The morning after the visit to the Deer and Lang Caves a smiling Larry guided us upriver by canoe to yet more caves and a Penan village.  The Penan were originally nomadic, but are now largely settled in villages.  In the Penan village in Mulu National Park they make some income by selling their craft work and other souvenirs to the passing travellers.  I bought this mat. After lunch by the river we were taken by boat to the start of our trek.  Here Larry left us in the hands of Hafiz, who works for him, for the nine kilometre walk to Camp 5 where we were to spend the night.  It's a gentle trail through rainforest and most of the way it chucked it down so that the hundred or so trekkers in various parties arrived at the camp soaked to the skin. That night we all slept as best we could in the damp dormitories of Camp 5, while a large bat circled around the rafters catching insects.  Next morning I, Hafiz and my Dutch companions set off the "Headhunte...

We flew from Hanoi to Miri, via KL on Saturday 26th July.  Miri felt like unfinished business as I had to leave there in such a rush in early February to get to dad's bedside.  As our budget airline dropped down to the coast over the oil rigs and offshore service vessels and towards Miri Airport I felt both sad and excited to be back.  My stay didn't last long before I returned to the airport on the Monday to take the short thirty minute flight up to Mulu National Park.  Sue was back at work so I thought I'd use the weekdays constructively by visiting Sarawak's only World Heritage Site and doing a three-day trip along the "headhunter's trail". The trip had been arranged for me by Sue's colleague Kerry, who is a friend since our days in the small Sarawak town of Saratok in 2011-13.  The trip is run by Larry a local guide and entrepreneur with his finger in many pies.  Like so many things in Sarawak the tour had a fairly haphazard feel to it.  I was ...

Sue was feeling poorly on our first day in Hanoi, so this morning I set out on my own to walk the three or four kilometres to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.  It's a chaotic and friendly city, teeming with motorbikes and taxis and sensually overwhelming, with its mixture of strange sounds, sights and smells. Our hotel is in the old quarter, which is particularly dense and busy, with narrow streets and a jumble of old buildings in a wide range of architectural styles.  As I got closer to the mausoleum the streets turned into wide boulevards and more police and military uniforms became apparent. Eventually I reached the queue for the Mausoleum, patrolled by sombre white-uniformed soldiers who checked we were suitably attired (no vests or short shorts, no cameras and sunglasses and hats respectfully removed).  We were kept moving at a steady walking pace up marble stairs and round a couple of corners into the chamber where Ho's body lies in state, looking like a Tussaud's w...

It's our ninth and last night in the Ancient House Village Resort and Spa on the outskirts of the charming City of Hoi An.  Our days here have developed a comfortable routine - a leisurely breakfast followed by sunbathing or sightseeing, a light lunch and in the evening a stroll around town and supper.  The resort is three kilometres from the town centre, but the management lays on a regular minibus to whisk us to and fro. The town is dismissed by some reviewers as very touristy and unlike the "real" Vietnam, whatever that is.  But usually places are popular with tourists for a reason and Hoi An is a very beautiful place, close to the beaches of the South China Sea and bisected by a wide river.  The old town centre is a collection of ancient two-story wooden shop-houses blackened by decades of varnish or lacquer, with small temples dotted here and there. In the evening the place is full of tourists from all over the world of all shapes, sizes and races, wal...

Sue and I have survived our first tour of Vietnam.  Running out of things to do in the beautiful city of Hoi An we rashly booked a tour of the "My Son Holy Land".  This is our tour guide on the left.  The tour company collected punters from hotels all over the city in small vans and then herded us into a coach on the edge of town.  When our driver exhorted us to leave the van with a cry of "take all your belongings with you" I felt a frisson of alarm. It was grey and drizzly as we sped to our destination about an hour from the city.  Our guide did his best with limited English to convey the delights that would have been in store, but for the US carpet bombing of the area in 1969.  On arrival we found something like Ankor Wat writ very small and interspersed with flooded craters. While our guide enthusiastically demonstrated the purpose of the damaged Lingam and Yoni sculptures I took photos of butterflies.  By the end of the tour our wet and...

On my first morning in Ho Chi Minh City I got up as quietly as I could and put on some running gear to go for a quick trot around the city centre.  Not far from the hotel is a large piazza, maybe a kilometre long and three hundred metres wide, at one end of which stands City Hall and a large statue of an avuncular looking Ho Chi Minh.  It was good to join the locals jogging and walking around the piazza and the tourists taking photos of the fountains. For someone brought up in the sixties on an endless diet of Vietnam war footage, the country today is a strange and confusing place.  At one level it's like any other tourist destination full of landmarks and capitalist logos, but this co-exists with a totalitarian Communist government with loudspeakers in every village and town centre barking news/propaganda.  Take the City Museum, which has an interesting collection of mementos of the recent past and some really strange stuff, which I guess concerns disputed isl...

Yet another airport.  This time Heathrow en route to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC to the congniscenti).  Walking round Dixons I got paid a fiver to do a customer survey during which I did my best to create the impression of being a cosmopolitan world traveller.  Then took the fiver and my other cash in hand to the currency exchange and became a millionaire - in Vietnamese Dong sadly. It's a bright sunny beautiful day, I'm feeling cool in my light travel slacks, sandals and collar-less shirt and not at all like the bald, slightly confused, old git I actually appear to other people. Yay - the "go to gate" sign has just come up on my Bangkok flight!

My last full day in France was a slog from near Beaune, round Paris and up to the town of Bethune, where I rode round and round in circles trying to find the trip hotel du Golf, a grey and boring dump on the outskirts of town.  That evening I checked out the news and found that more trouble was brewing at the Channel ports where a ferry crew strike had broken out for the second time in as many weeks.  I was glad of an excuse to leave early next morning as the previous strike had led to disruption at the Channel Tunnel as well. As it happens there was no problem and I was checked onto an early train.  While waiting I had a chance to inspect a couple of other bikers.  Middle-aged blokes (like me?) with all the gear and BMW "adventure" touring motorcycles.  I'm growing to hate these things.  They look mighty and purposeful with their robust chunky looks and square aluminium and black luggage, but most of them only ever tour on motorways and other tarmac ro...