Our four island holiday (6): Yogyakarta
October 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After two nights in Jakarta, we were off to our next destination in Java. Our guide was very anxious about the possibility of traffic, so we were collected from our hotel at 7.15 am for a train that left Gambir station at 9.35 am. We left behind the metropolis of western Java for the paddy fields of central Java and eventually arrived at Yogyakarta a 5 pm after a journey of seven and a half hours.
We were met outside the station by our local guide, 38 year old Adikara Wedhatama and it was a short ride to the hotel, the Santika Premiere.
Yogyakarta is named after the Indian city of Ayodhya, the birthplace of the eponymous hero Rama from the Ramayana epic. It has a population of about 415,000 and it is known as the cultural capital of Indonesia. The city was once the seat of power in Java and it is the only Indonesia city still ruled by a monarchy.
If Jakarta had proved to be somewhat underwhelming, we found Yogyakarta much more to our liking and the following day was a delight. We were collected at 8.15 am and not back at the hotel until 5 pm, but it was such a fascinating day.
We started with a visit to Kraton, the Sultan’s Palace and cultural heart of the city. We arrived to a display of pentatonic music and wayang puppets.
The original building of the complex was constructed in 1756. This living royal complex provided exhibits explaining the history and nature of the sultanate and Javanese heritage and tradition. We learned that the present, long-serving sultan is now 78 and has five daughters but no son, leaving the nature of his succession in doubt.
We continued to the nearby Taman Sari water castle, once a royal retreat with bathing pools and hidden passageways and known today as the Sultan’s Garden. Apparently it has an underground mosque.
We then left Yogyakarta for a one-hour drive to Borobudur. Here we had an excellent lunch at a restaurant called “The Taste of India”.
Our afternoon was spent at the remarkable Borobudur Temple. Once listed among the Seven Wonders of the World, this Buddhist monument was constructed in the 8th century, lost to humanity for many centuries, rediscovered in 1814, and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991
It is a single massive building covering an enormous 2,500 square metres. It is a masterpiece of design and devotion, with nine levels, topping out at 35 metres, and hosting an incredible 2,672 reliefs and 504 Buddha statues.
One is not allowed to climb the temple wearing ordinary shoes in order to protect the monument. Instead one has to purchase and wear special sandals. Early on in the tour by a local guide, rain fell in huge plops before we endured a full-scale tropical downpour. It was every atmospheric.
In the evening for dinner, we left the hotel and went next door to a delightful Dutch-themed book cafe cum restaurant called “Kopi Pakpos Toegoe”.
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Our four islands holiday (5): Jakarta
October 5th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
We had a daylong tour of Jakarta with Daniel, leaving the hotel at 9 am.
We started with a visit to the Istiqlal Mosque – the name ‘Istiqlal’ comes from the Arabic word for ‘independence’. This is the largest mosque in Southeast Asia and the ninth largest in the world and it can accommodate up to 120,000 worshippers. It was opened to the public in 1978.
Located opposite the Jakarta Cathedral, the mosque is intended to be a powerful symbol of Indonesia’s commitment to unity in diversity. Our next visit was to the neo-gothic cathedral which was originally built in 1829, collapsed in 1890, and rebuilt in 1901.
Next we moved on to Merdeka Square which hosts the National Monument known as Monas, a 132-metre (433 feet) tower topped with a gold flame, built in 1962 and symbolising Indonesia’s fight for independence. One can climb the inside, but not today (Monday) when museums and monuments are closed throughout the country.
We went next to the Chinatown section of the capital, overflowing with stalls selling every kind of food and fashion. Then we continued to Jakarta’s Old Town, known as Batavia in the days of the Dutch, where remnants of the Dutch colonial era remain.
It was time for lunch and this was held at a small place called the New Batavia Cafe in Fatahillah Square. One more destination awaited; strolling through the Old Town, we found the Makutharama Puppet Studio. The storytelling tradition of Java wayang (shadow) puppetry has been recognised by UNESCO and we studied a selection of the flat leather, flat wooden, and three-dimensional wooden puppets.
