Couchfish

I’m on a daybed in the sand, it’s late afternoon and save a couple beside me the beach is near empty. Not a soul. It’s Monday you see, and the weekend hustle and bustle has packed up and blown out back home. Will is back in the room, and I’ve just a fresh coconut for company. The sun is setting. It is well pretty. Arief* walks up and asks if he can sit down, I say sure, and he plonks down on the d...

The day starts with regrets. Regret that the hotel staffer was right . Regret I don’t have earplugs. Regret that the walls of our room are thinner than the lining of my eardrums. So many regrets, and it isn’t even 3 am yet. I climb down, out of our bamboo extravagance and, guided by the light of my phone, I stumble through the grove to the paddy field’s edge. Along the embankment I go, till the gr...

Best laid plans and all that . Before Will and I even get going we have our first speed bump. My bike is a rental and the owner tells me I can’t take it to Java. This isn’t uncommon as inter-island theft is a problem, and we have a solution at hand—Sam owns her bike, so I’ll just borrow that. Sorted. Well, not really. It turns out Sam’s rego has lapsed, ahhhh some time ago ... so we sort that out—...

So the other morning my son wandered into my office, laptop open. He told me he’d found a waterfall and would I like to go there for the weekend? “Google says it is only ten hours away,” he said, then, seeing the look on my face, he added “it’s in Java.” He knew he’d have me with those last three words. And so it is tomorrow morning we’re off on a wee road trip—though not a ten-hour one. Best laid...

The steel towers of Kuala Lumpur glint in the morning sun as my train pulls out of KL Sentral. A short, two and a half-hour train ride north will deposit me at what was once the largest tin producer on Earth — Ipoh . If you read tourism PR much, you may have encountered the town, often described as Malaysia’s “other Penang.” It is true it lacks to the same extent the hordes that blight Penang’s Ge...

“... But this was the centre of a broad boulevard, and at the side of the boulevard was a line of cafes and small shops, all brightly lit, all open, and all utterly silent and empty beneath a sky thick with stars. The hot night was laden with the scent of flowers and with the salt smell of the sea. Will looked around carefully. Behind him the full moon shone down over a distant prospect of great g...

On one of my trips to KL, I’ve been there so many times I can’t remember which, I find myself at Heli Lounge Bar. With plans to meet a couple of other travellers from my hostel ( not the Italians ), for sundowners, I arrive early. There’s only so much plodding through hotels one can do before sitting alone at an empty bar in the blazing sun wins out. So here I am, and let me tell you, I’m not exag...

In the past entry for Kuala Lumpur , you may have picked up on a bit of a stuffing face theme. If so, you’d be on the money—when it comes to eating, KL delivers. In fact, I’d go as far as to say writing the food section for the city was about an eight-kilo task. I’m serious. So, with that in mind, let’s bounce around town for a bit of all-day grazing. Breakfast I have no idea why I had a heart att...

This issue is in your inbox thanks to an email I received in response to yesterday’s “Couchfish turns two.” The reader wrote of their intrigue around making Travelfish more responsible. “How do you make a travel guide responsible?” they asked, “it isn’t like you’re cutting down trees to print guides.” As this is something that has been on my mind for much of the last two years, I thought I’d lay o...

Side note: I’ve linked to a lot of other Couchfish writing in this post, but I’ve tried to link solely to the free–to–read pieces—enjoy! Want to read them all? Get 50% off a Couchfish membership here . Most days I ride down to the beach to write. It isn’t far, five minutes on a scooter. Today, thanks to a new neighbour who has decided to learn the saxophone, I head down earlier. I get my pot of 15...

Leaving behind the scratchy tourism boom town of Labuan Bajo, it doesn’t take long to be into the hills. The road climbs and twists. On hairpins, pokey cafes cling to ridges and offer up views across the Manggerai lowlands. In the distance through the haze, Komodo shimmers. Couchfish is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. After a...

After a couple of false starts, Indonesia’s Island of the Gods, Bali, is pretty much open for business. Over the weekend a couple of announcements hit the airwaves. First, and of most importance, the island would enter a “quarantine-free” trial. Second, the long-asked-for Visa On Arrival (VOA), would restart—at a cost of 500,000 rupiah. Both are for only a selected list of nationalities. Couchfish...

