Hard Rock Cafes and Hotels in Asia, in Malaysia, and Bikers' Day Out

Hard Rock Hotel, Desaru, Malaysia. Photo courtesy of Trevor Sharot.

Bikers and Their Bikes

The bike far left is a Ducatti monster.  Next is a

Suzuki GSXR -R750 (the range is called Gixxer by the bikers; the engine size is the second half of the name.)

The Moto Guzzi is, 'the oldest European manufacturer in continuous production,' their website says. Off the picture is a large bike, which was too big for one of the others to ride. 

After you've done your duty as a traveller and seen all the local stuff, it's sometimes good to relax somewhere familiar and internationally known.

Hard Rock Cafe in Melaka
In Malaysia we visited hired a car in Singapore and took two foreign visitors to Melaka, the tourist hotspot on the west coast. The Hard Rock cafe has pride of place on the central bridge to the main square.

After dinner a couple of us went to the Hard Rock Cafe for a drink. (The other couple shook their heads and raised their eyebrows.)

Desaru
A month later our biker and three friends went for a day's ride up the East Coast. They stopped for a photo at the new Hard Rock hotel at Desaru resort area, all hotels. The Hard Rock Hotel has a swimming pool and breakfast included in the room price.

Other attractions are the sandy beach, a waterpark, golf courses, and trips to the Kota Tinggi waterfall.

Alcohol
Of course, if you are driving a car or riding a bike, you won't want to drink a cocktail. But you might appreciate the food and non-alcoholic drinks and toilets.

Can you drink in Malaysia, although it is a Muslim country? If you are a Westerner, yes. the Chinese restaurants serve beer. Hotels serve alcohol to foreign visitors.

Useful Websites

Flag of Malaysia.

Hard Rock Worldwide
Singapore has a hard Rock hotel on the island of Sentosa.
Since 1979 they have expanded all over the world and plan yet more sites. Currently in 2020 they have 29 hotels, 12 casinos, 184 cafes and 241 rock shops.

Hard Rock Online
If you want to buy online there are tee-shirts in assorted colours with the name of your favourite location such as Amsterdam, Detroit, London. They also sell magnets, mugs, pins, socks, guitars, backpacks, bottle openers, clothes, hats, and jewellery such as ear rings with handing guitar picks.

Other destinations include in the USA, Daytona Beach, Las Vegas, Orlando, Miami and San Diego.
If you want to travel further, there's a choice including Europe, Asia and The Maldives.

Useful Websites
https://www.agoda.com/en-gb/resorts-world-sentosa-hard-rock-hotel/hotel/singapore-sg
https://shop.hardrock.com/en-us/0885575699428/womens-pigment-dye-logo-scoop-tee
https://www.malaysia.travel/en/sg
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Desaru
Singapore Airlines
singaporeair.com

About The Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Balloon Museums, Events and Flights: UK, USA, France,Taiwan

Hot Air Balloons, San Diego. Photo author Jon Sullivan in Wikipedia.

Problem
Which museum/event? How many are there?

USA
1 Balloon Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
An all jumping American museum, open all year, with a shop.
Also October ballooning festival.

USA
2 National Balloon Museum, Iowa, USA
http://www.nationalballoonmuseum.com (Iowa, USA)
Great little website. This handy website, gave me links to others.
Their home page picture shows what you get on arrival:
The museum is shaped like a gondola, which is the basket for a couple of people to stand in when being lifted off the ground in a hot air balloon.
The cute building has knee-high colourful sculptures of hot air balloons leading up the path.

Inside the national Balloon Museum are:
The Ballooning Hall of Fame with photos of balloonists,
Women balloonists,
Scale models of balloons,
A Union Jack balloon. A real feel-good museum website.

WATCH NOW
Watch the National Balloon Museum, Iowa's online videos including the one with the background song, sounds like Sinatra singing, 'Fly Me to the moon ...', with a virtual tour around the interior of the museum.

Such smart people. They answered my question: How many such balloon events/festivals' museums  in the USA? Two.

