Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Tour de Airport World from Days Two Thru Four

On our way at San Francisco International Airport

 

 It is a grey day taxiing out to take off

 

 Sayonara West Coast USA

 

The seats on the ANA 777 are massive, the most room on any business class I've flown on

 It is very rare for me to have a great window view from my airplane window. But this seat configuration had me facing backwards looking toward the wing and engine. It was a very clear day once we got over the clouds and the view was quite nice 

I chose the Japanese menu, this being a Japanese carrier

This was just the first course

 

After arriving Kuala Lumpur and staying overnight, it was on to Medan though of course in what seems to be the way things are, the name of the airport (Kuala Namu) is what shows up so you have no idea as a clueless Westerner whether you're going to the right place or not 

 

We were flying Malaysia Airlines, which is on a different alliance than the one I have status. So we were just regular peasants in Economy Class. Wife saw that we were not boarding until Group 5. She told me I should be sure no one was taking pictures of me as the shame of de-I flying without status could not be made public

We were picked up by the Dowager Empress of Pulandia herself, Pu Lee Shah (aka Daughter #2)

We were quite wiped out but had a nice meal with the family.

 

From left to right clockwise - Venerable Pu, Consort 2B (looking like he is ready for de-I to leave already), 2.1, 2.4, and Wife

They had local Indonesian food brought in. The food here is REALLY spicy. Is difficult even for we who are used to NM chile to take

 

The soup is called Soup Medan and is a local specialty with each place or person making it, doing it slightly different. The vegetable (Morning Glory) on the left of the plate and meat (Beef Rendang) on the right were super spicy. Being so tired, I really didn't have much appetite

I forced myself to stay up until around 10pm and then crashed 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Days Two & Three...And We Are Where?

I really do love SE Asia. 

I really do not like the long-ass schlepp that is required to get to SE Asia.

So, I believe it is Friday the 27th here in Kuala Lumpur where we ARE NOT YET WHERE WE WANT TO GO. According to my computer's clock, it is still Thursday the 26th in Albuquerque. 

So far we started on Tuesday, taking our positioning flight to San Francisco so we could get our great deal on our business class flights to Kuala Lumpur (via Tokyo). Then on Wednesday we started the 21-hour journey (11-hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo, 2-hour layover, 8-hour flight to Kuala Lumpur). This got us into KL at around midnight on Thursday the 26th. We checked into the hotel at around 1:30am on the 27th. 

Today, we have a very short flight in the afternoon that will take us to Pulandia (you will all remember the fabled transient, mythical Queendom of Pulandia) that currently resides in the Sumatra, Indonesia city of Medan, most recently known for horrific floods that took place their a number of months ago.

Despite it's length, the journey has been quite smooth. Our long flight was on All Nippon Airways (ANA), which is considered one of the best airlines in the world. I know that it seems to be a bit insensitive to those who don't travel like we do, but if you are flying business class a lot, and you are spending a lot of money on said business class, you develop a critical palate for the product you are getting both in terms of the hard product (the seat and other aspects of the plane and ground facilities) and the soft product (the service provided by the employees of the airline). 

ANA's hard product, as far as the seat on our Boeing 777, is truly superior. I will upload a very bad video when I finally get to Medan but it was one of the most spacious, comfortable seats I've flown and truly capable of providing a quality sleep/rest environment. Our second flight was on an older 787 with quite old, not fully lay flat seats, which was disappointing as we were really in body clock sleep cycle on that flight. Nonetheless, I conked out during the majority of that flight. 

ANA service is very good, though sometimes language is a challenge. They give you A LOT to eat and by airline standards, it is reasonably good. It is rare on any airline to get a really good meal even paying business class prices (part of the problem being how flight conditions affect your taste and smell). 

Arriving at KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) was fairly smooth. We've been in and out of here enough times now to know our way around. They've done somethings to improve the passport control process making it go much quicker.  

We did our overnight at the Sama Sama hotel which is attached directly to the airport with a convenient buggy service. We have stayed there many times. The rooms are very nice, comfortable beds and very quiet. The service went through a dip the last time we were there in 2024. However, this time we were handled very nicely and given an upgrade to their premium level which meant a free breakfast buffet. 

