Am out of the jungle! 11 or so days felt like a lifetime whilst simultaneously feeling like 5 seconds. Difficult to condense 11 days into 1 entry but I'll try... The trip was basically in two halves. The first half were the activity days where we went into the jungle for a day with each of the four tutors. I had postgrad batman Dave for the first day, when we used bat traps to sample the low flying bat populations at Danum. I managed to get a leach in my... pr...

Am in Borneo! Hotter and more humid here. Just hanging in the hotel lobby! Very tired, airport confusing!

Keane is blasting from the speakers here on the balcony of the OHANA hostel, one of the best hostels I've ever stayed in. Am looking out into the murky night skyline of Kuala Lumpur. It's a soulless megacity, a bigger contrast to India is almost impossible. I sought out a new pair of thin long trousers to wear in the jungle as I feared having just one pair would come to haunt me. Sure enough, here in Kuala Lumpur you're tripping over malls. Everything is a mall....

I got a rough sleep on Sunday night meaning I wasn't exactly primed for the long journey to here in Malaysia. I spent my last hours in Varanasi talking to a nervous Australian traveller about Varanasi before taking an uber to the airport. Weirdly I brought a book about Mossad. Anyway, the airport was small and quite crowded but overall quite efficient. I flew Vistara, which is Singapore Airlines's Indian son, sat in a row with a couple of Italian nervous flyers...

It's my last full day in India! I awoke late and headed out to Sarnath by Uber. Uber is a lifesaver here in India! Cheaper than tuk-tuks, aircon and no hassle. Sarnath is where Gautama Buddha taught his first Dharma. It is also the site of Buddha's Dhamacakkappavattana Sutta (say that three times fast) - his first teaching after enlightenment. My Uber driver actually dropped me off outside 'the Thai temple'. Because the Sarnath is a very holy site of Buddhist ...