TAIWAN!
CAN YOU READ CHINESE/JAPANESE?  Speak Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka?
Are you on holiday or business with a walking talking guide or a smart phone to translate?
3 Balloon Museum, Taichung, Taipai
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g297910-d6554431-Reviews-Taiwan_Balloon_Museum-Taichung.html
Not hot air balloons but hand-held party balloons.
https://www.prolloon.com.tw/#!prettyPhoto

(This website is mostly in Chinese but you can see the pictures and cartoons; also the phone numbers and email are in clear English or numbers.)

The Model of the Montgolfier Brothers' Balloon.

UK
Science Museum, London, England
The Science Museum in London receives 3.3 million visitors a year. The main collection is free although you must pay a fee to see exhibitions. You can see the model of the Montgolfier Brothers' balloon. 

Read about it in Wikipedia. It's fascinating. Joseph Montgolfier was watching a pocket in a piece of cloth drying by a fire.The cloth billowed up. He had been reading about a besieged city and thought that somebody could get lift-off and rise over the walls. He then enlisted one of his many brothers to help create a balloon shape which would rise up in the air.

Jolly Joseph who watched the drying clothes billowing and thought of making balloons. Photo from Wikipedia.

Science Museum, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7.

British Balloon Museum and Library
The British Balloon Museum and Library has collections which go to various museums such as Berkshire (now closed) and Bristol. You can become a Friend or buy items such as t-shirts, and gilets online. The Website is interesting. For example, a seasonal picture of Santa in a balloon is their greeting card.

You can also buy a ticket to their annual dinner, about £26. The last one had cupcakes with balloon logos which you could buy and the cupcakes sold out.

They are looking for funding to set up a permanent museum. (Or maybe another museum could build on a room or allocate a room to permanently house their collection.) Their collection includes postal envelopes showing balloons. Membership (when I looked in Oct 2017) is £10 and that includes four magazines a year.
They need help to get a permanent site. So look at their website . (Or leave them something in your will. A bequest. That's what helped secure the USA's Iowa balloon museum site.
http://www.bbml.org.uk/shop/

Professor Charles who took the balloon flight in 1783. Photo from Wikipedia.

FRANCE
The International Balloon Museum, Calvados, France
The chateau's historic building is beautiful and amazing with a spiral staircase and a trompe l'oeuil ceiling. You see the history of ballooning back to the famous French balloonist, Professor Jacques Charles in 1783. You can also read about his flight in Wikipedia. 

Château de Balleroy - Musée des Ballons

F-14490 Balleroy

Tél. : 02.31.21.60.61 - Fax : 02.31.21.51.77

E-mail : reservation@chateau-balleroy.com(link sends e-mail)

Here is his balloon flight with the huge crowd below watching. Photo from Wikipedia.

http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/international-balloon-museum-balleroy

USEFUL LINKS

Other Balloon Museums:

www.Anderson-AbruzzoInternationalBalloonMuseum (New Mexico, USA)

http://www.nationalballoonmuseum.com (IOWA, USA)
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/international-balloon-museum-balleroy (FRANCE)

http://www.bbml.org.uk/shop/ (UK)
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g297910-d6554431-Reviews-Taiwan_Balloon_Museum-Taichung.html  (TAIWAN)

Balloons, bits and pieces
Smithsonian national air and space museum
https://airandspace.si.edu/visit/museum-dc
https://www.si.edu/museums

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_balloon

FLIGHTS
Flights from £127 for one from this website:
https://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk/hot-air-balloon.
https://www.buyagift.co.uk/flying-experiences/hot-air-balloon
https://www.balloonintuscany.com/en/
https://www.viator.com/USA-tours/Balloon-Rides/
https://uk.viator.com/Spain-tours/Air-Helicopter-and-Balloon-Tours/

WEATHER & DELAYS
NB Hot air balloon rides, like boat trips, could be cancelled or postponed because of weather conditions.
Make sure you arrive on time, in advance, because there's a safety briefing first.
If you are joining a group, the basket may look empty but the other people might already be inside.
https://www.virginballoonflights.co.uk/blog/late-arrivals-for-your-balloon-flight/

SAFETY
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/01/health/hot-air-balloon-safety/index.html

FOR READING On the plane or at bedtime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Aviation_novels

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
See the previous post on the International Balloon Festival in Albuquerque. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts. My books are on Amazon and Lulu.com and you can link to me on LInkedIn and Facebook. Tourist boards, please get in touch.