My initial thoughts were of horror. “What?! I have to spend seven hours in a car?” But after I calmed down, and logic took over, I rationalised that it would not be very much different from spending seven hours in an airplane, right?

Wrong!

While on a flight, the journey is mostly smooth. You can sleep, read, listen to music, watch a movie, have your meals served to you, visit the toilet when you need to or even walk around. In an automobile, the road conditions might make some of that impossible. Plus, the only time you get to relieve yourself is when the vehicle makes a pitstop.

Unexpectedly though, I enjoyed the road-trip experience very much. We started our journey from KL in the morning. By noon, we had reached Ipoh and decided to stop for lunch. We went to a coffeeshop and ordered lots of food: Satay, kuay teow, Ipoh-style chee cheong fun, the famous Ipoh caramel egg custard, and white coffee.

OK, this was getting better, I thought. With a road journey, there is more flexibility to take a break and see the sights, or savour some out-of-town food along the way.

Satisfied, we continued our journey.

Despite the rather bumpy ride, I fell asleep for a while. When I awoke, there were endless padi fields on both sides of the road. We had already arrived at Sungai Petani, Kedah.A stall selling ‘oh chien’ (oyster omelette) and other fried seafood, near Lee Garden Plaza, in Hatyai, Thailand.

Soon, we passed by Changlun and came to Bukit Kayu Hitam. At a duty free outlet, we decided to buy a bottle of whisky each since it was so affordable. We had to pay for our purchases at the outlet first, and then collect the items at the border checkpoint.

When we got to the checkpoint, we had to get out of the car to get our passports stamped. If you are driving a Malaysian-registered car, you will need to sign the necessary documents to “import” or bring your car into Thailand, and the documents need to be stamped. The original car registration is also required and you need to buy Thai insurance for your car. There is also another form to fill out with details of your passengers’ particulars.

Despite there being a long queue, everything went surprisingly smooth and fast.

We proceeded to make our way to the town of Sadao (Danok) in Songkhla, which has been likened to a “cowboy” town. By the time we arrived at Hatyai, it was early evening.

That night, we hung out at the area near Lee Garden Plaza. There were many food stalls and little shops in the vicinity.

Hungry, we tried the Thai version of oh chien (oyster omelette), wanton noodles, kuay teow soup and lin chee kang. The stall operators surprised me by speaking fluent Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia.

We then walked around the pasar malam-like area where there were many stalls selling all kinds of stuff like clothing, accessories, bags, rugs, shoes and handicrafts.

The Klong Hae Floating Market offers a great variety of food and drinks.

he next two days were spent exploring the famous tourist spots. There are two floating markets worth checking out here: Klong Hae Floating Market and Ban Pru Floating Market.

A stall selling fresh fruit juices.There is also the Kim Yong Market where you can get foodstuff as well as clothing, bags, and accessories. It is considered a day market but it actually opens until night time.

Cute buns at the food court at Greenway Night Market.

Mango sticky rice, a must-try dish in Hatyai.

The Greenway Night Market is where you can find a giant food court and also many stalls selling clothing, accessories, and other interesting stuff.

We loaded up on “supplies” like packet noodles, snacks and drinks at the Big C, Thailand’s famous hypermarket. We also walked around Central Festival Hatyai, said to be the largest shopping mall in Hatyai.

Central Festival Hatyai is said to be the largest shopping mall in Hatyai.

What is nice about a road trip is that you don’t really have a luggage weight constraint. You can just buy what you want and load it all into the car. There are certain limitations though. For example, if you’re buying produce like rice to bring back to Malaysia – it’s limited to 1kg per person.

You also don’t have to spend time waiting for a tuk tuk (auto rickshaw), taxi, or other public transport because you can just drive yourself to wherever you want to go.

Samila Beach in Songkhla is clean and not crowded.

This is where you’ll find the iconic Golden Mermaid Statue of Songkhla.

Try the famous coconut ice cream served in a coconut shell with coconut flesh and toppings like dried fruit and nuts.

We drove to Samila Beach where the iconic Mermaid Statue of Songkhla is located. It was a hot day and the beach was clean and uncrowded. There were a few stalls selling food, drinks, and souvenirs.

