Foreign Tour Operators Flood Phuket, Taking Jobs from Locals

[BigBikeBKK]

5 bikes , some 4WD’s and 2500 km of Kalimantan wilderness along the Equator.

Unbelievable!!!

[Nignoy]

Oh whupp de doo , there are still a few few of us knocking about that did the same thing in in the 60,s on foot!! carrying everything we needed including bundook and ammo because there was a bit of a war going on, would love too go back and try it all again for fun but there is a god ,I was sent from borneo direct to sunny Isaan for 3 years of Lurve ,Laterite and Laokhao

[nikster]

Nearly finished this report... I guess there's adventure, and there's sheer stupidity, this one falls squarely in the latter category

It makes for an awesome, awesome story. It also makes me really glad I wasn't there to witness it. I wish one of those guys had used a Honda Wave to do this though because I think it would probably fare better than the dirt bikes. Lighter to pull up the hills, etc. I'd be up for this in one of the 4x4s - it would be super tough. But on a bike, I don't know, it seems like sheer madness.

There's a lot about technical 4x4 driving in there that I didn't know. Very interesting, sounds a bit like technical big wall climbing, except with cars.

Feelin' stuck?

Edited June 30, 2010 by nikster

[Garry]

Oh whupp de doo , there are still a few few of us knocking about that did the same thing in in the 60,s on foot!! carrying everything we needed including bundook and ammo because there was a bit of a war going on, would love too go back and try it all again for fun but there is a god ,I was sent from borneo direct to sunny Isaan for 3 years of Lurve ,Laterite and Laokhao

Slogging it on foot is definitely a bitch, but getting heavy vehicles through the same shit is just as bad if not worse. I've seen some of the old photo stills of diggers having a nightmare time in Vietnam dragging vehicles and shit through bogs. So give the guys a break, they're having fun and busting their backs doing it.

[ScubaBuddha]

That's what I call taking a "dirt nap". Who do none of them wear helmets?

But not this guy...he lives by the old adage, "Always wear a hat when you go wenching.

Edited June 30, 2010 by ScubaBuddha

[nikster]

As crazy as this whole trip is, the guys on the bikes also seem particularly unprepared. When i was trekking in the wilderness id have 100 or so chlorine pills so as long as you find a stream you never run out of drinking water. Water seems kind of a basic thing to take care of first.

[BigBikeBKK]

I'm not saying this is the kind of "adventure trip" I'd like to do, but wow, what a fascinating read and amazing pictures- I had no idea 4WD trucks could conquer that kind or terrain- those guys are NUTS! I just couldn't stop reading and stayed up till the wee hours as I had to know how it ended.

[JohnLeech]

So give the guys a break, they're having fun and busting their backs doing it.

So they had fun - nothing wrong with that at all, and good luck to them. Its just a pity that, as with so many of these things, there's such a vast gap between hype and reality:

"the first expedition to attempt an offroad crossing from the east coast to the west coast of Indonesian Kalimantan. ......Apparently we were to be the first motorized vehicles in this and many other areas for 25 years !! "

They averaged over 150 kms a day, for two weeks, on roads and tracks 90% of which were (and are) used every day by the locals - mainly on battered Honda Waves and the equivalent; as anyone who has spent any time in rain forest will know, the idea that you can manage anything like that sort of distance on tracks that are not in regular use is simply laughable. The few extreme "technical" bits were simply photo shoots and fun.

Its rather reminiscent of Blashford-Snell's much publicised crossing of the Darien Gap; a great trip, but while he was building rafts in the "wilderness" for his balloon-tyred Land Rovers the locals were looking on bemused from the ferry 100 yards up-river, taking their light-weight Toyotas and Suzukis off into the same "impassable" jungle for their regular bbq's and pig shoots.

Bare Grylls rules!!

Edited June 30, 2010 by JohnLeech

[Nignoy]

seems like they had a ball, imagine 60,s thailand,a group of knackered Royal engineers get off the tank transporter docked in Bkk harbour, unload their plant equipment and the drive it northeast to a small village 100kms northeast of ubon , no tarred roads east of Korat just luvlly laterite, and the bridges were ratshit too , the odd one collapsed and got rebuilt, was fun, will publish some piccies if required!!

[Nignoy]

seems like they had a ball, imagine 60,s thailand,a group of knackered Royal engineers get off the tank transporter docked in Bkk harbour, unload their plant equipment and the drive it northeast to a small village 100kms northeast of ubon , no tarred roads east of Korat just luvlly laterite, and the bridges were ratshit too , the odd one collapsed and got rebuilt, was fun, will publish some piccies if required!!