34:29
Speaker 3: Everywhere and the creepy plays in this jumping centerpiece.
34:34
Speaker 1: So that brings me to my next question is we're
34:37
Speaker 1: you camping along the way? Were you saying guest houses?
34:41
Speaker 1: Were you doing a little bit of both?
34:43
Speaker 4: What what's the situation the sleeping situation in these regions.
34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, as you may know, we love camping. Camping
34:54
Speaker 2: is one of our favorite things to do. But we
34:57
Speaker 2: made a conscious decision for Southeast Asia not to bring
35:00
Speaker 2: any camping gear, and that is because we knew we
35:05
Speaker 2: were going to be on smaller motorcycles. We're two up,
35:07
Speaker 2: we're both on the same bike, and so that's already
35:11
Speaker 2: a lot of weight on these little bikes that they
35:13
Speaker 2: have out here. Also, it's very very hot. There's not
35:17
Speaker 2: a lot of there's not a lot of open space
35:19
Speaker 2: to wild camp and there's not a lot of camp
35:22
Speaker 2: grounds so in general, and the hotels are really really cheap,
35:28
Speaker 2: so it does make a lot of sense to be
35:31
Speaker 2: in hotels. You get air conditioning, you get a shower
35:34
Speaker 2: because you're super sticky from the day anyway, and it
35:37
Speaker 2: is pretty nice.
35:42
Speaker 4: Nice. Yeah, and I figured that's what you were going
35:43
Speaker 4: to say.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I am looking forward to camping again.
35:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, we fly to Japan for my little brother's wedding
35:51
Speaker 3: and congratulations, we are going to be camping in Japan,
35:56
Speaker 3: which will be super nice. And then when we get
35:58
Speaker 3: back to the States. This is just projecting future. We don't.
36:03
Speaker 3: We suck at timelines obviously, but yeah, we really want
36:07
Speaker 3: to camp again because it is super nice.
36:11
Speaker 4: Nice.
36:11
Speaker 1: So, you guys have been sharing on your socials recently
36:14
Speaker 1: some of the realities of travel, which has been really interesting.
36:18
Speaker 1: And one thing that I had not thought about because
36:21
Speaker 1: I've never ridden on a motorcycle before with another person
36:27
Speaker 1: or by myself, is that the reality of being too
36:31
Speaker 1: up on a bike is that you're physically touching the
36:35
Speaker 1: other person for hours and hours and hours days on end.
36:39
Speaker 1: And like the concept of personal space is basically non existent.
36:43
Speaker 1: How do you manage that and make time.
36:47
Speaker 4: Or space for yourself yourselves?
36:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a lot of people, you know, like if
36:55
Speaker 3: they made a bad rom com with Hugh Grant and Central,
37:00
Speaker 3: a lot you know, But it's like it's not it's
37:04
Speaker 3: it's wonderful, you know, the to share all the moments
37:08
Speaker 3: of somebody right there is incredible. We talk on our
37:11
Speaker 3: Cardo headsets, which is really nice. Through a lot of
37:15
Speaker 3: the beautiful scenery we're you know, we can always it
37:19
Speaker 3: can be an enhancer as well. And the actors, which
37:23
Speaker 3: are kind of weird. One is even though we are
37:27
Speaker 3: inches away, Hey we're inches away. Is that like I
37:34
Speaker 3: can have a completely different experience than Marissa can, Like
37:39
Speaker 3: just like I'm on my one hundred different adventure, like
37:43
Speaker 3: some of the best writing I've done, and it's all
37:46
Speaker 3: personal too, Like so off roading through Peru and these
37:51
Speaker 3: awesome roads, I'm like just imagining I'm in my own
37:55
Speaker 3: little movie, you know, and it's incredible. And Marissa is
37:59
Speaker 3: having a little bit of a hard time back there
38:00
Speaker 3: than I am. But in those moments where we can
38:03
Speaker 3: be talking to each other, we can get through things.
38:07
Speaker 3: There could be other moments where I'm just listening to
38:09
Speaker 3: guns n' Roses and she's listening to some epic saga.