Check out time was Noon which allowed Wife to sleep really late before we headed to airport. We are flying plebeian class on this short flight to Medan. Yet when I asked a young man if we could check in as early as we were at the airport, he sent us to the priority line where there was no wait. I'm not sure why that was the case, but we accepted it graciously. I had to show proof that I had a ticket out of Indonesia to check in. I guess the Indonesian government doesn't want any vagrant old people staying beyond their welcome.

We are using a PriorityPass club access since we get it with one of our credit cards. Airport clubs in general these days are not anything like they used to be. The airlines and credit card companies have marketed the heck out of them so they tend to be very crowded, sort of the antithesis of the kind of escape you seek out by have lounge access. 

Ah the trials and tribulations of the entitled. 

We are really looking forward to getting this last flight behind us and actually starting our stay in SE Asia. 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Day One - Travel Kindness

There is no easy way to get from Albuquerque, USA to Southeast Asia. It's just a long way. You have options but they are all trade-offs on a theme of it is a long way and it takes a long time. You add that our first real stop is a place (Medan, Indonesia) that is not easy to get to (much like Albuquerque), then you add more time and effort required. And as I've related in the past, if you're balancing saving money, but still having comfort, it's going to add to the amount of time required to make the journey. 

In our case, we are flew to San Francisco today on one ticket (where we will spend the night), and are doing a self-transfer to another flight that takes us to Kuala Lumpur (via Tokyo). We will overnight again in KL before taking another self-transfer for the short flight to Medan. 

Our flight to SF was mercifully smooth. It was an early afternoon flight so no getting up too early. And we got upgraded to First which rarely happens these days. Upon arriving and collecting our bags, I called the hotel to find out when the shuttle came round. I'd called earlier in the day and had been told it does its round every 40 minutes. This time they told me that the shuttle wouldn't start again until 5:15pm (It was 3:30). What! We're supposed to cool our jets for almost two hours? The person on the phone told me to take a shuttle for the larger hotel across the street.

This seemed a bit wonky to me, but we did it because I wasn't going to waste that amount of time sitting around. Sure enough, the shuttle for the other hotel shows up quickly. It is filled with mostly airline crews. The driver is a young woman and she is doing a yeoman's job getting all the luggage in the back of the bus. 

I was feeling appreciative watching her really doing the work when we got off and was going to tip her anyway. But I noticed that none of the airline crew members tipped. So I gave her more of a tip than I might normally because she was really working hard. We were the last to get our bags off the shuttle. I thanked her and I mentioned we were actually going to the hotel across the street. Wouldn't you know it, she offers to take our bags across the busy road way for us. 

I know I tipped her but I didn't give her that much money. There was no crosswalk between the hotels. We would have had to walk a ways to get to the crossing light. So this really saved us a lot of effort. What a lovely bit of kindness. 

We decided we didn't trust the shuttle of our own hotel to get us to the airport tomorrow, so we've reserved and Uber to give us some peace-of-mind. Tomorrow is the long, long trip. 

Greetings Eldership Group - Welcome To The 2026 Version Of The Asian Mega Tour

Hang on for once again Captain Wife and her intrepid Crew (of 1...moi) will take the Eldership out again for yet another installment of the Asian Mega Tours. Long time reader will recall the first Asian Mega Tour started 10 years ago almost to the day! In the decade that followed we had a second Asian Mega Tour, tours to the Near East Asia, the Caucasus, and of course our spectacular Around the World in 72 Days Tour featuring East Asia and Southeast Asia among other destinations.

Our very first Asian Mega Tour boasted (or wailed about, I'm not sure which) going to:

Six Countries

Eleven Cities

Twenty Air Flights

To show you our maturity and acknowledgement of our age this trip will only consist of"

• Five Countries
• Six Cities
• Nine Air Flights
• Two long ground transports

See! Look at that restraint.

Of course that is somewhat offset by the fact that we are adding an entirely new continent this time. Here is a quick preview of our upcoming itinerary. 

First stop - Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia - Current abode of the mythical Queendom of Pulandia.

Next stop - Phuket, Thailand

Then, a hop over to...Western Australia!

Coming back to SE Asia we will be in - Johor Bahru, Malaysia

During all this we pass in and out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia not less than four times

Tomorrow we depart for San Francisco. We stay overnight and then self-transfer to a flight taking us to Kuala Lumpur where we overnight again. We finally catch a short flight that gets us to Medan. There is simply no quick way to get from Albuquerque to Medan.  

