I heard on the grapevine that a certain bar that I used to frequent in the 1960’s, in Georgetown, Penang, was still in existence. My wife and I and two other couples were passing through Penang, so I had to try and find my piece of yesterday. The bar was (is) called The Hong Kong […]
When I arranged our holiday in Vietnam for my wife and I, and our friends, we were all price sensitive, so I had to be careful of the costs. Flying out of Sydney we could fly with Vietnam Airlines or Qantas , but when I checked on the prices I realised that Vietnam Airlines had […]
Our driver arrived five minute early, I do love efficiency, and at 3.00 am we had the fastest drive ever to the airport, which was just over twenty minutes instead of the normal 45 minutes. Check-in went smoothly and our bags checked through to Rome. We were given vouchers for a hotel near Dubai airport, Le […]
The gap at the mouth of Port Phillip Bay is called the RIP , or The Heads, which can be very dangerous. The gap between the two points of land is just over three kilometres, so of course to pass into Port Phillip requires a pilot. It is said that this stretch of water is […]
A radio message arrived to inform us that we were to call at Trincomalee to pick up mail and to investigate the situation before leaving the area for Fremantle in Western Australia. This suited us all of us on board because picking up mail was one of the most important events for anyone at sea […]
Once the decision had been made to join the Majestic Princess in Rome, and to sail back to Singapore, the next thought was how to get to Rome and home from Singapore. I checked various airlines that we have used in the past, and considered the cost via each one, but as one gets older one […]
We sailed from Fremantle on the 5th April, the weather was fine and we hoped it would remain so as we were about to cross the Great Australian Bight, renowned for rough seas and sensitive stomachs. The Great Australian Bight stretches from Cape Pasley in Southern Western Australia to Cape Catastrophe in South Australia. There […]
Upon sailing from Colombo we cleaned ship – the crew hosed down the decks and all rubbish was thrown overboard (well before it became un pc), the smell of the land fell away and we could unlock our windows and doors, we were free of petty thieving and the smell of industry, our destination was […]
We flew with KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER (ER = Extended range) from Buenos Aires to Santiago in Chile, so as to connect with the Qantas B 747 to Sydney. All went well until we reached the Andes when I realised that I’d left my camera in the overhead bag, and I was sitting in the centre […]
Having flown with nearly fifty different airlines I have finally found an airline that I would not wish to fly with, even if they offered free seats. Rayani Air began services last Sunday (20th Dec). This airline is the first Malaysian Sharia compliant airline. Of course they don’t carry wine, which is not a problem, […]
For the last twelve years my wife and I have hoarded our frequent flyer points by doing our best to only use airlines in the same ‘group’ as Virgin Atlantic. In May of 2014 Virgin Atlantic stopped flying to / from Australia. Our aim was to have enough points to ‘buy’ a business class round trip […]
During the Corona Virus lock down, I decided to do a spot of Spring cleaning of my study. All went well at the beginning until I started to find things that I’d forgotten about, so of course I welcomed the distraction by checking out my own bits & pieces, which I had not seen for […]