Go to gate 50

The flight from Bangkok to Melbourne was only 8:40 despite the itinerary saying 10 hours and there were 100 empty seats at the back so I was glad business was full because I would have resented paying an extra grand…

Thailand has a population of around 70 million and its total area is a little over twice the size of the UK. 93% Buddhist - China has more Buddhists at 20% of the population but it must be second in…

Wednesday Krabi was one of the locations used in The Man With The Golden Gun - Scaramanga's private island and they have tours to "Bond island". I thought I was going to miss out on this place after spending an…

Monday - I left the hotel in Penang and headed for the ferry terminal hoping it wouldn't be but first sight of  the boat made me apprehensive. Long, thin and low slung and not the most seaworthy of specimens but in for…

Penang is split into two parts: a section on the mainland and Penang Island off the west coast of Malaysia and the other side of the island is a body of water called the strait of Malacca which sounds terribly…

Wow! What a place. Staying at the Mandarin Oriental and my room overlooks the Petronas Towers - well I say overlooks but in reality it's the other way round. The staff here are fabulous and they all call me Mr…

Alvin (trainee Buddhist minus the chipmunks) has just dropped me off at the bus station and I'm now on a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur which takes 6 hours. My intention was to go by train however I was…

Two stops in Borneo or bor-nay-owe as my American friend says (I've been picking her up all week on her pronunciation) the first in Sabah called Kota Kinabalu and the second in Brunei. Sabah is part of Malaysia and it…

Two more stops in the Philippines to use up the pesos - Boracay and Palawan - two islands the first of which has beautiful white sandy beaches and is like a large Maldivian island just with 10 million people. The…

Yesterday we did Manila and it's a fabulous city with an old section called Intramuros with lots of cultural history stuff (right up my alley). Cathedrals, churches, museums, forts - forgotten all the names. I declined the shore excursions offered…