Nota Bene

Bye-bye, Indonesia! Hello… Changi Airport, Singapore!

Yes – to the most luxurious airport in the world. I’ve already written about, and shown you photos of its Jewel shopping and entertainment complex with its ginormously gorgeous waterfall. And here I was again. On this layover, just like last time, I was lucky enough to land at one far end of the complex and fly out from the other.

A reminder for some, new knowledge for others: Changi’s terminals are joined up into a giant letter “U”, so if you arrive at the tip of one of its arms and depart from the tip of the other, walking all 3+ kilometers of the structure is simply a wonderful idea! Of course, you can also ride in comfort between the two ends on the airport’s little driverless trams (something many major airports have had for years now), but Changi deserves to be explored on foot! At a medium-to-brisk pace, you can cover it from end to end in 40-45 minutes. So off I popped…

What’s so pleasing and impressive here is the sheer amount of space. Even though it’s one of the largest airports in the world, you don’t get packed crowds of passengers. Sure, there are still plenty of folks milling about, but the terminal floors are covered with some special kind of carpeting that’s easy to pull a rolling suitcase across – and its pile muffles any excess noise. It’s practically a miracle! An airport with acoustics taken into account: woah!

By the way, this airport even has a swimming pool, though apparently it’s only for first and business-class passengers. Next time I’ll try to arrange a longer connection – and actually test it out.

Here’s the kind of interior design you’ll find in the central areas of the terminals:

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This year’s anarchic SAS has been duly covered. “But what about tourism?” you might ask. To which I’ll reply: we found time for that too!…

At long last I got to see up close one of the biggest statues in the world with my own eyes – Garuda Wisnu Kencana, which depicts the Hindu god Vishnu riding the sacred bird Garuda.

Here’s what the sculpture looks like from the beach:

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An absolute must-see for tourists near the Aswan Dam is the Philae temple complex. Its origins are truly ancient, but it’s been ruined and rebuilt many times over – so in the end it’s not so much genuinely Egyptian as something remade “Egyptian-style” later on, in the Greco-Roman eras. And then other cultures/religions came along and trampled all over the place too: as our guide told us, “religious barbarians/fanatics” destroyed the images of the “wrong gods”. Yes, I can believe it. How else to explain all this obviously deliberate damage to the ancient stone frescoes and sculptures?

Some of the artifacts just lie about, while some of the structures are clearly being put back together by archaeologists:

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Our annual conference for cybersecurity experts – the Security Analyst Summit (this year – SAS-2026) – has thundered its way to a close. It was fun, it was lively, and this time it came with a ground-breaking design:

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We began our cruise along the great Nile River in the city of Aswan. That’s a name familiar to anyone who grew up in the USSR in the seventies/eighties – and, I’m told, in the UK, where, apparently, its main feature (see below) was studied in middle-school geography classes (yet – no mention of Soviet involvement; grrr figure:). Anyway, it’s from there that I bring you the next batch of stories from this most unforgettable trip.

The main thing of interest here is the Aswan High Dam, which the Soviets helped build built in the 1960s, and which produced its first electricity in the early 1970s. Of course – we just had to go check it out. And our look around this vast power facility turned out to be great fun – and really quite fascinating…

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When I first visited stunning Luxor back in 2022 (on my first trip to Egypt), I heard that tourist boats ply the great Nile River on the Luxor–Aswan route, and that it comes highly recommended for exploring firsthand. Just four (far from boring) years later, and business has brought me back to the land of the pharaohs and, well, yes – dreams do come true! We combined work with play (my fave combo!) – and cruised the Nile on a riverboat! Direction: Aswan -> Luxor…

It was a simply delightful two-and-a-half-day river cruise!

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Before our very eyes, technological progress has once again bolted ahead at full gallop. It’s all we can do to keep shutting them (or opening them wide) in astonishment! In literally just a few years, countless AI this-that-and-the-others have gone from being things like dim-witted but tireless talking parrots, to intelligent tools able to solve complex problems – real tough ones that require a ton experience, knowledge, and creativity. It’s like, the day before yesterday – AI was an amusing toy; yesterday – an assistant taking routine work off your hands; today – it’s a highly capable colleague at the next (virtual) desk. And, naturally, we’re growing ever more anxious about what might come tomorrow.

Let’s be honest: all the nervous excitement about AI and its revolutionary – even apocalyptic – impact on humanity is surely being fueled by the prospect of trillion-dollar IPOs. Not to mention the equally trillion-scale investments in building data centers and in AI-related development. The economic forces at play are so powerful that they inevitably sway minds too – including through all sorts of PR campaigns (how could we ever do without them?). Even so, there’s no denying the qualitative leap: it’s huge and plain for all to see. And I – a dyed-in-the-wool techno-optimist all my life – have actually started having doubts… Is everything going to be ok and kept under control? Or could certain frightening digital events be on the horizon?

Watching it all unfold, I sometimes get the feeling we’re unlikely to get through this without some serious upheavals. But whether or not there’ll be an AI apocalypse – that will take prophets (techno-evangelAIsts and philosophers). Meanwhile, saving the world from the more down-to-earth digital bada-booms is… without a doubt, our job :-).

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On the main street of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, stands this rather confident-looking structure. What’s more… it’s of a somewhat unusual design for Southeast Asia:

It’s called Patuxai, and it turns out it’s an “Arc de Triomphe”. But that figures, since Laos is a former French colony (and you still quite often see and hear bits of French here). So, if Paris has its own Arc de Triomphe, then there’s got to be one like it here too! But with a Laotian architectural accent :)

It’s fun listening to the locals’ take on it. They’ll tell you that foreign funds were originally granted to Laos to build a new airport, but the local authorities decided otherwise – and built this arch, complete with fountain and promenade. To which the locals responded by dubbing the structure “the runway” :)

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ສະບາຍດີທຸກຄົນ!

Let me continue my tourism tales in and around Vientiane – the capital of Laos. Located 25km from the city center by road (15km as the crow flies) is a rather curious little place that goes by the name of Buddha Park. Here, on a relatively small patch of land (180x100m), stand around two hundred assorted Buddhist and Hindu statues, sculptures, and all sorts of other stone installations.

They look pretty ancient; however, the park was built either in 1958 (if the internet is to be believed) or in 1959 (if our guide is to be believed). Not that it matters. Anyway, these aren’t historical artifacts but relatively recent “faux antiques” made of… reinforced concrete and, in places, simply brickwork under a layer of cement. But don’t let that put you off; the place is still very charming and visit-worthy.

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Ooh – déjà vu! These scenes out the window sure looked familiar – but of course they did: I was only here last month!…

And here are some of our guests flying in!…

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