So prepare yourselves for almost 7 weeks of de-I travel posting.  

An Interesting Morning With AI

I am a lightweight when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. I've been able to use it effectively (somewhat) for Theodora work related things. I've been able to improve the depth of my internet searches quite a bit. And I've had some success and failures with various personal projects. Saturday morning I was dealing with a bit of frustration which led to my trying using it. 

(Note: I use ChatGPT mostly as we have the paid version at Theodora. I use it for all my fairly significant work as I have set up a system so it remembers what we've done in the past and can bring that to what I'm working on now even if I don't remember that it remembers. I use Gemini when I'm doing any kind of internet search or have quick questions I want to research as it is built into Google's search engine and is very convenient.)

The morning started out with frustration over my bout with gout (ha, ha like that rhyme!). My doctor and I had be chatting via her online portal and I wasn't getting any significant information. When I had been at the Urgent Care for the initial attack, there wasn't much information either. Wife's brother has gout and she got from him a couple of medications he was using. I was very suspicious of the medication approach as gout is an inflammatory condition and anti-inflammatory drugs tend to all be hard on the kidney, which is not a good thing when you only have one. 

I was sitting at my desk with my computer open and I decided to put into Chat  the sequence of events along with my current questions as to what the heck I was it that I was dealing with. Well to my amazement, I got back a rather lengthy and detailed discussion about gout, what causes it, an overview of potential treatments, and an explanation of how the events that led to my 'flare-up' (that is the 'official' gout term when it hurts like hell). 

That was just the start. I began asking questions about the drugs, explaining my one kidney situation. Now the discussion began to turn to lifestyle changes related to diet and hydration. It asked me a number of questions about lifestyle such as diet, alcohol consumption, water consumption, etc. It asked me if I would be truthful because if I did not give it accurate information, it wasn't going to able provide me with plan proposals that would get the desired results (no more flare-ups). 

It turns out one of the real keys is hydration. This resonated with me as I know I don't drink a lot of water since it goes right through me and I am peeing all the time. We has a long conversation about my traveling (it brought up my recent trip to Ghana since that information was in its history) and how I might manage my hydration in a way where I didn't need a catheter on the plane (that was a joke but Chat said people brought that up all the time in this type of discussion  - which is kind of weird when you realize I'm talking to an AI).

Chat now offered some specific suggestions for changing my lifestyle patterns with a specific focus on doing things that would protect my kidney. Now it got even more interesting because with these recommendations continued the questions as to whether I would really actually do this. I thought the first round was too drastic. We went back and forth a couple of times until we had a plan that I would commit to. I have been putting it into action so we will see. 

But I didn't stop there. As I was sitting there and working with it, I decided to ask it to research some reading material for me. This led to a search for various types of history books related to Persia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. Which then morphed into some very preliminary travel planning for going to Uzbekistan (very high on my list of places to get to). 

All in all, I spent about 2 and half hours. It was a very interesting engagement. And at a minimum, I feel I am way more understanding of my gout and how to try and control it.  

Captain On The Bridge - Eldership Refits For Epic SE Asia/Australia Mission

The decorated warrior, the commander who worked through blood clots and brutal betrayal attacks from her own crew has returned. Elderfleet Command has spoken. The Eldership will once again be commanded by Captain Wife. There had been rumors that the fabled Eldership One might be mothballed, that the days of adventure (and insanity) would be over. But then came the orders.

• Refurbish the ship
• Prepare for another long cruise
• Formulate a plan to tackle a completely new continent and country

 The Captain accompanied by Elderfleet Command's base staff prepare to leave the lift and enter the bridge. 

"Captain on the Bridge"

 The Captain notices a rather sparsity of crew...as in practically no one. A single Elderfleet officer stands and salutes.

Captain Wife is stunned.

"Who allowed this 'PetaQ' on board my ship."

"Nice to see you again too Captain Wife," de-I responds

"You were sentenced to the Albuquerque penal colony for your self-confessed assault on me in Gothenburg!" 

"Um, Captain,"  the base officer interjected, "There was a slight problem with staffing this mission."

"What problem."

"Most of those old enough to qualify for the mission have either retired or have died. It is one of the problems we're facing at Elderfleet Command. We couldn't let you go on a mission without ANY crew. de-I was the only available option."

