Bye-Bye, Birdie

Dear Jetstar

Strike One:‭ ‬that unpleasant and thoughtless flight attendant who insisted at the very last instant before borarding that my wife's handmade violin could not travel in the cabin,‭ ‬but had to be checked in with luggage.

Strike Two:‭ ‬when you wouldn't allow my son to fly on his own from Launceston to Melbourne.

Strike Three:‭ ‬the bit where you made my son and I wait every last tick of the clock to the very second of precisely two hours before boarding until we could check our baggage,

You.‭ ‬Are.‭ ‬Out.

I understand the concept:‭ ‬no-frills,‭ ‬absolute basic service.‭ ‬I expect that.‭ ‬I have no problems with it.‭ ‬I've flown Tiger Air without a word of protest.‭ ‬But there's a line between‭ “‬no-frills‭” ‬and‭ “‬braindead stupidity,‭” ‬and your policies have crossed that line.‭ ‬Allow me to elucidate.

In the case of the violin:‭ ‬yes,‭ ‬it is slightly longer than the mandated maximum cabin baggage.‭ ‬Slightly.‭ ‬But it is much smaller in width and height,‭ ‬and it is quite light.‭ ‬It is also very expensive,‭ ‬and uniquely vulnerable to changes in atmospheric pressure,‭ ‬in temperature,‭ ‬and humidity.‭ ‬No other airline has ever made this idiotic ruling,‭ ‬and never before has it been a problem even with your regular substandard service.‭ ‬Natalie actually lodged a complaint,‭ ‬and according to your professional apologisers, it was just one ridiculously overzealous attendant behaving like a pocket Hitler‭ – ‬but the fact that you employ people like that,‭ ‬and that you place them in a position which leaves us no recourse,‭ ‬as customers,‭ ‬when we have to deal with them,‭ ‬tells me your organisation is not one with which I care to have dealings.‭

In the case of the boy‭ – ‬well,‭ ‬Virgin had no problems.‭ ‬Yeah,‭ ‬we had to fill out forms,‭ ‬write letters of introduction and involve a code word,‭ ‬but you know there was a parent at one end of the trip,‭ ‬and another parent at the other,‭ ‬and we weren't asking you to treat him with any special care.‭ ‬He's ten.‭ ‬He's smart‭ – ‬really smart,‭ ‬and quite capable of taking a‭ ‬45-minute trip involving cabin baggage only without any issues.‭ (‬In fact,‭ ‬he was peeved at the Virgin people who wouldn't serve him hot noodles in flight in case he burned himself.‭ ‬May I point out he is also quite capable of eating noodles by himself‭?)

We wanted nothing more from you than you offer any other passenger.‭ ‬Your inability to accept that a child might be capable of this simple task once again illustrates that your company is simply too stupid for my business.

Finally,‭ ‬the issue of the two-hour-before-flight limit on depositing our bags.‭ ‬Yes.‭ ‬That.‭ ‬I stood there with my‭ ‬20kg bag,‭ ‬and the boy with his‭ ‬10kg bag,‭ ‬watching your counter attendants chat amiably with one another,‭ ‬doing nothing in particular,‭ ‬as the minutes ticked away.‭ ‬We'd already walked off and killed forty minutes getting food and last-minute presents, carrying our bags because your 'service' applies this moronic rule.‭ ‬Why did we have to wait that last five minutes while your people literally did nothing‭?

That's got nothing to do with no-frills service.‭ ‬It's to your advantage to collect early arriver's bags and store them conveniently for your handlers.‭ ‬It is also to your advantage not having people with piles of luggage cluttering up the approaches to your desks,‭ ‬or blocking general passage through the concourse.‭ ‬The strict,‭ ‬rigid,‭ ‬two-hours-to-the-minute limit is simply bloody-minded and stupid.‭ Let me point out that when my family recently returned from Borneo/Singapore by way of Singapore Airlines, we had a six hour layover in Melbourne before our Virgin flight to Launceston.

‭Did Virgin force us to sit for four hours with our luggage out in the middle of the concourse, in everybody’s way? No. Of course they didn’t. They let us check in as soon as we got there. They took our large, heavy bags and put them away for the next four or five hours. That let my family head down to the departure lounge, find a quiet corner, and get some desperately needed crash time. All of which makes your system look ever more petty and stupid.

Of course,‭ ‬your presumption is that all this passive-aggressive bullshit will force me to give up on your budget carrier,‭ ‬and drive me to your far more expensive‭ (‬and‭ ‬profitable‭) ‬parent company,‭ ‬Qantas.‭ ‬Unfortunately for you,‭ ‬I'm not that amenable.

I dislike being manipulated.‭ ‬I dislike being pushed around.‭ ‬I dislike the assumption that I'm too stupid to know when I'm being treated badly.‭

Frankly,‭ ‬Jetstar,‭ ‬I dislike you.‭ ‬And thus I dislike Qantas too.

There are five people in my family.‭ ‬My wife flies around Australia regularly,‭ ‬as a doctor,‭ ‬going to medical conferences and so forth.‭ ‬Even I get around a bit.‭ ‬And obviously,‭ ‬we're not averse‭ ‬to taking our kids with us.‭ ‬It's going to cost us more now that we won't use your sad excuse for an airline‭ (‬you know,‭ ‬even Tiger treated us better.‭ ‬If they still flew out of Launceston,‭ ‬I'd use them in a flash.‭) ‬but I can promise you that the extra money won't be going to Qantas,‭ ‬as long as any other airline flies the Australian skies.

