Feeling high in Cuzco!
Everyone warned us about the effects of altitude sickness in Cuzco!Agh. I've been up to 5,416 m in Nepal, I've climbed Slovenia's tallest mountain Triglav which is 2,864 m and just last week we were in Tucson, Arizona and drove up Mt Lemon which peaks at 2,800 m. What altitude sickness!Cuz [...]
Food of my roots, rediscovered
Food’s always been a big part of my life. My father, you see, was a cook. In those days, they didn’t have chefs, they were just cooks. He was one of those Hainanese folks who arrived in the then-Malaya and somehow most of them landed up in the food business.They were the pillars of South-east As [...]
G’day mates, I’m feeling as dry as a dead dingo’s dong
There was a moment last week when I conceded to myself that I had been “aussified”.It’s a similar experience to being ossified - afterwards, I felt I had turned to bone.After almost 30 years of living in Australia, but still carrying a UK passport, supporting Arsenal and favouring UK bra [...]
GHS develops “disruptive” Facebook booking engine for independents
Singapore-based Global Hospitality Solutions has developed a Facebook booking engine for hotels that will allow the booking to be transacted within the social network’s environment.CEO Bernard Quek said, “Most booking engines embedded within a hotel’s Facebook page now take the customer to the [...]
Goodbye, Mike
Yesterday I got the news that my very first mentor in travel journalism, Mike Annetts, died.I felt heavy in heart because strangely enough, I had been asking after him just a month ago and had been told he was sick and I had been thinking a lot about him – the first time we met, the things I learn [...]
Hail the rice fields and hawkers
Morten Lund’s words at the WIT Conference about us getting too far from the rice fields have been ringing in my head.When I was growing up, the state closest to my home island of Penang, Kedah, was known as the rice bowl of Malaysia. It still is, according to some tourist information websites I br [...]
Hang on tight, we’re going for a Harley ride
“Hold me tight,” he said to me as I got onto the back seat. Willingly, I did. Not because I fancied John Karmouche or anything, mind you, but because it was my first time on the back of Harley Davidson and frankly, it’s a great beast to get your legs over.Like his bike, John is a tower of stre [...]
Authentic’s way to go in designing experiences but what’s authentic?
I was quite getting into his speech until the part when he cited the example of drinking coffee at the Piazza San Marco in Venice as “authentic” and that he didn’t mind paying almost 10 euros for a cuppa.That’s when I realised that one man’s authenticity may not be another man’s cup of t [...]
Dave Sifry on wonders and dangers of open, social web and where content’s going
Before David Sifry, who spoke at the WIT Conference, founded Offbeat Guides, which brought him into the travel industry, he planted the seed that became Technorati, the blog search engine. He was also on the founding board of Linux International and a technical advisor to the National Cybercrime Tra [...]
Smackdown: Those who know travel vs those who know technology
Attending the WTTC’s Global Travel & Tourism Council Summit in Las Vegas last week, I was struck anew by the divide between the traditional side of the travel business – those who’ve built up the business the brick and mortar way – and those who’ve used technology to disrupt it.It is c [...]