38:13
Speaker 3: I can only imagine it's like the Twilight series soundtrack,
38:18
Speaker 3: of course, But you know, we we are able to
38:22
Speaker 3: separate a little bit even though we are touching. It's
38:24
Speaker 3: like we're in our own little biodomes. Just it's only
38:28
Speaker 3: we're a head and a jar and self entertained. But
38:33
Speaker 3: those all those good positive things that can come with
38:37
Speaker 3: you know, chiming in and talking and experiencing the road
38:41
Speaker 3: and the views and the people and the traffic that
38:43
Speaker 3: she helps me get through just to calm me down,
38:46
Speaker 3: you know, and help out, because like I can't be
38:49
Speaker 3: looking for hotel names or food and not you know,
38:53
Speaker 3: hit stuff. And so she's my little co pilot. Even
38:56
Speaker 3: though her view behind me, like she has like a
38:59
Speaker 3: you know, three inches over here of visibility and three
39:02
Speaker 3: inches over there visibility and by the time she sees
39:04
Speaker 3: something that's already gone. But there's a whole lot of
39:07
Speaker 3: positives And riding around the world with my wife. I'm
39:10
Speaker 3: thankful every day to have her besides me on every ride,
39:15
Speaker 3: in front of me on every meal, and beside me
39:18
Speaker 3: every night in bed. But sometimes I don't feel like that.
39:25
Speaker 2: That was a long setup for what I'm about to say. Yeah,
39:30
Speaker 2: sometimes we absolutely have a tough time. We get into disagreements.
39:34
Speaker 2: You know, this happens to everyone, and it is hard
39:38
Speaker 2: when you are on the road and you have nowhere
39:41
Speaker 2: to go. We have nobody else, It is just you
39:45
Speaker 2: and that person. All the time. And so what Tim
39:49
Speaker 2: was saying about having our helmets with the Cardo units,
39:53
Speaker 2: we have these Bluetooth systems where we can talk to
39:56
Speaker 2: each other, but we can also hang up on each other,
39:59
Speaker 2: and that can be very useful because it is a
40:03
Speaker 2: signal that I need my space. Can listen to your
40:06
Speaker 2: own music, You can listen to your own podcast or
40:08
Speaker 2: audiobook or whatever it is, and or even just silence
40:13
Speaker 2: and not have that person there because you are completely
40:17
Speaker 2: closed off within that helmet. And that is one way
40:21
Speaker 2: that we are able to find our space and our
40:24
Speaker 2: inner piece when we're in the midst of something. We
40:27
Speaker 2: have a rule that if one of us hangs up
40:29
Speaker 2: on the other person through the bluetooth system, then that
40:33
Speaker 2: person doesn't have to chime in, because in the beginning
40:35
Speaker 2: I would be like, oh, he just hung up on me,
40:38
Speaker 2: and then of course I'd chime back in and be like,
40:40
Speaker 2: did you just hang up on me? Right, This is
40:41
Speaker 2: not a good situation to have on the road. You
40:44
Speaker 2: should not be arguing on the road, especially when you're
40:48
Speaker 2: going down a tricky road, you're in some crazy traffic,
40:50
Speaker 2: you're in another country, like this is all bad, bad, bad,
40:54
Speaker 2: And we have learned to allow the other person to
40:57
Speaker 2: take that space when they need to take it. No
41:00
Speaker 2: matter how badly I want to argue about something, I
41:03
Speaker 2: will let him do that.
41:04
Speaker 3: And social media obviously shows all the bright sunny days
41:08
Speaker 3: and all this that other thing. And for a while there,
41:13
Speaker 3: you know, we had we thought we were doing it wrong,
41:16
Speaker 3: like everybody else having the time of their lives. And
41:19
Speaker 3: funny little story we were at the Overland Expo back
41:24
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen. Let's say, I'm not even sure it
41:27
Speaker 3: could have been even the same one where we were
41:28
Speaker 3: on the original podcast with you, but we were on
41:32
Speaker 3: a panel about like how to survive with your spouse
41:37
Speaker 3: or something or that was just a question that came
41:38
Speaker 3: up of like you know, survive or traveling with a couple.
