Well, I’m sat in an airport café in Tawau, a small town on the far side of Sabah, about 200 miles from KK. It’s nearly 11A.M. I’ve been waiting to be picked up for an hour or so, and am expecting to wait at least that time again – the field station where I’m going is a good few hours’ drive away, and I doubt the party come to pick me up will have set off very early. As often on this trip, these periods of idleness have left me feeling fairly rough- a mixture of impatiently apprehensive, lonely and generally morose. I’ve yet to really get over the shock of leaving my family and partner behind for a full four months, but there’s also the nagging worry that I’m not going to be up to the physical and intellectual intensity of fieldwork I need to do.

Anyhow, enough of…