We arrived in Kuching on Saturday 22. And we've been a bit jet-lagged. Don't know why. Often we have no problem at all, and synch right in. This time we seem to have felt the time difference quite a bit.

It was a fairly prosaic journey, so there's not much to say. But here are the bones of it:

On the evening of Wednesday 19, shortly after writing my post about Kadikoy, it started to snow all over Istanbul...

Aaaaargh. Snow is NOT what you want when you have to get to the airport the following day. It didn't seem to be settling too badly. But the forecast was not encouraging, with snow featuring till the end of the week.

So, instead of the nice, leisurely evening we had planned (aiming to depart the following morning in time to catch the 1000 bus), we thought we'd pack, and be pretty much ready, so that if we needed extra time to get to the airport, we were prepared.



We approached the curtains with some trepidation on Thursday morning, hoping we wouldn't find the city blanketed in white. We didn't. All clear. But it started snowing again as soon as we'd finished breakfast, so we thought we'd take the 0900 bus just in case...

It carried on snowing, quite heavily at times, all the way to the airport.


But the roads remained free, so we arrived in good time. Well, actually, far too early. Never mind. Better that than the other extreme. And there are plenty of outlets that will sell you food and drink (albeit for a small fortune).

The flight to Kuala Lumpur (9.5 hours) was just about bearable, which is generally the best you can say about a flight.

We'd been so enthused by the Ibis at Sepang when we stayed there on the way out that we'd booked to overnight again. We arrived just before 0900, and -- bless them, bless them -- they found us a room straightaway.

Having been awake for 22 consecutive hours, we felt a short nap was in order...


There were a number of reasons to be cheerful at this point: It's always heart-warming to hear the oo-ooh bird again (oo-ooh, oo-ooh, oo-oooooooh); the afternoon's thunder and rain felt very much like a "welcome back"; the club sandwich was excellent (hotels are the only places you eat club sandwiches, and they're nice treats); and it turned out the waiter was from Sabah, and had family in Sarawak...

All good. Pleasant evening. Go to bed at a sensible hour. And then -- bang -- you're wide awake again at 0300. Half an hour later we were having peanuts and cups of tea for first breakfast...



After breakfast, while it's still relatively cool, it's nice to stroll the grounds. We were there for the shift change, when duties overlap: Late frogs and crickets, plus early, highly exuberant birds.

Back to the airport. Ya Kun Kaya Toast. Yum.

Flight. And now we're back at The Longhouse, the hotel we used on the way out -- when we were still in the throes of giving up our flat. We're here for a few days before moving into an Airbnb not far from where we used to live.

We headed straight back out to buy a few necessary items. And -- thankfully -- had a decent night's sleep. But you need more than one...

Which brings us to yesterday, Sunday 23:




I think today, Monday, is the first day I've felt "normal", ie, neither sleepy nor wakeful at the wrong time:





You only have to be away five minutes for there to be changes in Kuching. And we've been away for five months. So there's a LOT of catching up still to do.