I'm writing this in bed with Sue snuggled up next to me reading.  In the living room next door our new pellet stove is hissing gently and pumping hot water around our central heating system.  For the first time since we moved to Puglia in 2004 it's winter and the house is thoroughly warm, instead of comprising a small island of heat in a cold sea.  It's life-changing, I feel relaxed as I wander around the place and the smell of mould is retreating daily.  I now think of taking a shower with pleasurable anticipation instead of it being an unpleasant and goose-pimple inducing chore.  The paper on my desk is crisp and firm to the touch and no longer droops flacidly when I pick it up. On top of that we have satellite TV and I can write this in bed thanks to our new ADSL internet connection.   It seems a long way from the house we bought in the wilds of Puglia nine years ago, when we had no electricity for the first couple of weeks and were dra...

After leaving my hotel in Bari on the morning of 22nd September I drove home in brilliant sunshine with my heart thumping with a mixture of joy and anxiety.  Being a pessimist I half expected to see a smoking ruin with pigs rootling in the blackened foundations.  In fact, the place looked little different  to how we'd left it.  Our neighbour Paolo did a great job keeping an eye on things and maintaining the land, including pruning many of the olive trees, which was way beyond what I'd asked him to do. I had two weeks to smarten the place up before Sue arrived and I worked hard to get rid of as much of the accumulated grime as I could, with the help of Paolo's wife Elizabet and his mum Palma. The last few weeks have flown by and my sense of time now feels strangely distorted.  So little has changed here in Puglia that it doesn't feel as if we've been gone for two years, but then when I look back on Borneo our time there seems to have lasted forever. Ov...

The last few days in Saratok passed in a whirl of packing and ticking off jobs on lists, all the time my view of our little town shifting from the present to the past.  On Sunday 22nd September Sue drove me to Sarikei to get the boat to Kuching.  I looked out of the window at the jungle, the banana plants and the roadside shops and longhouses thinking this may well be the last time I see them.  As the boat surged up to the pontoon I said my goodbyes to Sue and passed my luggage (a rucksack and my bicycle encased in a large cardboard box) up to some helping hands on the rear deck. This was the start of three days of relentless travel by boat to Kuching, then a plane the next morning to Kuala Lumpur followed by a dash across the airport to catch my flight to Heathrow.  At Heathrow I got a taxi to Sue's brother Mike's house in Uxbridge where I left the bike.  After a pleasant night catching up with news from Mike, Tina, Adam and Tim, I got the bus on Tuesday t...

After three wonderful days at Batu Ritung Homestay I really felt sad to leave.  Supang gave me a farewell present of Bario rice and a rice scoop and showed me, William and Michele around the family museum, a room where Supang and her husband keep heirlooms and mementos.  Including the battered old leather briefcase her father used to use. After saying our goodbyes Matteo came to guide us back to Bario.  Instead of walking the water buffalo trail it had been decided we would travel by canoe.  This is the route most supplies take to get to Pa Lungan and still involves a fifty minute walk before reaching the boat, then a two kilometre drive at the other end. It turned out to be an eventful trip as the river level was very low and instead of a thirty minute journey we bumped and ground our way over shallows and half submerged trees for about an hour and a half. At the end of our river journey we were met by Stephen Baya of the Junglebluesdream Homestay, where w...

  As a paid up carnivore there is no flesh I love more than wild boar.  It's pork with all the flavours turned up, fantastic in rich sauces, sausages or straight off the barbecue, dribbling in fat so good you could drink it by the cupful.  It's a staple meat for the villagers of Pa Lungan and as luck would have it they had killed two the day I arrived and I got an invite to the barbecue the next day. So on Sunday afternoon I joined Stephen and his family and friends around the fire.  The combination of woodsmoke, fatty meat and thin crispy crackling was divine.  The hunter-gatherer ambiance was completed by the salivating dogs circling around the group, waiting for tossed scraps, a reward and an incentive to do their job on future hunts. The following day Stephen's brother Matteo, the village Headman, took me out for a day trekking in the jungle, accompanied by Supang's young dog Baddei. We ate lunch by a stream.  Mine was fried rice and wild boar...

