From Singapore I took a train to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and stayed just a few hours. I had enough of the city life in Singapore so I took a bus up to island of Penang (the fourth largest bridge in Southeast Asia connects it to the mainland), the colonial capital. Penang was okay - lots of culture, languages, and neat architecture, but still very busy.

At the hostel I was staying at I met a guy who was riding my same bike, BMW 650 Dakar and we became pretty good friends. He was a forty something English fellow. I also met another guy on his motorcycle. This was a guy from Belgium, late twenties, and he rode a small thirty year old 150cc motorcycle. He went from Belgium, all across Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, and shipped his bike over to Bangkok, Thailand and headed south. I thought I had balls until I met this guy. His motorcycle can hardly go 50 miles an hour and it looked like a scooter. I don't know how he fit his bags on it. He was headed to Australia and I told him he'll have trouble with the distances across the outback because of his small tank. He smiled and said 'I'll manage'. I didn't doubt him.

After a couple days in Penang I took a boat up to Langkawi Island and chilled on the beach for a few days at this backpacker central spot. I met a few guys there and we rented a couple cars for the day. They were English style stick shifts so the driver's seat was on the right hand side. I took a turn and drove about five kilometers and decided it wasn't a good idea. We went around the whole island. We visited some waterfalls that cascade down smooth rocks and we invented an awesome 'rock-slide', like the Slip 'n Slide from my childhood.

I went with a friend on a bus ride over to the Perhentian Islands on the east coast after Langkawi and hung out there for a while but soon got tired of the beach. I can only stand the beach-bum life for so long before it starts to get old. I prefer mountains over beaches.

Anyways, I flew back to Singapore and spent some more days there hanging out with new friends and trying desperately to get my motorcycle out of Customs. They wouldn't accept my paperwork from the USA and told me I was allowed to import my motorcycle but not allowed to ride it. What?

Bob and Wayne I met for only one day in Singapore and they had no problems getting their bikes out. I, however, spent several days there trying to fight the system to no avail. I ended up getting a tow truck driver take me from the port in the south to the bridge that connects Singapore and Malaysia. Malaysia was a breeze to get into.

I went straight up to Kuala Lumpur and was stunned to see how rich people were. I figured Malaysia would be a third world country. I thought wrong. They have so much expendable income. People were driving Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari and other expensive cars all down the road. I met a friend at the hostel there and we visited the Petronus Towers. I think they are the tallest buildings in the world, or they were, and have a massive bridge connecting the two. They were featured in that movie Entrapment with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The towers are quite a site in the evening, lit up and all.

We went out to a club one night because the hostel owner was friends with the owner of the club and we all got free drinks. All the girls there were tall Eastern European and Russian models that are featured on the shampoo commercials or something that requires tall, hot, anorexic, white girls. Apparently companies want the face Westerners on the product instead of Asians for some reason. Anyways, they were all several inches taller than I was and never smiled so I didn't talk to them. I don't know where that story was going but I just thought I should mention it for some reason. Anyways.

In Kuala Lumpur I got the bike serviced because it was overheating on the way up. So the bike was all clean and tuned up when I picked it up from the BMW shop and I headed north. Bob and Wayne were already days ahead of me and I wanted to catch up. I had already visited a few places in Malaysia so it wouldn't be completely out of reality to just head straight for Thailand, and that's what I did.

I took the main highway north and entered Thailand a couple days later. There are only a couple things I want to do in Thailand:

Number one is go rock climbing in Railay. The sheer cliffs that peak out from the water is world renown for rock climbing and I've seen a few rock climbing videos that were filmed here.

Number two on the list for Thailand was to go t