Travel Blog

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 a penny - I'd only paid 10 quid so what…

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 exotic. Penang' nickname is the pearl of the orient and…

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 Patrick. Sometimes a little too attentive as I don't need…

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 advised by more than one person (two) to use the…

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 was so well developed by comparison to the Philippines. It's…

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 second, Palawan is much bigger and I spent the day…

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 by the ship and went freestyle and jumped into the…

I boarded the boat on Saturday about 5pm (what a pavlova) and my immediate thought was "I'm gonna hate this". Nothing like a positive mental attitude! The vast majority are what might be referred to as "not my kind of people". Lots of aimless wandering around and a real mix…

I leave in a few hours for the cruise ship after 5 nights in Honkers and I have to admit I love this place. Kowloon and Hong Kong Island are about the size of San Francisco and the hustle and bustle is non-stop. They use bamboo for scaffolding, even for…