The most magical spots are found through the people you meet on your travels:   It's a six-and-a-half hour bus ride from Georgetown to the embarkation point in eastern Malaysia which takes you to the island of Pulau Perhentian Besar. But low-and-behold if tech-savvy Elenka didn't find an airline that would deliver us to the same spot in 40 minutes for less than 25 bucks. We flew. We found a place called the Reef Chalets, 10 cabinas sitting in an arc-...

We flew into Kuala Lumpur late last night from Colombo on a crazy Air Asia connection. First we flew over 1,000 kilometres west, the the Maldives, then back 3,100 kilometres east to K L. It was after midnight when we arrived so we dined on the Malaysian version of cup-of-soup. This morning we hit-the-bricks, in sweltering heat, at ten o'clock and didn't stop until one in the afternoon. In spite of K Ls ultra-modern architecture it's not a pleasant pl...

 One hair, about eight centimetres long, grew from his neck. He was about five-feet tall and had makings of a short moustache. His name was John and he didn't speak much English. Elenka had befriended him on the waiting platform of Kuala Lumpur's stinking, hot bus station as I ran frantically about trying to ensure that we were actually on the right platform. 10 years ago, at the age of 18, John walked across the Burmese border into Thailand and made hi...

Air Asia has a special cheap-flyers terminal at Kuala Lumpur Airport. We'd heard the KL's launching pad was one of the best. But we didn't get to see it. Oh, well.

 It was hot the day before yesterday, so Ellen and I did a walk through the air conditioned Sarawak Museum. Never mind that the ancient headhunters of Borneo hung skulls from their ceilings. We, or at least I, found something far worse. In a glass case sat two narrow pieces of wood bound together at each end. A jagged stone, about half the size of a baseball also sat inside the case, as well as a set of shiny silver spikes. The enclosed caption gave a brief desc...