41:42
Speaker 3: And one person in the audience has the same thing
41:45
Speaker 3: that you just did and said, how do you you know,
41:48
Speaker 3: get along on the road for so long? And so
41:50
Speaker 3: Maris and I you know, said, oh, yeah, sometimes we
41:52
Speaker 3: get into arguments, but sometimes, you know, we work it
41:55
Speaker 3: out and it's nice and funny little stories about things
42:00
Speaker 3: that we've argued about and like reality, you know, And
42:04
Speaker 3: then it went to the person next to us and
42:06
Speaker 3: they're like, oh no, we don't ever argue, and I
42:10
Speaker 3: was like, oh no, I was like what it was like?
42:12
Speaker 3: And then the person next to them are like, no,
42:14
Speaker 3: we have a pretty solid, healthy relationship. But I'm just
42:17
Speaker 3: like I'm like, oh my god, I feel like, well,
42:23
Speaker 3: you're doing something wrong. I'm an awful husband, like what
42:26
Speaker 3: you know, But I do think, you know, some of
42:29
Speaker 3: the social media posts that I've made, there's been a
42:31
Speaker 3: lot of people that have kindly, you know, said, that's
42:36
Speaker 3: the struggle. The struggles real, it's youth, want to say,
42:38
Speaker 3: but the benefits all far outweigh it. But just for
42:42
Speaker 3: anybody out there who does think that it could be
42:44
Speaker 3: by themselves, like you know, fighting yourself emotionally of just
42:48
Speaker 3: like is this worth it? Like you know, it's it's
42:51
Speaker 3: just I find a lot of it's difficult terrain and
42:54
Speaker 3: sometimes it's scrappy weather, and if you're just not enjoying it,
42:59
Speaker 3: definitely is the time to make a pause and you
43:02
Speaker 3: can learn a lot about yourself as you're trying to
43:06
Speaker 3: battle these things. I mean, an old tradition say'd send
43:08
Speaker 3: out the youth into the wilderness and be like, discover yourself.
43:12
Speaker 3: And it's not going to be easy, but come back
43:14
Speaker 3: as a more intelligent, wiser person. And I think that's
43:17
Speaker 3: what Mercy and I did for a relationship.
43:20
Speaker 1: Richard and I are in a track together all the time,
43:22
Speaker 1: or we're in a camper together now all the time
43:24
Speaker 1: we're outside and like you were saying, all the benefits,
43:29
Speaker 1: like I wouldn't do it with anybody else, And I
43:32
Speaker 1: love that he's there and I love him and he
43:35
Speaker 1: loves me, I think most of the time. But of course,
43:40
Speaker 1: you know, that's a lot of time with one person
43:43
Speaker 1: in a small space, and you're not always going to
43:47
Speaker 1: have everything be perfect, and you do.
43:49
Speaker 4: Need the space, so yes, you do nice.
43:53
Speaker 3: So I usually to hear other other people say that
43:58
Speaker 3: they can find some similarities, but yeah, I mean, I
44:02
Speaker 3: think it's like traveling with them. The person you love
44:05
Speaker 3: is is absolutely incredible, you know. But I mean, stay
44:10
Speaker 3: at nine to five jobs and you come back home
44:14
Speaker 3: and then you and your wife or you and your
44:16
Speaker 3: husband watch Wheel of Fortune Prices, right, I don't know,
44:19
Speaker 3: but like a lot of couples, married couples literally spend
44:24
Speaker 3: like four or five hours conscious with somebody a day,
44:28
Speaker 3: you know, because then you're asleep, so you know, but
44:30
Speaker 3: then you wake up, you have your two hour breakfast,
44:32
Speaker 3: you go to work, you come back home, you make dinner,
44:35
Speaker 3: you watch a TV, you go to sleep, So maybe
44:36
Speaker 3: four or five hours of like, hey, we're talking to
44:40
Speaker 3: each other, and yeah, when you're on the road, like
44:43
Speaker 3: you know, it's just That's why sometimes I go to
44:47
Speaker 3: like Starbucks during the day because I get Cavin fever.
