Well Christmas day seems a lifetime ago now, but in reality I suppose it's only been two days. The problem is that we've been up since 8am yesterday (It's now 8pm today!) in order to get ourselves across the Thai border. We finally managed it, after arriving in Kuala Lumpur to find that all train and bus tickets to Thailand had long sold out. We could however get a bus to Alor Setar in Malaysia where we were assured we could catch a connecting bus to Hatyai in Southern Thailand. That was a lie.
After being unceremoniously dumped an hour earlier than scheduled, at 4am, in what could only resemble a ghost town, we then had the challenge of finding any sort of transport to *somewhere* in Thailand... eventually we get a taxi to the border with two students from Singapore on a similar mission. It was only after we'd left Malaysian soil that Chloe and I realised that we'd completely forgotten to get any Thai currency. We'd spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Kuala Lumpur with our backpacks waiting for the 2300 bus, so there really was no excuse. We'd even had time to find a Starbucks and play snakes and ladders for two hours, so we really should have considered currency, but we didn't. It took 3 hours of standing in a queue to cross the sencond border-check into Thailand, and by some miracle we found a minibus that would take Malaysian Ringgitsto get us to Hatyai. Now we appear to be here, and we leave in the morning for the island of Koh Lipe which looks beautiful and much less stressful (one hopes) than the mammoth journey to get here!
Christmas Day itself was rather odd but very nice. We attended a Church service which turned out to be in English and Chinese. Straight translations we could have worked with, but the system was a little more complicated, with people given the option to respond and sing in either language (or both)!
As a result, some prayers and readings were in English, some in Chinese. The sermon was in both and hence took the best part of an hour. Everytime they returned to English we'd forgotten the previous sentence, which wasn't helpful in a particularly heavy-going speech. The most interesting part was the music though with a Christmas-carol-megamix performed by the choir and dancers with tamborines performing at the front of teh Church. The congregational carols were traditional, including 'O Come All Ye Faithful', but even that turned out to be complicated when everyone switched to Chinese in the second verse, leavign Chloe and I caught between bewilderment and hysterics.
Christmas dinner went remarkably well and we managed to cook chicken, rice, veggies and potatoes. The only hitch was getting into our precious bottle of wine without a corkscrew, which no-one could help us with as they'd not seen a cork in a bottle like that before!
In the evening we went ahead with our meal out (we'd assumed lunch would be a disaster!) and went to a hotel to have the weirdest concoction of foods imaginable. As a result I had chicken, lasagne, fried rice, meatballs, vegetables, noodles and a random bit of lamb. It was a buffet-style affair and we thought we should make the most of it!
I hope everyone's well, and I'm sorry I can't sit and write the anecdotes I'd like to share, but maybe another time... Although i shall mention that one slightly strange lady yesterday asked me for a piece of orange peel on the plane yesterday and spent the flight sniffing it before discarding it on the airfield on arrival. Any ideas as to what that was about on a postcard please!
Best wishes,
Rachel x
Words, Wildlife, Rock & Roll
Borneo, Wales, Infinity and Beyond...
Saturday, 27 December 2008
27 DEC 08
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
24 DEC 08 - Christmas Eve
It's Christmas Eve! I'm no longer in the jungle. I was this morning, but now I'm in Sandakan once more, where we'll be spending Christmas Day. On Boxing Day we head to Kuala Lumpur on an attempt to reach the Thai border, renew our visa and get back to the city in time for New Year. Fingers crossed, eh!?
It's rather hot today, although I don't know how hot, and we were commenting this morning on how it doesn't feel all that Christmassy without the coldness of the British festive period. We then had to kick ourselves as we realised that if 'the first Christmas' was infact on December 25th (debatable, I know), then it'd probably be much closer to this sort of climate than that of Dorset or Cardiff, so really this is how Christmas feels afterall.
The most bizarre thing about our Christmas so far has been seeing THREE crocodiles on the banks of the river this morning (which are visible now that the water level's lowered a little after the easing of the rain). I mean, I don't think I've ever seen one crocodile on Christmas Eve before, lettalone three, so that was pretty cool.
I don't know how tomorrow will go - basically I'm dreading it. We have to cook a Christmas dinner for far too many people in a hostel in Sandakan and probably feed all the staff as well. I find it all very stressful and am suddenly very thankful I don't do this every year. Although maybe next year I'll be a bit more helpful when Mum's sorting it all out! I'm absolutely convinced we're going to poison the lot of them (touch wood not), as I can hardly cook super-noodles, nevermind a chicken, but maybe Chloe knows what she's doing??? If not we have a back up of a large amount of rice and a cake that we're going to make tonight. We also have the telephone number for Pizza Hut, although the last time we attempted to order to the hostel we accidentally rang Kuala Lumpur and got the new kid who had no idea where Borneo was. We did get to eat pizza in the end, but it was almost midnight by the time it had arrived, so we'd rather do the roast chicken if possible. It brings me some comfort to know that Shelley's in a similar situation at home this year! :)
Even if tomorrow is a complete disaster, at least we can look back on last night and smile. We were told by Ancu, who works at the centre, that due to a shorting in the cables at the jetty, caused by a tree falling on the wires during heavy rain, the electricity wouldn't come on when the sun goes down and we'd have to wait a little longer. We also weren't allowed to leave the house. (In Malay... must be getting better!) We thought it was all a little bit strange as the rains hadn't been that bad and an electrical problem at the jetty surely shouldn't constrict us to a dark room for several hours. Eventually Ancu came to collect us and we all walked over to the main building. Just as we were about to climb the steps to enter the building, Ancu exclaimed that there was a sleeping pig under the building. Indeed there was. Two infact. He'd obviously lost his last marbles down at the jetty, so we tried to enter once more. This time he announced that we had to sit and talk on the steps...
...Eventually we were allowed in and between Ancu and Salin, Zainal and the girls who've started working in the kitchen, they'd lighted almost 40 candles, decorated the field centre and cooked huge prawns on a BBQ!!!!! And they don't even celebrate Christmas!!!! It was such a lovely thought and we had a fantastic evening. They'd even managed to find blueberry-Cadbury's-chocolate-eclairs (very odd, but surprisingly tasty) and bought ginger beer!!! We had noodles, goat with mint sauce, vegetables, potato chips, prawn and fried chicken bits - a feast fit for a King! We listened to the 'Jive Bunny Christmas' CD Mum had sent in the post, followed by the Malay Rock CD and played 'Violent Snap' and 'Cheat' with everybody until Chloe had added so many new rules that the girls were falling asleep and everyone else was as confused as I was when first walking into Vietnam and trying to find a taxi (very).
Don't tell Chloe, but it's 1600, 24 DEC 08 and I still have to find her a Christmas Pressie so I should really go and get it now or else the shops will all be shut!
Happy Christmas everybody,
Wish you were here,
Rachel xxx
It's rather hot today, although I don't know how hot, and we were commenting this morning on how it doesn't feel all that Christmassy without the coldness of the British festive period. We then had to kick ourselves as we realised that if 'the first Christmas' was infact on December 25th (debatable, I know), then it'd probably be much closer to this sort of climate than that of Dorset or Cardiff, so really this is how Christmas feels afterall.
The most bizarre thing about our Christmas so far has been seeing THREE crocodiles on the banks of the river this morning (which are visible now that the water level's lowered a little after the easing of the rain). I mean, I don't think I've ever seen one crocodile on Christmas Eve before, lettalone three, so that was pretty cool.
I don't know how tomorrow will go - basically I'm dreading it. We have to cook a Christmas dinner for far too many people in a hostel in Sandakan and probably feed all the staff as well. I find it all very stressful and am suddenly very thankful I don't do this every year. Although maybe next year I'll be a bit more helpful when Mum's sorting it all out! I'm absolutely convinced we're going to poison the lot of them (touch wood not), as I can hardly cook super-noodles, nevermind a chicken, but maybe Chloe knows what she's doing??? If not we have a back up of a large amount of rice and a cake that we're going to make tonight. We also have the telephone number for Pizza Hut, although the last time we attempted to order to the hostel we accidentally rang Kuala Lumpur and got the new kid who had no idea where Borneo was. We did get to eat pizza in the end, but it was almost midnight by the time it had arrived, so we'd rather do the roast chicken if possible. It brings me some comfort to know that Shelley's in a similar situation at home this year! :)
Even if tomorrow is a complete disaster, at least we can look back on last night and smile. We were told by Ancu, who works at the centre, that due to a shorting in the cables at the jetty, caused by a tree falling on the wires during heavy rain, the electricity wouldn't come on when the sun goes down and we'd have to wait a little longer. We also weren't allowed to leave the house. (In Malay... must be getting better!) We thought it was all a little bit strange as the rains hadn't been that bad and an electrical problem at the jetty surely shouldn't constrict us to a dark room for several hours. Eventually Ancu came to collect us and we all walked over to the main building. Just as we were about to climb the steps to enter the building, Ancu exclaimed that there was a sleeping pig under the building. Indeed there was. Two infact. He'd obviously lost his last marbles down at the jetty, so we tried to enter once more. This time he announced that we had to sit and talk on the steps...
...Eventually we were allowed in and between Ancu and Salin, Zainal and the girls who've started working in the kitchen, they'd lighted almost 40 candles, decorated the field centre and cooked huge prawns on a BBQ!!!!! And they don't even celebrate Christmas!!!! It was such a lovely thought and we had a fantastic evening. They'd even managed to find blueberry-Cadbury's-chocolate-eclairs (very odd, but surprisingly tasty) and bought ginger beer!!! We had noodles, goat with mint sauce, vegetables, potato chips, prawn and fried chicken bits - a feast fit for a King! We listened to the 'Jive Bunny Christmas' CD Mum had sent in the post, followed by the Malay Rock CD and played 'Violent Snap' and 'Cheat' with everybody until Chloe had added so many new rules that the girls were falling asleep and everyone else was as confused as I was when first walking into Vietnam and trying to find a taxi (very).
