Pickup Camperhome: Way to Travel the World
by Zaharan Razak on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 4:41pm
Lining up for a photo with the Swiss family helps to sooth my travelitis envy.
Natalie and her kids. The garcon is 8 et sa fille, 6.
The pickup is a Mazda double crewcab. The camperhome is made to measure in Germany.You can pull the camperhome out like a drawer and leave it somewhere safe when not needed to be on the pickup.
For comparison, this is a made in Thailand camperhome foisted on a single cab pickup truck. Bigger home but can only seat 2 people. Suitable for a couple and not a family. You also cannot separate the camper from the truck. A case of you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Ever since I read John Steinbeck's "Travel with Charlie," in which he drove across America with a poodle in a pickup truck with a camperhome affixed to its cargo bay, I've long dreamed of going on the road with a similar setup but the Malaysian motoring culture does not cater to such offbeat lifestyles and so no off the shelf camperhomes are available on the market. You can have it specially made but you've got to know your resources. So even until now my dream has remained a dream. Maybe I'll do it next year or year after ... I plan to base my camperhome on the all new 2011 Ford Ranger said to be available in September. For the camperhome, I'll get a local coach builder to do it for me.
Today while riding in Dungun town on my Modenas 125 I chanced upon this camperhome parked not far from Dungun Maidin Store. They were looking for a fax facility to send copies of documents to Switzerland where they come from.
About six months ago, I came upon a motorhome based on a Ford Transit van belonging to a French couple going around the world. By chance both women from the motorhome and this camperhome are named Natalie and they know each other because of their similar mode of travel.
To know more about the Swiss family Natalie, here is their website: www.lesGLEN.net.
For the French couple, Nat & Jean, here: http://www.natetjean.com/topic1/index.html.
6 comments:
You are right about "the Malaysian motoring culture does not cater to such offbeat lifestyles". Do not know whether any township provides basic facilities for those campherhome.. This would definitely encourage a new mode of cuti cuti Malaysia, Non?!
Here is my prayer that someone will start something (on this)soon.
The sad thing is we don't follow a good culture from the West but follow the bad ones and then give the West a bad name! Another thing, it is true that it is more convenient to adopt a hobby or lifestyle when there is a supporting or conducive culture to back us up but if need be we can do it alone or with a few friends - maybe others will follow later - and use our engenuity to stay safe and well. After all it is not against the law and all life styles, including staying at home watching tv, are dangerous. A thief can break into your house just as easily as a car.
Zah,
Actually I just spoke to a campervan builder in Kepong this morning. He can draw the campervan plans, get JPJ's approval for about RM3000.00 For building the campervan it is about RM 8K and above depending on the luxuries required. I will be seeing this new friend soon.
Capt Wong
Capt! Well done, keep me posted. I may consider having your friend do mine too.
Here's an emailed response from Nathalie of 'CamperHome':
Hi Zaharan !
Very sorry for the delay in our answer ! What is cool is that we always answer ;-)
We have been quite busy with paper work these past weeks and could not visit Malaysia with a peaceful mind. Too bad. Although we really enjoyed part of the east coast until Cherating, we had to leave quickly to KL. Now we have finally obtained our 4 indian visas and are very happy about it.
Today was another big event as we packed our car in a container. We had never done this before and were not very sure if everything would fit inside a high-cube ! We dismantled the pick-up from the cabin and rolled each part inside. Done deal !
We can now relax and wait for our plane for Chenai on the 26th. The container will take something like 5 days to get to India but is only leaving on the 29th.
Thank you for the pictures on your website. Too bad I shut my eyes at that time... (probably because we did not have much sleep with these visa problems !!!)
Let's keep in touch and let us know what are your plans of cabin for traveling in the future !
Cheers
Nathalie
Hi Zaharan,
I stumbled upon your blog and read your post on the swiss family's campervan with interest, for I am a campervan owner myself. I am very lucky to have bought a used campervan built for a local rental company which went belly up in the early 90's. You can read about my campervan life at http://malaysia-campervan.blogspot.com
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