44:50
Speaker 3: I don't get Marissa fever, but I get like, you know,
44:53
Speaker 3: like in a confined space for too long, you need
44:55
Speaker 3: to go find somewhere. And yes, in Saba there are Starbucks,
44:59
Speaker 3: so yeah.
45:00
Speaker 2: I also find that, you know, a lot of people
45:02
Speaker 2: say when you're traveling with someone that is a very intense.
45:10
Speaker 2: I like to say crucible. You know, it's going to
45:12
Speaker 2: either make or break you. It's going to either forge
45:14
Speaker 2: you into something stronger or it's going to break you
45:16
Speaker 2: in the end. And I think that people often outweigh
45:20
Speaker 2: the breaking you side of it, at least in your head.
45:23
Speaker 2: Or that was what I did at the beginning every argument.
45:26
Speaker 2: I would think, Okay, this is either going to make
45:28
Speaker 2: or break us, and it feels like it's going to
45:30
Speaker 2: break us. And I was so worried that this was
45:33
Speaker 2: going to be the end of everything, the end of
45:35
Speaker 2: our travels, the end of us. But it wasn't a
45:40
Speaker 2: break moment. It was a building moment. All of them
45:44
Speaker 2: have been building moments and they've all been strengthening and
45:47
Speaker 2: I just need to remember that. And after eight and
45:50
Speaker 2: a half years, I feel so much more confident now
45:54
Speaker 2: than I did at the beginning, where I know that
45:57
Speaker 2: when we get into an argument, we're going to come
45:59
Speaker 2: out of it stronger, We're going to come out of
46:01
Speaker 2: it together, and it just reinforces our relationship as opposed
46:08
Speaker 2: to damages it. So that is something I try to keep.
46:12
Speaker 3: In mind and unders glad. Marissa is a very lovely
46:16
Speaker 3: woman and I'm very thankful to have her, and if
46:19
Speaker 3: her if we had matching egos, it would never work.
46:23
Speaker 3: So I'm glad that it's not that she gives in
46:26
Speaker 3: or anything, but she works at it. She pushes through
46:28
Speaker 3: some of the harder stuff and puts things into reality
46:32
Speaker 3: when like I can sometimes like emotionally shut down. So
46:36
Speaker 3: I got a good one.
46:38
Speaker 2: Thank you. Also, it's not just us as a couple
46:43
Speaker 2: that are the strains when traveling, but sometimes, as Tim said,
46:49
Speaker 2: we are experiencing things very differently and sometimes a certain
46:52
Speaker 2: place or situation will be really hard on one person,
46:56
Speaker 2: if not both of us. But usually one person is
46:59
Speaker 2: experienced something in a more negative way than the other one,
47:03
Speaker 2: and we have to acknowledge that. And we also have
47:07
Speaker 2: to acknowledge even if you're a solo traveler, sometimes you're
47:11
Speaker 2: not experiencing a place in the same positive way that
47:15
Speaker 2: other people you see online or other people you've talked
47:17
Speaker 2: to or your friends, they're like, oh, I loved it,
47:19
Speaker 2: Oh I had such a great time, so amazing, and
47:22
Speaker 2: you are not experiencing that, And that has happened to us.
47:26
Speaker 2: We feel like, am I going crazy? Like what is
47:31
Speaker 2: it that I'm missing? Is there something wrong with me
47:34
Speaker 2: that I am not having the time of my life
47:37
Speaker 2: like everyone else seems to be having. And I think
47:40
Speaker 2: that's just a reality of.
47:41
Speaker 4: Travel, Yeah, for sure.
47:43
Speaker 1: And just because some other person likes the place, it
47:48
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that because you have different tastes and interests
47:52
Speaker 1: and different things that you value or experience you want
47:57
Speaker 1: to experience. And so that's such a good reminder that
48:02
Speaker 1: you know, different places bring different things to different people,
48:07
Speaker 1: and you don't have to love them all or you know, yeah, yeah.
48:12
Speaker 2: That's right, especially for us. Since Tim is the driver
48:16
Speaker 2: of the motorcycle and I am just on the back.
