Tag: travel

The Sun Sets Early At Victoria Harbour

The sun sets very early in Hong Kong during winter season. It was November when I was there. If I am not mistaken, it was only 6 pm local time. We were at Victoria Harbour and a Malaysian Star Cruise ocean liner or cruise ship was docked there. What a lovely coincidence.

The harbour and glittering skyline are a magnet for photographers. Almost missed the sunset as Kuala Lumpur’s golden hour is comparatively late at 7:30 pm usually. It was like going to Sabah for the first time to find the sun setting earlier. By 7:50 pm, Hong Kong sky would have been pitch black. What do you say Hong Kong friend Sam Chan and other HK residents?

Find a hotel in Hong Kong through my page at:
http://www.mycen.my/agoda/

LG Viewty KU 990, ISO 101, f2.8, 1/7 sec

#hongkong #victoriaharbour #twilight #sunset #harbour #skyline #hk #magichour

Missing Hong Kong Suddenly

Was looking for pics of my Hong Kong trip. Asked Samantha Tan of Bernama, who went with me. She lost all her pics too. It was 2007 and, amazingly, she is still with Bernama today.

At last, I found some pics on my old blog after contacting Sam to get her to recall the year in question and the name of the product launch we attended. We took a hovercraft to Hong Kong from Macau where we attended the product launch.

The other day I was lamenting about losing all my pics from my extensive tour of Vietnam. Was very happy to be reunited Cheah E-Ling, my then travel partner but, sadly she lost all her pics too. She remembers our government minder as Vung. He was in some agricultural or health department. Any friends in Vietnam knows any Vung? Hopefully, he kept some pics.

Think of social media or the web as a very good good backup or cloud storage as it stays there and is indexed by Google and become searchable. All images stored on personal devices are at risk.

Pic of Hong Kong, with high density and tightly spaced buildings, the late afternoon sun casts long shadows, turning a small space into two different worlds of day and night. Eerie but beautiful.

This would have been a tough scene even for a dSLR camera but it was captured with the LG’s Viewty camera just launched then and gifted to lucky members of the media.

LG Viewty KU 990, ISO 53, f2.8, 1/2000 sec

#hongkong #macau #lg #streetphotography

Why?

If You Scroll, A Thousand Bed Bugs Will Crawl Out From Your Bed And Bite You Where The Sun Don’t Shine.

Some of you may wonder why I am creating so much content related to hotels. Fair question. As I explained from the onset, I decided that becoming a hotel booking affiliate partner can hopefully and God Willing (please type InShaAllah or إن شاء الله‎‎ in comments) – provide a potential residual income. It is not passive but active, as I have to think of ways to market it legitimately and legally within the terms of use.

Anyone from anywhere in the world can be a user. Everybody travel these days and they can use the booking service from anywhere to anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. For example, it can an be someone in Iceland looking for accommodation in Fiji. Or a local in Ipoh wanting to go to Penang. I have many social media friends from over the globe who followed me for a long time already. So what are the setbacks? People forget. Therefore I have to keep it sticky, visible and fresh in people’s minds regularly.

After my hospitalization, I needed to find a stable revenue stream that is reliable. The advantage is I have plenty of time. I can create content easily from my library of images, I am fairly competent technically, an experienced webmaster and know the in and outs of SEO. I have much travel related content and it meant easier and faster approval when applying to be an affiliate.

I also have many sites to cross link. Still, I need to reach a critical mass of regular users before I can see fruitful results. Many search engines, I suspect, are also affiliates. Why not? They need revenue too and they compete with me. So I try to think of creative ways to value add. Is all blood, sweat and tears, even though it is an online business.

Webmasters will know this. Regular citations mean faster search engine spidering and indexing. It is very hard mental and physical work as I need to be diligent in ensuring specific hotels are correctly linked. I also need to keep an eye on server performance, bandwidth management and hard disk space utilization. There are many more technical challenges and costs to worry about. Not a business, I’ll recommend to the faint hearted or to a newbie.

A sale is not a sale until the money is in the bank. Some people might cancel their bookings. Also affiliate partners dont pay you immediately even though or because the commissions are micro in nature. Have to wait until you reach a certain threshold and time is needed before commission are even tallied and accumulated payment is sent out, if it reaches the month’s minimum quota.

Anyway, in case you have forgotten, my landing page is at:

http://www.mycen.my/agoda/

You can also help me by introducing me to friends who travel frequently. Thank you for your support.

