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...