48:21
Speaker 2: He's having an entirely different experience than I am in
48:25
Speaker 2: a country because he has to deal with that traffic
48:28
Speaker 2: and everything's about the traffic. During the day, He'll notice
48:32
Speaker 2: things and I'm just zoned out. I'm in my zen
48:35
Speaker 2: zone and I am, you know, thinking about the audio
48:38
Speaker 2: book that I'm listening to or something, and I'm just like, oh, yeah, whatever,
48:41
Speaker 2: that guy, Yeah, he's going too fast or you know,
48:43
Speaker 2: whatever it is, and he's experiencing it in a very
48:47
Speaker 2: different way, and so I need to acknowledge that whatever
48:52
Speaker 2: he's experiencing is one hundred percent valid. It is what's happening,
48:56
Speaker 2: and if it's make making him not have as good
49:02
Speaker 2: of a time, then I need to respond to that
49:05
Speaker 2: instead of thinking that's just ruining my time. We're in
49:09
Speaker 2: this together, we are a team, and we both need
49:12
Speaker 2: to be coming through it happy, and so I do
49:15
Speaker 2: work on that for trying to make sure that we
49:20
Speaker 2: see everything as a team together.
49:23
Speaker 1: That's a really great point, and thanks for sharing that.
49:28
Speaker 1: That's really good advice. So over the last two and
49:31
Speaker 1: a half years, you've been traveling around Southeast Asia. What
49:36
Speaker 1: is your advice to those folks that are interested in
49:40
Speaker 1: doing a similar journey.
49:41
Speaker 4: Do you have any advice or tips?
49:47
Speaker 3: I love.
49:51
Speaker 2: It is challenging. Loves it.
49:56
Speaker 3: If you're going to get a vehicle. We've had friends
49:58
Speaker 3: fly in from Australia with Aussie plated bikes or even
50:02
Speaker 3: the UK or the UK and some we were lucky
50:06
Speaker 3: enough to have a motorcycle or just a vehicle for
50:08
Speaker 3: that matter. If you have a van or whatnot, you know,
50:12
Speaker 3: if it's got plates from one of those four countries
50:16
Speaker 3: being Malaysia, Lao, Thailand and Campodia, it makes a lot easier.
50:21
Speaker 3: Not to say that it's difficult, or not to say
50:25
Speaker 3: that it's not impossible, but there are a couple more
50:28
Speaker 3: loops that are pretty well known at the borders of
50:32
Speaker 3: You may have to pay an extra two hundred and
50:34
Speaker 3: fifty bucks to get a quote unquote guide because that's
50:39
Speaker 3: just the rule of the land type thing. So there
50:42
Speaker 3: can be hiccups.
50:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, Thailand can be particularly tricky because if you have
50:49
Speaker 2: a vehicle that's outside of those four countries, then if
50:53
Speaker 2: you don't do the proper paperwork at least two weeks ahead,
50:55
Speaker 2: of time and pay whatever you need to pay, which
50:59
Speaker 2: can be quite expensive. Then it happens to people quite
51:02
Speaker 2: often that they arrive at the border from Malaysia or wherever,
51:07
Speaker 2: and they take your bike and leave it at the
51:09
Speaker 2: border for two weeks while you have to wait. And
51:13
Speaker 2: during those two weeks, that is two weeks of your
51:16
Speaker 2: visa time in Thailand, which is precious. It's a horrible situation,
51:21
Speaker 2: so you do definitely have to make sure you have
51:24
Speaker 2: all of that proper paperwork ahead of time. And then
51:28
Speaker 2: Vietnam is its own complete challenge. All of these countries
51:33
Speaker 2: are connected together, and you'd think you look at the
51:35
Speaker 2: map and you're like, oh, I can just do loops
51:37
Speaker 2: and loops and this is going to be awesome. But
51:40
Speaker 2: it is not South America where you just get tips
51:44
Speaker 2: in each country. It is much more difficult, and Vietnam
51:47
Speaker 2: basically makes it impossible for you to bring a foreign
51:51
Speaker 2: vehicle into the country. There are rumors that with enough
51:54
Speaker 2: paperwork and enough people, you know, in the government, it
51:57
Speaker 2: could be done. I think I've known anyone to do
52:01
Speaker 2: it that wasn't a Southeast Asian based motorcycle company. They
52:06
Speaker 2: make it pretty much impossible, So you have to rent
52:09
Speaker 2: a bike there if you would like to take a
52:11
Speaker 2: motorcycle through now, as far as big vehicles go, I
52:14
Speaker 2: do not know the specifics of that, but I assume
52:17
Speaker 2: that it is also difficult, and then getting in and
52:21
Speaker 2: out of Southeast Asia is its own challenge if you
52:23
Speaker 2: want to do that overland. Now, the most popular way
52:28
Speaker 2: to come in is through China, and there are these
52:32
Speaker 2: China groups where ride China or uh, I think drive
52:36
Speaker 2: China and.
