Some of the best ideas are born of boredom. As are some of the worst.

Back in France, over these last many months, my brother has been fighting his way through the French motorcycle test and accreditation system. As a late comer to the sport, it's been a bit of an uphill struggle for him, or more accurately, a bit of a wobble, but he's almost there, just waiting on the French examiners to get back from their annual four weeks summer vacation......after four months of lockdown.

Back in Rebak, listening to his tales and exhausted from preparing a fresh boat jobs list, I whiled away too many boat job hours pointlessly watching YouTube videos of folk hooning around the Alps on their various high powered rice rockets. And that set a worm free; oddly, in Anne's head.

"You could go on a motorcycle tour of Malaysia and I'll go and stay with my sister in KL". So motivated was she by the prospect of A) getting shot of me for a week and B) having unlimited spa days with Dawn, that she got online that same evening, searching for a motorbike tours company, or indeed anyone, that would take me away for a while.

Motorcycling isn't that big in Malaysia apparently, other than of course about thirty million scooters, ridden by folk with not a care in the world and I suspect little sense of direction, concept of traffic laws, or indeed consequences. Online, Anne could only find two companies. One was shut down for Covid and the other was on ice, not doing tours but hey, you could rent one of our bikes. And that's where it all backfired.

So joined at the hip are we, the poor woman's conscience wouldn't let me head off on my own. So, despite saying, after our seven week, seven thousand mile, two wheeled tour of New Zealand a couple of years ago that she'd never do it again, she reluctantly but valiantly climbed on the back of Malaysian Motorcycle Getaways, Kawasaki 650 for a week touring the kampongs, roadside cafes and Hyatt Regencies of Malaysia.

Like my brother, I've been through some quite taxing motorcycle training courses, including a morning with the police; riding, not in handcuffs. I'm therefore imbued with a UK bike riders mentality. So, despite the fact that by just gone breakfast, it's over thirty degrees and seventy plus humidity, we don our Kevlar lined jeans, armoured jackets, helmets, ear plugs, gloves and boots. We lose about 2kg every ride, so it's not all bad.

We must look like astronauts to the locals in all that clobber while they gaily zoom around with the traffic, against the traffic and across the traffic and whose idea of personal protective clothing is a pair of flip-flops, T-shirt, baseball cap and for reasons we don't yet understand, a jacket worn backwards. From what I've heard, usually at 05:45 at every morning call to prayer, I suspect most of their protection is believed to come from on high.

Me, I'll put my faith in Kevlar, leather and comprehensive insurance.