This is where we tried the famous coconut ice cream, served in a coconut shell with the coconut flesh, and toppings like dried fruit and nuts.

On Monday, we drove back. This time, we paused at the border town of Sadao and discovered that the things here were slightly cheaper than in Hatyai town itself. OK, last chance to shop!

We stopped at Tapah, Perak, for lunch and continued all the way back to KL. The return journey seemed to go by faster.

The report showed that declines have become particularly noticeable across forestlands in the country’s eastern plains, where historically as many as 30 animals were recorded during a single count. Current surveys often top out at 10.

“It is of great concern that only 121 of these majestic birds were recorded in this year’s national census, the lowest number on record since 2003. Recent assessments indicate that poisoning is the major threat to vulture populations in Cambodia,” the report continued.

Officials cited in the document say that the country’s three vulture species, the red-headed, slender-billed and white-rumpled, are all on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list, indicating they are critically endangered.

“Northern Cambodia is the only place in Southeast Asia where vultures can still be found in large numbers. Tourists come to see them at our vulture restaurant at Dong Phlet in Chhep Wildlife Sanctuary.

“But during the past five years, at least 30 vultures have been killed in Cambodia due to widespread indiscriminate use of deadly poisons and pesticides across the country, which is severely impacting the vulture population and also threatening human lives,” said Simon Mahood, a senior technical advisor at the Kingdom’s Wildlife Conservation Society.

He said that besides poisoning, Cambodia’s vultures suffer from habitat loss and food shortages caused by low numbers of wild ungulates (hoofed animals) and domestic cattle.

Increased levels of forest loss, land conversion and poaching as a result of economic land concessions, land encroachment and selective logging have negatively impacted the birds through a loss of nesting sites and reduction in natural prey availability as snaring for wild meat has dramatically increased across Cambodia.

“Results of vulture censuses in the last five years show a worrying trend, as less than 130 birds were counted in 2017 and 2018,” said Bou Vorsak, Cambodia program manager of BirdLife International.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Bangkok has not received any notice about changes to the visa-free programme from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an official said.

Thai nationals had been allowed 30-days visa-free entry into Taiwan from last year.

On July 12, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it was extending its trial of visa-free entry for nationals from Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines for another year, but the number of days will be reduced to 14. The trial will continue from August 1 through July 31, 2019.

This measure under Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy aims to attract more tourists and businesspeople.

Visitors involved in sex trade

On Saturday, the online newspaper Taiwan News reported that Taiwan was planning to slash visa-free entry for Thai, Philippine and Brunei visitors to twice a year from the existing six entries, after finding many Southeast Asian visitors were involved in the sex trade during their multiple trips to Taiwan.

This visa-free policy has helped boost Taiwan’s tourism industry, bringing 410,000 visitors from Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines over the past two years. The number of tourists from Thailand and the Philippines grew by 95 per cent and 48.5 per cent, respectively, during that period.

But many visitors from the three countries were also found to have engaged in prostitution during their stay in Taiwan.

In April, a Thai national was arrested for engaging in prostitution during her many trips on a tourism visa to Taiwan, the Taiwan News reported, quoting local police.

Police found that since October last year, the woman had visited Taiwan five times on the pretence of “sightseeing”, but had in fact engaged in the sex trade, the report said.

To address this issue, the Taiwan News said Taiwan had cut each visa-free stay to two weeks, and is thinking about slashing visa-free visits from six times a year to twice a year. Also, high-risk individuals will be targeted with inspection and follow-up measures, the online newspaper reported.

Recently, South Korea is also reportedly reviewing its visa-free policy for Thai nationals after many people pretending to be tourists entered the country to work illegally.

Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s director of Crisis Response, said the court’s decision was politically motivated and designed to send a stark warning to other journalists in the country if they investigated military abuses.

She called for the convictions to be quashed and for Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo to be released unconditionally and immediately.

“Today’s appalling verdict has condemned two innocent men to years behind bars. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo face lengthy jail terms simply because they dared to ask uncomfortable questions about military atrocities in Rakhine State. These convictions must be quashed, and both men immediately and unconditionally released,” she said in a press statement.

