About Me

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I am married to my loving husband for more than 40 years now. I am a mother to 3 beautiful children, until years ago when I lost my youngest son. Since then my life is forever altered but yet unbroken....

My Travel Journal

"There isn't much I haven't shared with you along the road and through it all there'd always be tomorrow's episode" - Elton John

I started traveling around the world since early 80s when I had the opportunity to combine business trips with vacations. Then later when my rezeki is in abundance, there were numerous other trips along the way for vacations, most of the time with hubby and the kids when the timing is right. I have also started to compile the journal and photo-pages covering almost more than 45 years of world wide travel. Some destinations I visited just once, others many times. Many of those places are the obvious famous places people would like to visit but some, the casual traveler doesn't even think to try. I have placed links to my travel at the side bar of my personal page, My Life Reflections, and will be updating them from time to time.

My wish is to continue my travel and complete circumnavigate the globe, insyaAllah…

Sunday 1 December 2019

2019 Q8 4ND: Our great 4x4 Year-end Adventure...

“Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind and fills your life with stories to tell…” - Paula Bendfeldt 

(The beginning of a 23-day 4x4 road trip)

Since my spinal bone operation in January 2019, we had only one short distance riding trip with our KTM motorbike and limit our overland travel in Malaysia and Thailand with our reliable Merc or with our 4x4 Bigfoot, always remembering to wear my neck brace to protect from injury when handling bad roads and rough terrains.

After being bedridden for almost 3 months, consumed all my medications and skipped most of my physiotherapy sessions, to the horror of my Spine Specialist, I was again up and about. The rest of the year we had the opportunity to perform our Umrah combined with Oman Trip in April, Kembara Masjid Thailand during Ramadhan in May, Japan Scout Cross-cultural Program in June, Mongolia Autumn trip in September and, Da Nang Vietnam Monsoon trip in November.

Since mid-year we charted routing plans for our year-end 4-Nation Kembara trip covering Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos and included visits to border towns of Singkhon, Thailand/Myanmar border, Boten, Laos/China border and the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, Laos/Myanmar/Thailand border. We arranged for letters from the Embassies to assist in vehicle clearance to cross into Cambodia and Laos borders and prepared travel itineraries for the respective countries. Border crossings in and out of Thailand, as usual, were simple and easy.

Finally, in December 2019, the two of us embarked in the 4-Nation trip with the Bigfoot, our red Toyota Hi-Lux 4x4 pick-up, strong and inconspicuous on the road. Initially we were a little worried driving on the right side of the road in Cambodia and Laos, notorious for their busy, narrow and not fully tarmac roads. It was quite a daunting experience, but we got used to it after the first few days.

In total, we spent 23 days on the road, covered the distance of about 9,200km and spent almost RM10k on expenses. The journey gave us priceless experience, reaching and exploring new places beyond borders and cultures, requiring a lot of patient and perseverance.

It was one of our best overland trips ever …

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