Don't tell Chloe, but it's 1600, 24 DEC 08 and I still have to find her a Christmas Pressie so I should really go and get it now or else the shops will all be shut!
Happy Christmas everybody,
Wish you were here,
Rachel xxx
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
09 DEC 08
This is Lisa (orange) and I (white).
A large male from Sukau (see previous entry!)
A large male from Sukau (see previous entry!)
Me and a millipede...
Rupert the Bear...
Chloe, Marc and I by the river.
Pumbaa...
Sheldon...
Rupert the Bear...
Chloe, Marc and I by the river.
Pumbaa...
Sheldon...
A Macaque...
Lisa again...
Tra-daa!!! You have no idea how long it took to get those photos online in this stupid internet cafe! It's the most ridiculous place with really grumpy owners and the curtains are always shut so you can hardly see the keyboard! Anyway, rant over, I hope you enjoy the photos! Rachel
Lisa again...
Tra-daa!!! You have no idea how long it took to get those photos online in this stupid internet cafe! It's the most ridiculous place with really grumpy owners and the curtains are always shut so you can hardly see the keyboard! Anyway, rant over, I hope you enjoy the photos! Rachel
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
08 DEC 08
It’s definitely the rainy season!
The waters of the oxbow lake are not much more than ten metres from the main building now and the trails are un-walkable (although I did consider making some stilts…). However, the animals seem to be visiting much more frequently at the moment. I supose that has something to do with there being less land to work with. In the last two days I’ve seen: two orangutans, billions of macaques, wild boar, more lizards than I can count, a giant squirrel, a big black squirrel (possibly a Prevost’s squirrel for those of you who are squirrel enthusiasts, although I wouldn’t quote me on it), a pigmy tree squirrel, a civet in a tree and a bird of prey which I almost stood on as it seemed to think that the ground was a suitable place to sit. I tried to explain to it that if it didn’t start being a bit more sensible then it’d be taken out by natural selection, but it flew off before I could finish.
The two orangutans, as you can imagine, caused considerable excitement. Unfortunately Chloe wasn’t feeling very well when I first saw them (they were near the centre for two days), so I took my notepad and camera and set off to make observations every few minutes in an attempt to improve my recording skills. This was working marvellously until I spotted the second orangutan, who only co-operated for a short while before taking off in a different direction. Not wanting to lose either, I resolved to switch between the two, taking observations from one every three minutes and another minute later for the other orangutan. Of course this ended in disaster with me losing both orangutans, after tiring and confusing myself by running through the jungle over an increasing distance, as they moved further apart. The next day they were spotted after lunch and I decided not to take observations like before but just to note down interesting behaviours and to follow only one. By this time they’d acquired the names ‘Lisa’ and ‘Sheldon’, and I chose to follow Lisa as she seemed the friendlier of the two. For those of you who know their human name-sakes, Lisa had long straight hair like, well, Lisa! As for Sheldon, there are the obvious links with Monkey World…That afternoon gave me my most incredible orangutan experience to date, with Lisa turning out to be incredibly un-bothered by my presence. With patience enough to ignore the mosquitoes and a few adaptations of my own behaviour to mimic hers, I managed to spend nearly three hours with her. At first I kept my distance, watching her snack away at the fruits and leaves near the water’s edge, but it wasn’t long before I didn’t have to worry. She descended until she was only a few metres from the ground and moved to a tree closer to my sitting position. I kept as still as I could, considering the incessant ‘neeeee’ noise of the mossies around my head, and picked off leaves from the nearby trees, fiddling with them like she did. When she moved, I waited until there was enough space between us and followed quietly. She was aware of my presence, as she shot curious glances in my direction every now and again, but carried on with all the usual orangutan-type activities. At one point she came right down to the ground to cross to a sturdier looking tree, before climbing back up again to continue her afternoon feast. We parted as night started to fall and I left her to make a nest for the night. Sometimes if orangutans are disturbed it affects their nesting habits, and although she didn’t seem to worry about me being there, I didn’t want her to end up without a bed on my account.
I popped back to see Sheldon by the jetty afterwards, but he just grunted at me and carried on his previous activity which appeared to be staring at a tree trunk. An angry looking macaque then presented himself on the path in front of me and bared his teeth, so I decided to make a careful retreat back to the field centre. The macaques are generally alright and only cause trouble if you’ve left food around, but there seems to be a particularly ‘difficult’ group around at the moment! The Monkey Mafia are still raiding Zainal’s house and aren’t in the least bit concerned when you try to shoo them out. I’d happily bet that this brave little character looking for a fight was one of these, but I suppose you get ‘chavs’ everywhere these days. (Interesting note, the spell-check on this computer just automatically changed the word ‘chavs’ to ‘chives’!)
Anyway, Chloe’s taken to baking cakes in the jungle and I’m currently missing out by writing this to send in town tomorrow, so I’ll bid you goodnight and write soon!
Love from Rachel x
The waters of the oxbow lake are not much more than ten metres from the main building now and the trails are un-walkable (although I did consider making some stilts…). However, the animals seem to be visiting much more frequently at the moment. I supose that has something to do with there being less land to work with. In the last two days I’ve seen: two orangutans, billions of macaques, wild boar, more lizards than I can count, a giant squirrel, a big black squirrel (possibly a Prevost’s squirrel for those of you who are squirrel enthusiasts, although I wouldn’t quote me on it), a pigmy tree squirrel, a civet in a tree and a bird of prey which I almost stood on as it seemed to think that the ground was a suitable place to sit. I tried to explain to it that if it didn’t start being a bit more sensible then it’d be taken out by natural selection, but it flew off before I could finish.
The two orangutans, as you can imagine, caused considerable excitement. Unfortunately Chloe wasn’t feeling very well when I first saw them (they were near the centre for two days), so I took my notepad and camera and set off to make observations every few minutes in an attempt to improve my recording skills. This was working marvellously until I spotted the second orangutan, who only co-operated for a short while before taking off in a different direction. Not wanting to lose either, I resolved to switch between the two, taking observations from one every three minutes and another minute later for the other orangutan. Of course this ended in disaster with me losing both orangutans, after tiring and confusing myself by running through the jungle over an increasing distance, as they moved further apart. The next day they were spotted after lunch and I decided not to take observations like before but just to note down interesting behaviours and to follow only one. By this time they’d acquired the names ‘Lisa’ and ‘Sheldon’, and I chose to follow Lisa as she seemed the friendlier of the two. For those of you who know their human name-sakes, Lisa had long straight hair like, well, Lisa! As for Sheldon, there are the obvious links with Monkey World…That afternoon gave me my most incredible orangutan experience to date, with Lisa turning out to be incredibly un-bothered by my presence. With patience enough to ignore the mosquitoes and a few adaptations of my own behaviour to mimic hers, I managed to spend nearly three hours with her. At first I kept my distance, watching her snack away at the fruits and leaves near the water’s edge, but it wasn’t long before I didn’t have to worry. She descended until she was only a few metres from the ground and moved to a tree closer to my sitting position. I kept as still as I could, considering the incessant ‘neeeee’ noise of the mossies around my head, and picked off leaves from the nearby trees, fiddling with them like she did. When she moved, I waited until there was enough space between us and followed quietly. She was aware of my presence, as she shot curious glances in my direction every now and again, but carried on with all the usual orangutan-type activities. At one point she came right down to the ground to cross to a sturdier looking tree, before climbing back up again to continue her afternoon feast. We parted as night started to fall and I left her to make a nest for the night. Sometimes if orangutans are disturbed it affects their nesting habits, and although she didn’t seem to worry about me being there, I didn’t want her to end up without a bed on my account.
I popped back to see Sheldon by the jetty afterwards, but he just grunted at me and carried on his previous activity which appeared to be staring at a tree trunk. An angry looking macaque then presented himself on the path in front of me and bared his teeth, so I decided to make a careful retreat back to the field centre. The macaques are generally alright and only cause trouble if you’ve left food around, but there seems to be a particularly ‘difficult’ group around at the moment! The Monkey Mafia are still raiding Zainal’s house and aren’t in the least bit concerned when you try to shoo them out. I’d happily bet that this brave little character looking for a fight was one of these, but I suppose you get ‘chavs’ everywhere these days. (Interesting note, the spell-check on this computer just automatically changed the word ‘chavs’ to ‘chives’!)
Anyway, Chloe’s taken to baking cakes in the jungle and I’m currently missing out by writing this to send in town tomorrow, so I’ll bid you goodnight and write soon!
Love from Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Monday, 1 December 2008
01 DEC 08
It's December 1st and this evening I get to open the first door of my CADBURY'S Advent calendar!!! It arrived from Mum last week, so Chloe and I each have a very squashed, slightly melted, but very Christmassy treat to lead us up to Christmas!
We returned back from our trip to Sukau last week, and since then have been writing up our field course reports from July. Yesterday afternoon, the monkeys that have been causing so much trouble at Zainal's house came to visit us outside the computer room. There were about twenty macaques sat on the grass, having an afternoon snack. Other wildlifey encounters incude Pumbaa the pig snuffling around the kitchen on a regular basis, and a particularly brave monitor lizard who had somehow made his way into the kitchen on Friday. Goodness knows how he got in, but he certainly left in a hurry!