"I swear de-I, you throw one more suitcase at me, and I'll have you eating Gagh for the rest of your life."

"Yes, Ma'am!"

Wife, turning to the base officer, "And I suppose the Eldership rules still apply that we have to reverse roles on a regular basis?"

"Sorry Captain."

"Fine. Come along de-I. I may have to put up with you, but at least now I have someone to delegate the rather perilous mission of accompanying the Consort of Pu Lee Shah on some crazy quest to conquer Western Australian wine and cuisine. 

A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu - Valentines Day Dinner

I seem to be doing a lot of writing related to dealing with life in the aged state. Could this be because I AM in the aged state? This will bear observing. 🤔

The title of this post is the title of Marcel Proust's monumental seven volume novel written at the turn of the last century. It was originally translated as 'Remembrance of Things Past' but now as 'In Search of the Past'. 

Cooking has been a bit like that as I deal with age related declines. I still love to cook (and eat!) and I bring that to our day-to-day eating. But there is this longing to do the kind of big meals, epic presentations I did in the past. Unfortunately the physical need to be on my feet, and do the tasks necessary for these put a major toll on my body. Then there is the fact that even if I cook that way, there is no way Wife and I can eat that much food.

Despite that I was in the mood to do something a bit extra. Wife is in her before travel, get all the accounting and house care planning mode, which means she is mono-focused. I mentioned I at least wanted us to do something for Valentine's Day and sent her three proposed menus. To my surprise she actually looked at them and made a choice. Here is the chosen menu.

First Course - Shrimp Cocktail

Main Course - Casserole Roasted Chicken and Baked Potato

Dessert - Peach Pudding

There was a bit of a twist with each of the courses. 

For the first course, I made a poaching broth flavored with onion, garlic, and pimenton de Campello. This last is a made up name. It is a pimenton (smoked paprika) I got during our last stay at El Campello at the local market. It is a very cool ingredient. Unlike most Spanish Pimenton, it is quite mild and subtle. Yes, it has the smokey flavor but it never overpowers. 

I put my shrimp into the poaching liquid and turned off the heat. I let it rest for 5 minutes and put the shrimp into an ice bath. Shrimp out and dried, they were stored in the fridge. I cooled the poaching liquid and save this too. All this was done a day ahead. On the day of the meal, I marinated the shrimp for an hour in the poaching liquid before draining and drying it. This resulted in the shrimp being very moist and having a subtle flavor. I served it traditionally American style on shredded lettuce with cocktail sauce of horseradish and ketchup. I love traditional cocktail sauce especially on lettuce. 

A casserole roasted chicken is recipe that comes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is a classic I have made many times but not in the last 15 years. If you have not cooked from this source, the recipes can seem deceptively simplistic in terms of flavoring. Yet the technique results in massive flavor.

In this case, one rubs down a chicken with butter, salt, pepper, and an herb (I used thyme). You truss the chicken and brown all sides in a large casserole. Chicken is put to the side and one lightly sautes onion and carrot with salt, pepper, and your chosen herb for five minutes until the vegetables get soft. The chicken is put back on the vegetables. A piece of foil is laid over top. The casserole covered and put into a medium oven for about an hour and a half (depending on the size of the bird) and cooked to the proper internal temperature. And that's it.

The result is a chicken that is totally moist and infused with flavor. I carved up the bird and put it into a serving dish and covered it with juice from cooking then brought it to the table. 

I have cooked so many things from this cookbook I don't know why I was so amazed that it tasted so good. 

The peach pudding was an experiment. After the chocolate pudding experience with 2.3 at Thanksgiving, and knowing the massive amount of peaches in our freezer, I conjectured I could adjust the technique to come up with pudding from peaches. I took enough defrosted and drained peaches to account for about a third of the liquid volume required in the chocolate pudding recipe. Then I put in the milk for the rest along with the sugar and corn starch. It cooked up fine as far as texture. However, it was a bit too subtle. I took some tweaking to get the sweetness right. I think maybe 50-50 peaches to milk would be better. It could use some peach extract (if there is such a thing). Or maybe a strong peach or berry sauce with it. It was a worthwhile experiment. 

Of course, all this led to a de-I that was beat and in pain (especially my just recovering foot), and enough food for at least two other couples. 

Wife decides a meal of such proportions deserves its own monumental monolith 

I'm still glad I made it.