You can share this post too, if you like and I won’t hit you with puzzling fuckery such as “copy and paste, don’t share”

Also no silly WTF conditions like:

don’t scroll without typing amen.
this baby is too cute, scroll if you are heartless.
Ignore if you have no heart or liver.
1 like = 100000 prayers.
Leave this on your Fb for 2000 hours so I can see who my friends are
Ptui!

Picture of hotel guests looking at very scary torrential rain from the lobby. I love this hotel as it is opulent, classy and very grand – The Empire Hotel and Country Club in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. If I remember correctly, it is near the abandoned Neverland amusement park built for Michael Jackson. I checked the rates today from my provider and it was quoted at around RM 850. Prices may vary depending on the dates you selected.

Aloha

Air Asia X will be launching direct flights between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Honolulu, Hawaii starting June 28, 2017. The flight will go via a two-hour stopover in Osaka, Japan. Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean and is about 11,000 km from KL, as the crow flies.

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls and numerous smaller islets. Hawaii is a state of the US and you will need a visa.

Once you land in Honolulu in Oahu Island, you can island hop to other islands. For the purpose of listing accommodation options, I will categorise them as Oahu, Maui and Kauai. I will also include the Big Island of Hawaii.

What do we Malaysians know about Hawaii except from watching the original Hawaii-Five-O TV series in the 1970s when the highlight was watching Steve McGarrett (uttering the now classic catchphrase) “Book em, Danno!” at the end of each episode?

Who, who saw the original series can forget dour faced Asian detective Chin Ho played by Kam Fong Chun?

For the purpose of the upcoming hotel compilation, I contacted my Hawaiian Instagram friends such as (@hello_achi) or Love C. The seasoned adventurer sent me some pics to use too. I like this turtle pic she captured (used with her permission) of a turtle swimming in the crystal clear blue ocean of Maui.

Other Hawaiians friends like Susan (@susansusan808) and Rick Lui (@happyrickthunder) have not responded at the time of posting this preview. I will add their suggestions, if they come.

The hotel page is still work in progress and I will announce it when it is ready. Meanwhile you can search for Hawaiian hotels or a hotel at anywhere in the world, here:

http://www.mycen.my/agoda/

#hawaii #honolulu #airasiax #oahu #maui #island #turtle #underwater #ocean

We Used To Head Straight For The Beach In Penang

Before Georgetown in Penang was accorded UNESCO status as a World Heritage site, many visitors liked staying at the beach hotels at Batu Ferringhi and Tanjung Bungah.

I was driving with my freind Alex Wong along Gold Coast Sepang the other day. I usually write my travel stories in my mind as they unfolded. Every keyword, adjective or noun that I wanted to use was a name of a hotel in Penang. The story can end up sounding like a list of beach hotels in Penang; Bayview, Golden Sands, Casuarina Beach Resort, (now Hard Rock Hotel), Lone Pine, Lost Paradise, etc.

Tanjung Rhu Resort was in Langkawi though. Penang owned catchy Beach Hotel names since the 80s. During pre-Penang Bridge days or before Georgetown was accorded UNESCO status as a World Heritage site, many of us headed for Batu Ferringhi or Tanjung Bungah rather than the now newer, hipster and so called boutique hotels in Georgetown.

Many beach hotels had what they designated as their own private beach reserved for their room guests. Many locals will walk in through the lobby and swim at the beaches unfairly reserved for foreign tourists. A friend in the industry told me the hotels came up with an ingenious idea to protect their beach from free loaders. They hired Ang Mohs (white men) and stationed them like a Secret Service agent guarding the perimeter. It worked. LOL. It frightened locals away.

The bullying of locals worked in Singapore too. I went to a casino in Singapore and there was a Mat Salleh at the entrance screening people going in. Singapore has a set of casino restrictions for locals and the Ang Moh bouncer in a suit and tie terrified local rule breakers.

I suppose it is mere Asian politeness, shyness or a colonial day hangover.

Find around 700 hotels in Penang here.

Now with its heritage status, George Town saw many new city hotels being built and is attracting even more visitors. Hotels flourished at the Gurney Drive area as well. Gurney Drive is essentially a sea facing esplanade. Note that not all seafront hotels are sea touching and you may be required to a walk across a busy main road. Check maps of hotel you selected. Here is list of Penang Hotels, usefully sorted into their respective categories : http://www.mycen.my/hotels-in-penang/