Random shots. Stupa at Borobodur.

Another wake-up coffee, and possibly more….?

Another product found on my recent trip to Indonesia was this interesting looking coffee.

Now, as a producer and exporter of coffee, Indonesians are no strangers to good, strong coffee - the way that I like it! - and none of this wimpy Starbuck’s/Coffee Bean/(insert chain name here) that is a bastard son of Americanization and global marketing. Hmmph.

Ginger (Jahe) is also very popular, and I have quite developed a taste for ginger coffee as a real eye-opener first thing in the morning. The warming effects of the ginger are quite pronounced, and give a pleasant additional glow to the caffeine flowing through the system.

There are other, more ambitious, products as well such as:

A potent mixture of Indonesian coffee, ginger, eurycoma and sundry other spices. It tastes really good, if you like ginger (and can handle the slightly mud-like consistency!), and has the immediate effect of warming you from the palate to the stomach. Good to wake up with.

As for the advertising copy - well, obviously anything containing caffeine will increase energy (OK, not energy per se, but alertness) and will chase sleep away quite effectively.

I refuse to comment on the “increased husband-wife passion” claim. Except to say that coffee breath is never a turn-on, and I can think of better things to imbibe to create the same effect

Travel pics - Sunrise at Borobodur.

Plenty of pictures to show of this awe-inspiring temple structure, as and when I process them all (I went a bit camera crazy and have hundreds to sort and PP). So, until then, this gives you a feel of the 6:00am sunrise, the shots of the golden stonework will be up later.

Random shots. Beauty, even in ruin.

A few days R&R out of town.

Decided that I needed to get away for a few days, and also wanted to pop across to Singapore for some tattoo touch-ups, so I rode down on the freshly serviced Flying Banana at speeds that we won’t mention - KL to JB in 2 1/2 hours *cough - and stayed at the Sofitel golfing resort that I mentioned in an earlier post.

So relaxing in fact that I ended up extending and staying 5 days, just chilling and watching inept golfers swinging clubs and hitting balls into trees.

Nice place, recommended for a peaceful well run hotel/resort, and reasonably priced, especially if you book through Expedia (which I use for booking everything, worldwide - simply the best and most convenient service on the web IMHO) and a damn sight cheaper than staying anywhere in Singapore itself.

Relaxing view whilst chilling with the morning paper

Nice, spacious rooms

Looking for the balls, LOL!

We don’t need no stinkin’ helmets

After my, regrettably brief, trip to JB recently - lots of activities closed due to weather, nature rules all unfortunately - I got back to KL after a blistering ride (hope I didn’t leave you TOO far behind, M - and after disrobing (OK, painfully peeling off the layers of body armour and wetgear, not nice) I realised that my primary motorcycle helmet was, shall we say politely, less than entirely fresh inside.

Fortunately it has a removable lining, so what I usually do is remove all the “coolmax” padding, and wash in the machine. However, this morning, I decided to be more extreme, and wrapped the whole helmet in it’s neat carrying bag and stuck the whole thing into the washing machine. Cue horrors from Mrs. S. - “Are you sure that’s wise, won’t it scratch, break or get damaged?” - Fah, I replied, worth taking the risk. Set the machine to gentle Eco cycle anyway (same as I use for her bras which are equally sensitive to extreme washes, LOL) - and came back 30 minutes later to find a perfectly polished helmet (stop laughing in the back there, please!) with a fresh, and freshly conditioned, interior, all ready for my next road trip which will be in a few weeks, I hope.

Technology = wonderful sometimes.

Wonder if I can sell the slogan to Samsung - “Doesn’t just freshen your clothes, polishes your helmet to a gleaming finish at the same time?”

Perhaps not. But saves me doing it manually in the future.

The most boring place on Earth?

This goes back to an old survey done by the BBC back in 2001. Can’t think where I found the link, but some of the comments are amusing. I seem to think somewhere in Canada (Edmonton?) came first, closely followed by Singapore. Heh!