Yours sincerely,

Dirk Flinthart.

PS:‭ ‬The hell with you.

The Con

I know it's regarded as something of a failure to blog about a Con in rather less than real-time, but I don't really give a shit. This is, as ever, a personal record, and that I share it is less a measure of my belief in its worth, and far more a measure of the fact that having an audience keeps me writing.

I finished up the ROR meeting greatly encouraged. Having a bunch of professional writers and readers go over the libretto material was extremely helpful. The heavy, complex language appropriate to the era in which the opera was set came lightly and easily to them, and I could 'hear' the sense of the work, and the underlying rhythms of the language, and I was very pleased. There's still work to do, but I think it's fair to say the final piece that goes to Outcast Opera will be rich, textured, layered, evocative, and laced with powerful themes. At least, I hope so. I can certainly say, at least, that the lines will be feasible for the singers!

In any case, it looks pretty decent. I probably shouldn't get too excited yet – it is an Arts project, after all, and they're pretty damned difficult to bring home – but when this gets on stage, I'm going to be absolutely delighted.

Thus for ROR. Thursday morning, I left my bag with friends who were on their way to the Convention Centre, and I caught a very farkin' expensive cab out to the airport, where I collected Elder Son. As you know, he's turned 10 this year, and I figured that a really good tenth birthday treat would be his very own membership at Worldcon. I also figured, of course, that if/when he got tired of it he could go out to visit his friend, the reknowned Weapon of Barnesm.

I also thought that the very large and complex environment of the Worldcon would also provide a fairly safe and enclosed environment so he could run around on his own, manage his own time and experience to a degree, and still be under observation. I walked him into the dealers room and introduced him at the Twelfth Planet table, where he already knew Alisa, and we agreed that if he lost track of me, Elder Son – now wearing his very own 'Jake Flinthart' (his idea!) Con ID badge – would come and wait there, and they'd help him find me. I did the same at the ASIM table, to improve the odds a bit, and then I walked around and introduced him to a few friends.

He took it all in pretty well. Finally, I dropped him at the first session of the kids' program so I could go to one of my assigned events. Young “Jake” wasn't sure he wanted to be at an event aimed at helping kids learn how to design games, but when I explained what a 'Kaffeeklatsch' was (my event) he took the lesser of two evils.

An hour later (an hour in which I met Sarah Parker and Russell Kilpatrick, and we amalgamated our tables and had a really good session) I went back to check on Jake. You know: just to see. I knew their next session was all about ice-cream making, so I figured he'd like that, but I wanted to see how the game design thing had gone.

Yeah.

I should never have worried. Duck to goddam water. I came in, and he was clutching a couple of home-drawn cards to his chest, in the midst of a group of very intent youngsters. I couldn't get more than three words out of him. He was totally, utterly uninterested in Dad, and completely fixed on his new friends and the game.

So I just walked off and left him. And that was it.

He never looked back. Next time I saw him, he was talking so fast, trying to tell me so much about his adventures that I could hardly shut him up. The only way I managed the feat was by telling him that Phil and Kaja Foglio were operating a Girl Genius stand in the dealers room. Once he heard that... whoa.

I've got a little winged trilobite badge that represents the Heterodyne Dirigible Corps, courtesy of the Girl Genius series. It's a nifty little piece, and I like it, and young Jake coveted it something shocking, so our goal was to get him a new one from the Foglios. Sadly, all they had on sale was comics. Even more sadly, we already had all the comics they were selling. That was no problem for the ever-obliging Phil, though: he grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from a bystander, and in short order young Jake was the pleased-as-punch and proud as hell owner of one bona fide sketch of Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius signed by the artist and author.

Oh, and he's got my goddam badge, too, I have to order a new one.

So that's how his Con has been going. We caught up with Rob Shearman, whom I met a few years back in Perth. Rob was the writer of the first 'Dalek' episode of the revived Doctor Who – the story with the manky old Dalek languishing in some American billionaire's collection of space oddities – and since then, he's gone on to write quite a number of nifty, provocative, elegant stories. Jake didn't give a shit about Rob's chops as a story writer, though; he was too busy goggling at someone who had ACTUALLY WRITTEN ABOUT DALEKS ON DOCTOR WHO! Result: Rob grabs some paper and a pen, and draws a Dalek with a speech bubble about 'exterminating the Jake-thing'... which signed sketch is now in the same clear plastic envelope with Agatha Heterodyne.

My Con has been good too. They had me signed up for a little over half a dozen events over the five days, including the kaffeeklatsch and the inevitable reading. Enough stuff to feel involved, not enough to feel rushed. I've been catching up with friends, and dealing with the usual feelings of mad delight at seeing so many wonderful people again, coupled with the despair of not being able to go to enough places with enough people fast enough.

