Hotel Puri and Beyond, Serenity in the heart of beautiful Melaka "Selamat Datang! Welcome to the award-winning Hotel Puri in the heart of Historic Melaka! Finally, we got a chance to stay in this beautifully-restored hotel. I had to admit that this was one of the best hotel stays I had with lots of charm and character. Forget about the 4 or 5 stars hotel in the vicinity. If there was one place that you should stay while in Melaka, Hotel Puri was it. Of course, for the budget conscious, the neighboring Baba House made an excellent alternative with rates 50% of what we were paying at Puri. Both hotels are situated along the historic Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock (Lao Jie - Old Street), next the Baba and Nyona Museum - also another gem ... read more

Perth, Western Australia 26th July 2004 - 5th August 2004 My first encounter in a western country occurred some 5 years back. S and I had just completed our Year 2 in the University and decided it was time to reward ourselves with a trip to Australia. I still remembered vividly that in order to cut costs, we took a Malaysia Airline flight to Kuala Lumpur before flying south to Perth. At $692, the price of the air ticket was not cheap in today’s standards considering that Tiger Airways and Jetstar are now offering direct flights to the same destination @ rock bottom prices. However, in those days when the Sin-Perth route were dominated by Qantas and Singapore Airlines, $692 was already a bargain. The advent of budget carriers had certainly made traveling much more affordable ... read more

Journey to the Land of Smiles (25 - 29 December 2003) Part 1: Inspection Report 7 of us went to Bangkok during Christmas 2 years ago. It happened at the time when budget carriers were unheard of in Singapore. The cheapest flight then operated on graveyard hours by SAS. We were pushed all the way to the late 10.10pm flight on Christmas Day 2003. It was simply filled to the brim of eager Singaporeans intending to make a "bloodshed" in Bangkok. The Cheapest Flight (Scandinavian Airlines) The cheapest option didn't mean lousy. At least, SAS had proven that. Ok the ang moh stewardess who served us was clearly aging, the baguette served on board is well uninteresting. But at least there was edible food & we had our personal inflight entertainment within our own comfort ... read more