Articles from this Category
11 May 2008
I had some banking to do today … we walked past the Lembaga Tabung Haji (Pilgrims’ Savings Fund) office. I couldn’t help noticing a very familiar boxy cubicle which had a note stuck on the outside saying it was an sample of an aircraft toilet. Cute! Seriously, some pilgrims save for most of their lives […]
8 May 2008
What Jakarta lacks in sights, it makes up with surprises . The thing that struck me about Jakarta (beyond the obvious factors like heat, grime, crowd) was the friendliness of its people. For a city of 17 (or is it 9 … depends on who you speak to) million people, I find that people have […]
6 May 2008
Jakarta isn’t a city I had planned visiting by itself … perhaps as a gateway to Java and the more interesting cities. But AirAsia had just launched a new route from Kuching to Jakarta and offered free flights both ways! Fuel surcharge and taxes excluded. It was an offer too good to refuse especially when […]
5 May 2008
Today we flew from Hong Kong in the morning to Kuala Lumpur, to connect to Kuching on Malaysia Airlines. It was a seamless 1h connection at Kuala Lumpur and we landed in Kuching in the afternoon. We have just one night in hometown Kuching. We couldn’t help it but take up AirAsia’s free (just taxes) […]
3 May 2008
We flew to Hong Kong with a couple of friends Melody and Brendan. We had a good couple of days with them. It was good to have people who were relatively new to Hong Kong as it meant that we made a greater effort to do things … even revisit the places we had been […]
25 January 2008
After breakfast at the Ras Hotel, we taxied to the airport. I was homeward bound. Back to Sana’a, my home-away-from-home, for an overnight. Then Dubai overnight, Hong Kong and hopefully Auckland thereafter on standby. The Ethiopian Airlines B737 was chocka to Djibouti but nearly empty for the second leg to Sana’a. The transit in Djibouti […]
23 January 2008
I didn’t sleep well last night. This has been the case on-and-off during my Ethiopian trip. It might be the Lariam I’m taking, or just the awkward sleep patterns that’s required for all the early bus trips. We left around 0930 for the bus station for a short outing to the Blue Nile falls at […]
22 January 2008
The islands (and a peninsular) on Lake Tana are home to many monasteries. We had an early boat ride arranged for 0800 but we had to pack up and move to Ghion Hotel before that. After a mango juice and a macchiato, we set off with one extra hanger-on from Netherlands. The cruise on Lake […]
21 January 2008
Today we travel to our last stop in Ethiopia, not counting our return to Addis afterwards. We had a van ride booked at 0700 to take us to Bahir Dar. While on the bog, still way before our pick-up, the hotel man came to let us know that the van was nearly here. Not long […]