Three pounds each it had cost to secure our tickets down to St Pancras Station in London. A bargain to be behold. And when the Megabus pulled up we were all pleasantly surprised because it was modern and blue, and best of all, it contained a cantankerous old Yorkshire git. “Nobody move,” he barked as he opened the door. “And listen up. No one gets on my bus till I've checked your tickets. And don't even think about putting any luggage on board until I've checked you off the list.” A young woman clearly hadn't heard this last instruction because she [View Full Entry]

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Only forty kilometres from Hong Kong, Angela and I decided a day trip to Macau would be an interesting diversion, and so we made our way to the dock to catch a high speed ferry. First established as a trading post in the sixteenth century, Macau, or Ultra Marino as it was then called, became a colony of Portugal in 1887, remaining so until 1999 when it was finally handed back to China. Our journey there took one hour and as we sped along, I began to watch the in-sail-entertainment. It was a Japanese television program which pitted man against bear. [View Full Entry]

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On the flight from Kota Kinabalu to Hong Kong, I couldn't get a certain song out of my head. It was from a cartoon I used to watch as a kid called Hong Kong Phooey. Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy. Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye. The song played over and over as we flew northwards, until it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps someone aboard the flight was called Phooey. Imagine that, a real life Hong Kong Phooey! Hong Kong was a landmark for me because it was my fiftieth country. Since 1999 it has been [View Full Entry]

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“I hope you haven't got any bullets on you,” I said to Angela as we came in to land at Brunei's rather small international airport. “Because if you have, you're done for. You're not even allowed to have them on necklaces.” I'd just been reading the information about entry requirements to the country. Possession of a bullet was a serious offense; the punishment was imprisonment and a whipping of no less than three strokes. Possession of drugs was even worse. On the back of our immigration card, in large red letters, it read: THE PENALTY FOR DRUGS IS DEATH. The tiny [View Full Entry]

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To be honest, before booking our trip, I'd never even heard of Kota Kinabalu, the largest city in Sabah, Malaysia's northern section of Borneo. But when I read that one of the hotels in Kota Kinabalu had its own orangutan rehabilitation centre, I knew we had to visit. Angela and I arrived at the huge international airport courtesy of Malaysian Airlines from Kuala Lumpur, and as we taxied in, I couldn't help but be excited at the thought of being in Borneo. Borneo is actually made up of three countries: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, and is the third largest island in [View Full Entry]

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The two words that made up the name of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, seemed to roll off my tongue in the most exotic way, while at the same time conjuring up images of the tropics, of skyscrapers, of Asia. The flight from Heathrow wasn't quite as likable though, involving a twelve-hour journey in economy class that never seemed to end. The unmistakable heat of the tropics greeted us as Angela and I left the arrivals hall of Kuala Lumpur International. Evening was well under way as we undertook the forty-five minute journey to the centre. The highway was of exceptional [View Full Entry]

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'What the hell are you going to Kosovo for?' was a familiar question Michael and I received after telling people of our plans to visit this controversial country in the Balkans. Michael came up with the best answer to this query. “Because it's there.” Kosovo hit the headlines in the 1990s for all the wrong reasons. Ethnic cleansing, NATO air strikes, Albanian refugees, and cries of war crimes against Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian President at the time, made the news worldwide. The region became synonymous with everything that was wrong in the Balkans. When the conflict ended, [View Full Entry]

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According to the Macedonian Weekly News, 330 earthquakes had occurred near the Macedonia-Bulgarian-Greek border only a few days prior to our arrival. Earthquakes are not a laughing matter in Macedonia; a particularly bad one had flattened the capital in 1963. Luckily for us though, according to experts, these recent tremblings would not amount to a major quake. I told Michael we could put off buying hardhats for a little while at least. The border formalities were simple enough, and we were soon on our through the Macedonian countryside. Our driver was a young Albanian man called Elt [View Full Entry]

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Not on everyone's list of places to see in the world, Albania had always been a country that appealed to me. With my pal Michael, we flew into Tirana on a warm and sunny evening in May. One of Europe's poorest nations (a legacy left over from ex-ruler Enver Hoxha, or Supreme Comrade as he liked to call himself), Albania embraced communism in the 1940s. At first Hoxha made friends with the Soviets, but later decided he preferred the Chinese version of communism, especially when they sent him billions of dollars worth of aid. Clerical workers were sent to the fields [View Full Entry]

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Our day began bright and early for our daytrip to Senegal. With our fellow passengers, Angela and I arrived in Banjul, the capital of the Gambia, in order to catch a ferry across the river. The ferry terminal was a hive of honking, shouting and dust. The queue for cars and trucks was a mammoth snake stretching through the port area. There was humanity everywhere. As we milled about waiting for the 9am ferry to arrive (it was already 20 minutes late) we had ample time to observe the hustle and bustle of our first African dock. A couple of women [View Full Entry]

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