For some time the junk in dad's house has been weighing me down and I've told several people it's my intention to release much of it "back into the wild".  Dad loved going to boot fairs, especially the big one at the old Hemswell airbase, north of Lincoln. So, having hired a van, I set off for Hemswell at 5.00 am this morning loaded with pictures, telescopes, a "decorative" ship's wheel and all manner of miscellaneous stuff. In some ways it felt sad letting his old junk go for low prices (no one wants to pay much at boot fares), but in others it was a very positive experience as lots of people went away with smiles on their faces, giving me the feeling that some of dad's old things would be cherished anew. At about 2pm, as the fare was thinning out, I sold everything that was left to a dealer with a pitch a few metres away for the princely sum of £15.  But overall I'd collected over £300 and was able to leave with an empty van and a l...

I'm now back in the UK and hopefully looking at the home run to selling dad's house.  It was good to spend time back in Miri following our holiday in Vietnam.  One evening Sue and I did a walk around the Shell residential campus near her apartment.  We'd often done this walk before, but now the bungalows are steadily being demolished and the area turned into a nature park.  The last time I'd been was the evening before I set off to be at dad's bedside in February and we had seen hornbills flying in the distance. While I was in the UK Sue got to see more of the hornbills, who seem to be a nesting pair and on this occasion they posed for us in a tree only thirty or forty metres from where we were walking.  I got my camera out and snapped loads of photos as the two birds hopped around the branches striking a variety of poses for me.  They are the strangest of creatures and who'd have thought they have such beautiful eyelashes? Getting such a good vie...

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...