In Sukau we discussed our work further and were able to go into the field to help collect the data. It was really nice to catch up with our new friends there again, including Haji who let slip to Boss Benoit about the existence of this webpage, so I'll have to be a bit more careful now... (Don't worry Benoit, your Centre's in good hands!) During our stay, we saw a large, flanged male orangutan and two mother and baby pairs. We were also lucky enough to see a group of elephants at a very close range. They weren't at all bothered by our presence after a little while and carried on munching away at the vegetation and destroying every small tree they came across. From the small clearing we found them in, they then headed for an oil palm plantation, where we witnessed them stripping several palms of their leaves and demolish an electric fence. Eventually they moved on from the plantation, but they certainly made their mark. I don't know why anyone ever used the phrase 'Bull in a china shop', 'Elephant in an oil palm plantation' is much more appropriate! By the time they'd left us, I was bright orange with the contents of an oil palm kernel (as the 'Orangutan Warrior') and we were all drenched due to the heavy rain. We looked a comical assortment of people as we headed back to the river, with Marc carrying the bags in a black binliner over his shoulder, much like a tramp, Haji tripping over various remnants of elephant-damaged vegetation, Chloe soggier than my washing (which I can never seem to get dry out here) and me in orange war-paint. It was one of the best afternoons I've had since arriving though, and every time we spot the elephants they go up another notch on my favourite animal scale. Of course, the orangutans are still safely at the top, especially after seeing Maria and Jenny's tiny babies this week! They're ever so funny to watch as they explore the branches near 'Mum' whilst she's sat nibbling nonchalently on whatever fruit she can find, and amazingly the regular characters seem to get on with their day whilst completely ignoring the presence of researchers on the ground below!
Unfortunately this computer is giving me awful trouble typing so I'm going to have to call it a day. I hope everyone's well, and as rumour has it that internet may be slowly snaking its way to Danau Girang, I may be able to write again soon!
Love from Rachel x
We returned back from our trip to Sukau last week, and since then have been writing up our field course reports from July. Yesterday afternoon, the monkeys that have been causing so much trouble at Zainal's house came to visit us outside the computer room. There were about twenty macaques sat on the grass, having an afternoon snack. Other wildlifey encounters incude Pumbaa the pig snuffling around the kitchen on a regular basis, and a particularly brave monitor lizard who had somehow made his way into the kitchen on Friday. Goodness knows how he got in, but he certainly left in a hurry!
In Sukau we discussed our work further and were able to go into the field to help collect the data. It was really nice to catch up with our new friends there again, including Haji who let slip to Boss Benoit about the existence of this webpage, so I'll have to be a bit more careful now... (Don't worry Benoit, your Centre's in good hands!) During our stay, we saw a large, flanged male orangutan and two mother and baby pairs. We were also lucky enough to see a group of elephants at a very close range. They weren't at all bothered by our presence after a little while and carried on munching away at the vegetation and destroying every small tree they came across. From the small clearing we found them in, they then headed for an oil palm plantation, where we witnessed them stripping several palms of their leaves and demolish an electric fence. Eventually they moved on from the plantation, but they certainly made their mark. I don't know why anyone ever used the phrase 'Bull in a china shop', 'Elephant in an oil palm plantation' is much more appropriate! By the time they'd left us, I was bright orange with the contents of an oil palm kernel (as the 'Orangutan Warrior') and we were all drenched due to the heavy rain. We looked a comical assortment of people as we headed back to the river, with Marc carrying the bags in a black binliner over his shoulder, much like a tramp, Haji tripping over various remnants of elephant-damaged vegetation, Chloe soggier than my washing (which I can never seem to get dry out here) and me in orange war-paint. It was one of the best afternoons I've had since arriving though, and every time we spot the elephants they go up another notch on my favourite animal scale. Of course, the orangutans are still safely at the top, especially after seeing Maria and Jenny's tiny babies this week! They're ever so funny to watch as they explore the branches near 'Mum' whilst she's sat nibbling nonchalently on whatever fruit she can find, and amazingly the regular characters seem to get on with their day whilst completely ignoring the presence of researchers on the ground below!
Unfortunately this computer is giving me awful trouble typing so I'm going to have to call it a day. I hope everyone's well, and as rumour has it that internet may be slowly snaking its way to Danau Girang, I may be able to write again soon!
Love from Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Thursday, 27 November 2008
27 NOV 08
This is going to be a very quick one, so I apologise in advance!
We've just got back from Sukau where we've been liaising with KOCP about our projects. We've been lucky enough to encounter several orangutans this week, including a flanged male and two mothers with their young. We also bumped into the elephants, which is always an awesome sight!
I'll write about it properly when I have a chance (hopefully Saturday), but that's all I have time for now. Pathetic isn't it?
Rachel x
We've just got back from Sukau where we've been liaising with KOCP about our projects. We've been lucky enough to encounter several orangutans this week, including a flanged male and two mothers with their young. We also bumped into the elephants, which is always an awesome sight!
I'll write about it properly when I have a chance (hopefully Saturday), but that's all I have time for now. Pathetic isn't it?
Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
11 NOV 08
It's Rememberance Day. We've observed our minute's silence, which to me doesn't seem quite enough time to contemplate anything, but nevermind. Anyway, just thought I'd post a reminder before heading back to the jungle, as here the world carried on turning over 11am. Of course that was expected, as I'm pretty sure Rememberance Day isn't marked at all in Malaysia, but regardless of the extent of a nation's involvement in the first and second world wars, there are enough conflicts going on in the world today to spend 60 seconds thinking about them.
This was highlighted again for us this morning whilst trying to book our next visa renewal trip. The recent executions for the Bali bombings have left us with large doubts about travelling to Indonesia during the Christmas period, especially as violence between Christian and Muslim groups is present in several Indonesian provinces. The Philippines are also suffering from internal conflicts at the moment, and there are problems on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. It's so easy to forget problems further than the eye can see, and whilst these conflicts are closer to 'home' at the moment, the newspaper I bought this morning has refreshed my knowledge of what's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Congo, Zimbabwe... When you put these on top of the loss of human life in past conflicts, a mere 60 seconds is nothing to spare from a busy day.
...I don't get annoyed with people who ask me why I bother to 'remember' on this day, I just wonder why they don't too.
On a quick orangutan note, here is the governmental response to a Downing Street Petition to have all products including palm oil in the U.K. labelled so that consumers can make informed choices about their shopping. http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17322
It's worth a look. Also, since when did 'United Biscuits' become one of the largest companies in Britain? It's in a list along with Tesco and Asda!!! Very odd!
The jungle awaits, and so I'll write whenever I'm next near an interwebbing machine.
Take care and keep in touch,
Rach x
This was highlighted again for us this morning whilst trying to book our next visa renewal trip. The recent executions for the Bali bombings have left us with large doubts about travelling to Indonesia during the Christmas period, especially as violence between Christian and Muslim groups is present in several Indonesian provinces. The Philippines are also suffering from internal conflicts at the moment, and there are problems on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. It's so easy to forget problems further than the eye can see, and whilst these conflicts are closer to 'home' at the moment, the newspaper I bought this morning has refreshed my knowledge of what's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Congo, Zimbabwe... When you put these on top of the loss of human life in past conflicts, a mere 60 seconds is nothing to spare from a busy day.
...I don't get annoyed with people who ask me why I bother to 'remember' on this day, I just wonder why they don't too.
On a quick orangutan note, here is the governmental response to a Downing Street Petition to have all products including palm oil in the U.K. labelled so that consumers can make informed choices about their shopping. http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17322
It's worth a look. Also, since when did 'United Biscuits' become one of the largest companies in Britain? It's in a list along with Tesco and Asda!!! Very odd!
The jungle awaits, and so I'll write whenever I'm next near an interwebbing machine.
Take care and keep in touch,
Rach x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Monday, 10 November 2008
10 NOV 08 - An addition!
Okay, this may or may not amuse you.
I had one responsibility today, and that was to look after our hotel room key whilst we went to find lunch. We had a nice noodly lunch and returned to the room to get on with some work, but for some reason the door wouldn't open. 'That's strange', I thought, 'It's got to be the right key, we only have one ke...', ah. Also in my bag this morning was the key to our house in the jungle on a very similar keyring. Oh well, I'll look a bit silly but I'll just have to ask at reception for the spare key.
Reception presented us with 37 keys, but not the one to our room.
After breaking one key, a ruler, a flip-flop (I don't know how they thought a flip-flop would open the door), and my one hairpin (kept for such emergencies), they produced a hammer! They had to repeatedly hit the door handle to get us back into the room. Once in, I was busy trying to find the room key whilst mentally totting up the likely cost of the damage, when Chloe whispered "Oh no, the key was in my bag all along!!!" We pretended to find the key under the bed and apologised profusely. The manager went off to find a tool kit and a new door handle and left the heavy fire door to swing-to. Wanting to leave the room, I tried to open the door (now minus a door handle), by putting one finger in the hole we created and another on the little bit that goes in and out when you open and shut a door. It backfired and the door ended up firmly closed, with us trapped inside the room.
Within the space of an hour we had locked ourselves out of the room, and then locked ourselves in the room. To top it off, there are extremely large machines pummelling hundreds of 24m tall poles into the ground for foundations of a new building next door, and the deafening noise had been shaking the building since 6am!
Eventually we were freed by the receptionist who thankfully found it all very amusing and didn't charge us for any damage, although I did replace the ruler as a token effort!
That's the last time I take the keys.
I had one responsibility today, and that was to look after our hotel room key whilst we went to find lunch. We had a nice noodly lunch and returned to the room to get on with some work, but for some reason the door wouldn't open. 'That's strange', I thought, 'It's got to be the right key, we only have one ke...', ah. Also in my bag this morning was the key to our house in the jungle on a very similar keyring. Oh well, I'll look a bit silly but I'll just have to ask at reception for the spare key.