“This politically motivated decision has significant ramifications for press freedom in Myanmar. It sends a stark warning to other journalists in the country of the severe consequences that await should they look too closely at military abuses. This amounts to censorship through fear.

“Today’s verdict cannot conceal the truth of what happened in Rakhine State. It’s thanks to the bravery of journalists like Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo that the military’s atrocities have been exposed. Instead of targeting these two journalists, the Myanmar authorities should have been going after those responsible for killings, rape, torture and the torching of hundreds of Rohingya villages,” the statement added.

In a statement the Paris-based media rights watchdog condemned the sentencing of Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, as a “dark day for press freedom in Myanmar.”

“This grossly unfair ruling, coming at the end of a sham trial, clearly calls into question Myanmar’s democratic transition,” the watchdog’s secretary general Christophe Deloire said in a statement in French.

“The justice system clearly being at the beck and call (of the government) in this affair, we call on the highest authorities in the land, starting with the head of government Aung San Suu Kyi, to free these journalists, whose only crime was to do their job”, he added.

The case of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo has sparked an outcry among the international community, being seen as an attempt to muzzle reporting on last year’s crackdown by Myanmar’s security forces on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State.

The two were accused of breaching state secrets law while reporting on the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in a Rakhine village.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Myanmar 137th out of 180 countries in its 2018 press freedom index.

Deloire specifically took aim at Suu Kyi, who has dismayed many longtime foreign supporters by failing to criticise the military’s anti-Rohingya campaign.

“The Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi backs up the massacres and now backs up the oppression of the press,” he tweeted in English.

Wildlife Minister Palitha Thewarapperuma said six out of the seven animals found in the swamp were young — below the age of 12 — and he suspected that many more may have died there.

“We have wildlife experts and vets who are investigating the cause,” Thewarapperuma told AFP from the district of Polonnaruwa, 220 kilometres (135 miles) east of Colombo.

He said a possible reason was that the swamp is currently strewn with water hyacinth, an invasive plant known locally as Japan Jabara.

The swamp is located on a migratory route and the animals may have become bogged down and exhausted battling through the plants and then drowned.

Japan Jabara was introduced to Sri Lanka at the turn of the last century and has spread rapidly since World War II.

Allied forces stationed in Sri Lanka planted the free-floating species on waterways in a bid to mislead Japanese pilots on bombing missions into thinking that they were grassy fields suitable for landing in emergency.

“It is heartbreaking to see so many young elephants killed here. We are trying to see how we can flush out Japan Jabara and make this area safe again,” Thewarapperuma said.

Sri Lanka considers elephants a national treasure and they are protected by law.

However, human-elephant conflict near wildlife sanctuaries have led to the deaths of 375 people in the past five years, according to official figures.

Enraged villagers have retaliated by slaughtering nearly 1,200 of the beasts.

Last month the government said authorities would begin constructing 2,651 kilometres (1,556 miles) of new electric fencing to keep elephants away from villages bordering wildlife reserves.

The Sri Lankan elephant population in the wild is estimated at 7,500.

Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said China had been “unilaterally escalating” its military activities in the past year, including carrying out new airborne operations around Japan and running a nuclear submarine near disputed East Coast isles.

“China has been rapidly improving its military strength and fast increasing its military activities,” Onodera told an annual gathering of the top brass of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.

“It is unilaterally escalating its military activities in the sea and aviation spaces around our country. This has become a significant concern for our country’s defence,” he said.

Onodera made the remarks as Tokyo attempts to improve its tense diplomatic ties with Beijing, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expected to visit Japan’s biggest trade partner next month.

On coming to power, Abe took a firm position on Japan’s claims to a disputed island chain in the East China Sea, aggravating tensions with Beijing.

But he has since softened his rhetoric, and called on China to press North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programmes.

Japanese businesses have also voiced desire for closer ties with China to boost trade.

Onodera said Russia was also flexing its military muscle.

Moscow is planning to hold its biggest drill since the Cold War era and is bringing powerful weapons, including ground-to-air missiles, to the disputed Southern Kuril islands, he said.

“We are seeing movement to again push forward its military activities in the Far East,” he said.

Onodera also repeated that North Korea continues to pose a “serious and imminent threat” to Japan, despite international diplomacy intended to convince Pyongyang to denuclearise.