52:37
Speaker 4: Road trip the China road trip.
52:39
Speaker 2: Yes exactly. There are different websites that you can find
52:43
Speaker 2: online where you join a group and that lowers the
52:45
Speaker 2: cost because you do need a minder. Technically you don't anymore.
52:51
Speaker 1: You don't need one anymore, yeah break news. Yeah, since
52:56
Speaker 1: uh late last year, you don't need to be a
52:59
Speaker 1: comeied by a guide.
53:00
Speaker 4: You can go through solo. So yeah, we knew. An
53:03
Speaker 4: Italian couple were the first one not on a motorcycle.
53:08
Speaker 1: But I don't know about motorcycles, but like vehicle four
53:12
Speaker 1: wheel drive were ban whatever, you can go by yourself.
53:15
Speaker 1: You just need a minder arranged by those companies at
53:19
Speaker 1: the border to get you in and out. But yeah, motorcycle,
53:23
Speaker 1: I'm assuming I think like, why wouldn't I don't know.
53:26
Speaker 3: I think it's the same.
53:27
Speaker 2: I think it is and we've heard this, but I
53:30
Speaker 2: did not know it was official. So that is really
53:33
Speaker 2: great to be like.
53:34
Speaker 3: I think the old was like you needed a minder
53:37
Speaker 3: and would take you everywhere. But the minders were like,
53:40
Speaker 3: I'm not going to follow you everywhere. I'm just going
53:42
Speaker 3: to meet you at the border and I'm going to
53:43
Speaker 3: meet you at the next border. And so that's what
53:44
Speaker 3: they've been doing unofficially for a while. But now they
53:48
Speaker 3: just made it official that the minder is not going
53:50
Speaker 3: to babysit you.
53:51
Speaker 2: So that is right.
53:53
Speaker 3: You know, that is awesome news because we are definitely
53:56
Speaker 3: going to be riding through China at some point.
53:58
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, wonderful news.
54:00
Speaker 1: And the other thing that's yeah, the other thing that's
54:03
Speaker 1: cool is folks were joining convoys to get the cost
54:07
Speaker 1: down of the guide and now you can go by yourself.
54:11
Speaker 1: Obviously it's fun to go as a convoy, that's great,
54:14
Speaker 1: but be able to being able to travel independently is
54:18
Speaker 1: is cool. So yeah, I've seen a lot of people
54:21
Speaker 1: going into Lao from China as well, and it's tricky
54:24
Speaker 1: at getting into Thailand, from there if you have a camper,
54:26
Speaker 1: I believe, but yeah, that's kind of the root.
54:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, a word of the wives. We met a person
54:34
Speaker 3: from China that went through Lao and then was on
54:37
Speaker 3: the Cambodia side when we were trying to get into Lao.
54:40
Speaker 3: It was his own vehicle. He drove through Lao, he
54:43
Speaker 3: went into Cambodia, messed around, and then was trying to
54:46
Speaker 3: get back up through Lao into China and they wouldn't
54:49
Speaker 3: let him in with his own car. They said, we
54:52
Speaker 3: need we do not allow Chinese vehicles in Lao, and
54:55
Speaker 3: he said, aha, but I've already ridden my Chinese vehicle
55:00
Speaker 3: to allow And he was asking me what do I do?
55:02
Speaker 3: What do I do? And I was like, brother, I'm
55:04
Speaker 3: very sorry, but I have zero information that I like.