One treat: I finally got the chance to sit down with Paul Haines for a while. Paul just scored himself a Ditmar (o add to a ridiculous swag of plaudits for the piece... very nice work) for one of his recent works 'Wives', and he looks a lot better than I feared. I didn't ask him how the treatment for his cancer is going – the stuff he's written up in his blog has been horrific enough, and I figured it would be nice to talk about something else – but his eyes were clear, and he's picked up a bit of weight. We swapped a few stories (I had to explain the bandage on my nose... I banged it on a window trying to make silly faces at Kate Eltham, eating breakfast in the Hilton, but I'm telling everyone it was all about ninja) and had a laugh – and whatever lies ahead of him, he's got a lot of strength. I'm going to keep hoping.

Dave and Barb Freer turned up at my reading. That was a bit tragic, actually. I turned up at four, to sit in on Will Eliott's session, because he was reading before me. That's etiquette, apparently. No problems. Trouble is, Will didn't show. I wound up doing a quiet little reading to about half-a-dozen people. I chose to read my new piece 'Best Dog In The World', from the 'Worlds Next Door' anthology out of Fablecroft. The anthology is for kids, yeah, but Best Dog is actually quite adult in its theme and development, if not in language. Basically, it's a story of a boy who loves his dog, but has to give it up, and I've been getting a lot of feedback on it. I wasn't trying for sentimentality; I just wanted to portray the kid, the dog, and the feelings.

Apparently I succeeded. Half the people I meet who've read it want to kick me for being so nasty to the dog (it's not nasty, honest!) and the other half are prone to bursting into tears when they mention it.

I suppose that's good. What's not good is that... well, it was the first time I'd tried to read the thing to anyone. And I wound up sniffling sadly when I read it. It's embarrassing, crying over your own goddam story. Fortunately, I didn't know anyone in Will's audience, so I figured it would be okay. Half of them were crying as well, in any case.

Unfortunately, as I was packing up... well, that's when Dave and Barb and a few others turned up. And they were there to hear ME read,

I gritted my teeth. Figured I had practice now, and I could do the story without, you know, going all wet and mooshy.

I almost made it. But Dave and Barb are dog folk... and they were visibly responding when I looked up, and that sent me off again, and by the time I finished, everybody was having a bit of a cry.

So much for my manly, heroic image. I've been wandering about ever since, telling the damned story on myself so that nobody else gets to turn it into one of those “hey, guess what I heard!” things. But I swear, I'm gonna practice reading that story until I can do it without choking up...

Just for the record, the dog in the story is a black Kelpie named 'Scout', owned by a boy called 'Kevin'. And those of you who know me well will be aware I grew up with a best friend called Kevin, and Kev had a totally marvellous black Kelpie dog by the name of Scout. That dog kept us in and out of trouble for a couple of wonderful years, but he came to a sad, bad, tragic end. And yeah, I wrote the story with that dog in mind. I guess the real Scout won't know, but it feels nice to find a way of remembering him, thirty-five years later. He really was a wonderful dog.

And what else? Oh, I've met Peter Watts, and he's tall, and smart as hell, and impulsive, and curious, and he loves a good, reasoned argument, and I think Cat Sparks did a really, really good thing getting him over here. Peter Watts is the author of several books in SF, at least one being the wholly remarkable Blindsight, which I had the chance to discuss with him. He's also the man who fell afoul of the notoriously power-happy cretins of the US Border Authority a while back, resulting in a conviction for – apparently – assaulting the officer's Taser with his face. Or something equally believable.

Like a lot of us, Cat was unimpressed by the US treatment of Dr Watts. She also knew that his legal fees cost a bomb, so she pulled her finger out, and organised a fund to bring Peter over for the Con. He's been fantastic to have around, and I'm pleased to have met him – but more, I think it's a nice, small, personal way of saying to the uglier elements of US governance that we're tired of their shit. Gandhi would have approved: it was a very civilised measure, an effort to behave as human beings should, in the face of an organisation which has clearly forgotten what 'civilisation' means.

What else? Oh, dinner with the gently simmering Angela Slatter, the steamy L. L. Hannett, and the positively smokin' Amy, as well as Peter The Horn, and the wonderful Tehani, complete with grizzly baby Max. Drinks with more writers than I can possibly remember. Post-Ditmar celebrations with Rob Hood and Cat Sparks and Kaaron Warren – whom I have finally, finally met in the flesh. Oh, and Thoraiya Dyer: I met her too, and that was great. In fact, I caught up with quite a few alumni of Canterbury 2100 (hi Matt! Hello Trent!), and took the opportunity to say thanks... they were a wonderful crew to work with, and I'm still very proud of the accomplishment that anthology represents.

I've done panels on The Fermi Paradox, and on 'How to Review', and 'Ghosts around the World'. I've taken in talks on e-publishing, alternate history, and YA fiction. Oh – and I sat in on a 'Girl Genius' radio play enacted by the Foglio clan and sundry selected members of fandom, with help from the audience... and it was flat-out hilarious. Definitely a high point of the Con, there. Young Jake and his friend The Weapon laughed so damned hard they were falling out of their seats.

So, now it's Sunday evening. I've finished my commitments, but Jake has just started a session on making art and illustrating, with the remarkable and esteemed Shaun Tan. Naturally I had to buy one of Tan's books so Jake could get an autograph, and since Shaun's work is so very evocative, just as naturally I wound up buying two.

