Raffles to Raffles: the Route So Far

It’s 30th March, it’s my birthday, and I’m in Phnom Penh. Arne and I have just enjoyed a very ample Chinese Sunday lunch at the Gold Fish River Restaurant, a fairly ethnic joint beside the broad Tonle Sap river. The whole bill was just $36, including several cans of Tiger.

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, a spacious city largely built by the French. In 1975, the Marxist-Stalinist fanatic Pol Pot cleared out the supposedly effete urban population and massacred all those with any education or other bourgeois symptoms, men, women, children and babies alike. For three years the city was empty, a ghost town, many of its fine buildings wrecked. Undesirable inhabitants were massacred at the killing fields of Choeung Ek, which we visited this morning - a place for reflection

Wonderfully, this is now a heartening city to visit, lively, bustling, friendly, cosmopolitan even; a tribute to the indomitable spirit of the human race. Thirty years on, a new generation of young Cambodians are putting the past behind them.

We are staying at one of the grand old palace hotels of the far east, Le Royal, built early last century, and now lavishly restored and rechristened Raffles Le Royal.

Our journey began more than three weeks ago at the original and even more sumptuous Raffles Hotel in Singapore, when we set off in our faithful Mitzi, one of the two Mitsubushi L200s currently owned by HERO 4x4xplore. This one, RX06 EXF, has already done duty as sweep car on the Great Tour of China, La Aventura Panamericana and the Grand Tour of India, so she is well run in by now.

Mitzi on the event Start Line, Arne proudly pointing out the Swedish flag

My driver, Arne Hertz, is of course the very celebrated co-driver for the likes of Hannu Mikkola, Björn Waldegård, Ove Andersson, Stig Blomqvist and others, winner of five RAC Rallies and three East African Safaris. In the evenings, he entertains me endlessly with tales of the great old days.

Also riding with us are a succession of local representatives of Diethelm VIP Travel, our Bangkok-based tour operating partners. As well as being good company, they act as interpreters, reading signs in strange scripts and asking locals the way, and as founts of knowledge, adding greatly to our understanding.

Thanks to good work by the local representative of our shipping agents, CARS UK, collection of our vehicle in Singapore was on time and painless. There is a fair amount of bureaucracy, but all the paperwork had been set up in advance and we just sailed through.

Singapore is an island state not much bigger than the Isle of Wight, yet is one of the world’s economic powerhouses, a spotless place of skyscrapers and expressways, in which Raffles is a haven of old fashioned peace. We had a drink in the bar in which the last tiger in Singapore was reputedly shot. The hotel management were very cooperative in arranging for the event to start from the front of the hotel, and to set aside parking spaces in their large underground car park.

The bridge that takes us into Malaysia is less than half an hour away. We had planned a route up the coast road to Malacca, but this proves slow and not especially attractive, so we opt instead for a quick run up the pleasant expressway and a few hours in the afternoon to explore this fascinating little city.

Malacca was successively a trading outpost for the imperial Chinese, the Portuguese and the Dutch, before becoming part of the British Empire. All these cultures have left their mark; we choose a traditional restaurant specialising in the local version of Chinese food for the event’s first dinner on the road. Our hotel, the Majestic, is a very pleasant surprise: behind a well restored merchant’s mansion is a modern boutique hotel with beautifully accoutred rooms.

Multicultural Malacca: Portuguese fort...

... Dutch house...

... and Chinese street

Next day, another short expressway run brings us into Kuala Lumpur, one of Asia’s great cities, with an afternoon free to explore the shopping malls, filled with high quality merchandise of all kinds. Our hotel is the superb Mandarin Oriental, in the shadow of the awesome Petronas Towers.

We dine at sunset in the revolving restaurant of the KL Tower, or Menala KL, about a kilometre away. Although at 421m (1,403 ft) this building is not as tall as the Petronas Towers (452m), we are higher here than the highest public area of the latter. The views are superb, watching the city lights come on - the food is pretty good, too!

KL Tower

Next day is another short run, north along the expressway then up a twisting highway into the green cool Cameron Highlands, an area of hill stations and tea plantations. We stop to watch children splashing in a mountain cascade and have a lunch break at a very English half-timbered lakeside hotel. We stay at the Cameron Highlands Resort, another high quality boutique hotel, run by the same people as the Majestic.

Cameron Highlands

There are plenty of things to do here, including golf, guided walks and an interesting drive to the top of a nearby mountain, but sadly we couldn’t find any 4x4 trails - in fact, the generally excellent condition of roads everywhere, and lack of mountains, has so far been one of our few disappointments (but I gather that northern Thailand and Vietnam will make up for it!)

The next morning, we return on a fast scenic new road to the coastal plain, where we visit a number of interesting sights: Kellie’s Castle, a flamboyant folly built by a colourful expat; a series of caves containing Buddhist temples; Kuala Kangsur, the lovely old royal capital of Selangor, with its palace complex and magnificent mosque; a touching orang utan rehabilitation project; and one or two others. Finally we cross the 8km bridge to Penang Island, and discover a very attractive hilly route around its west coast.

