At the gate at Changi airport, I was a little apprehensive about having done a gate-to-gate self-connect, only possible because I didn’t have checked-in luggage. Information on Scoot’s website suggested that I should have cleared immigration, meaning that I would re-enter the airside.  I was afraid the re-entry into airside might have been captured from […]

Above:  The paler D24 and the more yellowish Musang King. Miserable Auckland summer I left Auckland two days after the first of three storms, the third being only yesterday.  The latest one was Cyclone Gabrielle which resulted in all flights in Auckland and the northern part of the North Island being cancelled. This appears to […]

Above:  Itinerant fresh food vendor on motorcycle on our drive near Pemangkat. Our driver Jie To messaged me yesterday asking if we could “prepone” our departure to Kuching from 0700 to 0400, as he expected long queues at the border. We consulted the others and the response ranged from “No problem” to “No”.  Other people […]

Above:  Orang Ulu mural at the Sarawak Cultural Village. Today, I took my guest to Sarawak Cultural Village for a taste of Borneo culture.  It’s a place I always try to take my overseas visitors.  Ivan, with peninsular Malaysian origins, would be quite new to most things Borneo as well. We started with a walk […]

A friend Ivan arrived last night.  Due to my upcoming departure to Singkawang, he stayed at a hotel rather than with me. I picked him up for a breakfast of Sarawak Laksa at Lauya Keng, a Teochew temple in old town. He was unsure if his empty stomach would handle the spice, so we tried […]

The hotel restaurant ran out of all but two breakfast choices this morning.  But they had exactly what I wanted, the Vietnamese sandwich.  It was light but enough to tide me over till the lounge at the airport. I got to the airport by Ojek this time for a bit less than the ride in […]

Above:  Some of my dental bills. Coronation Day Today was my Coronation 👑 Day.  Sometimes bad things strike at the best times.  During my two stays in Kuching this trip, I learnt that I had a tooth decay that had killed the tooth and needed a root canal and then a crown 👑. I had […]

Above:  Inking is a relatively recent measure to minimise allegations of individuals voting more than once. Having lived outside of Malaysia since attaining adulthood, I’ve never voted here.  Today, I exercise my constitutional rights by voting for the very first time in the Malaysian General Elections. My brother and I arrived at the nearby polling […]