One of the real joys of any of these conventions, for me, is meeting new people: Amy, Stephanie (have you read Bulgakov yet?) Stephen Paulsen and his daughter... there were many more. Putting faces to names... after the panel on reviewing, Jo the Dragonfly found me and we had time for a brief handshake, but I was on my way to sign up Jake for the Lego event, and I didn't have time for more. Mark Curtis? You out there? Same thing: I had Dad duty, and I had to run. Martin Livings... dammit, this is the first time I ever actually got close to the man, and he had a story in Canterbury, and all I could do was give him a hug, say thanks, and hit the road.

Lack of time is a really big theme at these things. For those I bumped into but couldn't catch for a real session. (Nyssa!)... I'm truly apologetic. I get to these events maybe once a year, twice in a good year. In between, I have an ongoing Inernet correspondence as friend and colleague with maybe twenty, thirty people who I only ever see in person at these events. The math is hard: five days. Seven scheduled events. A variable number of events I'd love to attend... and thirty people I'd really like to take some time with. Add to that the complications – those people are also attending stuff, and trying to catch up with others – and while it's an utter joy, it's also very sad. I'd really like to take a month and spend it in the company of these people, but they can't do it, and I can't either. Of course, most of them have at least one or two others around them, where they live... and I'm a little isolated, yeah.

Apologies, too, unto my friends in Melbourne -- Bob and Jon and very much to Barnesm. I did the best I could, but there just wasn't time, especially with Jake in tow. I am particularly indebted to the House of Barnes, who kept Jake for two nights. 'Sgreat that he and the Weapon have enough in common to get on so well. We have to keep up the exchanges!

More apologies: there are people I meet at these events who I talk with, and who are splendid company, but – if I don't get to keep up with them via the Internet in-between times, well... dammit, it's hard to remember names of people I've met for just a few hours at conventions a year or more in the past. I try. I remember faces. But the names kind of slip away, and so I find myself in the embarrassing position of introducing and reintroducing myself again and again. So – if you bumped into me, and you remembered me from Perth or Canberra or Brisbane and I didn't remember you... I apologise. I can only cite the long, incredibly busy interludes in between, where I expend enormous energy at being a dad, and a martial arts instructor, and a cook and a gardener and a writer and so forth. I don't mean to be so forgetful, and I've got a pretty useful sort of memory, but it has its limits

Well, they're about to shut down the Green Room, which is where I'm sitting, typing away. I guess I'll slink outside and settle down somewhere Jake can see me when he emerges from the session with Shaun Tan. We'll go and find something to eat, and then hopefully we'll have the energy to attend the Hugo Award ceremony. Or not. Possibly we'll just filter back to our little room and get some sleep.

Added note: Peter Watts got himself a Hugo – and had to accept it in a daggy T-shirt 'cos he was convinced he wasn't going to win, so he didn't dress up. Yaay. Peter – and cheers to Cat Sparks!

ROR in Melboourne

I'm lying on my belly on a hotel-room bed, taking a break before the assembled talents of the ROR group launches into a reading of ten out of the twelve scenes of the opera libretto I'm writing.

It's been a good couple days. I flew in on Monday, found the place, and got set up. Present also are Rowena Lindquist, Marianne de Pierres, Maxine Macarthur, and Richard Harland. Missing in action this time are Trent, Margo and Tansy, all of whom pleaded pressing business. It's a smaller ROR than usual, therefore. Also, since we're in some apartments in St Kilda, we don't have the usual atmosphere of isolation to throw us together. On the plus side, though - it's Melbourne. I'm not cooking.

Actually, I enjoy cooking at the ROR retreats, but the setup here simply isn't conducive. So tonight we're going down the road to fang into some Malaysian hawker food. You'd think with Borneo so recent in my past I'd be over it... but you'd be underestimating the delicious factor of Malaysian food.

So far, over two and a half days we've worked through Richard's latest -- a followup to his very successful 'Worldshaker', which is in my opinion a much more interesting and engaging book -- and a project of Rowena's which is a bit more secret. We've also gone through two short novels (linked) from Maxine, and they were a real joy to read. Can't talk about it, but I really hope she finds a publisher: they're tremendous fun.

The reading of "Queen of Bedlam" will bring the work of this ROR to a close. I'm not expecting a great deal of formal criticism, but I need to hear the lines, to know if I'm doing okay with the vocabulary and they rhythms - and who better to read complex Elizabethan and Byronic English than a bunch of professional writers?

Ah, yes. Speaking of Bedlam, those of you curious as to what's going on might try this website, here.

Don't ask any more... I'm not going to discuss it until it's closer to 'go', because there's a lot of work to be done yet. But I have heard some of the early music, and seen some of the dance material, and holy shit! I am totally going to have to bring my A-game to this shindig: these people are talented. When this production gets to the stage, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Okay. Tomorrow morning I head back out to the airport and collect the Elder Son. He's decided to become "Jake Flinthart" for the duration of WorldCon, which should be pretty funny. I've also teed it up with Mr Barnes to make sure the boy gets some time off and away, visiting Young Barnes, and having a good time outside the Con. The kid likes his SF, but I don't imagine he's really going to want to spend the entire weekend following me around, meeting writers, editors, fans, and the rest.

