Macau, China’s gambling mecca, is a former Portuguese colony so just as in Hong Kong signs are in Chinese and English, here they’re in Chinese and Portuguese, which is strange to see in the middle of Asia. We stayed in the Cotai area, an area of reclaimed land which is being developed into Macau’s new […]
This sign in Taipei points to the classy restaurant that is McDonald’s!
Taipei was never on our original agenda, but we had some air miles from KLM to spend, which we could use with China Airlines and seeing as it was only an hour and a half from Hong Kong, we decided to hop across to the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) and see what it’s like.
Bali marked the end of our time in SE Asia and our last hot beach destination before we visited lots of cities. Our next stop was Hong Kong which we’d already visited 2 years ago when Dean went for work. As we’d been before, it meant we didn’t feel too pressurised to do lots of […]
Ubud is a city in the centre of Bali, often described as the cultural capital of the island. It’s made up of a few villages which have merged into one and so there are a few clusters of bars and restaurants within it. It has a different feel from the beach resorts of Bali as […]
After the relatively cool temperatures of Australia, it was back to the heat of Bali. First of all we stayed for two nights in the town of Sanur as our flight landed late and this beach town is easily accessible from the airport.
After lots of city time, we were ready for some more beach time so spent 4 nights in Seminyak. Dean decided to blow the budget and treat us to a ‘holiday within our holiday’ complete with a butler to bring us poolside cocktails. As soon as we set our eyes on the beach, it became […]
From Malacca it was another bus trip to Singapore, jumping off a couple of times to have our passports stamped for leaving Malaysia and entering Singapore. On our first evening we met up with an ex-colleague of Dean’s, Tim and his girlfriend Tania who both work at the University. They took us to have dinner […]
From Kuala Lumpur, we took the bus South to Malacca, another World Heritage site. In the past, it was ruled by the Portuguese, British and Dutch. The Dutch influences were particularly evident around the town, with road names like Heeren Street and the town hall being called the Stadthuys.
From Kota Bharu we flew to Kuala Lumpur. We found a great deal to stay at the Shangri-La with a rate that included afternoon tea and two hours of cocktails and canapés and one of the first things we did was make sure we got value for money there – no dinner was required after […]
Wow. I’d heard a lot about these two islands off the East coast of Malaysia and our visit definitely didn’t disappoint. We stayed on Kecil (small) island which is more popular with backpackers while Besar (big) island has more of a family feel to it. There’s not much on these islands other than the hotels. […]
We’re now back in Malaysia, first stop was the island of Penang. We stayed for 2 nights in Georgetown and then moved to the beach. Georgetown is a really interesting mix of lots of different cultures, with Indian, Chinese and British influences. Our hotel was Yeng Keng, an old private residence built in the mid […]
