Articles from this Category
28 June 2013
This is my first day with semi-decent internet in over two weeks. Internet was too expensive in Australia and too slow in Timor Leste. I had admin mounting up so I cleared the backlog in a swift half hour. Then I saw Jetstar had a sale; they had flights from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur for […]
27 June 2013
Above: Typical scene on the way to the border. The minibus picked me up at 0845, a little later than the time I had been given. I had been waiting since 0800 as I’ve had early pickups as well; one never knows as they go around town collecting their prebooked customers.We headed west on the […]
30 December 2012
Above: “Pondan” is a brand of cake mix here but just across the border, it means “transvestite”. After a great buffet breakfast at the hotel, I ventured out. Nothing much was open being a Sunday morning. I found Carrefour and spent some time in there. I believe supermarkets offer an interesting insight into local life. […]
29 December 2012
Being normally an extremely heavy sleeper, I was surprised to have slept lightly through the night. I wandered out and found few choices for breakfast. With a long and rough day anticipated, I passed on the satay and opted for a selection of cakes. After breakfast, I investigated options for getting to Mandor where some […]
28 December 2012
My travel (pronounced truffle) picked me up at 1300 for the 3 hour (USD7) journey north to Singkawang. With a lunch stop and traffic, it took 4 hours. The scenery comprised forests, rice paddies, coconut groves, Kerala-like canals, homes surrounded by black water canals with people swimming and washing in them, and the brown sea […]
28 December 2012
I woke at 0400; the result of retiring too early last night and the early wakeup yesterday. I popped half a sleeping pill and that took me back into dreamland till 0700. I enquired with the hotel about onward travel to Singkawang. As the bus station here is out-of-town (which requires a separate bus or […]
27 December 2012
With a 0715 bus departure, I had to wake early to catch a taxi to the bus station called Kuching Sentral which is on the outskirts of town, next to the airport. I hopped into the taxi five minutes before 0600 not knowing that it was only five minutes till the 50% night surcharge was […]
30 October 2011
Above: The green countryside before arriving into Bandung. Rather than fly out of Jakarta, we thought it would be different to fly out of Bandung to KL/Kuching. We’d save a little on lower departure taxes out of a regional airport … and the distance from Jakarta to Bandung is only 3h by train. The train […]
27 October 2011
We made our way to Labjuanbajo Airport early for our Wings Air 0830 flight to Denpasar-Bali for our connection to Jakarta. We never expected a traffic jam in a little town like Labuanbajo. But today was the day that locals were departing for their Haj in Mecca. The main road was chocka as was the […]
26 October 2011
Dragon-spotting on Komodo Island As we’ve kept ourselves on New Zealand time in order to make early flights and dives, we woke up naturally at 5am … assisted by the sunrise. Breakfast was cheerfully served at 5:30am and we were at Loh Liang, the National Park base for Komodo Island at 6:00am. We had to […]