Blogging Connections

A week ago I met with a fellow blogging traveler – traveler and blogger that is. A first for me, meeting someone through the internet that is and then catching up face to face. There was some irony in driving off to the meeting given there was a sense of ignoring all the advice (mostly ignored) that you give your kids about meeting strangers over the net – and worse, following up. That can only lead to disappointments. Or worse. Read more

Malaysia Remembered

With my chin cupped in my hand and elbow propped on the arm rest I found myself on short finals from Singapore into Kuala Lumpur reminiscing about my first experiences of the country. Actually they were not the absolute first – I think that was a project in primary school on alluvial tin mining in Malaysia. Black and white pictures of massive dredges creating environmental slaughter with their sluices though that is a comment from our times – and was not a consideration back then. I wonder how they do that tin mining now? Read more

Singapore for Small Boys

There is a view of Singapore that gets my attention every single time. Sometimes you see it in all its glory as you fly into Changi from the south. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of it through the trees as you ride to the city in the cab. And if you indulge some of that most excellent regional dish at East Coast restaurants – pepper crab – it is all laid out in front of you. Hundreds of ships at anchor. Of all sorts, shapes and sizes. Strange thing is, very rarely do you see any of them moving.

Singapore Breakfast

I do know better, I really do. I rationalised the $25.00 hotel breakfast yesterday as being necessary since I had a busy day coming up. But it was an “American” breakfast of indifferent tomato’s, cardboard bacon, and rubber eggs. All leaving me with the impression they were cooked up the previous night and run under a grill when I appeared in the dining room. Outside and around the corner for $1.90 was Read more

Singapore Rain

The evening started perfectly. I had turned the air-conditioner off, opened the windows and pushed aside the slats. Warm moist air flooded the room to the accompaniment of bird chatter and the background hum of air-conditioners hanging off walls in the lane I look onto. A few minutes after doing that, as if by invitation a crack and rattle of thunder banged over the top of us. Read more