Reception presented us with 37 keys, but not the one to our room.
After breaking one key, a ruler, a flip-flop (I don't know how they thought a flip-flop would open the door), and my one hairpin (kept for such emergencies), they produced a hammer! They had to repeatedly hit the door handle to get us back into the room. Once in, I was busy trying to find the room key whilst mentally totting up the likely cost of the damage, when Chloe whispered "Oh no, the key was in my bag all along!!!" We pretended to find the key under the bed and apologised profusely. The manager went off to find a tool kit and a new door handle and left the heavy fire door to swing-to. Wanting to leave the room, I tried to open the door (now minus a door handle), by putting one finger in the hole we created and another on the little bit that goes in and out when you open and shut a door. It backfired and the door ended up firmly closed, with us trapped inside the room.
Within the space of an hour we had locked ourselves out of the room, and then locked ourselves in the room. To top it off, there are extremely large machines pummelling hundreds of 24m tall poles into the ground for foundations of a new building next door, and the deafening noise had been shaking the building since 6am!
Eventually we were freed by the receptionist who thankfully found it all very amusing and didn't charge us for any damage, although I did replace the ruler as a token effort!
That's the last time I take the keys.
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
10 NOV 08
I'm exhausted and we've only been back for a fortnight!
Huge staff changes have brought a completely different cast to Danau Girang, with Zainal being the exception. We've finally begun to sort out our data for KOCP, so most of our time is spent sat infront of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets at the moment. I've also completed the latest edition of 'Jungle Times', our newsletter, and if you'd like to recieve a copy by email then please send a request to danaugirangfieldcentre@yahoo.com!
I returned to find that the ants had managed to out-smart my 'anti-ant-food-protection-measures'. A solitary packet of unopened, emergency, extra-strong, Trebor mints. I'd left them in a tied carrier bag, inside a second bag, pegged to a piece of string which was suspended between two walls. None of this proved a problem to the ants, but I should be proud that my measures had held them off for two months. I should also probably learn not to keep an emergency stash of sweets! Ants have actually sunk to the bottom of my favourite animal list, joining the mosquitoes in last place. In the last week they've invaded my guitar(!!!), eaten our bread and the fire ants that sometimes swarm across the path after heavy rain attacked me again the other day. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to spot them at night and they happen to shoot a small amount of formic acid under the skin, so you experience something akin to walking into a nettle patch whilst wearing flip-flops. It really was the final straw of the day as earlier I'd been playing football and sustained an injury to my toe, thinking it was broken. Quite how you can hurt yourself playing with an inflatable ball and a six-year-old, I don't know, but I did, and I did it by accidentally kicking my boss. Oops. At least my toe's starting to get better now!
We had a bit of mid-week postal excitement after news arrived that a letter was awaiting me at Sabah Wildlife Department. We took the boat and the car out to collect it straight away, taking bets on who it could be from. Having gone to all the kaffuffle of retrieving said letter, I think only Basil Fawlty or Victor Meldrew could quite imagine my frustration to find that my first letter to the jungle was a proffessional training year handbook sent by Cardiff University. Not only is it exceptionally boring, but also completely irrelevant as it fails to mention crocodiles or leeches, only marking schemes and assessments! Grumble. Still, we used the trip as an excuse to stock up on supplies and I bought a Malaysian rock compilation CD. There's a guitarist on there which would appeal to my little bro called 'Man Kidal', who plays for a band called 'Lefthanded' and seems to be stuck somewhere between Guns N Roses and Aerosmith. I don't suppose Lefthanded have got as far as HMV in Poole yet though.
I heard on the radio that Mr Obama has won the USA presidential election, and whilst I don't want this little blog to get all political, the media coverage here made me chuckle so it's worth a mention. The newspapers have come out with some gems on the matter, such as "The whole world is amazed that a black man is a president." I'm not amazed. And I'm also pretty sure there are other black presidents in the world, but whatever. The one that amused me on the car radio yesterday though was the newsreader who stated that "British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is hoping to be a good friend of Mr Obama's," which is nice! She then went on to quote him as saying "Any changes we make will have to be progressive to move forwards." Well I'm glad our PM's finally understood his role as a world leader. Our country's in safe hands! Nevermind, I'll stick to concentrating on orangutans as they seem much more sensible.
Huge staff changes have brought a completely different cast to Danau Girang, with Zainal being the exception. We've finally begun to sort out our data for KOCP, so most of our time is spent sat infront of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets at the moment. I've also completed the latest edition of 'Jungle Times', our newsletter, and if you'd like to recieve a copy by email then please send a request to danaugirangfieldcentre@yahoo.com!
I returned to find that the ants had managed to out-smart my 'anti-ant-food-protection-measures'. A solitary packet of unopened, emergency, extra-strong, Trebor mints. I'd left them in a tied carrier bag, inside a second bag, pegged to a piece of string which was suspended between two walls. None of this proved a problem to the ants, but I should be proud that my measures had held them off for two months. I should also probably learn not to keep an emergency stash of sweets! Ants have actually sunk to the bottom of my favourite animal list, joining the mosquitoes in last place. In the last week they've invaded my guitar(!!!), eaten our bread and the fire ants that sometimes swarm across the path after heavy rain attacked me again the other day. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to spot them at night and they happen to shoot a small amount of formic acid under the skin, so you experience something akin to walking into a nettle patch whilst wearing flip-flops. It really was the final straw of the day as earlier I'd been playing football and sustained an injury to my toe, thinking it was broken. Quite how you can hurt yourself playing with an inflatable ball and a six-year-old, I don't know, but I did, and I did it by accidentally kicking my boss. Oops. At least my toe's starting to get better now!
We had a bit of mid-week postal excitement after news arrived that a letter was awaiting me at Sabah Wildlife Department. We took the boat and the car out to collect it straight away, taking bets on who it could be from. Having gone to all the kaffuffle of retrieving said letter, I think only Basil Fawlty or Victor Meldrew could quite imagine my frustration to find that my first letter to the jungle was a proffessional training year handbook sent by Cardiff University. Not only is it exceptionally boring, but also completely irrelevant as it fails to mention crocodiles or leeches, only marking schemes and assessments! Grumble. Still, we used the trip as an excuse to stock up on supplies and I bought a Malaysian rock compilation CD. There's a guitarist on there which would appeal to my little bro called 'Man Kidal', who plays for a band called 'Lefthanded' and seems to be stuck somewhere between Guns N Roses and Aerosmith. I don't suppose Lefthanded have got as far as HMV in Poole yet though.
I heard on the radio that Mr Obama has won the USA presidential election, and whilst I don't want this little blog to get all political, the media coverage here made me chuckle so it's worth a mention. The newspapers have come out with some gems on the matter, such as "The whole world is amazed that a black man is a president." I'm not amazed. And I'm also pretty sure there are other black presidents in the world, but whatever. The one that amused me on the car radio yesterday though was the newsreader who stated that "British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is hoping to be a good friend of Mr Obama's," which is nice! She then went on to quote him as saying "Any changes we make will have to be progressive to move forwards." Well I'm glad our PM's finally understood his role as a world leader. Our country's in safe hands! Nevermind, I'll stick to concentrating on orangutans as they seem much more sensible.
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
28 OCT 08
Before I head back to possibly the last place on the planet without internet access, I thought I'd reflect on the two countries we've just visited.
Both were such different places that it would be difficult to compare the two, but I can point out the obvious bits to give you a little overview of our trip!
Of Vietnam, we saw three cities; Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Hue and Hanoi. Each could easily have been a country of its own, but all shared a frantic atmosphere that left us somewhat shell-shocked. Even the modern life of Kuala Lumpur couldn't prepare us for the maniacal motorcyclists and apparent lack of road-rules found on the streets of Ho Chi Minh, and it wasn't possible to walk the 200 yards from the hotel to the end of the road without being hassled to buy something. No matter how many times I pointed to the shades on my face (worn solely to avoid eye contact with the street vendors), they insisted it was necessary to purchase a dozen pairs of fake, Gucci sunglasses. The cyclo drivers weren't much better, and whilst I appreciate the need for them to attract customers, I was very much ready to explode in their general direction if anyone so much as muttered the word 'cyclo' at me again! Their general cause wasn't helped by the fact that one tried to swindle Chloe and I out of several thousand dong, which didn't impress us much! Having said all this, there are some fascinating sights around Saigon, including the Cu Chi Tunnels, a Cao Dai Temple, the Reunification Palace and so forth.
A bbig 'plus point' for Hue was that Karen and Naomi wereto meet us there. Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated falling ill on the overnight train, and as a consequence, couldn't join the tour with everybody the next day. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated! Still, a quiet walk around town the next day showed us a much calmer place than Saigon, with its fair share of entrepreneurs, but also a respect for personal space, and so Hue was a far more enjoyable place to exist.
The sleeper buses we caught to Hanoi were travelling in convoy, so my initial disappointment that we couldn't all travel together was soon lifted as we pulled into a coffee stop half-way. The buses are worth a mention as unlike normal coaches, the seats are horizontal beds whereby your feet are inserted into a dark hole underneath the person infront! I've never seen anything like it!
Hanoi was just as busy as Ho Chi Minh City, but whether it was because we'd become used to it or for some other reason, it seemed a much more charming place. We stayed in the Old Quarter where the grubby streets form a winding maze of confusion. My sense of direction is usually quite good, but our primary activity in Hanoi was getting lost, followed closely by finding our way back to somewhere familiar.
From Hanoi, we took day-trips to Ha Long Bay, Cuc Phuong National Park and to see a water puppetry show, which is exactly what it says on the tin - a pupper show... in water. Who comes up with these things?