55:08
Speaker 3: They won't even let me bring my bike in, But so, yeah,
55:12
Speaker 3: totally be careful and it maybe it was just another
55:15
Speaker 3: one of those give me eighty dollars.
55:16
Speaker 2: Bribes, but I think so that was that one horrible
55:20
Speaker 2: border They refuse everybody there, at least initially it was.
55:25
Speaker 3: And just the guy who technically quote unquote like you
55:29
Speaker 3: know whatever, the guy who bribed us. We had him
55:31
Speaker 3: on WhatsApp so we can talk back and forth to
55:33
Speaker 3: be like, hey, I have your paperwork, and like every
55:36
Speaker 3: six months ever since then he's like, hey, how are
55:38
Speaker 3: you doing. I hope you're doing well, and I'm just like,
55:40
Speaker 3: what the you know, if you have any friends coming
55:44
Speaker 3: through let me know. I'm like, oh, yeah, buddy, I'm
55:46
Speaker 3: sure you.
55:48
Speaker 4: Amazing. Well that's good advice.
55:52
Speaker 1: So basically overall, know the restrictions, have your paperwork in order,
55:57
Speaker 1: and sounds like have have a good time.
56:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I do think like South America there weren't too
56:05
Speaker 3: many hiccups. Africa there weren't too many hiccups, and there
56:08
Speaker 3: were hiccups, but just every time we've had a situation
56:12
Speaker 3: where it took a little bit more than just give
56:14
Speaker 3: you the thing, You stamp the thing, you take the
56:15
Speaker 3: thing back, you go to the next window, you give
56:17
Speaker 3: your passport, they stamp the passport. Like every country we've
56:22
Speaker 3: gone to has been absolutely worth it, even like countries
56:26
Speaker 3: that were like, hey, I probably want to ever go
56:28
Speaker 3: back there again, you know, but like wouldn't have not
56:31
Speaker 3: gone to it if given the chance. So in Southeast
56:34
Speaker 3: Asia is just a block of wonderful culture, food, wildlife,
56:41
Speaker 3: just ancient temples, new temples, wonderful people, epic, twisty paved,
56:46
Speaker 3: perfect roads. It's just it has a huge combination of
56:52
Speaker 3: a lot of positives. And to get to some of
56:54
Speaker 3: those positives you got to bump off a few walls.
56:57
Speaker 3: But don't don't let it. Don't let the one guy
56:59
Speaker 3: in Llow. You know you probably will make a career
57:02
Speaker 3: there doing well, but don't let our scary story of
57:05
Speaker 3: this one dude be like, oh, well, I'm not going
57:08
Speaker 3: to go there anymore. Yeah, totally, it's all worth it,
57:12
Speaker 3: and we just call it road tex. The motorcycles don't
57:15
Speaker 3: have to pay tolls in Southeast Asia, so we just
57:18
Speaker 3: collect all of what we would have assumed we would
57:20
Speaker 3: have paid it on a toll in the States, and
57:22
Speaker 3: we just give it to one guy who doesn't deserve it.
57:24
Speaker 4: But that's okay, all good.
57:26
Speaker 1: Well. I so appreciate you guys sharing your experience in
57:30
Speaker 1: this region. I'm sure it's been very helpful and lightening
57:33
Speaker 1: entertaining to all the listeners. Tell me a little bit
57:36
Speaker 1: about when your tours are because you're running a couple
57:40
Speaker 1: you mentioned, and also where we can find you online.
57:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, we started doing our motorcycle tours in Borneo, which
57:49
Speaker 2: is amazing, and now we have just begun our Thailand
57:56
Speaker 2: motorcycle tour, which is really cool because it does the
57:59
Speaker 2: main some loop in the north, which is amazing. It's
58:04
Speaker 2: so gorgeous and it's got a zillion curves, thousands of curves.
58:07
Speaker 2: But then we also go down to the south where
58:10
Speaker 2: we're on the beaches, which is also entirely amazing and
58:16
Speaker 2: very needed after all those miles on a motorcycle in.
58:18
Speaker 3: The north and kind of what you know, without being
58:21
Speaker 3: too sales pitchy, but just kind of like there's a
58:23
Speaker 3: lot of tours in Thailand for sure, but like our
58:25
Speaker 3: little kind of stick is we want to do like
58:30
Speaker 3: five days of epic riding and twisting and watching beautiful roads.