It is about a five-minute ride from my house to the beach, and I head down most mornings to do some writing by the sea. It is a straight run down Jl Pettitenget, which is far quieter than pre-Covid times when it resembled a parking lot. Today, it is more like a speedway—in the mornings at least. Couchfish is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becomin...

As regular readers might remember, last year I went back to university to do a Masters degree. Travel was off the cards and I figured in doing one in Responsible Tourism Management , then when travel did restart, I’d be better informed (maybe). Given the title, it should be no surprise that the environmental impact of travel is a bit of a theme. Couchfish is a reader-supported publication. To rece...

Hi everyone! What was going to be a two-week break turned into something considerably longer—my apologies. Couchfish is back to the regular posting schedule, with the first post for paying subscribers tomorrow, and billing has been turned back on (for paying subscribers). Many thanks for your support and here’s to hopefully a brighter year this time around! Almost two years ago I was in a Kuala Lu...

When someone on Facebook suggested I read a story sourced from an Armenian news site that was a pickup from a Russian news agency, that talked about Omicron in terms of Ebola, I knew it was time to take the dog for a walk. Couchfish is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Before I go on, if you’d rather read somethin...

The family and I are up in Bali’s hills at the moment. A bit of a long weekend of R&R with a cooler climate. Perched on one of Mount Batukaru’s ridges, the small, family-owned resort is not short of views—I’ve written about Sarinbuana before . In the distance, South Bali’s lights flicker, sometimes, like now, with a wild electric storm beyond. Closer to home, there’s a deep river valley dotted wit...

Just a quick note regarding my Couchfish-hiatus. I’ve badly put my back out—this post is coming at you from a well and truly horizontal position. Back when we started Travelfish, independent travel in Southeast Asia was all about the borders. Where could you cross? Where couldn’t you? This travel intelligence was one of the most valuable—and fastest devaluing—currencies in a travellers’ wallet. Co...

On December 24 1968 saw the taking of a never before seen photo. Titled “Earthrise” the photo shows the Earth from outer space. It was the first time regular people had ever seen our planet as a whole. It has been described as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken” . In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring covered the adverse effects of pesticides and it gave momentum to a movem...

The superlatives come naturally to Taman Negara. It is the biggest national park in peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the oldest deciduous rainforests on earth (over 130 million years old if you’re wondering). It is home to the tallest peak on the peninsula. Big and old and tall, but more than anything, it makes me feel tiny. The entirety of our trek is only around 20 km, a distance that will take...

I’ve written before about how I feel that Covid19’s 18 months of hiatus has been a missed opportunity . That this was the once in a lifetime chance to rethink how tourism works, who it benefits, and why it happens. Going on the headlines , it seems many could think of nothing better than getting back to 2019’s heady days ASAP. This is a mistake. Given it is clear the industry and destinations are...

When I was in my twenties I kicked around Spain for a bit, but I never made it to Barcelona. I know little of the city, other than pre-Covid19 it was often trotted out as one of the over-tourism all-stars. Studying sustainable tourism makes me feel like how Bill Murray looks. The other day I was pointed to two stories about the city. One, published in 2019 was a classic over-tourism piece . Cruise...

The next stop down the peninsular is Kuantan, a straightforward bus ride south. Like Kuala Terengganu , it is a riverside state capital with its roots in fishing and trade. For those coming across from Kuala Lumpur , or from Taman Negara , it is their first stop on the east coast. If you’ve a bit of a thing for old trading house shopfronts, Kuantan has a few, less than KT and less again than Kota...

Planning fingers are itching. Countries are starting to sort of reopen, each in their own, very individual manner. Google Maps is getting opened, wish lists peeled open. Before you go any further, I have some advice: Take the train—not the plane. Here’s why. Thailand’s Civil Aviation Authority reports that in 2019 there were 16,564 one-way flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Chiang Mai. From Don...

So with all this talk of Thailand sort of reopening come November, if you could go for a month, where would you go? I asked myself this question this morning, thinking it would be an easy post to write—turns out it wasn’t. Why? Because I’d like to go everywhere. I’d like to catch up with friends all over the country. I’d like to hit the northeast for the food, the south for the beaches and I’d lik...