They've got me booked to a nice range of panels and activities - a reading, the odd 'kaffeeklatsch'... discussion of the Fermi Paradox on a panel which includes Alistair Reynolds; discussion of ghosts around the world; discussion of alt-history possibilities for Australi. Oh, and a YA panel where I'm filling in at last minute for Sean Williams, who has been smitten with some kind of evil virus from his recent New Zealand excursion. Curse you, Sean Williams and your feeble immune system... now I have to figure out what the hell to say to a bunch of people who are interested in tie-in novels, an area where I have zero experience!

Not exactly sure if I'll find time to get away for dinner with Chaz and the others, but --- ah, what the hell. It's a WorldCon. It's bound to be fun.

The Blecch Factor

Had a really ugly incident the other day.

I started to notice a fairly nasty odour in the car. Initially I put it down to kiddie flatulence - as you do.

As the day wore on, though, I began to notice the entire garage smelled... kinda nasty. Like carrion, in fact. I figured that probably a rat had taken some of the bait I'd laid, and had died somewhere inconvenient. Ugly.

Unfortunately, when I drove down to collect the boys from the bus stop, I turned on the heater. And that was when I realised the appalling stink had nothing whatsoever to do with the garage, and everything to do with whatever had died under the bonnet of the car.

I turned off the heater. I came home, and turfed the kids. Then I opened the bonnet, and began he search.

Nothing.

And yet... the stink got more penetrating, more nauseating. Clearly, I was missing something.

Our weekly cleaner came out to the garage on her way home. She wanted to know what I was doing. I explained. She agreed the smell was vile, and joined in the search.

It was she who discovered the first clue: blood spatters around the battery. Hmm! Mystery!

She also noticed the second clue: a green rat-turd sitting under the battery-holder. So! The theory about a rat taking a bait was looking better. But... where was ratty?

Ah. I found him. As close as possible to the windscreen, wedged between the engine block and the firewall -- one big mother of a dead-ass rat. Seriously big. Size of my two fists, I think.

Stupidly, I reached over and pulled on the dangling tail. It promptly degloved, leaving me with a hideous, stinking strip of ratskin in my fingers. I gagged, threw the rat skin away, washed my hand, and found a gardening glove. Meanwhile, the cleaner laughed at me while I struggled not to puke.

Round two; properly gloved, I slid my hand into the cramped space, latched onto a back leg, and pulled gently. Ratty moved -- a little. Then the skin over ratty's hips burst open, and thick brownish ooze dribbled out. The stench went nuclear, and I literally reeled back, gagging and choking.

The cleaner fell about laughing. I just fell about.

Somehow, I managed to avoid vomiting, despite the truly astonishing stench. After much thought, I devised a plan.

I live in Tasmania, after all. And it's winter. So I reversed the car out of the garage, and left the bonnet open. All night. In the morning, I came out with new gloves and a garbage bag -- and I removed the dead, stiff, frozen ratsicle from the engine of my car without further incident.

Yay for winter!

Photos And Stuff

Blogger's okay, by and large. But the way it handles photos is flat-out f__ked. You insert a picture, and it automatically goes up there above all the text, no matter where you happen to be writing at the time. Oh, and if you put more than one photo in, they go at the top of all the text, and IN REVERSE F_CKIN' ORDER. So, you know... if you WERE planning to put up a linear sequence of photos and write a little bit about each of 'em -- well, just f__k you.

Because of that, you're getting this bloc of text at the end of a bunch of photos. They're pretty interesting photos. I took 'em in Singapore and Borneo. I'd be happy to explain them, but I can't actually do that in any sane goddam fashion. So I'm just going to tell you a bit more about the trip, and you can sort out the photos for yourself.

Kota Kinabalu was, as I said, very tourist-oriented. So was Sandakan, sure, but it was much more my kind of tourism. We flew in and met up with our tour guide (yeah, it kinda had to be that way; we wanted to get out into orangutan country, and it's difficult to manage on your own) who was a young Malay woman named Rose. She was a follower of Islam, but very liberated -- no headscarf, and plenty of wit and attitude. She was also a total hottie: gorgeous to behold, very smart, deeply interested in the wildlife and the environment of the region, funny as hell... but for the difference in age, race, religion, nationality, marital status and numbers of children I'd have happily -- actually, that's a lot of differences right there, isn't it? Okay, so maybe not. But she was indeed gorgeous, and talking with her was fun and enlightening.

The orangutan rehab centre at Sepilok is at once heartening, and deeply depressing. It's wonderful that it exists, there in a big patch of rainforest (hopefully) permanently set aside for the big orange bastards. But it's incredibly sad that it has to exist, and it's terrible to hear of what's been done to the orangutans, and to their environment.

Anyway. We turned up in Sepilok in our bus - about a dozen of us, all told - and they put us through an orientation video. (Of course, before that we had a bunch of rehydration drinks and some ice cream. Rainforest or not, Sepilok was intensely hot.) Then we followed a raised wooden path through the forest to a large, raised wooden platform in the jungle.

Whereupon it was fiercely motherfucking hot. We could have gone down towards the front, but the kids and I opted for the shady bit at the very back. Yeah, sure: it meant a bit of distance between us and the orangutans, but on the other hand -- it was so damned hot that the tiny bit of relief offered by the shade felt like the only thing between us and a really nasty death.

