Two Sore Backs

First I’ll bore you with some family history and describe our journey from Ipoh to KL. Or skip ahead for the food tour section. My grandfather grew up in England and graduated as a railway engineer. Given the dominance of rail at that time it was a good occupation. He joined the British Colonial Service…

Ricki and Tom, the travel agents we had met on Koh Libong, highly recommended Ipoh, so we decided to spend a night there before continuing to Kuala Lumpur. One of our first stops, after the bus from Cameron Highlands and getting settled at our hotel, was Aud’s Cafe for lunch. Their avocado smoothies are fantastic,…

When Val’s grandparents lived in KL (her grandfather worked for the railroad before and after the war – stories to come), they escaped the heat by travelling to the mountains, Fraser’s Hill to be specific. Tourism has really affected that area, so we (Val) chose Cameron Highlands as our cooling off place.  It has been…

Serious writers block – we left Penang four weeks ago! Pat and I have wrapped up our adventures in Malaysia and Singapore. We spent a week at friends outside Athens enjoying Orthodox Easter! Yesterday we moved along – we are driving around the Peloponnese. ____________________________________________ Readers who enjoy our ‘foodie’ commentary will appreciate our next…

This post captures the amazing street art we see during our walks to coffee places and other sights in the Old Town of George Town (on Penang Island). Old Town has UNESCO heritage status. Today’s Old Town is surrounded by urban development to its north, west and south sides. The east side retains the charm…

We are going to island hop our way down the Andaman Sea from Koh Libong to Penang. Koh Libong was pure relaxation. These next three days are a whirlwind. We stop at two more islands along the way. Koh Lipe First stop. The water is extremely shallow and so clear. A long boat pulls up…

We wanted to find a nice, relaxing, non-touristy island with nice beaches, so I asked Chat GPT for suggestions. The response?  Koh Libong. The morning flight from Bangkok was uneventful until we got to the Trang airport exit. We were wondering where our bus to the Hat Yao Pier would be. As we exited the…

We did two tours in Bangkok.  The first was a bicycle tour with Co Van Kessel. It was quite an experience riding through the narrow streets and alleyways of Bangkok’s Chinatown and the flower market.  While some of us on the tour could take videos while maneuvering around, Val and I had both hands on…

The bus from Koh Chang was as easy as it could be. Door to door service, and not terribly expensive. Maybe not the most scenic, but we appreciated the simplicity. We were lucky to choose Arie as our home base in Bangkok. It’s laid back and very comfortable, with lots of cool shops, restaurants and…

March 28th The day starts with the news that Chris (who is battling a throat infection) can’t talk and is feeling at his worst. (Chris hasn’t been feeling well for a few days and has tried not to use his voice much. Let’s face it, that is hard when you are getting married and have…