This blog is going to be a little different. I am going to seriously reign in the word count and allow the pictures to speak for themselves. We are reaching the end of this particular trip and, due to the imbecility of our bank (detailed here), have all but entirely run out of funds. Planned adventures have had to be abandoned due to their relative expense and replaced with cheaper, necessarily more sedentary activities. It is a shame that we will not see the north of Aceh, Pulau Weh, that we will not go on our planned five day jungle trek, nor climb that volcano. What we have been forced to do is to spend most of our remaining three weeks lazing on a beach, as this is about the cheapest activity we can find. So, ... read more

Sometimes in life, things just don't end up following the route expected of them. Of course, the problem with this statement lies in the expectation, as opposed to the thing itself. It is my view that a thing expects nothing of itself and that it would be a better world for all if we expected about as much from them ourselves. That "shit happens", is about as universal a truth as it is possible to find; yet how many of us blithely navigate our lives under the arrogant belief that "shit will not happen to me"? Or, worse still, that through my judicious ministrations I can almost certainly "prevent shit ever happening to me"? Unfortunately, as is proven in life by every disappointment suffered, no matter how trivial or catastrophic, we are unable, or more truthfully ... read more

For the most part, modern man relates to nature at a distance, through conduits; be they television, the movies, literature, or myth. All these substitutes for direct experience seek to anthropomorphise the creatures they describe in an attempt to make them more palatable and less alien to the soft skinned, tender hearted city dwellers who seek safe escapism between pages and after adverts. This humanisation of nature has given modern man a vastly different view of nature from the one perhaps held by their grandparents, but definitely by theirs. Unfortunately, the "Mother Nature" of common consciousness is actually a vicious and unforgiving matriarch, and to try and mask this cruelty by investing her charges with human characteristics is like describing a volcanic eruption as the natural release of a mountains anger in response to the scarification ... read more

Modern man lives in modern cities in modern countries. Depending on your personal sensibilities, these cities are held to be either technological and architectural marvels that provide modern man with all his comforts and pleasures in a fully integrated, completely controlled and almost totally homogenous environment, or simply as pullulating pustules which irreparably disfigure the earth's skin, pollute the surrounding environment and which are, over time, irreversibly changing mans relationship with both nature and himself. Personally, being something of a romantic, I place myself in the latter group. I have an innate abhorrence of cities and city living, and can only find genuine peace and happiness when away from their stifling embrace. I am also something of a technophobe, and it is this fear that feeds my biggest apprehension as regards cities. Technology is driving modern ... read more

For both of us this was to be our first Christmas outside of Europe and, from the moment this trip was conceived, we have been incredibly excited by the prospect of spending it on a beautiful white-sand beach in the Philippines under a perfectly blue, tropical sky. Unfortunately, the weather and the Lonely Planet conspired to somewhat ruin those romantic plans of ours. We chose to spend our Christmas at San Pedro beach on the island of Romblon, due entirely to the glowing testimony it received in the Lonely Planet that described the beach as "a beautiful little white-sand beach". After spending two days travelling from Pandan island by assorted jeepneys, trikes, buses, ferries and bangkas, the last of which was a two hour crossing in some very heavy seas which, due to the small ... read more