Life moves at its own pace in Bario with no compromise for visitors on a tight timescale.  Douglas' promise that he would get a guide to come and see me at De Plateau Homestay finally materialised on my second morning there, by which time I was climbing the walls with frustration.  Liam is an amiable middle aged local kelabit who has returned to his roots after taking a "package" from Shell down on the coast.  He quickly disabused me about the availability of guides and trekking routes, which have dwindled as a result of logging activity.  During a chat with Liam I conceived a plan to walk to the village of Pa Lungan about twelve kilometres away, on a track which can be managed without a guide. I set off soon after my meet with Liam and followed his fairly vague directions.  It turned out to be a delightful walk through a small village, alongside quiet streams and paddies and into gentle woodland.  I had expected a track negotiable by four-wheel drives,...

Bario is in the heart of Borneo.  The best way to get there is by the twice daily MAS Wings service from Miri, which uses robust old 14-seater Twin Otter light planes.  You can also go by four-wheel drive using a network of logging roads, but it's a muddy, bumpy 12-hour ride.  The flight is a visceral experience during which you can watch the pilots wrestle the controls and flip the switches as they dodge the clouds then swoop through a clear gap down towards the tiny strip of grey tarmac which is Bario Airport. I had made no plans, which is just as well because the Lonely Planet Guide to the area is uselessly out of date.  As I left the arrivals shed there were several locals milling about, looking for clients.  I spoke to one who invited me to his Homestay (Malaysia's word for "bed and breakfast"). "What's your name?" I asked. "Douglas". "Guess what my name is?" So I joined Douglas in his four-wheel drive truck along with thre...

Sue and I went to Kuching last week for a final visit to Sarawak's capital before we head back to Europe in a few weeks.  For me it was a frustrating time as a couple of days after my 58th birthday I woke up with intense pain in my left knee and was unable to bend it.  It was no better one week later when we set off for the city with me struggling to fit in the passenger seat with a leg which wouldn't bend.  It felt uncomfortably like shifting Dad in and out of cars in recent years and left me with a nagging feeling that I was doing penance for not having been more patient with him. We stayed at the Pullman, one of the posher hotels, where I spent a lot of the week lying on the bed, reading and watching TV.  When the boredom got too much I took photos out of our bedroom window.  When you look straight down at it, Kuching is much like any other city anywhere.  But look up or zoom in on the middle and far distance and a different picture emerges.  ...

After two days at Batu Niah I finally escaped to Miri by bus with my new found friends Martyn, Janina and Eva.  They were planning to get a bus from Miri to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, a journey which involves crossing the Brunei border four times and gathering an unfeasible number of passport stamps, while I was headed for the luxury of the Marriot hotel to meet Sue.  I said goodbye to my friends over a very indifferent lunch in the centre of Miri and with time to kill decided to walk up the hill overlooking the city centre to visit the Petroleum Museum. After slogging up the hill in the afternoon sun it was, surprise, surprise, closed until further notice and serving no other function than to provide some shade to a pack of disconsolate dogs.  I took a photo of "the Grand Old Lady", Miri's first oil well, had a diet coke at a nearby cafe, then said "fuck it" and walked back down again.  It would have been easy to get a taxi to the Marriot, on the outskirts of...

It's funny the things that stick in your mind from a journey.  Batu Niah is one of the most spectacular of Sarawak's national parks.  It comprises a vast cave network full of bats and swallows in a setting of jungle and limestone cliffs straight out of "Jurassic Park".  There are mysterious wall paintings, mountains of acrid bat shit and a profound sense of darkness and silence as you grope your way along a two kilometre subterranean boardwalk.  And what do I remember best?  The National Park canteen. From the second you walk in the door there is the smell of desperation.  The National Park is three kilometres from the town of Batu Niah, so the canteen has a captive market of tourists.  It's located in a brand new building with new steel and formica tables and chairs and yet the place is empty.  In one corner there are a few lonely boxes of potato crisps under a notice warning that "thieves will be prosecuted".  There is also a set of swing...

