2011 was for us a year to remember. During this year we have experienced a range of emotions, joy in our travels, horror of a crash, and devastation due to the sudden death of Lisa's most cherished Father.
We started with wonderful travels through Cambodia, Laos and northern Thailand, then the big GS experienced engine trouble which required a total re-build in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After 5 weeks we were ready to go ahead again and after a return visit to Bangkok we were heading south to Malaysia our 73rd country.

We had a wonderful time in Malaysia - the country is amazingly green and the people warm and friendly. As some of you know we had a great opportunity to ride on the island of Borneo, in Sarawak, courtesy of World Tour Rider Magazine and Tourism Malaysia. It was here that Simon had a bad accident leaving him slightly injured and his bike (with nice new engine parts!) in bits along the road in Sarawak.

Simon suffered with a damaged right leg and broken rib but our panic set in as we wondered how the hell we were going to afford the parts required! Simon needed time to heal, the bike need $!! Amazingly this is where some wonderful donations were received from friends around the World and then Touratech Germany stepped in and covered all Touratech and BMW parts! We were totally blown away by all of this support and without all of you and Touratech we would no longer be on our journey. The big GS was taken in disgrace back to Kuala Lumpur where, after 6 weeks of waiting for all of the parts to arrive, the rebuild began.

During this time Lisa received some devastating family news: the sudden and unexpected death of her father. This news hit her hard and during the remaining months of 2011 took a serious toll on her health, from which she is still trying to recover. This has made us realize that, once more, you only live once and life is all too short: make the most of it and the most out of having your friends and family around you. Lisa's father did live life to the full, enjoyed many a special time with us over the years we have been away, times which we will treasure.

Not only had Simon been working hard on the bike in the last few months of 2011, he had also been involved in a movie- cast as a Viking King (yep!) in a 'Hollywoood backed' movie which was shot entirely on location in Malaysia! Thanks so much Sean Nunis, for this opportunity and seeing Simon as a Viking King! Sean is a fellow biker and line producer for the movie. Watch out for this in the movie theatres this year 2012! Can't wait to see it, and he did have a few lines too.   

By the end of Dec 2011 both the bike and Lisa were ready once again for the road. It had been a long while for us to be off the road and we wanted to thank all of you for your continued messages of support during this time. So we hit the road again but for once returning the way we had come.....

2012 sees us back in Thailand and enjoying wonderful Bangkok whilst obtaining visas for our onward travels! Australian visa and Indonesian visas have been applied for. These next few weeks will see us working hard on doing this whilst waiting for our visas.

2012 will also see us celebrate our 9th year on the road...yep...we started May 2003. So many things have changed but its good to see that our friends are still here with us. We hope you all had a great start to 2012!

Chok Dee Krap (Good luck in Thai!)

Text/Pictures: Simon and Lisa Thomas

The latest 2RTW video update covers the months of rebuild work as Simon's 1150 GS is resurrected after his accident on Borneo.