Today the temperature was 32C and the humidity was 80%, so it was something of a relief to be back at the hotel at 3.20 pm.
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Our four islands holiday (4): on to Indonesia
October 4th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After two days and three nights in Singapore as a stop-over arrangement, it was time move to Indonesia for our main holiday. Our flight from Singapore to Jakarta on Java island was again with Singapore Airlines, this time on an Airbus A350-900 which only took 1 hour 30 mins.
Later we learned that, three weeks previously, the airport at Jakarta was closed for five days due to an eruption by the volcano Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau), a descendant of the famous 1883 explosion. So we dodged a bullet – so to speak.
We were met at the airport by out local guide, 60 year old Daniel Sukamto, a Catholic in a nation mostly of Muslims. He was very friendly and helpful but we struggled with his strong accent. Our hotel was the Santika Premiere Slipi. Strangely, we seemed to be accommodated in a hotel where there were very few other guests. Apparently, on weekdays – it was Sunday – it is used by government officials.
Some introductory information on Indonesia …
Historically, the Dutch controlled what is now Indonesia for roughly 350 years and the territory was known as the Dutch East Indies. The country gained its independence from The Netherlands in 1949.
Much of the country’s independence was dominated by two dictators: Sukarno (1901-1970) who was president from 1945-1967 in a model which he called “Guided Democracy” and Suharto (1921-2008) who was president from 1967-1998 in an era he called “New Order”.
Since 2004, the country has been a functioning democracy and the presidency of Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi”) from 2014 to 2024 was particularly important because he was the country’s first president not to emerge from the political or military elite.
Indonesia is huge both in terms of geography and population.
It comprises a mind-boggling 17,000-plus islands spread over almost two million square kilometres (about 735,00 square miles) making it the 14th largest country by area. The country is so extensive that it has three time zones.
Indonesia has an estimated population of 288M – roughly four times that of the UK – who speak over 700 living languages (about 10% of the world’s total). The official language is Indonesian but less than 10% speak this as their first language.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world (after India, China and the USA) with the largest Muslim population on the planet (87% of people are Muslim). There are an incredible 1,340 recognised ethnic groups, the largest being Javanese (40%) and Sundanese (15%).
Geologically, Indonesia is stretched along part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Of its many volcanoes, 129 are active. In 2004, an offshore earthquake caused a tsunami which killed over 160,000 Indonesians.
Now a little information on Java …
While Java is not the largest island in Indonesia – that is Sumatra to the north-west – Java is the most populous island in Indonesia and indeed the most populous island on Earth. At some 160M, it has about 56% of the country’s population.
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Our four islands holiday (3): more Singapore
October 3rd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Our second day in Singapore was very different because we were on our own. We decided to visit a location called Gardens by the Bay. Following information given us by Bridgit yesterday, we successfully travelled there by metro which involved taking two lines. We returned by a slightly different route so we were quite pleased with ourselves.
A small point: on the Singapore metro, one stands on the left of the escalators whereas, on the London tube, one stands on the right.
Gardens by the Bay is an urban park spanning 105 hectares (260 acfes) located adjacent to the Marina Reservoir. The park consists of three waterfront gardens and the largest, Bay South Garden, is 54 hectares (130 acres) and opened in 2012. Here we visited three outstanding features.
The Cloud Forest: this the world’s tallest indoor waterfall with a fabulous collection of plants, all seen to great effect by a wandering walkway from top to bottom, providing endless photo opportunities.
The Flower Dome: this is the world’s largest column-less glasshouse and it has an impressive collection of plant life indigenous to a Mediterranean climate which includes parts of Chile, South Africa and Australia.
The so-called “supertrees”. Supertree Grove consists of 18 tree-like gardens ranging from 25 to 80 metres (82 to 164 feet) and covered with over 162,900 plants including exotic orchids, ferns and vines. There is an Observatory at the top of one of the ‘trees’ and a Skyway – which we took – between two of the ‘trees’.
We had left our hotel at 9.45 am and we returned at 5.20 pm, so it was a full day of seven and a half hours.
