We decided to go away for a few days around Christmas and booked three nights in a smart hotel in Kuching, the regional capital and three nights at a small beach resort, Sematan, in the far west of Sarawak. The Pullman in Kuching was much as one would expect.  Nice rooms, big bathrooms, big breakfast buffets and lots of affluent looking people traipsing up and down.  It was OK but not an experience either of us feel in a hurry to repeat.  I like smartish hotels but I don't feel so comfortable in them here, maybe because they make me feel more part of an affluent elite that I don't want to admit to belonging to.  If so, this is probably hypocrisy. On 27 December we drove to the Sematan Beach resort, which was much more fun.  A collection of chalets on the edge of the South China sea facing a massive sandy beach where the tide goes out by about half a kilometre.  Our booking included a buffet breakfast and evening meal and the resort was packed with mainl...

Sue does not have to be back at work until early January and so we have a total of four or five weeks together to travel and allow me to acclimatise.  Last weekend we went to Sibu, the nearest large town, some two hours drive from Saratok.  Sibu lies on the Rejang river and from there we took a day trip on the river ferries to Kapit, a small town in the interior which can only be reached by river I believe. The ferries travel at 20-30 knots and the journey to Kapit takes about two and a half hours.  We travelled "business class", which is one step down from "first class" and entitled us to air conditioning and a flickering film on DVD which could barely be heard above the roar of the engine.  During the trip a man wandered round with a large bin liner full of crisps and other packet snacks for sale. As we hammered our way up river I scanned the shoreline for crocodiles and, out of the corner of my eye briefly glimpsed a large one basking on a log with its legs d...

We went last Sunday to a wedding in Kabong, the village and district in which Sue works.  It was about a thirty minute drive from Saratok and my first opportunity to get a feel for the area that Sue travels to most working days. Stopping to ask directions some way from our destination it was clear that a large section of the local community already knew who we were and why we were there.  Central Kabong is a collection of houses on stilts over a salt marsh linked by a network of wooden walkways. The wedding was for the brother of Nora one of the teachers of English with whom Sue works.  This was the second ceremony, the first having been held in the regional capital Kuching. They are a large, sophisticated and well travelled family and as a result I felt both very welcome and remarkably at ease in a setting like nothing else I have ever experienced.  We joined in the ceremony, took photos, ate, danced and relaxed in a palpable atmosphere of hospitality and good...

I've been here twelve days I realised checking my diary.  What have I done?  Where has it gone?  I feel like I've been on one of those kids roundabouts which you suddenly step off and stagger drunkenly away from, slowly regaining your balance. I shook hands with young Paolo at Bari Airport then stepped on an Alitalia flight to Rome.  At Rome I got a Malaysian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur.  It was half empty and I had a window seat right at the back.  The time drifted away eating airline curries and catching up on films I'd missed, "Rise of Planet of the Apes" and "the King's Speech".  Beneath me drifted Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India.  It got dark, then we dropped down towards KL over the Malacca Strait at dawn.  The light in KL was liquid gold, but my plane for Borneo it seemed left from a different airport.  Dazed I found my way to the bus station and was hurried onto a bus dragging my luggage behind me. The bus tore round a ring...

I'm just waiting for Cosimo our wireless internet man to come and disconnect our service, so it seemed like a good moment to send a last message from Puglia, at least for now. Everything is pretty much stowed away and my bags are packed.  It's a fantastic sunny day here as if to mock my leaving.  For most of the past ten days since I returned from the UK its been wet and horrible, making it difficult to do much outside. Looking back over the past few months I've got a lot done, including late last week showing a prospective buyer over La Fulica and agreeing a deal, which I hope will be finalised before Christmas. I leave tomorrow morning at 4.00am for Bari Airport, to where our neighbour Paolo is very kindly giving me a lift.  Erminia has been pretty good about all our comings and goings.  I've only had one "of course I'll probably be dead by the time you return" and even that was said with a twinkle in her eye.  But then southern Italians understand...