Kellie’s Castle

Mitzi and Mosque, Kuala Kangsur

Orang Utan Preservation Centre

We also discover a superb beach hotel, the Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort, which is in every way superior to the slightly disappointing Eastern and Oriental in Georgetown city, and book it for the event. We suspect that many participants will pass up the sightseeing and opt for a fast run up the expressway to chill out here. Our evening meal will be a beachside barbecue.

Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort, Penang

From here, it’s a long day’s drive north to Krabi, but the roads are fast and it’s a fairly easy run. Participants will have to leave early to escape the horrific rush hour on the Penang bridge, and in little more than a couple of hours they will have covered the 185km to the Thailand border. Once again, formalities are quick and easy.

We are immediately aware of being in another country. Malaysia is just a little buttoned up, but Thailand has a much more easy going air. In both countries, though, all the roads are of excellent quality.

We try a few roads towards the coast without success, so opt instead for the Route of the Waterfalls. This 65km loop through interesting countryside is our first taste of Thai secondary roads: fast and empty. We visited three or four of the advertised waterfalls, but only one was really worth it. As we progress through Thailand, it becomes clear from the plethora of signposts to them that waterfalls of any size and description are a national obsession.

Near Trang, we do find a minor road out to the coast, and run alongside the sea for about 30km of beautiful unspoilt coastline, exactly like the ads: palm-fringed pale sand, blue sea, green islands, fishing villages on stilts where craftsmen make boats by hand in the traditional way.

Unspoiled Thai coast near Trang

Traditional boat-building

Just before Krabi town, we make a detour to Tiger Cave Temple, the centre of a thriving Buddhist cult, where a vast concrete stupa is nearing completion. Tiger Cave itself is tiny; below it, in the wide shallow cave called the “meeting hall”, the faithful pray to a large gold Buddha.

We skirt Krabi to the embarkation point for the boats to Rayavadee, and are please to see the large modern reception hall and secure car park. We boarded the speedboat direct from the beach, but arrangements for participants may vary according to the state of the tide at time of arrival.

Rayavadee isn’t an island, but it is inaccessible by road. It occupies a low-lying isthmus between great karst rocks which together form a promontory, and has three beaches at different points, as well as a lovely pool. The rooms are individual cottages, with a bedroom upstairs and sitting room below. It is a truly idyllic spot at which to spend a rest day, just chilling out.

Rayavadee beach...

... and cottages

 
We find a lovely route northwards up the coast from Rayavadee, avoiding the busy main road for about 70km. Our next stop is karst-studded Phang Nga Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site made famous by the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun - in particular, the stack now known as James Bond Island. It’s a three to four hour boat trip in a long tail canoe.

James Bond Island

This wonderful device marries a traditional canoe shape, with a slender high pointed bow, to a propeller mounted directly on to the end of a long shaft. This is driven by a big old six-cylinder truck diesel engine mounted on a bevel, the whole lot being moved side to side or up and down by the helmsman. The hundred-plus horsepower provides bags of oomph, and at speed leaves in our wake a great elegant arc of water.

Long-tail canoe

The trip is great fun, taking us through narrow mangrove creeks and low caves cut through the karsts by the sea, and includes a lunch halt at a Moslem village on stilts (including a gold-domed mosque). The seafood meal is superb.

Lunch stop, Phang Nga Bay

From here, it’s an easy run into Phuket. Here again, we spent a lot of time looking at alternatives, finally deciding against struggling through the traffic to our original choice of Cape Panwa Hotel, which we also suspect may have changed a little since Leonardo diCaprio checked out. On balance, too, the urbanisation and congestion outweighed the scenic parts of the run next morning up the west coast of Phuket Island, so we have changed our accommodation to the excellent modern Sheraton Grande Laguna Resort, in the north of the island. Participants should now be able to arrive in time for a dip in the pool.

Sheraton Grande Laguna Resort, Phuket

Continuing north, we take the pleasant and quiet main Route 4 up the coast to Ranong. Here we do a short detour along the shore, where there is a good view across the water to Myanmar (Burma), before taking a well surfaced, twisty and hilly minor road across the isthmus to the Gulf of Thailand coast. Using Google Earth, we discover a very useful short cut to our hotel, the excellent Novotel beach resort at Chumphon.

From here we were delighted to discover a lovely route northwards, hugging the coast for 150km on excellent fast roads not properly shown on any map (although discernible on Google Earth). We saw very little traffic, passing through farming and fishing areas and a few charming little resorts. In one of these we had a super fish meal at a quiet beach restaurant. Towards the end of the stretch, we discovered a huge golden Buddha, high on a promontory looking out to sea. Later, we made another detour into the Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, with unusual scenery and some interesting wildlife.

Coast north of Chumphon

Giant Buddha. looking out to sea

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