This page is mostly for people interested in traveling SE Asia as well. On it you can find a list of Resources (sources we used to research our trip), and Equipment (stuff we brought along). We hope this helps you in any way it can. Feel free to email us for personalized advice.

Resources

Guide Books

To go on a trip like we are independently would be pretty much impossible if it were not for guide books. Any time you depend on a guide book you are putting yourselves at the mercy of the book and the perspecitive of the author, but most of the time that seems better than nothing. We are using Lonely Planet Guides. This doesn't bring with it unqualified approval but Lonely Planet guides seem to be written by people who care for the countries they are writing about and who present the country in such a way that you can experience it without damaging it. Of course this a debatable subject. For more on the pros and cons of the Lonely Planet click here.

A second guide book we haven't purchased but have used for our research is The Rough Guide. The Rough guide publishes all of its content on its web site which you can access here.

URLs

Bicycling SE Asia

Mr. Pumpy - http://www.netspace.net.au/~mrfelix/bsa/

Trackster - http://www.btinternet.com/~peteajones/SEAsia/intro.htm

VeloAsia - a commercial site with interesting stories about biking - http://www.veloasia.com/

VeloAsia Resources - http://www.veloasia.com/resource.html

Velo Asia Stories - http://www.veloasia.com/stories.html

Jan Boonstra Cycling pages - http://bora.dacom.co.kr/~boonstra/cindex.htm

Eric and Joan's World Trip - http://www.ericandjoan.com/quiklink.htm

Bikes and Airplanes

George Farnsworths Excellet Site - http://www.bikeaccess.net/default.cfm

Country guides

Lonely Planet - www.lonelyplanet.com/

Guides for Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia can all be found at the Lonely Planet.

Peter Geisler - The Internet Guide to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia -http://www.pmgeiser.ch/

Volunteering

ServiceLink - The volunteer arm of the CRWRC

Equipment

Bikes

All of us are using Specialized Mountain bikes. Dan and Sarah have RockHopper Comps, Jon and Deb both have RockHoppers. All of us have replace the standard tyres with Specialized Armadilo slick tires. The slick tyres certainly do make the bike a lot more acceptable as a touring bike. We have one cycle computer between the four bikes to keep track of our progress. Some other adjustment we have made to our bike are thanks to our sponsor Cross Country Cycle and include handlebar ends, kickstands and some other accessories.

Luggage

All of us have attached racks to our bikes to carry our panniers. We are using Vaude Roadmaster panniers that cost $60 in the winter of 2002. They are quite easy to take on and off our bikes. Sarah has a Road Master front handle bar bag that has a waterproof map display. Dan is using a Jansport backpack to carry the laptop computer.

Gadgets

To record the sights and our observations we are taking a digital camera and a laptop computer. To process our pictures, record our observations, and update our homepage we have our IBM Thinkpad with us. It is a little heavy but it's usefulness for keeping us in touch makes it worth it. The digital camera is the Sony P1 which is a year old and already a little outdated. It is tiny, easy to carry and takes great pictures. At least outdoors. The camera also functions like a floppy disk drive as we can save picture and html files directly to the memory stick on the camera, then bring the camera to the Internet cafe where we hook up our camera and send the files on their merry little way.

More advice

This is a run down of some of the equipment we are using. It is by no means exhaustive. For a more detailed list of equipment and things to pack check out Mr. Pumpy's FAQ.