I was walking along a covered walkway between a mass-transit train station and Chinatown in Singapore. A well dressed middle aged man in front of me threw a paper bag towards a bin. The bag bounced off the bin and fell on the floor. He wasn't looking and continued walking straight ahead. The sky didn't fall. He wasn't instantly arrested. No one said anything. Litter is sometimes dropped in Singapore. I saw it happen. I was only in Singapore a few days before catching a flight to Manila in the Philippines. To a casual observer Singapore appears to be a city [View Full Entry]

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Takkan Melayu Hilang di Durnia (Malays will never vanish from the face of the earth) Hang Tuah I have a confession to make. I did no research on Malaysia before I entered the country. That's not like me. Usually, I do research a destination before I arrive. As a result of my lack of research, I am astonished at how little I knew - I was downright ignorant. The list of things I didn't know is too long to list but I'll mention a couple. I didn't know that Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy of an unusual variety. It is [View Full Entry]

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"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Where the tree tops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow". White Christmas was blaring out of the PA system at high volume in the Prangin Mall, Panang whilst I was eating a noodle soup. White Christmas was followed by a rendition of: "Rudolf the red nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows." All these eulogies to the virtues of snow in tropical Malaysia, where they never see snow! I've spent [View Full Entry]

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Since my last blog (Yellow shirts), I have travelled south from Bangkok to the Malaysian border; stopping off at a few beaches along the way, to break up the journey. Its a hard job, this travelling lark. HUA HIN My first stop was in Hua Hin, which is only a 3 hour bus ride south of Bangkok. Hua Hin is the oldest and most traditional of the Thai resorts. It is favoured by the Thai Royal family. The resort is over 70 years old. I preferred this place to the newer resorts further south because it retai [View Full Entry]

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Yellow is the new black, in Thailand. For the past 10 days I've been surrounded by a sea of yellow shirts. Its the must have fashion statement. Also wherever I've been giant pictures of the King of Thailand have stared down at me. Every public building, bank and shopping mall is decorated with huge images of His Royal Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej. I even saw the whole side of a high rise building near Chatuchak Park in Bangkok covered with a giant image of the king. The last time I saw a whole high rise covered in an image like that was [View Full Entry]

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My Lands are where my dead lie buried (This was the answer of Crazy Horse to a derisive question). As I was leaving the USA the results of the midterms were being announced. I’m pleased to see that the Republicans are being punished for their war in Iraq. Randolph Bourne said “War is the health of the State”. This was the case for the Republicans and Bush in previous elections but now that America is losing the war the American people have turned on the architects of the war. So, I was also very pleased to see that Rumsfeld has been [View Full Entry]

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It’s been too long since I last posted an entry. I’ve been travelling across North America very fast, so I haven’t had the time to post. The inside passage ferry from Alaska arrived in Prince Rupert in Canada on the 12th of October. The weather was bad, as it had been on the whole of the trip down from Alaska (See my last blog - Fire and Ice). The ferry arrived early in the morning. Once I got through customs, I found that there were no taxis or buses waiting at the port, so I had to walk a couple of [View Full Entry]

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Alaska is big, very, very big. You won't believe how big it is... It is the largest state in the USA, representing 25% of the entire landmass. Mount McKinley is North America's highest mountain and the state has more coastline than the whole of the rest of the States. A coastline ringed with magnificent Volcanoes and islands. The State borders the Pacific Ring of Fire - the seismically active area that marks the border of the Pacific Plate. As a result, Alaska also gets bigger earthquakes than anywhere else in North America. The [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Earthq [View Full Entry]

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"There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't sit still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will." Robert Service; The Men That Don't Fit In I'm lost for words. The scenery in the far North of Canada is spectacular and beautiful. It has to be seen to be believed. Large parts of Canada remained the exclusive territory of Aboriginal First Nations until the late 19th century. It was the discovery of gold in the Yukon that changed the far North. The Klondike [View Full Entry]

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I was in the bathroom of a hotel room in California. The TV was talking to itself in the other room. Unless I've started hearing things I would swear I heard... "Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to get out of the car to shop. Walgreens have (X number) of drive through pharmacies..." What a dream! The American shopping Utopia. Yes sir-ee. America is car country, for sure. There is much to love about the USA. Also, as a Brit some of it is strangely familiar - I've watched far too many American sitcoms in my life. But sometimes [View Full Entry]

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