In the evening, Tess and I went for another waterfront walk, but this time to Merlin Square. All the buildings around the marina were illuminated and there were laser lights shooting from the ropes of the Sands Hotels, making a magical scene for our last hours in the city. Dinner was at a Indian restaurant called the “Anjana Kitchen”.
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Our four islands holiday (2): Singapore
October 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
On our first day in Singapore, Tess and I took a walking tour of the city led by Bridgit O’Donovan, an Australian who is married to a Chinese Singaporean and has lived on the island for some 20 years. She recently left Meta – where she worked with my friend Simon Milner who recommended her – and has formed her own guiding company called The Ugly Dumpling. We left the hotel at 9 am and were back about 3.30 pm, so we were out for six and a half hours.
We began in Singapore’s historic Civic District, exploring the former City Hall and Supreme Court buildings and tracing the city’s political and architectural development. We stopped in one of these buildings to enjoy the air conditioning and have a cold It was already clear that this multicultural state works hard to recognise and celebrate diversity everywhere from representation in the legislature to ethnic allocations of housing,
From the Civic District, we walked towards the Singapore River to explore the role of trade and migration in Singapore’s growth. We finished this part of the walk at Merlion Park, with views across Marina Bay to the distinctive buildings of the ArtsScience Museum (a white, lotus-shaped structure) and the Marina Bay Sands (three 55-storey hotel towers with a 340 metre long Skypark on top of them).
The park contains the Merlion statue, the city’s iconic mascot, with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, standing 8.6 metres (28 feet) high and weighing 70 tons. The sculpture was originally installed in 1972 by the Singapore Tourist Board as a welcome figure to tourists and relocated to its present site in 2002.
From the Merlion, we took a short taxi ride to the Singapore City Gallery at URA Centre. The gallery’s city models and displays provide a fascinating overview of Singapore’s transformation, urban planning, energy provision, and housing and land constraints. The main attractions are a massive model of the city and an electronic representation of the whole island. There are extensive pans to expand the city up (more skyscrapers), down (more underground locations) and out (reclamation of land between islands).
Next we took another cab to Le Shan Cafe, a small heritage café beside Thian Hock Keng Temple, for a relaxed lunch. I had rendang chicken, Tess had singlaksa, and Bridgit organised some colourful desserts.
After our meal, we waked round to the Thian Hock Keng Temple (or Temple of Heavenly Bliss), a wonderfully coloured building with representations of Mazu, the sea goddess who protected travellers making the dangerous journey to Singapore. The temple was built between 1839 and 1842 by the first Chinese immigrants who dedicated the shrine to Ma Chu Poh, the Goddess of the Sea. It has granite pillars from China, blue tiles from The Netherlands, and case-iron railings from Scotland.
From there, we continued through the historic streets of Chinatown. On our final stop in a cafe for ice cream, Bridgit told us more stories of migration, education, healthcare, work and community and introduced us to some of the women whose contributions are often missing from the usual version of Singapore’s history.
Particularly interesting was the information about the Samsun women, best known for their red headscarf. They were a group of Chinese female immigrants who cane to Singapore (and other parts of Malay) between the 1920s and 1940s in search of construction and industrial jobs. These women were mostly from the Sanshui District of modern-day Guangdong, a province in southern China.
Bridgit wants to write a book about the historical. Contribution of women to the island and I suggested it be called “Sisters Of Singapore”.
Bridgit took pity on us and organised a cab to take us back to the hotel. Note: Uber is not permitted to operate in Singapore, but instead there is a local version called Grab.
Bridgit took pity on us and organised a cab to take us back to the hotel. Note: Uber is not permitted to operate in Singapore, but instead there is a local version called Grab.
That evening, Tess and I walked up and down the banks of the Singapore River before stopping for a light dinner at a place near out hotel called “Sque”.
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Our four islands holiday (1): introduction
September 30th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Tess and I are off on our fifth foreign trip in the two years that we’ve been an item. After two breaks in European cities and two holidays in African countries, we’re venturing forth to south-east Asia where we will visited four islands: Singapore and the three Indonesian islands of Java, Bali and Lombok.
