Travel Blogs (264)

I’m looking for a specific kind of vehicle, and suddenly noticed a certain familiarity about my list. See if you can spot it.

Not too young - they’re too expensive.
Not too old - they’re too high maintenance
Number of owners - lots is a definite eyebrow-raiser
Fuel consumption - how heavy a drinker?
Performance when the going is tough
Comfort - definitely important
Looks - don't mind a bit tatty or dented, but not rusty

And I wouldn’t really want a vehicle which coughed, spluttered and emitted clouds of smoke when started up on a cold morning.

Yup. Very like a singles checklist

At least with vehicles I can check them on DVLA (our vehicle website) and see when they last had a roadworthy test. One possible turned out to be 10 years older than the ad said, and had 100K more on the clock. That’s a bit familiar too

Any advice? On vehicles, I mean, but all the funnier if they relate to singles too

Last week we did a 10 days trip in Nepal. We got a group coming from different countries and collected in Kathmandu. We started up our Buddhist Tour on 10th of July from kathmandu to Maratika -260 kilometer/8 hours drive with 4WD Japanese jeep. In Maratika, we spent 2 nights and we did a wonderful meditation in Manjushree cave. It was such a powerful cave(spiritually). Then we came back to kathmandu then did a sightseeing with a wonderful tour guide in world heritage sites in kathmandu. Then took breathtaking scenic flight to Lumbini to the birth place of Lord Buddha. Spent 2 nights there too and back in Kathmandu with the same sort of flight. Then we went to NamoBuddha 2 hours drive in one of the loveliest Buddhist pilgrimage sites. All the tours we did with wonderful meditation and lovely healing in different monasteries and caves.

okay, only a photon but - the first manned flight was not particularly impressive. It would have been impossible to guess, watching the Wright brothers fly 120 feet in their first attempt in 1903, that Lindbergh would, in 1927, fly the Atlantic. Completely impossible to guess that Lindbergh would be a guest of honour watching Apollo 11 head to the moon in 1969.

So a photon this week could be a mammal in - how long?

I want to know when I can teleport from London to Edinburgh - an hour and a half, flying time, usually. Because yesterday I got to Stansted at 6 pm and I got to Edinburgh at 11 pm and I'm a bit bored with the conventional ways of getting from A to B.

Merely a few short and lovely hours by Rolls-Royce from the Aa palace in Maine. EH? But what a different world. I know I rant on the ueber PC nature of our neighbors to the north, but they really are lovely in every way, and run a country admirably. Waiting for the ladies to indulge in a little clothes shopping at an enormous Mall, after the same in the quaint shoppes in Vieux-Quebec. They have dad's credit cards in hand---OUCH!. Tiny feelings of a vacation in Paris, without the fear of terrorism. Bravo approves of the hot French barking lady dogs. Home again tonight. Festivals all summer here----150th country anniversary begins next week. Two weeks of celebration. The Who outdoors! Aa.

Chitwan National Park which is one of the largest national parks in the world situated in Nepal houses 1000 different species of endanger animals, 643 species of birds and hundreds of wild plants.

I also introduced my gaggles of girlfriends to Art. They were dying to meet him after hearing so many stories about him. There was only one problem though...........none of them except one, could utter a word of English and to make matter worse, Art couldn't converse in Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujianese or even the Malay language!

Outside of our favourite Chinese restaurant where my girlfriends and I always dined whenever I'm in town.



Chicken drizzled with orange sauce



Mantis shrimp with spring onions



Home-made tofu



Spicy Fish ( we asked the head to be excluded coz we did not want to traumatize our special guest )



Wong Tai Miu ( direct tanslation- King Vegetable Shoot ) with egg gravy



The most expensive dish on the table that were consisted of sea cucumber ( yummy!! ), fish maw, scallop, abalone, mushroom and squid.




Art was of course thrilled with our choices................NOT!

He was a hit with my girlfriends though...