The bus journey to Vientiane in Laos was not my favourite part of the trip, but it was well worth the discomfort to see Laos and to meet the other travellers who we stuck with for the rest of our stay. We met some lovely people, including Jayne, Paul and Tasha from the U.K., Otto and Osku from Finland, Kat and Michael from Australia but teaching in Vietnam, Ben on his bike and Steve and Danielle who we met later for rock-climbing.
Vientiane is the nicest capital city I've ever visited, for the sole reason that it's quiet and not at all like a capital city! It's about as busy as Wareham in Dorset, or if you're Cardiff born and bred, think of Abergavenny! You can walk down the middle of the road without getting killed, and the tuk-tuk drivers don't mind too much if you genuinely want to walk somewhere.
Vang Vieng was the last town on our itinerary, and it was the icing on the holiday cake. It's exceptionally touristy, but as of yet it's kept a lot of its small-town appeal. The beautiful mountain scenery certainly helps a lot, and it was in these surroundings that we went tubing, rock-climbing and on our motorbike ride.
Laos seems to have been left behind its big brother next door in terms of rapid development, but not at all to its detriment. The tourism trade will continue to bloom here if it can remain a haven in the midst of the bustle of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. As every t-shirt there reads, it needs to be the 'Same, Same, but Different!' Obviously that makes no sense, but some of the nicest things in this world don't!
Rachel x
Both were such different places that it would be difficult to compare the two, but I can point out the obvious bits to give you a little overview of our trip!
Of Vietnam, we saw three cities; Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Hue and Hanoi. Each could easily have been a country of its own, but all shared a frantic atmosphere that left us somewhat shell-shocked. Even the modern life of Kuala Lumpur couldn't prepare us for the maniacal motorcyclists and apparent lack of road-rules found on the streets of Ho Chi Minh, and it wasn't possible to walk the 200 yards from the hotel to the end of the road without being hassled to buy something. No matter how many times I pointed to the shades on my face (worn solely to avoid eye contact with the street vendors), they insisted it was necessary to purchase a dozen pairs of fake, Gucci sunglasses. The cyclo drivers weren't much better, and whilst I appreciate the need for them to attract customers, I was very much ready to explode in their general direction if anyone so much as muttered the word 'cyclo' at me again! Their general cause wasn't helped by the fact that one tried to swindle Chloe and I out of several thousand dong, which didn't impress us much! Having said all this, there are some fascinating sights around Saigon, including the Cu Chi Tunnels, a Cao Dai Temple, the Reunification Palace and so forth.
A bbig 'plus point' for Hue was that Karen and Naomi wereto meet us there. Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated falling ill on the overnight train, and as a consequence, couldn't join the tour with everybody the next day. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated! Still, a quiet walk around town the next day showed us a much calmer place than Saigon, with its fair share of entrepreneurs, but also a respect for personal space, and so Hue was a far more enjoyable place to exist.
The sleeper buses we caught to Hanoi were travelling in convoy, so my initial disappointment that we couldn't all travel together was soon lifted as we pulled into a coffee stop half-way. The buses are worth a mention as unlike normal coaches, the seats are horizontal beds whereby your feet are inserted into a dark hole underneath the person infront! I've never seen anything like it!
Hanoi was just as busy as Ho Chi Minh City, but whether it was because we'd become used to it or for some other reason, it seemed a much more charming place. We stayed in the Old Quarter where the grubby streets form a winding maze of confusion. My sense of direction is usually quite good, but our primary activity in Hanoi was getting lost, followed closely by finding our way back to somewhere familiar.
From Hanoi, we took day-trips to Ha Long Bay, Cuc Phuong National Park and to see a water puppetry show, which is exactly what it says on the tin - a pupper show... in water. Who comes up with these things?
The bus journey to Vientiane in Laos was not my favourite part of the trip, but it was well worth the discomfort to see Laos and to meet the other travellers who we stuck with for the rest of our stay. We met some lovely people, including Jayne, Paul and Tasha from the U.K., Otto and Osku from Finland, Kat and Michael from Australia but teaching in Vietnam, Ben on his bike and Steve and Danielle who we met later for rock-climbing.
Vientiane is the nicest capital city I've ever visited, for the sole reason that it's quiet and not at all like a capital city! It's about as busy as Wareham in Dorset, or if you're Cardiff born and bred, think of Abergavenny! You can walk down the middle of the road without getting killed, and the tuk-tuk drivers don't mind too much if you genuinely want to walk somewhere.
Vang Vieng was the last town on our itinerary, and it was the icing on the holiday cake. It's exceptionally touristy, but as of yet it's kept a lot of its small-town appeal. The beautiful mountain scenery certainly helps a lot, and it was in these surroundings that we went tubing, rock-climbing and on our motorbike ride.
Laos seems to have been left behind its big brother next door in terms of rapid development, but not at all to its detriment. The tourism trade will continue to bloom here if it can remain a haven in the midst of the bustle of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. As every t-shirt there reads, it needs to be the 'Same, Same, but Different!' Obviously that makes no sense, but some of the nicest things in this world don't!
Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Friday, 24 October 2008
24 OCT 2008
I wish I had more time to write, but my feet have hardly touched the ground in the last few days. It's our last couple of days with Dave, and we've been in Vang Vieng in Laos. We've been floating down a river in tractor tyres, rock climbing (although I didn't get very high...I'm more of a land-lover than a mountain goat!) and this morning we hired out motorbikes for a bit of an exploration. Unfortunately, in the ten minutes I had to teach myself to ride a bike, I realised quite early on that it would be an expensive disaster, so I settled for riding on the back of Dave's instead. Chloe rode on Ben's, one of the travellers we've been with for the last 4 days. He's travelling South East Asia on his bike and you can read about his adventures here: www.benonhisbike.blogspot.com.
We've got to catch ther bus back to Vientienne now, which will take about four hours, and tomorrow we fly back to Kuala Lumpur. Sorry this one's not been very informative, but there's not much time for a good story!
Write properly soon,
Rachel x
We've got to catch ther bus back to Vientienne now, which will take about four hours, and tomorrow we fly back to Kuala Lumpur. Sorry this one's not been very informative, but there's not much time for a good story!
Write properly soon,
Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
In Laos...
Hello!
Our 20 hour bus journey into Laos turned out to be more 23 hours and *what* a journey it was! There were 7 other travellers onboard and they were all squished at the back of the coach, wedged in between boxes and luggage of all sorts. For some reason, unkown to any of us, I had to sit next to an elderly Vietnamese gentleman halfway down the coach. My seat was angled forwards and the seat in front was 2 inches from my face the whole way. Dave got soaked due to a leaking roof and ended up having to sit in the aisle to avoid being drenched before we'd even reached the border. There were stools, engines and boxes all the way down the aisle with people sitting and sleeping on top, and (the best...) a HAMMOCK strung up halfway down the coach!
We arrived at the border at about 5am, to a deserted, cold and misty no-man's land. If it wasn't for one of the Australian lady's speaking a small amount of Vietnamese, I don't know how we would have got on, but the actual process of getting a visa was relatively painless!
Laos itself is stunningly beautiful, and the rest of the drive through mountains, forests and past flowing rivers would have been lovely to see, but by that time I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I dropped off almost as soon as we got back on the coach! Typical!
The only other biggie was losing my wallet last night. Thankfully, due I think to a lot of praying and keeping fingers crossed, it turned up this morning at the place we ate at last night. It was a small place under a tarpaulin, and we all sat on little cushions on the floor in a circle, with the other travellers. The man who gave my wallet back looked amazed at how happy I was to get it back, but I'd been envisaging trying to find a payphone, ringing the banks and not having any cards for months... I gave him a couple of thousand Kip to say thankyou (before realising he'd already helped himself, but nevermind), and now I can travel happily on to Vang Vieng, up North, with more than two quid in my pocket!
Write soon,
Rach x
Our 20 hour bus journey into Laos turned out to be more 23 hours and *what* a journey it was! There were 7 other travellers onboard and they were all squished at the back of the coach, wedged in between boxes and luggage of all sorts. For some reason, unkown to any of us, I had to sit next to an elderly Vietnamese gentleman halfway down the coach. My seat was angled forwards and the seat in front was 2 inches from my face the whole way. Dave got soaked due to a leaking roof and ended up having to sit in the aisle to avoid being drenched before we'd even reached the border. There were stools, engines and boxes all the way down the aisle with people sitting and sleeping on top, and (the best...) a HAMMOCK strung up halfway down the coach!
We arrived at the border at about 5am, to a deserted, cold and misty no-man's land. If it wasn't for one of the Australian lady's speaking a small amount of Vietnamese, I don't know how we would have got on, but the actual process of getting a visa was relatively painless!
Laos itself is stunningly beautiful, and the rest of the drive through mountains, forests and past flowing rivers would have been lovely to see, but by that time I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I dropped off almost as soon as we got back on the coach! Typical!
The only other biggie was losing my wallet last night. Thankfully, due I think to a lot of praying and keeping fingers crossed, it turned up this morning at the place we ate at last night. It was a small place under a tarpaulin, and we all sat on little cushions on the floor in a circle, with the other travellers. The man who gave my wallet back looked amazed at how happy I was to get it back, but I'd been envisaging trying to find a payphone, ringing the banks and not having any cards for months... I gave him a couple of thousand Kip to say thankyou (before realising he'd already helped himself, but nevermind), and now I can travel happily on to Vang Vieng, up North, with more than two quid in my pocket!
Write soon,
Rach x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Primates and Ha Long Bay
We've been out of the jungle now for ten days, so where did we end up this week? A monkey sanctuary! I'd been having withdrawal symptoms, and as Karen, Naomi, Chloe and Dave were keen on a day trip it seemed like a good plan!