The orangutans showed up for feeding time as promised. And they were... yeah, they were pretty wonderful. I like orangutans a great deal. I know: it's pointless anthropomorphism. But their faces are so incredibly expressive... just amazing creatures. I'm not really prepared to try to explain my feelings about them. I'll just say this: go. See for yourself.

They feed the orangutans a mix of fruits, apparently. But they don't give 'em the dreaded Durian, vilest of fruits, because it seems the orangutans will never actually leave if they know they've got a reliable source of the stuff. So - there's no accounting for taste, even among apes. (I did mention this fruit smells like over-ripe mango, cat-pee and carrion, didn't I? And that it tastes very much like warm, greasy, onion-and-garlic ice-cream, with a texture akin to over-ripe avocado? Fucking ghastly.)

We got back on the bus. Drove through Sandakan. Made it to the waterfront. Walked down through a water-village that could have been a set for a Bruce Lee movie, followed the jetty through houses and restaurants until it became a sort of actual jetty, and got into a boat. And it was still buggerizingly hot.

There followed a trip across a bay, and up a wide, brown, tropical river through appropriately poisonous green forests. It's interesting: I'm used to mangroves around the sea edge, and around estuaries. I am not used to Nipa Palm forests. At first I thought they were some kind of plantation - but it turns out that's just how they grow. Nipa palms are important in local tradition; the fronds make thatching and basketry and all sorts of stuff. Obviously, no damned shortage of raw materials.

The trip upriver took an hour and a half or so, at a fair old clip. Every now and again we had to slow down so our wake wouldn't mess with various little villages straggling here and there along the river front. The breeze was... helpful, yeah, and we were under a canopy, but the sun was just so damned brutal. The kids flaked out.

When we finally pulled into the jetty in front of our lodge, we were pretty near exhausted. Right away, it got interesting. We'd gone to a lot of effort to catch up with orangutans at Sepilok -- and here, up the river in Kinabatang, right there in a mangrove tree leaning over the jetty, there was a wild orangutan. He was just kicking back, doing his big orange ape thing, eating some kind of oddball fruit... didn't give a damn what we were doing. It was pretty cool.

If you ever go to Sandakan, you should probably consider doing the Kinabatang river run. The lodges are spartan, but adequate. (One could wish for aircon, but since you're out in the middle of a forest preserve with nothing but rainforest, mangrove and river in all directions, one could also wish for the entire array of Miss Universe hopefuls to parachute in with Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries" playing in the background... it would be almost as helpful. There were ceiling fans. We were lucky to get that much.) The food was good -- it's Malaysia, after all. But it's the wildlife and the forest you're there to see.

We did a lot of boat trips, up and down the river, dawn and dusk. We spotted birds of a dozen sorts. Pythons. Crocodiles. I saw a chunk of the riverbank that had been thoroughly trampled, and took the opportunity to ask Rose about wild pigs. She looked at me like I was crazy, and explained that all the trampling was the result of elephants, not pigs. (Given her sense of humour, I admit it took a while before I believed that one... but it was true.) There were orangutans. There were monitor lizards. And there were monkeys.

By Great Cthulhu, there were monkeys.

You see that photo, somewhere up there, of the ugly-ass monkey with the big frakkin' nose? That's a Proboscis monkey, an endangered species endemic to Borneo. And you see that one hanging his old feller out for all the world to admire? That's kinda typical of male Proboscis monkeys. They gather themselves a harem of girls, and herd them around the treetops. In between times, they sit back just like that: legs apart, tail hanging, belly bulging, genitals waving in the breeze.

First time we spotted one of those, Rose altered permanently my opinions of Islamic Malay women. She pointed to the monkey, and said "And if you look carefully, you'll be able to see what we call the Borneo Lipstick... only lipstick you can always find between two legs..."

I nearly choked with laughter, and tried desperately to avoid the inevitable mental image that emerged. 'Borneo Lipstick' - heh. Later we heard another tour guide talking about the same subject - only he was a bloke, and he rather coyly called it 'the big red chili pepper'.

Yeesh.

Rose really was cool. I got her to explain Ramadan to the boys, so they could film the explanation for their school-project video. She was very nice about it; fielded all their questions, dealt with the whole thing like a trooper.

Actually, the whole trip up the river was great. We went to two separate lodges, but both were lovely, and the staff - like pretty much all the Malay folk we met - were uniformly friendly, outgoing, and delighted by the kids. (Particularly the Mau-Mau.) We did the night-boat thing, and took in the single most amazing firefly display I've ever seen in my life, as well as frogs and night-birds and insects and all kinds of stuff.

I'm not much for 'guided tours' in general. But in this case, they get my Big Tick Of Approval. If you tried to do for yourself what these people helped us to do, you'd be battling fierce heat, dodgy weather, almost impassable forests... you sure as shit wouldn't go camping or trekking in there unless you were either a scientist or totally fucking mad, or probably both. So - for once it made sense to pony up some cash and let someone else shape and organise the experience. Seriously: there is no way I could have considered trying to hire a boat and direct my own expedition in that kind of heat, and I would never have seen half the stuff that the sharp-eyed Rose pointed out in the dense, poisonous green of the forests.

