Observation, Humour, Travel and Stuff

Buzzcut

I’ve always said that, if my hair started getting a bit thin, I would have a buzz cut or shave the whole lot off rather than try to hide or disguise it. Saying that and doing it are, as you’ll probably imagine, rather different things. Over the last couple of years or so I’ve noticed…

Barcelona #2

After a relatively lazy start, today’s a day for getting our bearings and checking out a few things relatively nearby to the apartment. First stop is the Cathedral where we’d found on Google that there would be some traditional Saldana dancing on Sunday around lunchtime. This consisted mostly of old people shuffling in a circle…

Borneo day eight

Karen wakes at 3am feeling a little queasy, which doesn’t overly concern us at first and we put it down to the Singapore Slings and/or eating way too late. However it soon becomes apparent that it’s more than that and it looks like a bout of food poisoning, which we can only put down to either…

Borneo day ten

Kuching is the city of cats and there are murals and statues all over the place. We hear from a taxi driver later on today that the Malay word for cat is kucing, which is apparently why there is so much cat stuff. There’s even a cat museum, but we don’t have time to go…

Borneo day nine

Bit of a lie in this morning as we don’t need to be ready to get our transfer to the airport until 10am. Leisurely breakfasting and packing is a nice change from the last week or so of early starts. Waiting in the hotel lobby, 10am comes and goes with no sign of our promised…

Borneo day five

It’s another 5:30am start for an early morning river cruise. The way we see it is that we might as well pack in as much as we can while we’re here because it’s unlikely that we’ll ever visit Borneo again. Nick and Holly have joined us this morning after much negotiation with their guide who…

Borneo day three

It’s not been the best night’s sleep that we’ve ever had, the bird or frog or whatever it was we heard on our way back to our lodge last night just went on and on. Apologies for sweariness of following video taken at about 1am. Eventually we both get some sleep of one kind or…

Borneo day four

It’s an even earlier start this morning, with the alarm set for 5:30am to give us time for a swift brew (fortified by our own tea bags of course) before we’re back on the boat for our early morning cruise. It’s misty today and Glen tells us that this is a good sign that it…

Borneo day seven

This morning we get up at 5:15 to walk up the hill going to see the sun rise and give us a great view of Mount Kinabalu, but the mist and cloud foil us so we head back to bed for a bit before packing and breakfast. We actually seem to have done very little…

Borneo day six

After breakfast it’s time for us to wave goodbye to Sekau as we ride along the river one last time to where the minibus picks us up. It’s a four hour drive up into the mountains to the Sabah Tea Resort where Glen waves us goodbye and hands us over to Jeff who will be…

Borneo day two

The alarm was set quite early and it’s a good job because a note has been slid under our door telling us to meet our guide at 8:30am rather than 9am as it said on the itinerary. So, slightly rushed after getting all our gear packed away in our bags, we head for breakfast. It’s…

Borneo day one

By the time we actually arrive at the hotel at around 2:30 there’s not a massive amount of our first day left, especially not given the lack of sleep we’ve had in the last 24-36 hours. In a vague attempt to adjust to the timezone we avoid having a nap and instead shower then head…

Paris day three – A Secret Bar

Paris day two – Breakfast cereal in a dog bowl