Notice the empty dishes? My hungry girlfriends and I cleared up everything in sight! Errr....except the scallop shell





Walking back to the car ...................with my poor Art's tummy growling




Earlier in the day.......

Stopped by at my hometown's landmark, a leaning Pagoda-like tower that was built in 1885.



Local cops were intrigued by his presence in such a small town and asked to have pics taken with him. The first thing he asked them was, " Do you want me in handcuffs? " Cops didn't get his joke



Right after this pic was taken and when we were about to leave, they told us to wait a little while longer coz there were more cops ( like 15 of 'em? ) that wanted to have their pics taken with Art! Art had his 5-mins of fame and also had a taste of what it is like to be a 'celebrity'! I didn't have that pic in my phone coz I was roped in to be in the pic as well. My mission now is to retrieve that pic by going to the police station back in my hometown!

Art go bananas over bananas!



Art trying Chinese sweet tofu pudding or doufu hua for the first time and decided he didn't like it. He doesn't like anything 'tofu'



Art showed this pic to his family members and told them this is his 'MiMi' selling jackfruits He sure likes to jack around!



Oh! Wanna know what was his best purchase throughout his whole trip here?

Back-scratcher!



He nowadays Skypes with me while scratching his back ( effortlessly! )

I worked in Singapore in the early 90's. Vibrant city but it has become a very expensive place to live in ( For the fourth year running, the Republic has been ranked the most expensive city for expatriates and business travellers, ahead of Hong Kong and Zurich, according to a bi-annual survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)- published in March 21, 2017 )

Recently went back there for a couple of days. There's always one thing that I'd do whenever I'm at the 'Little Red Dot'.......devouring their yummy 'Hainanese Chicken Rice' !

Tian Tian has been voted as the best chicken rice hawker stall in Singapore by local foodies. Anthony Bourdain, an American celebrity chef, host of Travel Channel’s culinary, has reported that “Chicken rice is so fragrant and delicious that it can be eaten on its own”.

There's a long queue always!







I've always preferred the 'roasted' version



than, the 'poached' version, which is of course the healthier version!



This is how a typical outdoor food court all over Singapore looked like



My favourite stop after a meal, cut fruits!



Met up with a long-time Malaysian girlfriend who is now a Singapore citizen and we had afternoon tea at the 57th level of The Marina Bay Sands ( MBS )



MBS has the best infinity pool on the 57th floor.





They even have grown trees up there! Fancy being in a jacuzzi admist the trees?





I looked down and saw 'Gardens by the Bay', a top attraction in Singapore which features the world’s largest glass greenhouse, the Flower Dome – an impressive 1.28 hectares of flowers under glass.



The formidable MBS at night when we were approaching it


Pic from the internet, MBS at daytime


Meeeee!!!! That's the Fullerton Hotel located near the mouth of the Singapore River, in the background

It's nice to be back in Malaysia after spending 2 weeks in Melbourne. Kinda miss my newborn nephew already......the main reason why I made the trip in the first place. He has a good mixture of Aussie and Chinese blood in him Methinks ( and everybody does too! ) he looks more like his Aussie dad than his Chinese mom, much to my sister's chagrin!

Spent the weekend at my younger sister's in-laws' farm at Warragul, just over an hour's drive from Melbourne.



Was busy picking the apples and peaches off 'em trees and wasn't aware that there was somebody watching me with utter fascination...


My first Aussie barbie! Yum! ( Biki, short for Biscuit, always hovering around me in hope I'd drop some of my food! )


When I go up to my room, Biki would follow suit but at times, he was just too lazy and decided to wait at the bottom of the stairs


Biscuit and I


Went up to Mount Dandenong on one Saturday morning and had the yummiest scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream at Olinda Cafe. Thank goodness my nephew slept throughout the whole time we were there and I could savour 'em scones at a leisure pace....yum yum!


On the way to get the car, saw this mirror at one of the local bric-à-brac shops there. Absolutely gorgeous but it'd be absolutely crazy trying to bring that back to Malaysia!