We dropped in on a local village which has an agreement with the Kinabatang Lodge. The villagers supply the lodge with fish and various other food supplies, for which the Lodge pays cash. The Lodge also brings tourists like us to visit the locals. We wandered around, gawping appropriately. Happily, my Malaysian was good enough for me to make cheerful conversation with the kids at the local school. They thought that was pretty cool, judging by their expression. I guess they don't get a lot of white folks coming in and greeting them in their own language, because they got pretty excited about it... of course, once they started talking quickly, all at once, I lost the thread and just started laughing, but that was okay. And then Younger Son found a paper 'plane that one of the kids had made, and so they were instantly in a shared world. Younger Son loves his paper 'planes, and he was tickled as hell to see that these Malay kids in a village halfway up a jungle river evidently liked 'em near as much as he did, and even made 'em much the same way.

Part of the village visit was a brief gig planting trees in a reforestation area. Largely symbolic, but you pay for the privilege. I didn't mind. It wasn't expensive, and it was good for the kids to see the results of the forestry industry, and for them to get a feel for what it means to try and repair the damage. The local folks offered to do the digging, but it wasn't exactly a lot of work: five little holes for five little saplings, in the soft soil of the river plain. Even in that heat, I knew I could manage that much. The kids planted their trees, and tagged them, and that was that.

The tree-planting thing... actually, the whole of that journey through Sandakan, and Sepilok, and up the Kinabatang river, I was impressed by just how involved the tour folk and the villagers were with trying to preserve and repair the environment. I'm not really very hopeful about the world's environmental problems; there's just too goddam many of us for the planet to support. But it's good to see that some people are mobilising, and getting involved at a real, grassroots level.

We finished off the Sandakan trip with a visit to the War Memorial. (One of our travelling companions for the whole holiday was our neighbour, Mike the Historian. He's currently teaching a unit on WWII, and the Sandakan visit, just one day before Quentin Bryce showed up, was useful.)

I don't care to discuss the war memorial, to be honest. If you're not familiar with the Sandakan Death Marches -- it's not up to me to educate you. Go and find out for yourselves. Or be ignorant. I don't care. It's one of those chapters of human history which is so black, so utterly, unredeemably evil that even now it has the capacity to fire a deep, bitter anger in me. Makes me question the worth of the human race itself, as a species, that we can treat one another in such fashion.

Fine note upon which to end, no? Yet that's where the Sandakan section ended, yes. Then we got into a 'plane, and flew back to KK, where we spent another few days recuperating, and doing touristy stuff. Snorkelling. Visiting the big mountain. Going to the cinema. And... oh, yeah, celebrating the Mau-Mau's fifth birthday. That was pretty cool. I even found a bakery that was willing to make her a big, showy birthday cake with all the trimmings...

Makes You Wonder About The Professionals...

It's real. But I still have no idea what it's about.

Extreme Food Tourism

I'm not very good at the tourist thing, by and large. Oh, sure – here in Borneo I made a point of seeing orangutans, and travelling up the Kinabatang river and all, but mostly, I'm not interested in the tourist arc. That includes the backpacker stuff.

That has made Kota Kinabalu a bit tricky for me. The city got flattened back in WWII, and over the last six decades, it's been rebuilt with a very strong emphasis on the tourist trade. Malays come here on holiday: they go paragliding, they hit the nightclubs, they go snorkeling and go to the beaches, they head off to Gunung Kinabalu and Poring Hot Springs. They take photos. They buy souvenirs.

I don't mind paragliding, but I'm damned if I'll fly umpteen thousand kilometres with my family to do something I could do more comfortably at the Gold Coast in Australia. That's just stupid, in my opinion. And I really don't give a damn about multi-story shopping malls or cineplexes. Visiting Gunung Kinabalu was at best an interesting venture into the countryside, a chance to see some of Borneo doing its own thing. Poring Hot Springs were nearby, and we needed lunch.

The backpacker thing does even less for me: nightclubbing, 'adventure trekking', and hanging around a bunch of other backpackers... even when I actually WAS backpacking, I tended to do things like hitch-hike my way at random around Ireland, camping in people's fields. I don't mind backpackers in general. They're usually energetic, often reasonably intelligent, engaging and outgoing people. But if I've flown half a world or so, the people I want to learn about are the people who actually live there, no?

That's my problem. I'm not actually a tourist: I'm curious. I'm looking for the things that make living here, in Borneo, different to living at home. I want the different viewpoint, the different way of doing things, the different ideas and approaches. And in KK, it's bloody hard to get them because KK is all about selling the Tourist Experience, on the whole.

There's a zillion craft and souvenir shops in this city. I swear they all have exactly the same inventory, right down to the badly-made boomerangs with faux-Aboriginal dot-painting designs on them. I've even seen tanned cane-toad skins with zips in them so they can be used as wallets, and I'm dead certain Borneo doesn't have cane toads. Figure they've been bought from Queensland, most likely.

There's a building on the waterfront. It must be eighty metres by fifteen metres, and inside, it's an orderly grid of tiny little shops, each about three by three metres. And each of those shops has sarongs, wood carvings, fetish masks, beaded jewellery, postcards, a few pieces of mass-produced songket... I cannot actually distinguish between the stock in these stores. Clearly they all use the same suppliers. How the fuck do so many of them stay in business?

