I've now been living 15 years in Asia and I never made it to Pattaya. I have always call the place the "s**t hole" of Asia, and after the week-end we just spent here, I can confirm that the name make sense! So why going to Pattaya, why going now? Well, the kids are in Vietnam for a long week-end due to the King's birthday holiday in Thailand. So they are enjoying a little bit of tourism on their own. I'm also short of few stays to keep my nice level as a frequent guest with the SPG group (You know, the one which giving me all this lovely little room upgrades). Pattaya does have a new Sheraton, and the hotel has a pretty nice reputation. We took the bus from Ekamai station in Bangkok on ... read more

To visit Cairo properly you would need days, or even few weeks.... The good news, is that with Egypt Air, I can do this on the cheap. This is one little travel trick if you have time ahead of you. If you do have a lay-over of more than 6 hours, Egypt Air will provide you with a free transit visa, with a three stars hotel room, and with all adequate meals...all this, free! All flights coming from Asia arrive early morning...and depart to Asia late evening. Most flights to Africa will also leave late evening and arrive early morning. Meaning for me, I receive two full days to visit Cairo. The "bad news" is that I'm spending two nights in a row in a plane. But as tourism is pretty down in Egypt, out of ... read more

"Do not fly funny airlines"...I should have know better. But as I was browsing to find a ticket from Joburg to Lubumbashi a little over a month ago, the only fare I could find on South African Express was 1,100usd return...and this is for a 2 hours flight! So I decided to give it a try on Zambezi Airlines through Lusaka. The airline is wellknown for serious delays, but the price was less than half the one of SAX. Well, my flight was scheduled on 2nd of November...and three days before the Zambian government decided to ground the full fleet of Zambezi on "security reasons". Hey, they haven't crashed yet...so was this purely political? So I found myslef with not much choices. SAX prices had climbed to 1,400usd...this is still in economy, small aircraft, not much ... read more

Little upgrade about Bangkok. We are now Monday morning and still dry, I think we are going to stay dry. Thanks a lot for all your messages. It's beach time! Our first stop, the little village of Mirissa. Mirissa is 120km west of Tissa. I couldn't find a transport for a reasonnable price, so we decided to go by three wheelers. We cut the trip with a first stop in the little fishing town of Hambantota. There we found a second three wheelers, a way more roomy one. Cost for 120km, 30usd. The experience is a fun one. The weather was beautiful, and the ride too. We just had to be patient as it took us close to four hours to cover the 120km. This included a stop of few minutes for our second driver to ... read more

I would like to thanks our friends for the tenths of messages we have received concerning the situation in Bangkok. Little update. We are, as of Friday lunch time, fully on dry ground. I checked around town yesterday afternoon....the closest floods are at least 10km away from us on any direction. We have limited supplies of bottled water...something like 15 liters, and no more in any shops. I was able to find 3 more litters yesterday walking by a yoga studio...you can smile! But we have all supplies of soda water, fruit juices, carbonated drinks, milk and even wine! For health reasons, the kids have now a mandatory third brushing teeth at lunch time...with all those sodas! Another smile! There is no issue to find food around our area...maybe not everything, but still a huge choice ... read more