27 July 2012
Lazing in Saigon
As it was our third visit to Saigon, we weren’t under pressure to do sightseeing. And that makes it so much easier to just absorb the atmosphere.
26 July 2012
Breakfast in Melaka, Lunch at KLIA LCCT, Dinner in Saigon
I walked from the hotel to the Mahkota Medical Centre nearby to catch the bus to KLIA LCCT (Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Low Cost Carrier Terminal for those of you who don’t know the acronym). It was somewhat of an early start in order to catch the 0800 bus as the next one would be […]
24 July 2012
Around the historic city
The idea for the morning was to start early before it gets too hot with a walk up St Paul’s Hill. But with a windowless room I didn’t get out there till 0930 which is still good as the crowds hadn’t appeared yet. So I walked from Porta de Santiago up to St Paul’s Hill […]
23 July 2012
Leaving the breakaway republic
I taxied to Golden Mile Complex on Beach Road to catch my bus to Melaka. As I found a taxi nearly immediately, I was way too early and walked around the complex and realised it was a Little Bangkok. There was a lot of Thai food so I grabbed some breakfast (a second breakfast in […]
22 July 2012
Delinquents in Singapore
After a yummy pot luck lunch with old friends, I decided to join Bee Wah and Swee Leng for a walk in the evening. The circuit took us on the road then through Bukit Batok Scenic Reserve. It was a green side that I’ve never seen of Singapore. The walkways were very well maintained and […]
30 October 2011
Factory outlets
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
The Big Durian
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 safari & snorkelling Day 2
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 […]
25 October 2011
Dragon safari & snorkelling Day 1
Crew, stowaway, freeloader or extra passenger? We pushed off from Labuanbajo harbour around 7:30am on our lovely comfy boat with what I thought were 4 crew members. As it turned out, one of them was an Indonesian passenger … I think the crew had smuggled him on even though we had paid for the entire […]
24 October 2011
Labuanbajo
We walked around Labuanbajo, in the land of Komodo dragons, and enquired about dive trips. Day trips are common and overnight trips require the right numbers in the travelling party. Every shop had the same offerings at the same price … except Labuan Bajo Dive Club which was IDR50,000 cheaper. That little difference in price […]