Following the disaster of our first trip we tried again to visit the Yogyakartan Sultan’s Palace, this time on a Sunday, in the hope of seeing some traditional Javanese dance. It’s now more than two months since I first experienced traditional Javanese music and dance and I still can’t seem to get the sense of…
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After Jakarta, arriving in Yogyakarta was like a breath of fresh air. Well, not quite fresh, Yogyakarta traffic is of the same shape and density as Jakarta, if not on the same scale, but it was a breath of different air which means much the same thing. Instead of the tacky and worn grandeur…
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Officially, The Blue Mansion in Penang was owned by Cheong Fatt Tze, one of the most important Chinese businessmen and politicians of the 20th century. Unofficially, and more accurately, The Blue Mansion and all who resided within her walls, belonged to his seventh, and favourite, wife. One of those places that just gets more fascinating…
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You know the traffic’s bad when people can make their living selling cigarettes and snacks through stationary car windows. Sitting in an airport taxi in traffic that looks as though it stretches from the past way into the future, I can hardly see a thing. It’s only 5.30pm, far too early for sunset but the…
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George Town is a place with ghosts. For our four-day stay that turned into a week we rented a room in a hundred year old shophouse in the heritage district. Once providing shelter for, reputedly, over seventy immigrant workers at once, the shophouse now provided shelter for the two of us and our Chinese-Malay-Brunei AirBnB…
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In Kuala Lumpur, the best malls are the worst malls. New malls are largely cavernous, too-brightly lit spaces made of glass and faux marble with endless floors connected by a labyrinth of escalators that look as though they were conceived by Escher. As soon as these new malls open, all sparkly and new and yet…
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As in Singapore, our first night in Kuala Lumpur is spent in a thunderstorm. British storms begin like a growl in the back of the throat and grow into a little tantrum of rain. More often than not the sky tires of its noise and activity and gives up after half an hour, leaving behind…
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1. Lavender Street Food Court First things first, let’s talk about food. Singaporeans are obsessed with their scran and thanks to their heady ethnic mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian can stake claim to a wild array of dishes being their very own national cuisine. One of the best things about Singapore is that although…
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