The Endangered Primate Rescue Centre at Cuc Phuong National Park is home to monkeys and gibbons that are dire need of human intervention if they are to continue living in the wild. Vietnam has 24 species of primate, including 12 species of langur (the ones with the cool, punk-like haircut), 5 species of macaques (a stereotypical monkey), 2 species of slow loris (nocturnal bundles of fur with large eyes) and 5 species of gibbon (the acrobatic apes with long arms and legs). A quick tour of the rescue centre introduced us to several of these, including the Cat Ba Langur, of which there are only 60 wild animals remaining, and the beautiful Duoc Langur. (Worth looking up on Google until I get some pictures up!) The centre keeps the animals in captivity before releasing them into one of three semi-wild enclosures in Vietnam. From there they can be released when they're ready to be returned to the wild. Unfortunately for many this isn't possible as hunting is still a massive problem in this country, and our guide wxplained that they were waiting until hunting stops before they can release certain species. I'm not an incredibly skeptical person, but I can see that the future is dim for many monkeys in Vietnam. Having said that, visiting the centre was a very positive experience and it seemed surprisingly well run, so maybe there's still a glimmer of hope.
Yesterday, we went on a group tour to Ha Long Bay. A boat trip took us to see some enormous hunks of rock towering up above the sea. Our grumpy guide pointed out that one particular rock is featured on the back of the 20,000 dong note. There were some interesting people on the tour, including a guy called Bruce from Australia who'd left his job for six months to travel, two Korean girls who got stuck in a kayak (due to lack of steering ability, not literally stuck due to being too round), and two Vietnamese ladies who thought we were so incompetent at using chopsticks that they had to instruct us everytime we tried to eat anything. It was a nice tour, albeit the weather was rubbish, and an enjoyable day. More enjoyable, I suspect, than the 20 hour bus journey we face tonight into Laos...
...stay tuned!
Rachel
The Endangered Primate Rescue Centre at Cuc Phuong National Park is home to monkeys and gibbons that are dire need of human intervention if they are to continue living in the wild. Vietnam has 24 species of primate, including 12 species of langur (the ones with the cool, punk-like haircut), 5 species of macaques (a stereotypical monkey), 2 species of slow loris (nocturnal bundles of fur with large eyes) and 5 species of gibbon (the acrobatic apes with long arms and legs). A quick tour of the rescue centre introduced us to several of these, including the Cat Ba Langur, of which there are only 60 wild animals remaining, and the beautiful Duoc Langur. (Worth looking up on Google until I get some pictures up!) The centre keeps the animals in captivity before releasing them into one of three semi-wild enclosures in Vietnam. From there they can be released when they're ready to be returned to the wild. Unfortunately for many this isn't possible as hunting is still a massive problem in this country, and our guide wxplained that they were waiting until hunting stops before they can release certain species. I'm not an incredibly skeptical person, but I can see that the future is dim for many monkeys in Vietnam. Having said that, visiting the centre was a very positive experience and it seemed surprisingly well run, so maybe there's still a glimmer of hope.
Yesterday, we went on a group tour to Ha Long Bay. A boat trip took us to see some enormous hunks of rock towering up above the sea. Our grumpy guide pointed out that one particular rock is featured on the back of the 20,000 dong note. There were some interesting people on the tour, including a guy called Bruce from Australia who'd left his job for six months to travel, two Korean girls who got stuck in a kayak (due to lack of steering ability, not literally stuck due to being too round), and two Vietnamese ladies who thought we were so incompetent at using chopsticks that they had to instruct us everytime we tried to eat anything. It was a nice tour, albeit the weather was rubbish, and an enjoyable day. More enjoyable, I suspect, than the 20 hour bus journey we face tonight into Laos...
...stay tuned!
Rachel
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Vietnam
I'm in Vietnam!!!!
We sucessfully obtained our visas (after a LOT of running around Kuala Lumpur and trying to persuade grumpy consulate workers), and caught the correct flights into Ho Chi Minh City. We spent a couple of days there before heading north to Hue (Pronounced 'Hway!') and.... met Karen and Naomi! Fantastic! We're now all in Hanoi together and going to see a water puppet show this evening. I don't know what that involves, but aquatic puppets sound interesting.
Also interesting is the traffic here. I can only liken crossing the road to a game we used to have on Dad's old PC. 'Frogger', I think it was called. You had to direct a little green frog-shaped blob safely across a road of maniac drivers. Change the drivers to motorcycles and the frog-shaped blob to the five of us and you get the picture. Either that or imagine us trying to walk along the starting line just after the runners set off on the London Marathon...
Ho Chi Minh was similar, but a little more controlled. Maybe because the streets weren't so narrow? The houses here are narrow too, and they all look very amusing, teetering above the crowded streets. Naomi pointed out that even when you move further out of town you still get the odd, single, tall house in the middle of nowhere, so it must be a design preference as well as a space-saving mechanism.
I'll write more when there's more to tell and more time to tell it in, but for now 'That's All Folks!'
We sucessfully obtained our visas (after a LOT of running around Kuala Lumpur and trying to persuade grumpy consulate workers), and caught the correct flights into Ho Chi Minh City. We spent a couple of days there before heading north to Hue (Pronounced 'Hway!') and.... met Karen and Naomi! Fantastic! We're now all in Hanoi together and going to see a water puppet show this evening. I don't know what that involves, but aquatic puppets sound interesting.
Also interesting is the traffic here. I can only liken crossing the road to a game we used to have on Dad's old PC. 'Frogger', I think it was called. You had to direct a little green frog-shaped blob safely across a road of maniac drivers. Change the drivers to motorcycles and the frog-shaped blob to the five of us and you get the picture. Either that or imagine us trying to walk along the starting line just after the runners set off on the London Marathon...
Ho Chi Minh was similar, but a little more controlled. Maybe because the streets weren't so narrow? The houses here are narrow too, and they all look very amusing, teetering above the crowded streets. Naomi pointed out that even when you move further out of town you still get the odd, single, tall house in the middle of nowhere, so it must be a design preference as well as a space-saving mechanism.
I'll write more when there's more to tell and more time to tell it in, but for now 'That's All Folks!'
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Randomly Assorted Photographs
These are the children at the field centre. Left to Right: Asim, Rachel, Apoi and Amoi. Amoi and Apoi have left now, but it was fun with all three there!!!
The sunset over the Kinabatangan River...
Two long-tailed macaques using a bridge to connect the fragmented forest. Intended for orangutan use, none have been seen using it yet, but both macaques and proboscis monkeys have found them useful or entertaining...
Me driving a boat and posing like a wally...
A young crocodile...
This photo made it into the newspapers out here a little while back! It's me releasing a blackbacked kingfisher...
These are elephants crossing the river...
This is me covered in mud... (Cadets note the Malaysian Air Force T-shirt...)
This is Dave climbing a big tree!
And this is Dave, Chloe and I with the children one evening!
The sunset over the Kinabatangan River...
Two long-tailed macaques using a bridge to connect the fragmented forest. Intended for orangutan use, none have been seen using it yet, but both macaques and proboscis monkeys have found them useful or entertaining...
Me driving a boat and posing like a wally...
A young crocodile...
This photo made it into the newspapers out here a little while back! It's me releasing a blackbacked kingfisher...
These are elephants crossing the river...
This is me covered in mud... (Cadets note the Malaysian Air Force T-shirt...)
This is Dave climbing a big tree!
And this is Dave, Chloe and I with the children one evening!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
07 OCT 08
It’s the day before we set off on our trip, and I’m glad to say that it’s a little less stressful than previously thought. "Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring!"
Having spoken to Naomi, we now have a meeting point and a backup meeting point, should the first one fail us, and I’m hopeful that we can get our visa in the time we have available. Fingers crossed. I’ve heard from home that there’s flooding in both Vietnam and Laos, and I’m not sure of the severity but we’ll soon find out. Apparently it’s affecting most of Vietnam, and on asking how Laos was, Mum replied "It looks a bit soggy". However, having spent two years in Wales, we’re quite used to soggy now!
It’s Dave’s last week at the field centre, so we’ve been making the most of the forest and the wildlife, as well as doing a bit of handiwork to create some bits and bobs for a tree-house type thingy… I’ll update you on the progress when we get back. Chloe may be turning into Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen….or Delia Smith for that matter, as she’s been cooking non-stop for about a week! My claims to being helpful in both activities are creating a rung for the ladder (which turned out not to be needed, but to prevent disappointment has been nailed in place anyway to create a double-rung halfway up) and the crumble of an apple crumble. I also chopped up a pineapple and multiple onions. Maybe I’ll be more competent in both woodwork and cooking by the time I return?
I’m very excited about going to Vietnam and Laos, and can’t wait to see the others!
