TWO WINGS AND A PRAYER Our flight to Bali turned out to be a bit of a nightmare in more ways than one. The flight was delayed by over two hours and when we finally boarded the plane we had to endure the most cramped seats I've ever seen. We literally had less than 6 inches between each row of seat - something that can only be legal in Indonesia. Slightly more disconcerting were the prayer cards we found in the seat pockets displaying incantations for every fai...

JAVA LAVA Having experienced the dire hygiene standards in Jakarta we thought it was probably best to book seats in an 'executive' carriage for our train journey to Yogyakarta. Quelle surprise! - it turned out to be just as grimy as the other carriages on the train. On the upside we had a TV to help pass the time which was just as well as the journey took an hour and a half longer than it should have. Yogyakarta is, thankfully, completely different to Jakarta....

THE BIG DURIAN The journey to Singapore's airport was a surprisingly straightforward ride on the metro. We had a bit of a sketch with airport security when they x-rayed my bag. I'd accidentally left my penknife inside and it was promptly confiscated. It is probably now sitting in one of those display cases where they display banned carry-on items - wedged between a machete and a pair of nunchucks. Jakarta is very disappointing. For some reason I had imagined J...

LITTLE BRITIAN We are now in Singapore and staying in a small hotel, just two blocks up from Raffles, which overlooks Park View Square; an incredible gothic meets art-deco office block that looks like something out of a Batman film. Everything here is very clean and there are well tended tropical garden everywhere you look. It is easy to see why so many people come to Singapore for the shopping. Orchard Road has literally dozens of shopping malls and possibly ...

COOKING WITH KENNY Anyone who regularly reads these blogs will not be surprised to hear that, like most of our bus trips, the journey from Krabi to Kuala Lumpur did not go quite as planned. First we were shuttled to Hat Yai near the Thai border in a mini-van. Then we had an unexpected three hour wait for our coach to take us over the border. The delay resulted in a heated exchange between myself and a guy from the bus company who bore more than a passing resem...