It's been interesting. Watching the locals watch my children, for example: as long as we're walking around, doing touristy stuff, we're invisible. But the moment we walk into some backwater, offbeat eatery, the kids – especially the Mau-Mau – become objects of amazement. Oh look! The boys are using chopsticks! Hey, check it out – not only are these white kids eating squid, but the older boy is using our chili sauce! And that little girl! Isn't she just the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Useful to remember that tourism is a two way exchange: we're not just a source of revenue, we're something to be observed and marvelled at.

Anyway, KK isn't my cup of tea. I preferred Singapore, for all its sphincter-tight control: still there was more history, more variety, more of a chance to slip out of the role of tourist, and try something the locals might do.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not going to babble on about 'authenticity', or try to get myself put through some kind of obscure tribal ceremony in an Iban longhouse. I'm simply curious. I've come a long way. I can speak enough of the language to explore, and listen, and learn. I don't want to paraglide. But I do want to know where the locals go to eat, for example, and I want to try the food there for myself.

Happily, I did get that chance. It was challenging, and uncomfortable, but it was also really interesting and a shitload of fun.

It's Ramadan at the moment. Thumbnail sketch: Islamic folk may not eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. They get up before dawn to load up for the day, then not a bite nor a drop passes their lips until sundown. But after that...

Well. During Ramadan, here in Borneo they lay out great big complexes of food-stalls on areas of waste ground, and after sunset, it's a feast. In KK, at least one of these bazaars is here on the waterfront, and I managed to convince the others to give it a try. It wasn't as successful as it could have been, simply because it was all a bit much for Natalie and the kids and our friends with whom we're travelling, but for me, it was the best part of the trip.

The bazaar is a huge maze of stalls and tables, all tucked under a giant patchwork marquee of tarpaulins, sheet plastic, and anything else which can be used as a temporary roof to keep off the rain. It's definitely not a tourist show: the tables are jam packed, shoulder to shoulder, with local folk, and it's a big challenge for someone my size even to move through the place. And the food!

Grilled stuff: huge skewers of little grilled cuttlefish, hot and spicy, wonderfully flavoured with charcoal smoke, and not the least bit chewy or rubbery. Prawns the size of big bananas, one to a skewer. Entire fish, the skin scored and salted and spiced to hell, cooked in wire frames over charcoal. Satay sticks of all kinds. Racks of marinated chicken wings, threaded onto skewers: buy them a dozen at a time, eat them piping hot. Clams and mussels, lightly grilled with butter and chili and garlic and coriander.

Dumplings – more kinds than I ever knew. Coconut cakes, a little charred underneath, but sweet and grainy and heavy. Proper yeast donuts: no batter here, but a genuine leavened dough worked into shape and then fried and covered with sugar and spices. Absolutely delicious, and thirty-five cents will buy you a bag of three, each as big as my fist.

Fritters – prawns, bananas, chicken, fish... you name it. All of them light and crisp and hot enough to melt your tongue.

Fresh fruits and juices of all sorts. Blended fruits. Fruit salads. Bizarre drinks full of lumps of jelly and corn kernels and coconut cream. And coconut, yes – fresh coconut milk, coconut meat, coconut rice.

Traditional dishes of all kinds: wonderfully spicy nasi lemak with the coconut rice and the dried anchovies and eggs and wickedly chili-laden sambal full of lime and belacan. Laksas. Rotis of all sorts. Murtabak – superthin sheets of springy dough thrown onto a greased griddle, with chopped, spiced fresh vegetables on top. You fold the dough over the vegetables, then fold it again, and again, until it's crispy on the outside, chewy in the centre, and the vegetables are layered all the way through. Soups: Javanese bakso, hot and sour Tom Yam out of Thailand... currries, noodles, rice...

I could eat there every night for six months, I suspect, without ever duplicating the menu. And for me, it's the height of fun: wrestling with the language, making conversation with friendly strangers who can't believe this big white guy and his kids are sitting down to a platter of kway teow and murtabak and satay right alongside a bunch of working-Mohammed types.

I love it. I love trying the new flavours and textures. I love the stumbling, hilarious conversations that result when I try to find out what it is I'm eating that tastes so damned good. I like swapping names and potted personal histories with the curious folk sharing a rickety, plastic-covered table with me. I love the huge smiles from the vendors when I greet them in their own tongue, price the dishes properly, make change correctly and make the right sort of polite small-talk. And the way those grins get even bigger when they see that I'm enjoying the food as much as they do, with the chili and the spice and all the rest of it...

Yes, sure, it's probably thirty-five C under that mass of plastic and canvas, with all those grills and cookers. Sure, I've got sweat running off every square centimetre of my skin. My hair is dripping, my clothes are soaked. I can hardly move for the press of people in all directions – but the food is great, and it's new and it's different, and the people are friendly and curious and everybody's there for the same reason, just to get a decent meal and have a chat at the end of the day.

We've got nothing to match it in Australia. It's a wholly different way of dealing with the evening meal, and it only occurs during Ramadan, so even for the locals, it's a treat – something they look forward to with considerable anticipation. Getting involved; getting hot and sweaty and messy and trying all that nifty food, exercising my rusty (but rapidly improving!) bahasa – that's my idea of tourism right there.

You can keep your paragliding and your nightclubs. I'll take a Ramadan food bazaar any time.