58:34
Speaker 3: We go to the highest points and we see Long
58:36
Speaker 3: Neck Village. We have all these activities, but then we
58:39
Speaker 3: get off the bikes. We fly to a little island
58:43
Speaker 3: resort and then we just chill and like I personally
58:46
Speaker 3: don't get many petties, but it's definitely many pettyville and
58:49
Speaker 3: it's just relaxed and orkill go to caves. So it's
58:52
Speaker 3: kind of the best of the best. It's not just
58:54
Speaker 3: like cranking the throttle and you're like, look at that
58:56
Speaker 3: one thing and what we've noticed, like on some other tours,
58:59
Speaker 3: you know, it's like here's an old bridge and it's
59:01
Speaker 3: just on their website and you stop there because it's
59:04
Speaker 3: just another thing to go see. But like, we just
59:06
Speaker 3: picked out the best of the best and we love it.
59:08
Speaker 3: It's been incredible. You can check out all the tour
59:11
Speaker 3: offerings that we have at two Up and Overloaded dot com.
59:15
Speaker 3: That's the number two up and overloaded dot com. And yeah,
59:20
Speaker 3: we'd love to show off this part of the world,
59:23
Speaker 3: you know, payoff, everything's all inclusive, and yeah, it's it's
59:28
Speaker 3: been really fun. We've had a lot of success, a
59:31
Speaker 3: lot of smiles from people, and it makes seeing somebody
59:35
Speaker 3: experience the same thing that you thought was the best
59:37
Speaker 3: thing in the world also have that same feeling is
59:41
Speaker 3: really incredible. And that's also relates just to mercenize regular
59:45
Speaker 3: travels as well. When I see something that is so
59:48
Speaker 3: incredible and they get to look over at my wife
59:50
Speaker 3: and she's got that same look of honor her face,
59:53
Speaker 3: it's really nice.
59:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, and our favorite thing in the whole world is
59:58
Speaker 2: the motorcycle community. I mean and the overlanding community because
1:00:02
Speaker 2: they are just the coolest people, these travelers, and in
1:00:06
Speaker 2: order to really enhance an experience, it's all about the people.
1:00:10
Speaker 2: And so for us to have these tours and to
1:00:13
Speaker 2: be able to meet fellow travelers and ride with them,
1:00:16
Speaker 2: that is the greatest thing about everything that we do.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: Yay, that's so great, and I wish you guys all
1:00:25
Speaker 1: the best going forward with your tours and going to
1:00:30
Speaker 1: Japan and coming back to the US and book sales,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: because I think we mentioned last.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: Time look at Tim it's a whole life copy.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am holding up a book, one of Tim
1:00:46
Speaker 1: No Tears books here.
1:00:48
Speaker 4: So they can find the listeners can find.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: Tim's books at the same website to up and overloaded
1:00:53
Speaker 1: dot com and also to get to know you guys
1:00:56
Speaker 1: a bit more if you haven't checked out the first podcast,
1:00:59
Speaker 1: we'll do a link in the show notes to that
1:01:01
Speaker 1: because it gives a little bit more of a background
1:01:03
Speaker 1: on how you guys met, came together and did your
1:01:07
Speaker 1: first few trips together.
1:01:09
Speaker 2: Yay.
1:01:10
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys so much for joining me today.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: It's been pleasure catching up with you.
1:01:14
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, no, we always have fun getting to trade
1:01:19
Speaker 3: our stories and it's good to see your face. So
1:01:21
Speaker 3: we wish that we could be doing the whole Overland
1:01:24
Speaker 3: Exposed circuits and stuff too, seeing some of our old friends,
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Speaker 3: but it's really nice to visually to reconnect and chat.
1:01:31
Speaker 2: Yes, it's been so nice to reconnect with you. Yay.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys, and we'll catch up soon. And
1:01:39
Speaker 1: shout out to the Overland Journal podcast listeners for tuning
1:01:42
Speaker 1: into today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it and we
1:01:46
Speaker 1: will catch you next time.