Singapore is the most boring place on earth. No life, no individuality, no fun… BORING!!! 
David Thomas, Australia

Singapore is ok. Australia is boring, big and empty 
Stephen Bradley, UK

Most people in Singapore have no real political or social opinions, and some even require the government’s assistance in getting a date for a Saturday night, let alone just trying to meet someone. Everyone is too busy worrying (or scared) about what everyone else thinks about them, and neglect their own unique individuality and their expressions. Although it’s great that crime is under control and the country is very pretty and litter-free, it just feels like the citizens are living within a sterile and clinical bubble-dome. 
Alyssa-Ann, Australia

I’ve been to Basingstoke, Bracknell, Luton, Bedford and Milton Keynes in the past few years (what does that say about my life?!). Having moved to Malaysia, I expected Kuala Lumpur to be a bit more cosmopolitan. Nope. Kuala Lumpur could be twinned with Milton Keynes. There are hardly any buildings here that are more than 10 years old (with more being built every day), an incomprehensible road network, and countless numbers of soulless shopping complexes. Come back Bedford et al - all is forgiven! 
Steve Scott,Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -  ( LOL@this. My Mother comes from Luton, I have relatives in Bedford, and friends that I used to visit regularly in Milton Keynes. There is more than a grain of truth in this comment, on many levels. Grant S. )

If Singapore is as boring as some people think, why are there more than a million foreigners from all over the world working in this small country of only 3 million people? In contrast, Darwin attracts no foreigners because it is such a boring, boring place. 
Freddie Tan, Singapore

Nothing wrong with Singapore - plenty of fun to be had if you know where to look. Try Brunei or Kuwait if you’re after real boredom! 
Richard Bottomley,UK

Singapore most definitely. Its citizens need to be reminded to ’smile’ from government campaigns. 
Zac, Singapore

I’m surprised that a few people have named Singapore as being boring. I lived in Singapore for over five years and found it quite the opposite. It has an abundance of 24 hour night-clubs and live bands. The only thing, which I found boring apart from the political aspect of the country, were some of the expats, who refused to mix with the local people and experience the different cultures of S.E.A. I think that these expats might be the ones who are inclined to say Singapore is boring. There is life outside your condominiums and expat clubs, you just need to participate in the real world! 
Julian, Australia (Welsh expat)

Our (Singapore) fair country rates lowly among the courteous cities of this world (bottom ten leh!) only because in our First World nation with First World amenities, doors open and close themselves and most public toilets have automatic flushes.

We don’t need to be courteous! We have machines to be courteous on our behalf! Serious! You’ve been spoken to by those very courteous talking lifts which very kindly not only tell you what floor your lift has stopped at, they also tell you if the door is opening or closing.

So misleading, these surveys.

The Most Courteous Cities
1 New York, USA 80 per cent
2 Zurich, Switzerland 77 per cent
3 Toronto, Canada 70 per cent
4 Berlin, Germany 68 per cent
San Paulo, Brazil 68 per cent
Zagreb, Croatia 68 per cent
7 Auckland, New Zealand 67 per cent
Warsaw, Poland 67 per cent
9 Mexico City, Mexico 65 per cent
10 Stockholm, Sweden 63 per cent
11 Budapest, Hungary 60 per cent
Madrid, Spain 60 per cent
Prague, Czech Republic 60 per cent
Vienna, Austria 60 per cent
15 Buenos Aires, Argentina 57 per cent
Johannesburg, SA 57 per cent
Lisbon, Portugal 57 per cent
London, UK 57 per cent
Paris, France 57 per cent

The Least Courteous Cities
20 Amsterdam, Netherlands 52 per cent
21 Helsinki, Finland 48 per cent
Manila, Philippines 48 per cent
23 Milan, Italy 47 per cent
Sydney, Australia 47 per cent
25 Bangkok, Thailand 45 per cent
Hong Kong 45 per cent
Ljubljana, Slovenia 45 per cent
28 Jakarta, Indonesia 43 per cent
29 Taipei, Taiwan 43 per cent
30 Moscow, Russia 42 per cent
31 Singapore 42 per cent
32 Seoul, South Korea 40 per cent
33 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 37 per cent
34 Bucharest, Romania 35 per cent
35 Mumbai, India 32 per cent

Well, it still beat KL, which comes as no surprise to some of us

 

Not so random pics.