Grocery shopping at Coles



Hope to make another trip there before the year ends! and chomp down on more yummy scones!!!

Food + MiMi = Inseparable

Before I left for my short getaway weekend to Bali this last weekend, some of my adult students told me another name for Bali is "Surga Dunia" Meaning 'Heaven on Earth" or paradise I guess....

Arriving there over the weekend, I can now fully comprehend what they were going on about and why they would call it 'heaven on earth'. It is pretty amazing to note here that there seems to be no rules for drinking alcohol. We sat in front of thisbar facing the road and drank beer and cocktails right there. While motorcyles and cars passed by. One of the guys wanted to get some money from his ATM bank and he walked there with the beer in his hand, yes on the road which surprised me. Every ladies' off the beach were wearing their bikini
and walk freely on the roads towards their hotels or restos'. THis one didn't surprise me but I
could easily guess now why my adult students called it 'heaven on earth'...

As the night wore out, I asked a New Zealander and an Australian guys sitting next to me whether they could drink like what we were doing back home. And they both laughed out loudl..'Hell No" "Welcome to Bali"

The next day, my friend and I couldn't get any hire car so we decided to hire a scooter instead. I was driving pretty much, dodging cars and heavy traffic - the best things about scooters and we even went through a one way road. So my friend yelled ' we are going the wrong way' and I screamed back, Welcome to Bali where we could bend the rules. (I learnt that phrase last night from those guys...)... :laugh

I wonder if there are places of such in your country where this phrase is applicable 'There are no rules or Rules can be bent"

The glistening, golden sand clings to your bare feet as you tread through it towards the border where the sparkling, blue-green water buffets the coast. A few feet from the water, green algae lie scattered like wind-tossed hay.

A cool breeze blows from the east showering the banks with a light mist of salty spray. Seagulls glide and hover as they search for a vacant spot to alight. There are purple and pink bubbles lying just below an inch of sand. The have the appearance of slightly deflated balloons and are known as jellyfish.

The thundering roar of the ocean can be heard along the many miles of coastline. As you plunge into the cool watery depths, you feel the soothing lull of the tide tugging and tossing about. In the distance, you can discern the many different boats cruising in the water. There are oil tankers, yachts, speed boats, and windsurfers.

On the crowded beach, fringed with palm trees, there are multitudes of women in brightly colored bikinis, basking in the brilliant, sweltering rays of the hot, glaring sun. Small children playing near the water, are busy making their own lopsided, disfigured versions of sand castles. A few bronze, muscular men are jogging along the edge of the water looking at the women as they pass by.

There is the unmistakable smell of coconut oil as young couples rub the warm oil all over themselves and each other.

A slightly pudgy woman in her mid-sixties is stooping over to pick up some shell that looks pretty.

A lone lifeguard wearing a white beach hat, dark black sunglasses, and sunscreen on his nose, sits high in his watchtower under the shade of an umbrella as he scours the ocean with his eyes, searching for anyone who might be a weak swimmer or someone who might have a cramp or may be drowning.

An amateur volleyball game is in practice, as people of all ages join in on the fun by trying to hit the ball over the net with their hands or fists so that the team on the other side will not be able to return it.

People who brought coolers of something to cold to drink, search to the very bottom for their favorite flavor of soda and for something good to eat.

The cool water of the shower stand feels refreshing as the water rinses the sticky, salty sweat and sand from your hair and cleanses your skin.

The sounds of traffic on the busy highway behind the beach, fill the air as people driving by honk at some scantily clad stranger that looks appealing. There is the occasional loud, wailing siren of a speeding ambulance going by.

The sky is a colorful sight to behold. It is the color of robin’s eggs, with colossal billowy clouds that look like mounds of pure white cotton candy.

There are two low-flying planes with banners that fly across the sky every hour as they advertise teeny bikini contests, happy hour, food buffets, and free t-shirts.