It was around 12 years ago that I saw a Norwegian feller on the beach in Tioman with a laptop. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was connected to the web via a sat phone and that he was working.
I decided that if this was work then I wanted to get involved, so I learned how to use computers and got busy.
(more…)I hung around in Singapore for the Thaipusam festival
where people walk around with big spikes in their bods all wrapped up in a frame. They are asking the gods to give them a hand to overcome lifes obstacles and for certain things like physical protection or wealth, all symbolised by objects, limes, coconuts. It is a heady affair for such a modern city, the contrast between visceral worship with the towering perfect city all too obvious.
(more…)One thing about Singapore is that you can transport yourself to different parts of the world in theme park style by going to a few of the little enclaves dotted about.
Right now I am in Little India. Little India is like a sanotised microcosm of the mother country where you can absorb the sights and sounds in a few hundres square metres, music shops, shrines, them smell of incense misxed with spicy food. Tonight I chowed down on a mutton byriani and cold iced tea.
I almost didn’t stay through the day though. For a while this morning I missed my lady and felt somehow as if I were negligent in not being in the UK with my brethren for the bad weather and knee deep snow, so much so that I rang Qantas and asked them to change my flight. But just before I gave them my credit card info for the surcharge I realised that I had better finish what I had started and make it through my last week for this winters trip, so I have booked a bus to take me to Mersing where I’ll catch a ferry to Tioman tomorrow.
for tonight I have the treat of the six nations starting so I’ll pop on over to a local bar and catch the game in 20 minutes time.
I’m getting too lazy to shift my arse out of Singapore – It’s comfy here, not as expensive as you’d think if you stick to the food halls where you can buy any food from China, India, Malaysia with even fish and chips on the menu for those missing home. So why move – I have heard the weather is still awful on the island of Tioman so perhaps diving is out of the question so we’ll see – it’s raining here now so maybe this muggy weather will lighten up a wee bit.
(more…)I remember once standing on a Thai raliway station with my daughter in my arms as life went on around us. Lady boys flirted on the night time tracks and people milled around until they all started to buzz about like stirred up bees shouting ‘Singapore Singapore’. It was the orient express travelling on it’s way south with it’s carriages full of luxury. A little nest of people sat on a balcony at the back of the train with a waiter poised to fill up glasses with more champagne and for a moment I saw the difference between the life we had chosen to live and the opulence of this little island sat like a jewel in the sea.
And here I am, sweltering in the humidity that marks so many months in this part of the world thinking that the only way to really get to know this place is to take out a bank loan and spend until increasingly chubby fingers are spent.
But no, one will simply nip into Raffles and have a Singapore Sling, anything else would be showing off. How vulgar.
I am just back from Halong bay, an area that is vying for status as one of the 7 new wonders of the world. I am hoping that Tooting Bec Lido pips it to the post but I reckon Halong will win.
(more…)At 9am I trot off with Tony to the Police station where he asks me loads of questions that I know are going to be useless in finding my gear. Whoever did this would have slipped into the night with enough gear to keep a family going for half a year in Hanoi, I only hope that that’s what it does do.
(more…)I wrote this post after it was all sorted out as I didn’t want to worry the people I love that are reading this blog, but now it’s all over I can look back on it as one of those things that at the time test you, but also get you in touch of a side of a place you would not normally be able to access.
(more…)There is a lovely cafe at one end of the Hoakiem lake where you can buy both Vietnamese dishes as well as western treats like banana splits and a cup of coffee.You can sit watching the gentle folk of the city walk arm in arm around the lake whilst being soothed by the colourful lights that illuminate the lake.
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