My new Toy --> GPSMAP 60CSx

I found a great website that provides free Malaysian and Singapore Garmin GPS maps for most Garmin products.

Free GPS Maps for Malaysia and Singapore

I have recently acquired a new GPSMAP 60CSx. It is a nice handheld GPS that has a new sensor for receiving signals in poor coverage areas, like jungle areas with overhead foliage cover as well as deep canyons.....I don't
suspect the deep canyons scenario will affect me at all, but the jungle theory is a good one. Most of the biking trails in Malaysia are found in the jungles and you can get lost easily....especially if you are a ferringi and you are new to the area!!

I haven't had a chance to test it yet but tomorrow I will take it along on our May Day ride. We will go for about a 5 hour ride so hopefully we can test it, get some good photos and
have a lotta fun. This same GPS costs about R6500 in South Africa. Managed to pick this one up for RM2500 which is about R4000. So not such a bad saving if you think about it, plus I need it to get around here, works a lot better than the car rental's map book. The map book is about 500 pages in total and is as thick ass the telephone directory for Gauteng. The best feature of the map book is that the spine life (you know, the part holding all the pages together) is about 2 and a half minutes. That's right, you open the book, search for your Jalan (Street in Bahasa Malayu) and as you are flipping through to page 386 and looking for section GH67 all the pages start to fall out and the spine disintegrates...then you get horribly lost and also realise that in Malaysia they aren't big on linking the off ramp of the freeway up with the on ramp on the other side. So the next step is to try and find an alternative route...this obviously becomes semi-impossible due to the fact that the first 385 pages are now lying around your foot well area of your car......so the bottom line is YOU GET LOST!!

My new GPS however solves this problem and it is working very very well. I just need to get a windscreen suction cup for it so I don't have to hold the GPS in my crotch area!! Must look quite funny driving along with my arm down in that area with me looking down all the time and "fiddling" there. I reckon they gonna arrest me for indecent acts in a public are whilst driving a rental car. Another great Feature of this GPS is that it is super Duper water resistant, well so they claim! It is rated as IEC 60529 IPX7. I looked this up and it has bugger all to do with the
International Electoral Committee :)- Seriously it means that this unit can be submerged for 30 minutes in no more than 1 meter of water. In the event that a boat sinks and you have your GPS this means that you have 30 minutes to get rescued or else your GPS is gonna be buggered. Hmmmmm, somehow I don't think you will really give a shit about your GPS if you are in the sea and you don't have a boat anymore! Well I hope the link is useful and I will post some feedback on how useful the GPS was in the jungle tomorrow!