Yasmin in Red & Blue. The colours of Eyes Wide Shut.

Randoms pics again. Number 42.

After a few waffling posts - some of which got extremely good “hittage” (is that a word? Can I patent it?) whilst others crashed like fat kids on pogo sticks, I think I’ll go back to posting a few photos for a while. Don’t feed wild animals, OK? And try to dispose of your trash in an appropriate monkey proof receptacle - like they exist

How I almost killed my wife…..

Subtitled: How not to fall off a motorcycle.

Possibly very boring for non-motorcyclists

OK, melodramatic title, but that doesn’t diminish the consequences of what almost happened.

A couple of weeks ago, before I got really ill, I woke up in the small hours of the morning, and after a little thought, decided to wake Yasmin up and take her for a long promised ride up “the Hill” to Genting. It’s a great road, and has been well covered in my brother biker’s blog, and is a favourite for the “canyon strafers” - a subset of motorcycling lunatics that are fun to watch flying up the hill, but, at 43, I am too old to play that game any more.

So, still dark, I wakened a slumbering better half, and said “don’t even think about it - just get up, get geared up and let’s go.” After a few minutes demurring, she remembered how much she had wanted to do it, and, still half-conscious, got into the protective gear than anyone riding a fast bike should always wear. There is no “cool” factor in potentially sliding down the road in a T-shirt. I’ve seen the results and canned tomatoes spring to mind….

So, still dark, with a fully fuelled up bike, we gradually made our way to the starting point where the fun really begins. Along the way we passed gas stations beginning to fill up with some very seriously fast motorcycles and riders, but I wanted to get up the hill early to avoid the crazy road train of faster bikes that I knew would soon follow. Heh, a trick I also learnt from my friend.

Up the hill we went, as fast as I could manage with a passenger on my 650cc machine. Scratched round a few good corners, tyres hot and the road was drying out from the early morning damp.

Then, suddenly in my mirrors is something fast with 4 wheels - still not sure, Toyota Supra with all the kit maybe? - and I let him past. But as any motorcyclist would do, I thought “we could have a little sport here” and promptly forgot I had a passenger and opened the throttle. Everything was fine until we came to a very sharp corner in a small village, and, whereas I knew I would be able to take the corner albeit at full lean under normal circumstances, that was when I remembered, and felt, the additional weight on the back.

Few options are available under these circumstances, and this really is what separates the men from the boys, and I’m afraid to say sometimes the living from the dead. Being aware at all times of my surroundings, I knew there was no car coming on the opposite lane - remember this all split second stuff, no time to look around - and so went straight on through the corner, across some 20 feet of damp grass, another 10 feet of gravel, and then as soon as we hit tarmac next to a row of houses, I stopped the bike gracefully, and without fuss as if nothing untoward had happened. And took a deep breath. And got a smack in the ribs from the passenger along with a few choice words. LOL!

The lesson, and there is a very important one for those that haven’t spent the last 25 years riding, is twofold.

Firstly, always know what your options are, and you’d better make sure there is at least one if you can. And the other is sometimes you have to do what is entirely opposite to what your brain instinctively tells you! Don’t touch the brakes! You’ve already run out of tarmac, so panic braking is going to take you down as soon as you hit the grass. If you touch the brakes on the grass, you go down, and the same applies for the gravel. And at the speed we were going we would have gone down hard.

Same applies in corners - this one I learned the very hard and painful way - if you are already in a corner, totally committed, and think you are going to run too wide, your brain instinctively tells you to shut OFF the throttle and slow down. Wrong, you will sit up and go off the track/road. You have to increase, or at least maintain a neutral, throttle and try to shift as much weight inwards as possible. Almost invariably the bike can lean further than you think it can, unless you are a pro and are at 100% lean, and doing the very opposite to what seems logical is the correct course of action.

Sadly, in the case of some, this can be taught by doing track sessions, or by hard experience, but is not instinctive. Don’t always trust your instincts - try to think around them.

Sigh - end of lesson! Although I am still getting an ear-bashing from the missus, deservedly so, LOL!