Top tip for weary international travellers to avoid missing flights: don't confuse the time you are expected to land with the time you are expected to take off. You can lift the context of this entry entirely from that one sentence. It was 10.15 as I stuffed the last of my odds and sods into my bag. Take off was 12.45 in my mind. An hour to get to the airport. An hour and a half to check in, over pay for a coffee, re-buy from Body Shop whatever might have been...

The Lonely Planet entry for getting tickets for the Petronas Tower reads as follows: "tickets are issues from 8.30 am... Arrive around 8 am to start queuing if you are particular about what time you want to go up, but tickets are often available until 11am" Literally every fact in the above stanza is wrong. Happily, I'd had a chat with my cab driver on the way to my hotel. I told him what I had read and he laughed like a drain. "How long are you staying for?"...

So, that's that for Borneo. I've learnt stacks, but not enough. I'll be back. There's just one last thing to share: how to get the hell out of here. You may recall that I'd long since departed from The Original Plan. The Ryanair-style flight on Air Asia from Kota Kinabalu "International" Airport to Tawau had left me needing to leave 90% of my stuff in Left Luggage, flummoxing the staff, who seemingly had not expected to do anything with Left Luggage at any st...

Mother nature does it again. I reach the end of my final day totally exhausted, my mind totally boggled. First was Gumantong caves (I need to check that spelling). This was something off the set of an Indiana Jones film. Imagine that you are standing in cave as big as a cathedral, in the dark. As you walked in you had to battle with the stench of the droppings from the thousands of little bats that line the roof. There are funny bits of rope used by the farme...

Is it me? It isn't me is it? It must be the world. If you are wondering why the photo is of a bare piece of floor, it is because this is one of the many places in the world where my luggage is not. That list may or may not include Kota Kinabalu International Airport's Left Luggage Services Department, but I cannot tell. 16 calls it took to get KKIA Left Luggage Service on the phone. Numbers not in service. Numbers unanswered. Numbers redirected. Numbers su...