I wonder how many pub quizzers out there could name this capital city? And how many people know anything about Brunei apart from its sultan being extremely wealthy? Wandering around this marble and gold encrusted ghost town is certainly a different experience to anywhere else in South East Asia. Even the small amount of traffic is slow and courteous, and cars actually stop at zebra crossings. Wow! After wandering through the eerily quiet central shopping malls, ...

2-0AM: I emerged from a wooden bunkhouse under a clear night sky filled with millions of stars. This was a huge relief after many days of rain. I'm 3323m above sea level, and 50m above the large Laban Rata rest house where I will get "supper". Even though I was in bed at 7-0PM, I didn't sleep much as my head was pounding from the big change in altitude after yesterday's ascent through the clouds. 4-0AM: Sayat-Sayat checkpoint, 3668m. Some of the mountain's pinna...

Sungai Kinabatangan is the name of the river where I spent three days on a wildlife safari. There were several boat cruises, and a couple of jungle hikes (one at night). But given the excessive rain that has been coming down, the hikes were almost knee deep in water and mud, and much of the wildlife was nowhere to be seen. I didn't really expect to see Borneo's pygmy elephants that were only recently discovered here, but we did find their two-month old tracks - t...

If you think you don't know any words of Malay, then you are wrong. The word orang means people, and the word hutan means forest; so in case you haven't worked it out yet, orang-utan means forest people - also known as "the old man of Borneo". The information I keep reading from different sources informs me that the orang-utan is the only great ape that lives outside Africa; the other great apes being the gorilla and two types of chimpanzee. Aren't they forgetti...

I was swimming against a strong current as fast as I could, because about 5m below me, in crystal clear waters was a big green turtle swimming in the same direction. After about half a minute, it got bored with the strange creature in the sky with yellow flippers - it surfaced for a quick refill of air, then it was gone in the direction of the coral reef, and I couldn't keep up any longer. It lasted a minute at most, but it was the best experience in Borneo so fa...