When we awoke to our first morning in Australia, it was to the almost forgotten sounds of indigenous birdsong; wattlebirds, Australian magpies and honeyeaters. Excitedly, I pulled back the blind covering our window and looked outside. It didn't seem to matter that it was a chilly 5 degrees centigrade, nor that it had rained during the night - out there was Australia and we couldn't wait to become re-acquainted with it again. We had arrived the night before on a flight from Singapore, swapping the heat of tropical Asia for the chill of a southern hemisphere winter. Dropping below the Tro [View Full Entry]

---

---

The doors opened with a pneumatic hiss as the MRT train glided smoothly into the station at Orchard Road. The train and station area were antiseptically clean. Chrome and glass shone with hardly a sign of a fingerprint, let alone any trace of graffiti but this was Singapore of course, our 9th country and one of the cleanest in South East Asia. Hardly surprising since the act of leaving your 'tag' mark on a wall or spitting out a wad of chewing gum, could land you with a heavy, on-the-spot fine or worse, a few lashes with a bamboo cane known [View Full Entry]

---

---

Rest and recuperation. Most of our friends back home probably thought that our trip was one long holiday... what on Earth did we need a period of R & R for? Long-term travel however - as anyone who has done it will know - is not like taking a holiday. Without realising it, the effects of heat and constant change; of switching time zones and cultures so often, of going without sleep and making do with a poor diet - could run a body down. Before you knew what was happening, you had opened the door for fatigue and illness to [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sarawak. It was another one of those exotic sounding places that you almost felt compelled to visit - simply for the name alone. We knew too, that it would give us a perverse sense of satisfaction to be able to say that we had visited Sarawak and see the look of puzzlement cross people’s faces. “Sarawak”, they would say, “Where’s that?” Most people have heard of Borneo of course, and probably have pre-conceived ideas of what it is like; dense jungles, head hunting tribes, weird and wonderful wildlife. Far fewer people however, actually know where it i [View Full Entry]

---

---

It was 2:30 in the morning when Viv woke me. She was red hot and complaining that she had a terrible headache, stomach cramps and aching joints. "I think I need to see a doctor," she whimpered. The fever had been building for the past two days, but we had both been hoping that it was nothing serious and would pass given time. But instead, it seemed to be getting worse and even paracetamol was having little effect. Fighting back feelings of panic, I got dressed quickly, running through a mental list of diseases that might be causing the fever. [View Full Entry]

---

---

You had to love Indonesian hotels. Though they tried, the Indonesians just couldn't seem to get it quite right. Shabby and frequently bed bug-ridden, there were often times when we felt that someone ought to be paying us to stay in them - not the other way around. And despite our best efforts to find something that would redeem our hotel in Bukit Lawang, it was the bed bugs and smelly toilet (that could only be emptied by tipping a bucketful of water down it each time we needed to flush) that finally drove us away. Of course, the "Wisma Sibayak" [View Full Entry]

---

---

Gunung Leuser National Park, Just North of Bukit Lawang June 6th The walk - uphill and through hot, sticky jungle - left us breathing hard, sweat from even this small exertion, popping out on our faces and running down our backs. We were on the big Indonesian island of Sumatra, only a few degrees north of the equator and the heat was stifling. Smothering everything in a wet, humid blanket, it sapped the strength and weakened our resolve to carry on. Hemmed in by a solid wall of foliage; bamboos, thorny rattan palms, looping vines and big leaved aroids, we [View Full Entry]

---

---

I couldn't go any further, a boy with a scimitar stood blocking my way. We were just below the eighth Tower of Heaven on China's Great Wall. Beyond, I could see the Wall snaking its way over razor-edged hilltops and disappearing into deep valleys, only to reappear again on some distant peak. Scowling, the boy said something in Chinese: it was obviously a challenge. Viv was some way behind me. Should I accept the challenge, I wondered, or try to slip past? A few tense heartbeats later however, the decision was taken out of my hands as the boy's mother appeared [View Full Entry]

---

---

The rain fell like stair rods as we sheltered beneath a street awning in Bangkok, waiting for it to stop. It rained most days now. People were saying that the rainy season was starting earlier and earlier each year. Was this a sign perhaps, that the effects of climate change were beginning to affect weather patterns that could once have been predicted with a near perfect accuracy? Change was not always for the better. Other changes meant that we had to keep a watchful eye on the number of days we spent in the kingdom. New regulations affecting the amount of [View Full Entry]

---

---

It was mid-March. Despite the fact that the hot season had begun, heralding what was usually a slump in visitor numbers, the "Gecko Bar" was full. Only one table remained so we grabbed it, the five of us pulling up plastic chairs as we noisily staked our claim. Ordinarily, whenever Viv and I were in Bangkok we headed for the "Gecko Bar" as soon as it became too hot to do anything else. Pulling up chairs at a street-side table, we would share a cold bottle of Chang Beer as we watched passers-by and discussed wild schemes to visit Nepal, India [View Full Entry]

---

---