A Malaysian Scam With A Thailand Email

Here's a twist on the old Nigerian scam. I received an email with a message from a lawyer called Michael Soo from Malaysia. Soo, or should that be "Sue", what a great name for a lawyer. He also provides a Thailand email address to contact him on. Ok, the guy isn't asking for any banking details but if you are silly enough to respond then he knows that your email address is legitimate and then he can groom you and get to know more about you. Don't respond to this sort of rubbish. It's just a scam and there's a large degree of social engineering about to come your way to obtain your personal details. The phone number provided uses Malaysia's calling code.


Michael Soo email scam.

Frugal Bastard's Cruise 2008 - Day8 - October 11th 2008

Ship-bound.

Slept in this morning as there was no port of call for tours. Had a workout on the bike when Yu-Jin went to child care. After meeting Mr Ng and Mr Tan as they disembarked, and we had decided to have a lead pencil drawing done, had lunch followed by a disembarkation information session with a funny English slideshow, which came before a chocolate banquet. Gee, they know how to make you fat on board the cruise ships. Not long after that was the mini Olympics where Yu-Jin took part in quoits and volleyball. I was a participant in quoits with Brad and scored zero after he opened with scoring zero leaving me a score of 30 to beat. We were called for sit-down volleyball which our team won and so I picked up a gold medal.

Dude on ship's CCTV.

Gold medallist sit down volleyball.


Yu-Jin had a swim whilst I had a sauna. After tea we stayed out on deck and Yu-Jin ate six slices of lemon meringue pie! We spoke with Rod and Maz from the Gold Coast whom we’d met in Penang. Took a short walk on deck where we played shuffleboard. You can’t go on a cruise and not play shuffleboard. Back to our room afterwards. I had to collect our passports and pay our bill and then wait for the artists to finish our picture. This didn’t happen until about 11:45pm. Not bad for something they started at lunchtime. I must say the boys worked really hard to get it finished in time. All of our luggage had to be ready for collection at 6:30am so there was much packing to be done.

Ladies night out.

Artist Suriyan Namwong sketching our family.

The two artists who worked on our portrait.

Frugal Bastard's Cruise 2008 - Day 7 - October 10th 2008

We had breakfast in the Ocean Palace Restaurant this morning. It felt a little strange to wear a collared shirt at breakfast. The staff treat you so well that you're not even allowed to carry your own drinks. Yu-Jin had a Danish pastry which must have had nuts in it. We wandered about on shore around the Porto Malai Resort before returning to prepare for our tour to the Langkawi cable car.

Fatso on deck chair at Porto Malai Resort.

Picturesque Porto Malai Resort.

Langkawi Eagle.


Rosalina Ismail was our teacher, er guide, on the bus trip to the Langkawi Cable Car. She was very funny with her, "Aaaah!", and, "Eh?" comments all the time. Taking a tour bus on Langkawi you don't expect the guide to ask you if the anaconda is a reptile or a mammal and then explain to you why your answer is incorrect. She even had maps to teach us from. She was good value though.

The Langkawi Cable Car took us up to 710m above sea level where the view was fantastic. We even saw the clouds rising above us and subsequently dropping a few spots of rain. It was a real pity that the bridge through some of the mountains was undergoing repair as I'd have loved to have walked it. We shared a gondola on the way up with a South African couple.


Langkawi Cable Car.

Mountains on Langkawi.
Walkway on Langkawi at lookout.

View atop Langkawi.

More silly finger gestures.

Liz (who won everything aboard the ship).

Going down on the Langkawi Cable Car.


There was a bit of shopping at the base station where I was told off for spending too much money. Down the bottom we went to collect our water that wasn't allowed in the gondola and were disappointed to discover that somebody had taken our water. Only later when we caught up with Rosalina did we find out that she had taken it back to the bus.

Next stop was Underwater World in the town but we weren't interested in it as we have one back home. Shopping was on the menu and Miky had her sights on the duty free shops. She bought clothes, shoes and cosmetics. We had lunch at a Korean restaurant we stumbled upon after waiting to be served in a grotty Chinese restaurant which we left after being appalled at the way they cleaned the table with a cloth soaked from a bucket of dirty water. We certainly weren't having any of that.

Toilet sign on Langkawi.

Shop doesn't open for long.


Miky met our Malaysian friends, Mr Ng and Mr Tan, in the duty free shop. They had a rental car so we didn't need to worry about paying for a taxi to return to the ship and could shop for a bit longer. After arriving at the ship I wanted to take a few more photos. The crew called Miky to make sure that I was ok as I hadn't boarded with them. Mr Ng lost his duty free cigarettes on the wharf after unloading them from the rental car.

Long way from home.

Fishing village and resort in background.

Superstar Gemini in port.


We all met for dinner at the Mariners' Buffet and it was Asian night where all the crew dressed up in asian dress. Great seafood, cha cha beef and Malaysian Kueh (cake). The mango sticky rice (sago) was great.

Just had time after talking to get to the Galaxy of the Stars for the Broadway musicals. Spoke with Matt James, who was part of a party of 11, about the trip so far. The musical was great and included Cats, Hair, Chicago, Cabaret among others. Later I collected Yu-Jin from child care for the 9pm pool and pizza party on deck. It rained which dampened the spirits somewhat.