The Travel Essay

For as long as I can remember, it was known as Madras. It is now known as Chennai after Indian chauvinism has reared its ugly head. But no matter. A rose by another name will smell just as sweet. So it is with Madras.

There is something strangely peaceful about Malacca. The sense of complete relaxation that takes over once you get past the Ayer Keroh exit from the highway is unexplainable. It is as if the journey has come to an end and the moment for releasing all the cares in the world has arrived. I have travelled […]

I came to know of Manado when I was a schoolboy. It was from the name of a famous Indonesian actress, Maria Manado. She was a beauty in her time, having appeared in numerous Malay movies. So it was that we came to associate Manado with paradise: a place where there were beautiful women.

The flight from Singapore left at an early hour. It was full. Almost all the passengers were Chinese Indonesians returning from their shopping and medical trips. The journey was short: within an hour we were already landing in Palembang.

It happened one day when I was resting in the shallow waters of the large river. For several days I had been trying to get at an impala that had come to drink from the bank. I was hungry, and the water levels would soon rise when the rains came. In desperation I waited in […]

I came to know of Manado when I was a schoolboy. It was from the name of a famous Indonesian actress, Maria Manado. She was a beauty in her time, having appeared in numerous Malay movies. In the early 1960s she married one of the Malaysian sultans and came to live in Cameron Highlands where, […]

The flight from Singapore left at an early hour. It was full. Almost all the passengers were Chinese Indonesians returning from their shopping and medical trips. The journey was short: within an hour we were already landing in Palembang. I could see the wide expanse of the brown river beneath and the large tracts of […]

When I first went to Penang, I was twelve years old. The images in my mind are fleeting, at best. It was a very hot August when we, the family, arrived on the island. I can remember taking the ferry from Butterworth and watching the waves as the vessel cut across the Straits.

he land is dry and the view is one of a brownish-white expanse as far as the eye can see. The sands are white and, in places, red. The far distances appear as wavy images through the hot air rising from the desert. Off on the horizon are specks of rocky outcrops, but otherwise it is as if the sea would come back to reclaim this land.

The land is dry and the view is one of a brownish-white expanse as far as the eye can see. The sands are white and, in places, red. The far distances appear as wavy images through the hot air rising from the desert. Off on the horizon are specks of rocky outcrops, but otherwise it […]