From Bintulu I travelled by taxi the thirty-odd kilometres to Similajau National Park.  Much of the journey is dominated by what I guess is a large oil refinery with a sinister grey cloud sitting above it, like an upside-down pyramid pointing to a bright flame at the top of a pencil-like chimney.  The National Park itself is a long strip of coast with sandy beaches fringed by forest which, from the look of the logos around the place, appears to get some funding from Shell, perhaps as compensation for the sinister cloud next door. The Park offices are smart and air conditioned and staffed by smiling young women in green polo shirts.  I book a room for the night, which requires the completion of several forms.  This is done, in mandatory Malaysian bureaucratic style - like a new procedure introduced two minutes ago with no training.  It must actually take a lot of concentration to repeat this pantomime several times a day, week in, week out. Finally, key in h...

After failing to get to Belaga up the river Rejang I went back to Sibu in search of a bus to Bintulu.  This was my first experience of long distance buses in Sarawak and it was easy and pleasant.  The only difficult part was actually finding the long-distance bus station, which in common with every major town in Sarawak, it turns out, is several kilometres from the centre.  There are several competing companies offering big air-conditioned coaches, with three armchair-like seats in each row, and the two hundred kilometre journey cost me twenty five ringgits (about £5). As the bus left Sibu I pulled the Lonely Planet Guide from my rucksack in search of where to stay and what to do in my journey north to Bintulu and then Miri.  To be honest the Guide doesn't tell me much about the country I live in, it's more of an inventory of interesting things for outsiders: beaches, National Parks, restaurants and nightlife and "authentic" things to "experience" and take...

With time on my hands following my return from Raleigh International in Sabah, I've decided to spend some time exploring Sarawak.  Sue had arranged a weekend of luxury at the Marriot Hotel in Miri, so I resolved to join her by getting boats and buses from Saratok.  My plan was to travel by boat up the River Rejang from Sarikei to Belaga, where I would get a four wheel drive taxi to the main Sibu-Miri highway. On Sunday 21st July I got a lift to Sarikei then a ferry to Sibu, where I changed for a boat to Kapit. The Kapit boat was packed with people returning home after the weekend.  The ferries on the Rejang above Sibu are battered steel tubes with two stonking diesels at the back which hammer the boats through the water at an ear-splitting thirty knots.  Inside the passenger compartment has a similar atmosphere to a meat cold storage warehouse as the a/c units are always set to "max" for some reason. The mighty Rejang was actually more of a trickle due to t...

On Monday afternoon a Raleigh International Landrover dropped me and my bike at KK airport.  I gave Mel, the Volunteer Manager who drove me there, a farewell hug then trolleyed my gear to the check-in desk. After the formalities I wandered back out of the terminal to take a last look at Mount Kinabalu, unusually clear and visible in the evening light and looking like the extinct volcano it is.  I took a few pictures, trying to capture the moment and thinking "I climbed you, but I've never seen you this well before".  Returning to the terminal building the sunset over the sea and the nearby islands was like a cosmic bruise, all yellows, purples and reds.  I couldn't take my eyes off it as I walked to the departure gate at the far end of the airport, knowing that both of us would be gone shortly.  Just one more sunset and one more memory lodged for the time being in my old cranium, like water in a leaky bucket. I had a little time on my hands so I 'phoned...

I'm sat in our friend Jess' house in Sibu with some spare time before getting the plane for Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.  Two weeks ago I was offered a volunteer Finance Officer role with Raleigh International and despite the short notice I decided to go for it.  I'll be there for three months working at the charity's base in KK where they keep tabs on a variety of community and adventure projects for young Brits. Right now I'm thinking "why at the age of 57 am I still doing this stuff?"  I'll be sleeping in a dorm and working with people who will mostly be less than half my age.  I feel old and anxious and a little bit excited.  I said goodbye to Sue yesterday afternoon when she dropped me off at Jess' place and I'm going to miss her.  When I finish with Raleigh I will only have 2-4 weeks left in Borneo, which will be taken up with packing and organising our return to Italy. The plus side is that it gets me some hands on experience of internat...