Pickles n' Tickles by JJ

BEFORE we left for Africa, we were bombarded with crime alerts from concerned friends and family. In fact, safety was the only thing that got mentioned when we announced our dream holiday plans to them. By the time we left, we were quite bothered by all those alerts. And then, we landed in Johannesburg.  We took a cab and went out that very night when I realised what I was doing: I was looking at every person on the street and judging them indiscriminately. And I was very ashamed of myself for that. That night, I changed my tarnished mindset about the whole safety issue. Would I go out alone on foot or even in a car to some places in my own country? No! Why, I don't even have the peace of mind to walk in some areas during the day in Bangsar (Kuala Lumpur)! Crime risks are anywhere and everywhere, we just have to be street smart. I could have been pick-pocketed in Paris or robbed at gunpoint in New York too. When I was able to release that mindset, I saw the people ...

OF all my travels, I had the best one last week in South Africa. Africa is officially my favourite continent in the world and I vow to travel parts of it in the years to come. Our trip began with a brief stay at Johannesberg for the night before we were whisked off to Northeast where we stayed three, wonderful nights at a game lodge. It has always been my dream to experience an African safari so the main agenda of this trip was the Kruger National Park.  What can I say. It has been the most interesting few days of my life among the lives I've only used to read about, watch in documentaries and imagine in my head. Over the days, I've had a frog half the size of my pinky jump out of my hair, suffered various insect bites on my face, avoided bee stings (although I've been stung half a dozen times before), walked about after dark to my room so fearful thinking that I may be in the way of the hippos in the lake outside my room and watched a man shiver right next to me due to ...

DO people generally become more cynical as they grow older, or is it just me ? I can't help constantly analysing a situation over and over again if I think something is really wrong. Maybe it's just a need to question in me.  Like when the state of local tourism upsets me, I complain. No, really. It even makes me angry and I'm quite embarrassed sometimes for all the products which are bundled-up in sub-standard packages when they have such great potentials among local and foreign tourists. Couple of weeks ago, I was on a local tour in the Kuala Langat district for some reason. Not exactly a place I'd voluntarily want to hang out but in that one day of going about the area, I noticed that efforts to promote the destinations were really just what you could term as half-baked. I visited a museum which had an exhibition space that was probably smaller than a jail cell (O kay, I'm exaggerating but really, why bother with it when it doesn't exactly WOW you. I was d...