Rachel
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
03 OCT 08
Hey everyone, sorry it’s been so long since you had a proper update, but the jungle still lacks broadband or a wi-fi spot… as one would expect! Most of the time this isn’t the slightest problem – I’m still contactable in an emergency by mobile phone (when standing in certain places at the field centre), but today it’s caused all manner of difficulties. Next Wednesday (08 OCT 08) we fly to Kuala Lumpur. Chloe, Dave and I are travelling to Vietnam, where we’re going to meet with Karen and Naomi from home. Vietnam is one of the few countries in South East Asia that require you to obtain your visa before arrival, so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been ringing the embassy in Kuala Lumpur to find out how we go about this when we get to Peninsular Malaysia. Helpfully, everyone at the embassy tends to be at lunch sometime between 12:00 and 14:00, and it then closes at 15:00. Having spoken to a very nice lady at the British Consulate in KL and been given a handful of other telephone numbers to try, I’ve been waving my phone about trying to find signal and get in touch with the Vietnamese embassy to no avail, until this morning. The gentleman on the other end of the phone-line started off trying his best to explain in English how to get a visa, telling me that they need three working days to process it. I explained that we only had two days, that our flights had already been booked, but that we had the details here we could give over the phone if it would help speed up the process… it wouldn’t. After a quick rendezvous with the others, Chloe gave them a call back and very patiently spoke to every English speaking person in the office, all of whom were adamant that a visa cannot be issued in less than three working days. Oh dear. Our flight leaves KL for Ho Chi Minh City on the evening of the 10th October, and I’m meeting Karen and Naomi three days later, so we really don’t have that much time (or cash) to play with! So we’ve spent the rest of the morning on the phone to a friend in KL who might be able to fill the forms for us and to the embassy who eventually informed us that we could use an express route to get our visa…which would take three working days. It’s been quite hard to stay calm. Chloe then spent twelve minutes on hold waiting to speak to Air Asia to find out if we can either change our flights to allow for an extra day, or buy another flight for me to fly ahead a day early and sort out our visas. After hearing every possible promotion on flights to Bali and Hong Kong, my phone ran out of credit. Currently we’re visa-less, credit-less, and if we’re completely honest, fairly clueless about how we’re getting into Vietnam. I’ve got no way of contacting Karen and Naomi until we go to town to fly to Kuala Lumpur, which is no doubt when this will find its way to you, so if you two are reading this – check your email when you get to Hanoi!!! Although it’s likely to be the 8th October by now, and you’ll have left on the 7th from Heathrow, so I really don’t know how we’re going to get into contact!!! I give up!
Okay, I’m going to make a cup of tea before the generator goes off for the afternoon.
This afternoon we’re doing a spot of trail maintenance before it starts raining, which should be fun. I saw an absolutely massive snake on one trail the other day. I described it to Zainal who manages the centre and he suspects it was a cobra, possibly even a King Cobra!!! That’s pretty cool isn’t it? We also saw an otter whilst walking down to the family’s house the other night, and three giant geckos in the space of five days. Wild Boar, Monkeys and Monitor Lizards are still popping up on a regular basis too, so there’s no shortage of wildlife! On the downside, ants keep invading our hot chocolate supply and mosquitoes are abundant (though a tiny bit less so with each one I remove from existence!)
Next time I write, I’ll hopefully be in Vietnam… fingers crossed!!!
Rachel x
Okay, I’m going to make a cup of tea before the generator goes off for the afternoon.
This afternoon we’re doing a spot of trail maintenance before it starts raining, which should be fun. I saw an absolutely massive snake on one trail the other day. I described it to Zainal who manages the centre and he suspects it was a cobra, possibly even a King Cobra!!! That’s pretty cool isn’t it? We also saw an otter whilst walking down to the family’s house the other night, and three giant geckos in the space of five days. Wild Boar, Monkeys and Monitor Lizards are still popping up on a regular basis too, so there’s no shortage of wildlife! On the downside, ants keep invading our hot chocolate supply and mosquitoes are abundant (though a tiny bit less so with each one I remove from existence!)
Next time I write, I’ll hopefully be in Vietnam… fingers crossed!!!
Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
30 SEP 08
So much to write about, but so little time!
We’ve just spent three days in Sukau working with the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project, with whom we’re working on our project. After speaking with Marc and Mislin, who we’ll be working with, we now have a much clearer idea of what we’re studying and have some data to start fiddling with. It’s basically to do with what orangutans eat in degraded forest, which can later be used to see how they adapt to living in forests that have been affected by commercial logging. Obviously, this is quite important stuff when you consider that in the Kinabatangan area alone, there are only 50,000ha of forest left. In the last twenty years, 80% has been converted to oil palm agriculture. There are very few remaining primary forest areas left for the orangutan to inhabit, but as this case shows, it’s possible for them to live in secondary forest and it’s important for us to understand how this changes their lifestyle.
We spent a couple of mornings with Azli and Adyt who have been following an orangutan named ‘Julaina’ and her three year old daughter, to understand the techniques involved in getting the data. We then jumped at the chance when asked whether we wanted to follow for a whole day. We left at 0530 and returned at 1900, noting down her behaviour throughout the day. We also had the chance to work with the nest survey team who monitor the state of orangutan nests over several months. It’s useful to know what types of trees are chosen by orangutans to nest in as well as which trees provide their food supplies in order to create effective conservation plans. Bam and Mislin then kindly took us down the river to see new orangutan bridges in action. There was a group of macaques using one bridge as we passed, sat happily grooming above the water, and I think it may well only be a matter of time before a curious orangutan or two give it a try. In forest that’s fragmented as much as it is in this area, ways of allowing the orangutans to travel and encounter other orangutans are extremely important, especially from a genetic point of view.
It’s also Hari Raya tomorrow – the end of the fasting month, so I’ve got to go and make some decorations to make it a bit more special for the people that have to work here tomorrow. It’s the equivalent of Christmas in the Islamic year, so it’s not very nice to be at work for it. Chloe’s got plans to make a ridiculous amount of cakes, so all should be fairly well!
Rachel
We’ve just spent three days in Sukau working with the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project, with whom we’re working on our project. After speaking with Marc and Mislin, who we’ll be working with, we now have a much clearer idea of what we’re studying and have some data to start fiddling with. It’s basically to do with what orangutans eat in degraded forest, which can later be used to see how they adapt to living in forests that have been affected by commercial logging. Obviously, this is quite important stuff when you consider that in the Kinabatangan area alone, there are only 50,000ha of forest left. In the last twenty years, 80% has been converted to oil palm agriculture. There are very few remaining primary forest areas left for the orangutan to inhabit, but as this case shows, it’s possible for them to live in secondary forest and it’s important for us to understand how this changes their lifestyle.
We spent a couple of mornings with Azli and Adyt who have been following an orangutan named ‘Julaina’ and her three year old daughter, to understand the techniques involved in getting the data. We then jumped at the chance when asked whether we wanted to follow for a whole day. We left at 0530 and returned at 1900, noting down her behaviour throughout the day. We also had the chance to work with the nest survey team who monitor the state of orangutan nests over several months. It’s useful to know what types of trees are chosen by orangutans to nest in as well as which trees provide their food supplies in order to create effective conservation plans. Bam and Mislin then kindly took us down the river to see new orangutan bridges in action. There was a group of macaques using one bridge as we passed, sat happily grooming above the water, and I think it may well only be a matter of time before a curious orangutan or two give it a try. In forest that’s fragmented as much as it is in this area, ways of allowing the orangutans to travel and encounter other orangutans are extremely important, especially from a genetic point of view.
It’s also Hari Raya tomorrow – the end of the fasting month, so I’ve got to go and make some decorations to make it a bit more special for the people that have to work here tomorrow. It’s the equivalent of Christmas in the Islamic year, so it’s not very nice to be at work for it. Chloe’s got plans to make a ridiculous amount of cakes, so all should be fairly well!
Rachel
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
13 Sep 08
The generator provides electricity for several hours a day, during which Chloe and I have been getting on with our orangutan reading, which is stored on the computers. After lunch, the generator goes off, and we take the opportunity to read, walk in the jungle or learn some Malay. The other day I’d opted for a few more of Phileas Fogg’s adventures from ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. I was sat outside the station and had just reached a planned rescue attempt involving an elephant and some angry religious fanatics, when I realised I’d been listening to a crashing noise in the trees for some time. On investigation, it turned out to be an orangutan, so I ran in to get the others and dashed back to my room to get ‘jungled up’, ready to follow it into the forest if that was where it intended to go. It was indeed heading into the trees, so Dave and I followed at a respectable distance. Quite liking the great apes, I get a little excited when we see one, especially so close to the field centre. I don’t know if you can then imagine how it felt to realise that there were in fact three travelling a few trees apart!
Following orangutans in the forest involves a fair amount of scrambling through stubborn undergrowth, a large amount of sitting around whilst they plough through a particular tree’s supply of fruits and a huge amount of swatting at mosquitoes, but we followed them until the sun started to lower itself and we thought it best to head back to a path before darkness fell. Unfortunately, we under-estimated the amount of daylight we had left and it was dark before we knew it.
I’m quite forgetful, and there’s always something I forget to put in my pocket before we set off. Sometimes it’s my penknife or a notepad. This time it was my head torch.
As a teenager running around Wareham Forest on cadet night exercises I’d had a bit of experience navigating around pine-filled obstacle courses in the dark, but that was a piece of proverbial cake in comparison to our walk back to camp. I challenge anyone to follow a trail marked out by green (what a stupid colour for a forest…) dabs of paint on tree trunks in a pitch black forest using the light of a battered old Nokia mobile phone. However, not having another option, this is what Dave and I did, and after losing the trail again we headed north knowing that a yellow trail would fall across our path at some point. Amazingly we spotted a ‘yellow’ tree and followed the trail back to the jetty and from there, the field centre. Four and a half hours after we set off, we arrived back just in time for dinner, which Chloe had been helping to cook all afternoon!
Just to make the evening a little more eventful, on returning to our accommodation, I realised that I no longer seemed to be in possession of my video camera. Overriding the panic, I remembered that the batteries had died shortly after leaving the field centre and I’d hung it on a branch to give my neck a rest whilst we were stood under a tree, dodging bits of falling fruit from the orangutans’ afternoon-tea. I honestly thought I’d never find it, or if I did it would be in the morning after an enormous storm would have rendered it useless. Either that or an inquisitive macaque would have acquired it as a new play-thing. Dave and I each grabbed a torch and headed a little way into the forest and tried to remember which tree we’d been stood by. This was obviously a ridiculously impossible task. We split up and I desperately shone my trusty headlight around muttering ‘Please let me find my camera. Actually, please let me find it this evening. Well really, I’d like to find it quite soon, otherwise I’ll be lost before I know it and then I’ll have an even bigger problem. Please, please can I find my camera so we can go and have dinner?’ And just as I thought those last few words, I walked into my poor video camera, left dangling on the least noticeable tree in the jungle, with an incredible looking moth perched on its case.
