A Tip For The Wandering Stranger

To lessen my anxiety, I took some pics to calm down. I don’t remember where I was but I traced my route to the Kramat Railway Station In Central Jakarta. How do I do it?

Here’s an important photography tip: Many times we may not recall or know where we were in a strange and unfamiliar city. Whether you are walking or in a car, try to shoot more, especially with a digital camera. Ideally. we should shoot with a camera with GPS enabled so the coordinates are recorded together in the exif data.

Unfortunately, I didn’t. I did shoot all the nearby shops and streets. In Jakarta, many shops, even small ones, have a signboard with the street name shown. By looking at nearby landscape pics I was able to see I was at Jalan Pramuka Raya. With that, I went to Google Map and found the railway track crossing and railway station. Google Street View allowed me to match up the images to confirm.

In the collage:
Top pic: When the car stopped on the track.
Lower left: Google street view showed it to be a busy crossing and is gated.
Lower right: The shop sign that gave away the street name

Book a hotel out of 715 hotels in Jakarta here.

Wandering Stranger was one of the saddest songs by Lionel Ritchie.

#jakarta #railway #train #crosing #indonesia #kramat

Nasi Padang in Jakarta

Nasi Padang in Jakarta was scary. Wanted to buy my local driver dinner since it was my last day. It was just me and him (seen here in blue) and the restaurant brought out enough dishes to feed a village. Was relieved they only charge for plates that were partially consumed or touched.

Nasi Padang gets its name from the West Sumatran town of Padang, famous for the culinary rice dish or buffet. Turned out to be an awesome experience.

Book a hotel out of 715 hotels in Jakarta here.

Hotels In Tashkent Uzbekistan

The region stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. I have met in Kuala Lumpur many students from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.  At one time, many of the students moonlight as workers in IT shops and as waiters or waitresses in pubs and bars.

The countries all have the Persian suffix “-stan”, meaning “land of”. The closest I’ve been was going to Kazakhstan embassy in Jalan U Thant to apply for a visa to Kazakhstan. The Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome was to be the launch site of the rocket carrying the Malaysian astronaut to the space station. I asked the late Science Minister in a briefing as to why the selected hotels were so expensive and he said it was best for the the media and accompanying entourage to stay in top hotels for maximum security.

The great thing I remember about the Kazakhstan embassy officer was he asked me what telco I was using then (Maxis) and he told me there is service since there is a roaming agreement. I mean how many embassy officers even know or care about those things.

Fast forward to ten years later and I have a Instagram friend  (@gsmile_elf) or Gulnoza Nazarova from the It is just south of Kazakhstan. The elfish, impish and beautiful Gulnoza is now studying Chinese at Lanzhou University in north west China. Coincidentally, Lanzhou is the origin of beef lamian or pulled noodles or mee tarik, I wrote about recently.

I asked Gulnoza to suggest a Uzbekistan hotel and she spoke glowingly of the Hyatt Regency Tashkent. It is a luxury hotel in the capital city and it is not cheap either.

Book the  Hyatt Regency Tashkent

She sent me a bunch of pics of the hotel which I cannot use since I don’t know the source. It is shown here in a pic by Booking dot com and a pic of Gulnoza celebrating her birthday in March.  I have added links to over 70 hotels in Tashkent below.

Book the  Hyatt Regency Tashkent

Link to over 70 hotels in Tashkent

 

 

Bei Boutique Hotel Muar

Sorry, Babe.

Beiby, I found another Muar Boutique Hotel. Somehow the Bei Boutique Hotel escaped the radar of search engines and hotel searches when I was compiling a list of hotels in Muar, headed by the new Muo Boutique Hotel.

If you are looking for a room for the upcoming Raya balik kampung holidays. you have another option. I was introduced to the hotel by my Fb friend Dr Yia Hua Jern, the consultant nephrologist whose workplace, Hospital Pakar KPJ Bandar Maharani is located near the hotel. Thanks, doc. Nothing beats local knowledge like how another thoughtful Muarian Yusof Noi who pointed me to the Muo Boutique Hotel.

You know the Bei Boutique Hotel is a boutique or hipster hotel when they have a bathroom with flat tray washbasins, honeymoon suites and a lobby with sit down office table arrangement as check in counter AND violins on the wall. I must say the decor is quite classy and modern. I have added it to the list of booking links of Muar hotels at:

http://www.mycen.my/muo-boutique-hotel/

You can also book the Bei Boutique Hotel directly from here

Address: 8-3, Jalan Abdul Rahman, 84000, Muar, Johor.

Check it out.

Mongolia Matters

Cold As Ice.

I was standing near an ashtray in KLCC Park when a very beautiful woman came to ask me for a light. I didn’t have one as I no longer smoke. Asking for lighter in a club years ago was how gay people determine a stranger’s preference or interest by the way you hand over the lighter. I can’t remember the mechanism now.

Anyway, it was an innocent request and I got to know her. She was Boloro Dendev on Fb (@tina_hk on IG). In-spite of her trademark icy demeanor, she turned out to be a very warm person with a great sense of humour. She spoke English with a Hong Kong accent and she looked Chinese.
After a long chat, I found out she is Mongolian but lives in Hong Kong where she is known as Tina. We became Facebook and IG friends and I saw her posting about being afraid to go outside at her home in her country when temperature was -30C one day in February. Wanted to confirm with her and she replied saying it is can be as low as -65 C ! Yikes. How many can remember the song “Cold As Ice” by Foreigner?

Mind you, she is a native of the country and grew up there but yet she found it unbearable when she is home. Maybe it was her years of living abroad.

I was thinking of visiting the capital Ulaanbaatar during summer one of these days. I asked Boloro for a hotel she likes and she mentioned the Shangri-la Ulaanbaatar. There are many Mongolian hotels listed in MyCen Hotels, should you decide to go there.

Picture of the enormous Statue of Genghis Khan in Mongolia and a ravishing selfie by Bolorov Dendev. Located 54 km east of Ulaanbaatar, the Chinggis Khan Statue is currently the biggest and tallest equestrian statue in the world. Visitors can walk inside an exhibition hall inside the horse’s body.

Find a hotel in Mongolia at http://www.mycen.my/

 

See over 150 hotels in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia by clicking here

#mongolia #ulaanbaatar #genghiskhan #chinggiskhan #asian