What I read somewhere was that part of his flight took him in a sightseeing curve around the place where he was born, as if he was saying goodbye. The article says he "banked around the island of Penang", and other articles say he was born in Penang. It was dark at the time, though, I suppose.

I wonder what he was expecting to happen. The article gives the impression that he can't reasonably have expected to get to the southern Indian Ocean without being intercepted. So, if he'd planned to fly in that direction, was he expecting to be followed there by military aircraft? On the other hand, if he was expecting to be intercepted, why bother with all the trickery to remain undetected, seeing as they couldn't have stopped him anyway? We'll never know, I suppose.