Arrived in Yogyakarta on Tuesday and found a great homestay where there is a Koi carp pond inside the house! Yogyakarta is a wonderful and peaceful place, people are so laid back you get the impression they don't care, well they 'don't care' in the sense that they have an uncomplicated lifestyle where they go about their business in the way they have been doing for centuries but most westerners I have met here seem frustrated at the way things are, they want th...

Spent 4 days in Singapore and the only way to describe it was huge ugly buildings, lots of people and very hot. The comparison to London is obvious except people on the tube escalator don't push you out of the way and I saw at least one person smile while travelling on the underground! The place is obsessed with technology and even in restaurants groups of people sitting together are staring at devices totally oblivious to their surroundings, this new generation...

A belated happy birthday to my nephew Alfie who was 6 this week. After my excursions of the last few weeks of walking, jungle trekking, exploring caves and sleeping in the back of beyond I have spent the last week relaxing in Kota Kinabalu. I managed to get to the beach for the day on the tiny island of Sabi. I spent the rest of the week enjoying the city and stayed at a great place where most people did the same thing and used the surroundings to unwind. It w...

Spent the last few days in Mulu at the national park world heritage site, it was the one place I really wanted to see in Borneo. I was even deeper into the rainforests and I was not disappointed. The area is 290 square miles which is roughly three times the size of Birmingham but only 800 people live here and there were only about 100 other tourists staying here, I flew in on a micro plane as it has no road access. To say it was peaceful is an understatement. ...

Don't want to keep banging on but I am having such fun but this writing lark is hard work and I'm only penning a few words! God knows how Shakespeare managed, he mustn't have had any time for anything else, still it's keeping my brain active. Spent the last few days travelling up north taking it easy at a steady pace covering about 200 miles a day which is about 5 hour coach journeys, stayed overnight in 2 places Sibu and Bintulu before arriving in Miri on Thu...