We arrived in S'pore after a very uncomfortable night with no sleep and checked into the airport hotel which proved to be an oasis of calm and peace despite the runway outside our window! Slept for 10 hours. On Thursday afternoon we checked in for our Air Asia flight to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo. Air Asia is the Easy Jet of Asia but with smiling, courteous staff-perfect. Landed in KK in the dark and took a taxi to the hotel and so we had absolutely no conce...

What a farwell party! It was amazing and thank you all for being there. The band was superb as always, food delicious (we didn't cook most of it) and the company even better. (No photos of the children for obvious reasons). Packing in earnest now and next stop Borneo. Keep in touch.

Four days to go. We've sold my little mini to help pay for the trip and Paul has finished work (or so he says). Some of the packing is done and the party is ready to go! See you all there!

Three weeks to go. Mike and Patsy arrive from NZ this week which is exciting! Their goods arrived recently which made us panic as we're not sending anything ahead. If we can't carry it then we're not taking it-we may live to regret that. Party plans coming along. Spent our last day on the South Bank at the weekend-we'll miss all that.

10 weeks to go and it's getting serious now! Backpacks are bought (pretty one for Jan which will hold next to nothing and big ugly one for Paul to do all the serious carrying), leech socks located (eek) and weird flights in tiny planes run by odd sounding companies appear to be booked.