I spent 4 months biking in SE Asia in 2002. More information can be found at my site and on my friends site.

How to Bike (in SE Asia)

Planning

Planning should start many months in advance for your trip. Biking in a less developed country is very different than biking where you know the roads, the language, and the culture.

Guide books are essential for learning where to go, what to bring, and how to do it. Lonely Planet makes some great guides, and they even have one specifically about biking in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Route

We decided to take a kind of clockwise route going from Indonesia to Thailand to Laos to Vietnam to Cambodia and ending in Bangkok. This worked out quite well as can be seen on our maps.

Equipment

The four of us on our trip each had about 35 lbs of stuff with us. Most of this was clothes, spare parts, and tools. We each had a Specialized Rockhopper with two rear panniers. We started with two handlebar bags as well, but one was lost 4 weeks into the trip. We missed it since it was nice to store sunscreen, a camera, and snacks for the day in here.

For more information see our detailed packing list.

Training

If you are in good shape you should be fine. We rode shorter distances the first two weeks and rode our way into shape. There is no training for the hot humid weather there, unless you can train somewhere near the equator.

Misc.

We brought our bikes with us on the plane on the way there in bike boxes, but on the way home we just removed the pedals and let some air out of the tires and wheeled them to the baggage check. They asked if we brought them there that way and we said yes, and off they went. There was no damage when we picked them up, but we did have to go through agricultural inspection since they were quite muddy and there was a mad cow scare.

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