We will make five flights, one train journey and two speed boat rides and we will stay in six hotels. Our booking is with Regent Holidays in the UK and the local agents are Discova Indonesia.
Tess has been to both nations before on cruises, but both will be new to me, bringing my country total to 95.
Before setting off on our holiday, our only concern was reports of serious fires in parts of Indonesia, especially Borneo and Sumatra islands, which have been causing hazardous smoke haze, not just in parts of Indonesia but also in surrounding countries Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and even the Philippines. These fires have been made even more likely than usual by the hot summer and the exceptional super El Niño.
Our flight from London to Singapore was with Singapore Airlines on an Airbus A380-800 which took 12 hours 50 minutes. Our hotel was the Paradox in the Clarke Quay area of the city.
The name ‘Singapora’ is Sanskrit for ‘Lion City’ and has been used since the 14th century, even though no wild lions ever roamed here. The British – more specifically, Sir Thomas Stafford Raffles (1781-1826) – created modern Singapore in 1819, but it has been independent of the UK since 1959 and of Malaysia (from which it was expelled) in 1965.
Singapore is a very small state: only around twice the size of the Isle of Wight (where Tess still lives). It consists of one main island and over 60 satellite islands and it is located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, just one degree of latitude north of the equator. The weather is hot and humid all year round, but everywhere that can be air-conditioned is.
The 6M population of Singapore – just a little more than Scotland – is a mix of Chinese (74%), Malay (13%) and Indian (9%) and the official languages are therefore Chinese, Malay, Tamil and English. The island is noted for its ethnic and religious tolerance.
The founding father of the nation was Lee Kuan Yew of the People’s Action Party (PAP) who was Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990. The PAP has been in power ever since independence.
The country has developed a unique political model that has advocates and critics. Living standards are high, unemployment is minimal, public transport is excellent, public housing schemes are plentiful, crime is low and cleanliness is exemplary.
On the other hand, corporal and capital punishment exist, political dissent is very limited, and personal freedoms are curtailed. There are lots of rules and effective enforcement of them.
So smoking in public places is prohibited, flushing of public toilets is not allowed, and there are huge taxes on car ownership. It must be the only country in the world to ban the sale or import of chewing gum – not a problem for us, since neither of us uses the stuff.
One final point on respect for elders: In Singapore, children are obliged to support their parents. Under the Maintenance of Parents Act 1995, any parent over the age of 60 who is unable to to maintain himself can apply for an order that ensures that one or more of his children pay him an allowance.
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The latest five-star review of my book”Everyone Has A Story” available on Amazon
September 25th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
In the phrase usually attributed to the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, while we must live our lives forwards, we can only truly understand them looking backwards. I suspect it’s equally true that we can only make the connections that improve that level of understanding of our own selves when we look at the lives lived by our contemporaries. We don’t necessarily have to use them to hold a mirror up to ourselves, but looking at the motivations and the choices of others, sometimes in similar situations, sometimes not, does help us interpret how our own lives have shaped up.
Thus it is with this marvellous collection of 33 personal profiles, all of whom share only the characteristic that they are friends of the author. As he says in his opening dedication, it is our friends that make us who we are; who give our lives not only fulfilment but also, often, something to aspire to, something which challenges us or something makes a demand on us.
Drawing its title from the life story of one of the people profiled – that of a hospital volunteer – ‘Everyone Has A Story’ offers a heartwarming collection which documents ordinary people struggling to make their lives extraordinary in some way. Perhaps not too many of them would acknowledge that, even in restrospect and certainly not at the time – but this is part of the beauty of the collection.
It’s not easy to capture the essence of what makes lives lived full such a joy to read about, and which makes them meaningful to people who may not necessarily know who they are or understand the contributions that have made, but the author has striven to deliver a volume which, in narrating the lives of others, helps us interpret our own. He does so without evidently interfering in how they tell their stories and what details they choose to include while, crucially, remaining entirely and openly non-judgmental about their choices.
In its relation of how some of the author’s friends have lived their lives, the collection raises the stock of human knowledge ultimately about how we can be good to one another; and, thereby, raises us all above the humdrum. We share the planet with each of us; and by giving each other that bit more space to tell the stories of how we became what we are, we can make them extraordinary, too.
