Articles from this Category
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 bus from KL Sentral which got me to Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 1 at 0900 (it got to Terminal 2 at 0845). When things […]
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 […]
8 December 2023
Above: A couple of PromptPay QR codes. International QR Pay Travel in Thailand has become so much easier money-wise now that the Malaysian Duitnow (QR Scan and Pay) has been expanded internationally to neighbouring countries. In the case of Thailand, it is particularly godsent because: Banks here charge a hefty THB200 (NZD9) per cash withdrawal […]