GONE TEACHING, BACK SOON…

Not a bad place to have an office.

It’s become a regular Lunar New Year excursion for us – first to Singapore, then on to run a Writers’ Camp at lovely Telunas Beach in the Riau Islands.

TERIMA KASIH (Thanks!) JAGA ISLAND!

We don’t speak Bahasa, you don’t speak English, but we can all learn handgames.

Not many people visit Pulau Jaga, Indonesia. It isn’t easy to find. Google Maps doesn’t even name it. ‘Did you mean “Java, Indonesia”?’ says the Google search engine, trying as ever to be helpful.

No, I did mean Jaga, an island in the Riau Archipelago, two and a half hours by boat south of Singapore. Jaga is some 2.5km long and 500m across, home to perhaps 90 families, most of them supported by fishing. There are no hotels, no restaurants, no roads and no cars. There is a school, however, and we were invited to visit it. It was a privilege and a pleasure.

Welcome to Jang Island, Telunas writers!

There’s a lot of interest in the visitors. They don’t have many on Jang Island.

We are expected.

On the rough jetty between rickety stilt houses, a guard of honour is forming. Kids from the Jang Island school beat out a deafening rhythm on hand drums as our open pancung boat pulls up and we file ashore.

Twenty students, two teachers and a visiting Australian author have come to do a writers’ camp at Telunas Beach Resort, in Indonesia’s lovely Riau Islands, a couple of hours across the water from Singapore. Each morning we set off on a different adventure. Each afternoon we gather back at Telunas to discuss and write about our experience.

There is never a shortage of material.

WORLD’S CHEAPEST CITIES – and those fast being unfriended

Where in the world can you stay 38.9 nights on an accommodation budget of 100 British pounds? Okay, not counting Mum’s place or your mate’s cousin’s sofa.

What is the destination fastest being abandoned by budget travellers? Where are the new hotspots? In which city can you find wifi in every hotel and hostel?

There are some surprises in the figures I’ve been sent by budget accommodation experts HostelBookers.

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE: FOREIGN – Signs we’re not in Kansas

Despite the signs in English, Kathmandu can be a little daunting for newcomers.

I’m enjoying these Weekly Photo Challenges. WordPress’s Daily Post suggests a topic to give bloggers a nudge in the ribs. We then do our best to post something worth looking at, and check out what others have come up with.

This one is about ‘Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more’ moments.

Street signs I come across in Asia are a constant source of innocent merriment.

Australian buses sometimes have ‘Do not distract the driver’ signs. Buses in Singapore have other rules.

THE TITANIC–my part in its sinking

The ship went down 100 years ago this week, on April 15th, 1912.

I’ve had a Titanic few months. I’ve been to the ship’s last port of call before the iceberg, seen Titanic artefacts in Singapore, met a descendant of a crew member and in a couple of weeks Mevrouw T and I will stay in a cabin in the Jane Hotel, New York, where survivors were put up while waiting for the inquiry into the disaster.