This holiday couldn’t come too soon but somehow we didn’t have long enough to prepare for it. I did however; manage to get hold of some of the local notes from the post office. I also got a few Thai Bhat ready for our trip over there. We fly out of Heathrow on Tuesday, land in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday via Colombo in Sri Lanka. We have booked one night in a hotel in the centre then we fly out on Thursday to Phuket in Thailand. This doesn’t leave much time to either do our tourist bit in KL, sort software out which is one of our main objectives or see much of Tom and Youngja. However, they will be working until Saturday anyway and they fly off for a week on holiday anyway so we will have to see them when we return. We still hope to catch up for my birthday meal on Wednesday evening when we arrive anyway but the rest will have to wait for a week or so. Also our flight on Thursday was 144 Ringgits but went up to 650 Ringgits after that before returning to the more reasonable 190 Ringgits on the following Thursday. Claire thinks that this was the real reason we appear to be in such a hurry and she’s right, it doesn’t matter what order we see things in to me.
As normal the exchange rate has gone against our favour but the prices still seem relatively cheap compared to here. A typical hotel with en-suite, hot water, tv and aircon is around £20 a night for both of us and its about the same in Thailand. We usually mix in the nice with the not so nice just to get a cross section and also to reduce costs a little.
I bought a new Mac book air yesterday and the buying and setting up took all of my day and Im actually writing this on it. So far so good. It looks like it will be the best computer I ever had. I couldn't sleep last night; its getting just like when I first got my BBC computer, up all hours. Its barely bigger than my ipad and weighs less than 2 pound. Its a shame that the
cost wasn’t the same as the weight. However, it is instant switch on and off as there is no hard drive being solid state. Its very much like my old BBC in that respect but it doesn't make the double peep when switched on. We have packed up and are ready to go, only this computer to pack now. I will arrange for this blog to go live while we are travelling over there and we are scheduled to land on my birthday. Happy birthday Phil!
I also treated myself to a new camera as my other new one that Claire bought for my previous birthday broke when Claire used it for the first time in Goa. Technology seems to be moving on ever faster, the cameras available a year later have such a different spec and are of higher definition. As we intend to travel all around Malaysia and probably wont be returning I thought that we needed a decent camera to record our experiences and also the photo editor on my imac is unbelievable. We hope to be buying a few bits of software whilst in KL but only have the best part of a day before we fly out to Phuket. An estate agent called John rang me whilst I was getting my tuition for the
mac in the Apple store so I told him that I would ring back. John lived in Phuket for 5 years and I wished that I had taken his call as when I rang him back as I was walking out of the shop he told me that I could buy a Macbook for 20% less in an Apple store in Phuket. That always seems to happen, doesn’t it? As soon as you buy something some smart Alec tells you you could have saved a few bob if you asked them first. Not quite that quick though. Never mind, I couldn't have set it up and copied stuff from home if I had bought it there anyway.
I suffered a little during and after the final week of my treatment but it has started to sort itself out and I feel that Im on the road to recovery now. I still haven't had the bottle to try my first curry yet and the nurse advised me to wait for a month before eating one but that might be tricky in Malaysia and Thailand. I hope to try my first one on my birthday with Claire, Tom and Youngja so maybe you don't want to be on the same flight as me the following day. I will let you know.
As usual Claire will be taking a well deserved rest while we are travelling and I will be helping out blogging but I do hope that she does at least half so I have time to restart my neglected book again. It has taken me ages to read and research the current chapter which is Geology of the Earth. This is mainly because its my weakest subject of the entire book and has not had a natural interest for me. However, the more that I have learned about it the
more fascinating it has become and I hope that I am capable of creating the interest to others through the next chapter. At the same time I will be glad to get this chapter out the way so I can get on with chapters that naturally hold more interest for me and that I don't need to spend as much time researching for. I have read numerous books, listened to lots of great podcasts and read a first level OU course, a second level OU course and even a third level Ou course so I should know what Im talking about now. I suspect that I will still make lots of mistakes and false assumptions though but Hopefully Alfy can read it first and cut most of them out before it goes any further.
Claire is actually taking her laptop as well so that we can load some Windows software on it at the same time. It will also mean that we are not fighting over the pc all the time. Of course, it goes without saying that I will be taking my iphone and ipad and al the associated cables and gadgets. This makes traveling around with backpacks a little tricky whilst island hopping. However, I have managed to get all our technology into a small hand backpack which I can take on the plane without so much risk of damage or loss in the hold. We are trying to get everything else into a large rucksack so that we only have 2 backpacks, one large and one small. This will make it easier to hire a motorbike from the ferry terminal and find a hotel with ease without looking like Indian refugees. I only hope that they have larger crash helmets than they did last time we were in that area.
Time to go now we will catch up again when we are there. Lets hope that we don't get our usual internet trouble this time. We are off!
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