We flew to Sandakan on a short hop flight (1 hour 10 minutes) from Kota Kinabalu. It is a city of over 500,000, the former capital of Sabah, and the gateway to many of Sabah’s wildlife attractions. We stayed at the Elopura Hotel, centrally located and somewhat threadbare. The prevalence of Islam was quite strong, […]
Lodging
Bilit Adventure Lodge
An eco-tour up the Kinabatangan River in Borneo had become a bucket item for us on this trip. It was finally here! We walked up to our pickup point at Wisma Ku, about 6 blocks from our hotel. We drove a bit and stopped for lunch at the Sepilok Jungle Resort, a luxury spot, not […]
Georgetown, Penang
We are enjoying Malaysia. As we’ve mentioned, it is Ramadan, so we get to hear the muezzin go on long extensive riffs in the evenings. The other night he went on for over 30 minutes. That takes some serious effort. We flew to Kota Kinabalu yesterday, and I’ve finally got internet, so we’d talk about our […]
Langkawi – Near Disaster
So we left Vietnam looking for some downtime. We decided to checkout Langkawi, Malaysia, an island in the Andaman Sea near the border between Malaysia and Thailand. We knew it would be a tourist spot, what with it being an island, with beaches, and all of that, but Ellen was still recovering from her sinus […]
Sapa Comedy of Errors
We went to bed Sunday night planning on getting up early Tuesday to head off to Sapa in the Northwest mountains of Vietnam. The Women’s Museum of Vietnam was slated for a visit “tomorrow.” At 5:00 a.m. Ellen woke me with the statement “I think we may go to Sapa this morning!” We checked our […]
Ninh Binh to Hanoi
Our Joy Nibi hostess booked us rides to our hotel in Hanoi. 500k VND, or less than $20 for a 2 hour ride. As usual, we were pretty much the last ones on, and last off. This means last row. The younger set had the single seats, and were pretty comfy putting them back, lessoning […]
Journey’s Odds and End
We’ve come to the end of our stay at Journey’s End on Koh Chang in the Gulf of Thailand. Every morning, I developed a routine that included: get up, threw on elephant pants, walk down to the beach, make myself a double cup of coffee, and do the NYT Wordle, Connections, Strands, Sudoku and the […]
The Sunsets of Journey’s End
A Virtual Coffee Table Book As many of you know, we are complete sunset junkies. During our stay at Journey’s End, we enjoyed a sunset every night. None were ever the same. December 23
Journey’s End Homestay
Journey’s End is an island on an island. It is in the far less populated Southeast, near the end of a road, in the hamlet of Chek Bae. It is a bit on the hippy spectrum, certainly welcoming, unpretentious, mellow, delicious, beloved by guests and neighbors, and family. It gets many repeat visitors, and is […]
Trat
We flew from Vientiane to Don Muoang (the “Old”) Airport in Bangkok. Made our way to lodging, and it wasn’t much. But hey, $30 per night in Bangkok. Had dinner on a rooftop restaurant. The next day we took the MRT to Chatuchak Weekend Market and did some shopping. Pete and Lek showed up. We […]