Author archive
15 August 2023
Leaving Kuching Today I leave Kuching for the journey back to Auckland, with a self-connect at Singapore. My brother dropped me off at Kuching airport around 0800 after a slow drive during rush hour. With no food outlets in the international section of the airport (apart from a sandwich stand, I later learnt), I ate […]
13 August 2023
I’m approaching the end of my stay in Kuching. This time it is a little different as I’ve given my up my apartment for eight of the ten nights to family visiting from Birmingham. I’m camping with my brother, sleeping on the mattress in the living room without aircon and having cold showers. During the […]
5 August 2023
Killing time Despite not having napped yesterday afternoon in order to encourage a good night sleep, it didn’t work. I’m not so good flying eastbound. Retiring at 2115 last night, I woke up about 3h later. After about an hour, I took a half-strength sleeping pill which didn’t quite work so well. I didn’t feel […]
4 August 2023
We landed in Singapore 20 mins late at 0920 for my nightstop. Immigration was a dream using the kiosks and baggage came soon after. To top it off, there were no queues for the taxi at Terminal 1. We got to the Hotel 81 Gold at 1030 while their official check-in time was 1500. The […]
3 August 2023
Above: Mdina soon after take-off. Getting to Istanbul Today we begin our big trip back after over five weeks of summer. I’m bound for hometown Kuching whereas Kim will plunge into the depths of winter in Auckland. We set the alarm for 0600 but I had woken at 0500 anyway. Getting a rideshare to the […]
2 August 2023
Above: Decorations for the festivities. It’s an easy day today, moving ourselves from Gozo back to Valletta. First up was the 1000 bus to Victoria, followed the 1045 ferry to Valletta. That tight connection was very easy and there was no stress at all. Once in Valletta, we were going to take the lift from […]
1 August 2023
Our accommodation came with breakfast supplied at the café opposite, ordered from an extensive menu. We ordered the most complete version, a very big English breakfast and we will not repeat it tomorrow! Today, we have an excursion to Blue Lagoon which is between Comino and Cominotto Islands, which is in turn between Malta and […]
31 July 2023
Moving to Gozo Today we head to Gozo, the smaller island off the main island of Malta. This had been on our plans six years ago when we had a rental car and the queue to get across with the car ferry (from Cirkewwa) was far too long. Since about 2 years ago, a passenger […]
30 July 2023
Getting a rental car We managed to get a rental car online at short notice for the day, from Sicily By Car. The price was only EUR18, picking up from its airport location whereas whatever available in the old city was far pricier. The downside was that we had to get to and from the […]
29 July 2023
St John’s Co-Cathedral Despite the one-hour time change from Larnaca, we had a lazy start to the day, making our way to the St John’s Co-Cathedral at 0900 when it opened. I had pre-booked the tickets online but there wasn’t much of a queue, so it was really unnecessary. For me, this church packs such […]