"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles"
About the author of Real Malaysia Travel Guide
Hi, my name is Michael - your friend, and your guide, to Real Malaysia Travel Guide. And yes, it's true ... when you travel with an open mind, people open themselves up to you and become your friends.
Sometimes, they even open their homes to you.
Me, my wife Lilian with our baby, and Tom Smith with his Malaysian wife, Careen. (right) when Tom came back for a visit recently.
A true-blue Malaysian and, apart from the occasional adventure abroad, I've lived here all my life. I'm married to my best friend, Lilian, with the rest of the clan comprising my son Abel and my daughter Junee.
If you're like me, going off the beaten path is the real way to travel and see the world, and make lots of friends. I've travelled a bit here and there, but wanderlust is such that one can never quite get enough of it.
I've travelled extensively throughout Malaysia, including the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak. And, being an avid 4x4 offroader, I'm always literally going off the beaten track as well.
Offroading in a remote part of Cameron Highlands. At an Orang Asli (aborigines) village, a wild boar sniffs out our trucks.
However, my favourite mode of travel is by that most efficient of machines invented by man - the humble bicycle. To me, nothing comes close to the Quixotic nature of this kind of escapade. Wherever you go in the world, people are more likely to open up to you when you're on a bike; you're more approachable, more down-to-earth, and more unassuming. If you're a cycle tourist yourself, check out my bike travel blog : www.wheelosopher.com
Touring Sabah, east Malaysia, on the island of Borneo.
Touring Cambodia with my son Abel...one of those 'men only' things.
Halfway up an 8-hr ascent of Mt Bromo, a live volcano in East Java, Indonesia; and finally, at the top.
Besides working on this site, I have fun working in an ad agency. Okay, I have to be honest here ... I love what I do but ... it's not always fun at work. It can be a stressful job at times. But when the work gets the client excited, it's really worth it.
Exploring the back streets of Tokyo; enjoying Japanese street food
Actually, what I really, really want to do is to take off on a long, long journey on my trusty bicycle across some continent; like a friend of mine who rode from Beijing to Paris. So far, my two-wheeled escapades have only been short ones.
The lure of such epic bike tours is hard to shake off. On the other hand, adventures of such scale mean constantly long periods of time off from work, not to mention the fact that I'd still need to continue bringing home the bacon...or else there'd be no home to come back to :-)
The real way to see Australia. Here, we're living it up in a campervan in Albany, halfway through our 2,000km round trip of south-western Australia.
My 2 kids -- Abel and Junee, outside a caravan park.
To me, without a doubt, the answer lies in the Internet ... where a well-managed website specialising on a very specific niche can really earn you decent dollars while you sleep (or in my case, while I ride :). But, anyway, that's another story. So....
If you're only here to learn more about the real Malaysia, you've landed on the right place (do bookmark this site now if you haven't done so already).
But ... if you're really interested to know how this website is helping me achieve my dreams, go ahead and read the next chapter of my inspiring story ...
Online attacks are on the increase. Google's algorithm helps malicious users take advantage of others and even make money off of it. Such was the case with the Site Build It Scam Google bomb. Follow that link to find out how and why it needs to be stopped.
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