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A review of the important new French film “De Gaulle: Liberté”
September 25th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
The second part of this bio-pic of General Charles de Gaulle is just as accomplished and successful as the first part “De Gaulle: Résistance”. This is hardly surprising since the two sections were shot at the same time with the same cast and crew. Again a two-year period is covered, this time 1943-1944, and again the running time is 159 minutes. The style is the same: fast-paced and dramatic with excellent cinematography and sound. Again the narrative alternates between battles between armies and conflicts between individuals with a large cast of characters to observe and a great deal of information to absorb.
The military sequences are mainly the Battle of Tunisia (February-March 1943) and the insurrection in Paris (August 1944) with a leading role for the brave and resourceful French commander Leclerc (Niels Schneider). The central political conflict is between de Gaulle (Simon Abkaria) and Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) but, in this second portion, there is more bitter antagonism between de Gaulle and American President Roosevelt (Campbell Scott) and between de Gaulle and old-style French General Giraud (Thierry Lhermitte), not to mention deep divisions in the French resistance led by Jean Moulin (Félix Kysyl).
For the French, these films present a fair narrative of the complicated French position during the Second World War. For a British audience, there is a reminder that we did not win the war alone and there is an explanation of why de Gaulle hated the Americans, why he distrusted the British, and why twice he said “Non!” to UK application for membership of what we now call the European Union.
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Ever heard of UK Biobank?
September 11th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
UK Biobank is the world’s most detailed study for tracking the long-term health of people as they age. The combination of four aspects sets this dataset apart from other similar initiatives.
- 500,000 people agreed to make all their health-related data available for research. They were between 40 and 69 years of age when they joined the study between 2006-2010.
- The study has extensive information on the lifestyle, environmental, and biological factors that are relevant to the development of different diseases.
- It’s been many years since participants joined the study, so enough time has passed to see which people have remained healthy, and which have developed particular diseases, so that researchers can find out why.
- The data are readily available for health-related research by academic, charity and commercial researchers worldwide.
I joined Biobank in May 2010. On that occasion, I went to a testing centre in Hounslow where I had two hours of questionnaires on lifestyle, a series of memory tests, physical measurements including blood pressure, and blood, urine and saliva samples. From then onwards, my health has been tracked through contact with my GP. All the data is anonymised.
In December 2019, I went to an assessment centre in Reading for a more intensive session of data collection. As well as all the previous questionnaires, tests, measurements and samples, I had a whole series of MRI, ultrasound and X-ray scans of my brain, heart, body, neck, spine, hips and knees and an ECG of my heart. All this took about five hours.
This week, I returned to Reading for a repeat of the session of seven years ago. That was another five hours.
The aim is to scan up to 100,000 Biobank participants.
UK Biobank is in a constant process of collecting huge amounts of data and now, especially with artificial intelligence (AI), it is much easier to analyse all this data and learn what are the risk factors for a wide range of diseases including cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes, stroke and arthritis.
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A review of the classic film”How Green Was My Valley” (1941)
September 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
We remember John Ford primarily as a director of westerns (think “Stagecoach” and “The Searchers”), but he had a social conscience (“The Grapes Of Wrath”) and a Celtic sensibility (“The Quiet Man”). In this work, centred on a mythical mining village in South Wales in the late Victorian era, he explores the dirt and danger of the coal mining industry, the hypocrisy of a certain brand of Christianity, and social relations within a working-class family and between classes and there are even sympathetic mentions of a union and a strike.
One can challenge this production: it was not shot on location in Wales but mainly on a set in Malibu, the actors are not Welsh but largely English and American (which explains the odd accents), and most of the characters are rather stereotypical and one-dimensional. But it has real heart and packs some powerful social messages – plus there is a great deal of singing in Welsh and the singers are credited as “themselves”.
The film was based on a best-selling novel of the same name by Richard Llewellyn who was English-born but spent many summers visiting his grandfather in the mining village of Gilfach Goch. The production was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning five, including Best Picture and Best Director, famously beating “Citizen Kane” and Orson Welles.
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