possum fur loin cloth clad blind man riding a deer‏

Now answer me seriously!  When was the last time you drove by one of those diamond shaped glowing yellow road signs proclaiming; 'Deer Crossing Nest Mile', 'Caution Possum Xing' or the bizarre ones 'Blind Person Ahead' and you actually saw one of these?

I'm guessing probably never, me either.  The signs actually seem kind of pointless in a way, yeah of course you do eventually see them but never directly after passing a sign when you should be alert.  In fact you are probably more likely to come across a possum fur loin cloth clad blind man riding a deer exactly the farthest you could be from any Caution sigh, face it the is just how the world works.  I'm betting the signs don't even register in most peoples minds when they pass them.  

At least this is how I've always felt up until yesterday.......

As you know, originally our plan was to start in Bangkok and head south, sticking to the less populated and so presumably less traphized east coast the entire length of the peninsula to Singapore.  And so the riding started and went and we had great days and miserable ones and we ate exotic food and toxic food, slept in saggy beds and saggier beds and got lost and asked directions and were promptly pointed on our way.  Yet some free advice that always came with the directions and was dished out like an unwanted side of frozen mashed peas at the local cafeteria was this, 'Do Not go through the last 3 provinces of Thailand that boarder Malaysia, there are extremest blowing shit up everywhere, it is dangerous, just don't go.  Yah Yah Yah, heard it all before, everyone is scared of their neighbors we thought and so basically just ignored the un-appetizing side dish.  Though there was something markedly different about it then what you usually hear, that it was Thai's telling us to stay out of parts of their own country not someone else's. hum...

And we continued to ignore the mashed peas until maybe the 10th time they had been freely slopped in our face when we thought, 'hold on a minute, maybe it isn't worth the risk, we can still get to Malaysia and skip out on those three states if we just make our way over to the west coast.  So what if we have to cross the dividing range twice, that's what our low gears are for right?

The first crossing was pretty easy, (you may remember i did throw up) we were able to do it in one long day.  But getting back to the east coast proved to be a bit more work as the Malaysian part of the peninsula is considerably wider and more mountainous.  As in it took 4 long days a total of 440km basically climbing from sea level to 3000ft and back down again 3 separate times.  

Sooo... after our second long day of non stop uphill sweating we come to...get this...yes!  A glowing yellow diamond shaped road sign.  One like neither of us have seen before, instead of a deer riding possum clad blind man there it has got a picture of an....Elephant!  The sign looks so ridiculous we snap a photo.  But low and behold 100m on we start spying elephant droppings off the side of the road.  In its self is historical whether you are a poo fanatic or not as they are the size of you head.  "Can you imagine if we actually saw a wild elephant?"  "No i really can't, it would be........."

CRASH BOOM BANG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over our left shoulders we witness a gigantic tree toppling over in the nearby jungle, taking out other trees on its way down.  Only the Crashing Booming and Banging doesn't stop once the tree is down...

There is absolutely no question in either of our minds as to what is causing the destruction, the question is; do we pedal as hard as we can uphill, spin 180 and fly back down or do we jump off our bikes and see if he is friendly?

Dropping my bike i run back a little ways and peer into the thick dark green overgrown undergrowth.  HOLLY FING-HAM SHITTING-HAM i mouth to Rachael while waving my arms around like a historical maniac (mind you she is still standing over her bicycle one foot clipped in ready to bolt, lets say she is slightly more hesitant then her insano husband to find out what is bashing around out there)

Unmistakably we see an enormous elephant, tusks and all, out there in the jungle, and he is battle ramming trees apparently just because he can.  The sight, though only for a couple of seconds was otherworldly, right there in front of us is and honest to goodness 100percent pure wild elephant.  Nothing like seeing one in the zoo where you feel amazed and guilty at the same time, instead we just stood there jaw dropped and grinning.  That was for about 10 seconds until we heard another elephant off the right side of the road.  I ran over, saw nothing but lots and lots of poo, decided one siting a day was plenty, so jumped on our bikes and got moving.

I could not get over it, we had just seen a wild elephant who living right there in the jungle, and his parents and their parents before them had been wild elephants all the way back to the days of the woolly mammoth and mastodon era i imagined.  Wow!  How lucky are we!

A minute of reflection passes and we approach the steepest hill of the day, there is no need to speak, we are both thinking the very same thing, 'is this Fing-Ham mountain range ever....'

CRASH, CRASH, CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!

Spinning, over my right shoulder this time, and only 10 feet off the edge of the road, i absolutely can not believe my eyes, i must be delirious, there are 3 baby elephants, lined up, tail to trunk, making quick mad dashes and then hiding in the brush.  "Holly Fing-HAM Fing-HAM Fing-HAM" comes out loud this time! "Did you Fing-HAM see that?  3 baby elephants!!"

"Ahhhhh, no" exclames  Rachael, white faced and obviously petrified, "those were three Fing-HAM HUGE Boars with tusks not trunks!  What in the Fing-HAM Helling-HAM do we do?"

'RIDE LIKE HELL' I SHOUT, as is shift up a couple of gears standing to pedal with everything i've got left.  

So...Slow down next time you see and animal Xing sign, you never know who's around the next bend

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