Have been in Mexico for three weeks now, so about time I updated the blog. After San Diego, got the tram down to the border and literally just walked through - not a single border official checking anything (though going the other way is probably the most policed border in the world). Decided to spend a night in Tijuana (one night too many I'd say). Luckily I was there on a Monday, very tacky town, and full of pharmacies selling cheap prescription medicines to Americans crossing the border. I think that's what you'd call a market solution to a dysfunctional health care system (as long as it doesn't affect my wage packet of course!). Rather than a 24hr+ bus trip, caught a flight to Chihuahua the next day. This was the starting point of El Chepe ... read more

So, finally getting the blog going again (was far too lazy over Christmas to add the Africa entries - may get it done in April when i get back!). The second leg of the Rodyssey is a quick trip around North and Central America - not as extensive or probably exciting as last year, but ticks quite a lot of places I´ve always wanted to see. Flew out on Januray 17th to Austin, Texas via Chicago. First hint that the US weather wouldn´t be quite as I expected it was when I was grounded in Chicago for the night due to some serious sub-freezing temperatures which had me thinking I might not have packed appropriately for this time of year. Got down to Austin on Friday and had a cool weekend there with Andy which largely ... read more

Have left northern India behind and flown to Kerala today - staying the night in Trivandrum and heading to Varkala and hopefully a nice beach hut tomorrow. Shockingly enough as soon as I got anywhere near a beach it started raining! Hopefully sometime over the next few days it will clear up.... The last week of volunteering in Himachal was so much fun - had a couple of parties (our leaving do and a rooftop party at Silver camp) where the crazy Indian beer worked its magic again. The leaving party was great, all the staff joined in for some bizarre Indian dancing and party games. I slept on the roof of Silver Camp every night last week - amazing to lie staring at the stars and Milky Way with the mountains in the background and ... read more

Have just returned from a week spent deep in the Borneo rainforest, yrt another amazingly cool experience. Another one of the places (after Prague, Lake Baikal, Mongolia and Wolong) where I could have stayed much longer. We flew to Kucking in Sarawak, Borneo almost two weeks ago and spent a few days here - very sweet town and the hostel, Singgahsana Lodge, is by far the best I've stayed in. We visited the Semangoah Orangutan rehabilitation centre where the orangs live in the semi-wild and can be viewed when feeding and the Matang Wildlife Centre where they work on the rehabilitation and possible eventual release of orangs - they had two of the coolest orangutans I've seen, Gus and adorable 2 year old female and Aman, a monster of 140kg who used to be blind but ... read more

Arrived in KL, Malaysia on Sunday on a flight from HCMC. Stayed in the capital one night and met the volunteers and coordinates of the orangutan program. First two weeks I'll be at the zoo in Taiping (4hrs north of KL) with three others. Andy, Cayleigh and Amy (all from UK) and our two coordinators, Nas and Aida. Started work on Tuesday - it's a fantastic zoo with a huge variety of animals. There's 4 orangutans here: Hassan, a 27 year old male who's very lazy and lethargic, Heaven, Hassan's woman, who's very fat, Puden, another female who doesn't get on well with Heaven (or anyone else), and last (but definitely not least) Wasabi, a 4 year old female who might be the most adorable creature on Earth. First up every morning is husbandry - cleaning ... read more