Author archive
27 December 2023
Getting to Farasan Having retired around 1900 and with 5h difference with Malaysian time in my body clock, I woke at 0100. I managed to doze till the alarm at 0400. We had been advised verbally to have the car join the ferry queue at 0430 (but officially 0530 report time on the ticket) for […]
26 December 2023
Flying to Jizan I woke at 0230 after 5h30 of sleep that wasn’t very deep. I tried to doze some more but gave up at 0330, opting to stay up. At around 0620 I summoned a ride to the airport. The driver, had trouble locating me at first and it got a little stressful. Fortunately, […]
25 December 2023
Standby flight Having slept around 2200 last night, I stirred around 0400 and got out of bed around 0630, an hour before my alarm. I made it to the 0800 from KL Sentral which got me to Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 1 at 0900 (it got to Terminal 2 at 0845). When things go […]
24 December 2023
I had only booked today’s 1120 flight to Kuala Lumpur a few days ago, after reviewing my plans and opting not to travel with Saudia to Spain. I opted for a nightstop to avoid an early start on Christmas day and to de-risk the plan. I got to the airport about 3h before the flight, […]
17 December 2023
Background When I planned my Saudi Arabia trip back in Feb this year, I realised that I fares to Saudi were over NZD200 more than to some European destinations with a stopover in Saudi. So, I booked an itinerary to Spain (into Madrid, then Valencia, Andorra and finally out of Barcelona) with a 3 week […]
14 December 2023
Transport comparison to the airport I left my hotel behind KL Sentral monorail at 0700 and caught the 0730 bus to the airport. Despite my fears of rush hour traffic, I got to KLIA Terminal 2 in 50 mins. In fact, I don’t recall having ever been stuck in traffic on this route. The bus, […]
13 December 2023
National Mosque For some reason, I woke at 0430 today, feeling like I didn’t need anymore sleep. I attended to online matters, had some cereal before heading out around 0830. Today I thought I’d do something new. Even though I’ve visited countless mosques overseas, I had never visited one in my own country. So, I […]
12 December 2023
Flying to Kuala Lumpur I had my first bad night sleep, perhaps from having slept too much recently. I woke at 0700 and got to Langkawi airport at 0830. AirAsia’s check-in and bag-drop process is very quick nowadays with a touchless kiosk, where one does the actual work on the phone app. At the airport, […]
11 December 2023
Above: Maha Tower in Langkawi, as seen from my hotel room. Today I leave the little paradise island of Koh Lipe to return to Langkawi. I walked from my hotel to the ferry pier, the furthest of the three piers on Pattaya Beach, about 200m away. Having noticed how professional porters carry bags on their […]
10 December 2023
My take of Koh Lipe Even though Koh Lipe is hard to get to from mainland Thailand (but easy from Malaysia), it certainly isn’t a quiet little island. It has a lively centre with lots of eating and drinking. I only noticed two small places in the flesh trade, which is very sanitised for this […]