Travel for travel's sake

Making friends with two little boys in Laos

I love to travel. Ever since I was a little girl and was taken on seaside holidays with my family, I've enjoyed the excitement of planning and packing, and then hitting the road. Nowadays I just want to explore as much of the world as I can. Like Robert Louis Stevenson, "I travel not to go anywhere but to go." New places not look and sound different, they also smell wonderfully foreign. I've learned a lot over the years about how to make holidays more enjoyable, mostly from my own mistakes and by talking to others. I've written before about what to pack and how to plan for a trip, but here is my take on a mindset and attitude to adopt when embarking on a trip.

Simplifying my life by going digital

I've already said that there's nothing wrong with technology, only the way in which we use it. Social media is a great way to stay in touch, make new friends and find out more about what interests me. Now, with technology on the rise, it's easier than ever for me to save time and money by going digital.

Mum's claypot chicken rice

This is a one-pot chicken rice dish that is quite unlike the Hainanese version where the chicken and rice are cooked separately. In the clay pot version, usually sold as street food in hawker stalls rather than at fine dining restaurants, marinated chicken pieces are stirred into a bubbling clay pot of well seasoned rice over a charcoal fire, and left to cook into a heady mixture that's utterly fragrant and redolent with tiny bits of salt fish. Once served, you stir the rice in the pot, scooping up the best part which is the slightly burnt and charred bits of rice at the bottom.

New year's resolution: Be kinder

It's that time of year again when we all start thinking about making new year resolutions. I tend to do it myself, limiting myself to what I consider achievable goals, like keeping fit and eating healthily. I'm all gung ho about it the first couple of months too, only to slide into complacency midway through the year. Then around comes another new year, and I'm scratching my head trying to remember what resolutions I made and whether I kept them.