Somehow my internal alarm clock woke me at 7:30 after only a handful of hours asleep. When the girls (Christina and Nydia) arrived back the previous evening, we decided to go out for “a drink” at a nearby bar which doesn’t have a name. It’s decorated like a long house and owned by a local [...]

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(more pics at the bottom) Today I’d decided to visit the Bako National Park, the oldest in Borneo. It covers 27 square kilometres of mangrove swamp, rain forest and rocks with quite a few species of birds, lizards and monkeys. It’s pretty close to Kuching, being around a 50 minute bus journey from the town [...]

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Today would be my third visit to the Tiger Temple after one touristy excursion and then a week working there in 2006. And things have changed. A lot. Again, there may be repetition in this post compared to the earlier ones, but I will try to highlight the differences. First of all, a few points [...]

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Well, technically a safari park but I’m the pedantic one here so don’t go giving me any gyp. As past blog posts will show, I love zoos. Well, I love a good one – Hanoi was a little decrepit but on the whole I’ve been impressed with the animal welfare in them. Anything which encourages [...]

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This evening I was supposed to meet up with Anni, SFG, Mat and Andy in Stoke. Sadly, Anni couldn’t manage it. This was a little awkward as I desparately needed to get my laptop back from her, but she had the best of excuses – Ed is ill. Ed’s one of the cats she adopted [...]

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Just a quick bit about Vesoul. The tourist information place is really helpful and provides a small map of the town and some directions for walking around it. These are well worth getting and read like an audio tour, pointing out little features of all the things. Also take a walk up the hill and [...]

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We began our day with a hearty and healthy breakfast then packed our stuff into the trailer and headed for Weir’s Cove. Another great photo-op with some wonderful scenery. At the end of the cove are the Remarkable Rocks; a series of standing stones of various unusual shapes that have eroded in a way that [...]

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I pulled my usual “late to bed, early to rise” routine guaranteeing that I’d snooze on the 2-hour coach journey to the port for the ferry. I remember waking up at certain points to be told about the army barracks and so on, but the rest of the trip was pretty much a blank. Although [...]

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I woke at 5am and couldn’t nod off again. Matt popped his head into the dorm at six to get myself and Michael. Gustavo, again, was the only other member of the group up for the walk. We had a rushed breakfast, packed some fruit and snacks and zipped off in the bus. We got [...]

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 My cold had definitely started to feel better overnight so, armed with only one spare handkerchief, we jumped into the car and drove off in to the wild green yonder. Today’s excursions started with the Yarra Valley wineries. There are more than a handful of these, and Lyn positively insisted that we stop at three [...]

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