Lessons learnt:
1. Always carry a torch.
2. Never hang photographic equipment on a tree, unless there’s only one tree in the area.
3. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
Following orangutans in the forest involves a fair amount of scrambling through stubborn undergrowth, a large amount of sitting around whilst they plough through a particular tree’s supply of fruits and a huge amount of swatting at mosquitoes, but we followed them until the sun started to lower itself and we thought it best to head back to a path before darkness fell. Unfortunately, we under-estimated the amount of daylight we had left and it was dark before we knew it.
I’m quite forgetful, and there’s always something I forget to put in my pocket before we set off. Sometimes it’s my penknife or a notepad. This time it was my head torch.
As a teenager running around Wareham Forest on cadet night exercises I’d had a bit of experience navigating around pine-filled obstacle courses in the dark, but that was a piece of proverbial cake in comparison to our walk back to camp. I challenge anyone to follow a trail marked out by green (what a stupid colour for a forest…) dabs of paint on tree trunks in a pitch black forest using the light of a battered old Nokia mobile phone. However, not having another option, this is what Dave and I did, and after losing the trail again we headed north knowing that a yellow trail would fall across our path at some point. Amazingly we spotted a ‘yellow’ tree and followed the trail back to the jetty and from there, the field centre. Four and a half hours after we set off, we arrived back just in time for dinner, which Chloe had been helping to cook all afternoon!
Just to make the evening a little more eventful, on returning to our accommodation, I realised that I no longer seemed to be in possession of my video camera. Overriding the panic, I remembered that the batteries had died shortly after leaving the field centre and I’d hung it on a branch to give my neck a rest whilst we were stood under a tree, dodging bits of falling fruit from the orangutans’ afternoon-tea. I honestly thought I’d never find it, or if I did it would be in the morning after an enormous storm would have rendered it useless. Either that or an inquisitive macaque would have acquired it as a new play-thing. Dave and I each grabbed a torch and headed a little way into the forest and tried to remember which tree we’d been stood by. This was obviously a ridiculously impossible task. We split up and I desperately shone my trusty headlight around muttering ‘Please let me find my camera. Actually, please let me find it this evening. Well really, I’d like to find it quite soon, otherwise I’ll be lost before I know it and then I’ll have an even bigger problem. Please, please can I find my camera so we can go and have dinner?’ And just as I thought those last few words, I walked into my poor video camera, left dangling on the least noticeable tree in the jungle, with an incredible looking moth perched on its case.
Lessons learnt:
1. Always carry a torch.
2. Never hang photographic equipment on a tree, unless there’s only one tree in the area.
3. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
11 Sep 08
I've just had a brainwave that probably should have occurred some time ago - just because there's no internet in the jungle doesn't mean I can’t write a little update in advance of finding an internet café, hence saving time and Ringgits on the occasion that we do find ourselves in town! Don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.
So it’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote anything and we’ve been continuing our background research before starting our project. We’ll be working with data from the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project in November, so we still have a little while to get up to speed with everything before we crack on with our project. Between now and then we’ve got some trail maintenance work to get on with, plus a visa renewal trip. It’s all very exciting, as we’ve decided to go to Vietnam, where hopefully I’ll be able to meet up with Karen and Naomi from Dorset. We haven’t quite worked out the logistics yet, but we’re sat around the travel guides each evening slowly forming a plan. Next time we’re in Sandakan (which is probably today if this has found its way onto the internet), we’ll try to find something like ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘Platoon’ to watch before we go.
There’s been a group of people studying elephants with the Scientific Exploration Society around off and on for the last week. It’s a very mixed bunch of characters from Australia and Britain, but most of them seem very nice. It felt a bit strange playing the host, but I suppose we’ve been here for long enough now! There were a couple of writers in the group who were interesting to talk to, including a lady called Anna Nicholson who wrote ‘A Lizard in My Luggage’, which rings a bell. She’s exceptionally bubbly and talkative, so it wasn’t all that surprising to find that she works for a billion different publications, but she wasn’t at all patronising and was very complimentary about our field station news letter, the ‘Jungle Times’! Helen and I started it during the field course, commenting on the funniest things to happen during the day, but Benoit (my boss), has asked me to continue with it throughout the year. So although it’s had to become a little more sensible, the Jungle Times has evolved into a fortnightly newsletter for the field centre. As well as that, he’s got me writing press releases for interesting things involving the field centre, so I’m nice and busy at the moment.
So it’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote anything and we’ve been continuing our background research before starting our project. We’ll be working with data from the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project in November, so we still have a little while to get up to speed with everything before we crack on with our project. Between now and then we’ve got some trail maintenance work to get on with, plus a visa renewal trip. It’s all very exciting, as we’ve decided to go to Vietnam, where hopefully I’ll be able to meet up with Karen and Naomi from Dorset. We haven’t quite worked out the logistics yet, but we’re sat around the travel guides each evening slowly forming a plan. Next time we’re in Sandakan (which is probably today if this has found its way onto the internet), we’ll try to find something like ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘Platoon’ to watch before we go.
There’s been a group of people studying elephants with the Scientific Exploration Society around off and on for the last week. It’s a very mixed bunch of characters from Australia and Britain, but most of them seem very nice. It felt a bit strange playing the host, but I suppose we’ve been here for long enough now! There were a couple of writers in the group who were interesting to talk to, including a lady called Anna Nicholson who wrote ‘A Lizard in My Luggage’, which rings a bell. She’s exceptionally bubbly and talkative, so it wasn’t all that surprising to find that she works for a billion different publications, but she wasn’t at all patronising and was very complimentary about our field station news letter, the ‘Jungle Times’! Helen and I started it during the field course, commenting on the funniest things to happen during the day, but Benoit (my boss), has asked me to continue with it throughout the year. So although it’s had to become a little more sensible, the Jungle Times has evolved into a fortnightly newsletter for the field centre. As well as that, he’s got me writing press releases for interesting things involving the field centre, so I’m nice and busy at the moment.
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Briefest Blog
How frustrating - my pen-drive ate my four long blogs, written out in advance to put up for your delectation. Nevermind. Basically I've seen lots of monkeys, been doing lots of work, walking in the forest and today I heard 'Hocus Pocus' by Focus on a Malay music radio station. Wonders never cease. I don't think I've heard that on a European radio station in the 21 years of my existence, so goodness knows what it's doing out here. Google it if you don't know!
Miss you all, will write soon!
Rachel =)
Miss you all, will write soon!
Rachel =)
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Photos!
I haven't got long because it's taken soooo long to upload these pictures! These are a few from our 'holiday' between the field course and starting our projects.
Above, from left to right, James, myself, Becky and Verity at the military festival thingy. For some reason everyone wanted their photos taken with us. Very odd, but nevermind!
One for the cadets... here's the Royal Malaysian Air Force band. They danced whilst playing. I don't suppose they refer to it as dancing, but that's what it looked like!
A shelter at the Jungle Survival stand.
Me, complete with leech bite on right leg, at Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary. There are some very small orangutans in the background if you look hard. (The orangutans aren't really very small, it's just the picture.)
An ostrich. Not native to Borneo, but I like ostriches. We found him at the zoo.
Rafflesia - biggest flower in the world.
I don't know what this sign is supposed to mean. 'Don't wash eggs, feet or stripey flags', perhaps? Found at Poring Hot Springs.
And a waterfall!
That's all for now folks!
x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
So, we’ve been back at the field centre for a week now. Even in such a short time people have been coming and going all week. Milena and Dave have been finishing up their project on monkey poo, Farina and Harriet have been following a group of elephants near the centre for almost a week and there have been visitors from Cardiff and Birmingham Universities carrying out various field research, as well as members of organisations from this area coming together to discuss new projects.
Now Chloe and I are more or less on our own again, well, almost. We’ve got Harriet here until next week, and the family that live here are lovely. The language barrier is slowly being cracked, which is rather helpful, although it’s more a feeble chipping away with a toothpick than smashing it with a sledge hammer. That said, whilst the three young children were running rings around me (quite literally) this evening, I said to myself “If I had any idea what you’re saying, we could play a game”. At that moment Amoi tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘stuck!’ before running off to hide behind a table. Fantastic! For the last week, I’ve just assumed that they’re running around in circles hitting me, when in actual fact they’ve been trying to play ‘stuck in the mud’! They must think I’m a very slow learner, but at least now I can join in rather than standing like a clueless grinning idiot.
Unfortunately I couldn’t really participate this evening as I was still wearing a bright pink dress, decorated with black flowers. This isn’t something I’d brought with me to the jungle. Eja, the young girl, had brought in three brightly coloured outfits whilst we were munching our noodle soup at dinnertime. After dinner, she appeared with Adong who also lives here, both in beautiful flowy outfits. Adong’s husband, Mus, took photos of us all with Chloe’s camera, and if the internet will let me, hopefully I can put the photo on here!
This week Chloe and I have been reading article after article about orang-utans as background reading before we start our project. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be reading about, and it’s definitely better than most of the things we have to read back in Cardiff, but it feels a bit odd sat reading in a building in the forest, so we’ve been taking lots of jungle-breaks! I went on one walk with Chloe, Dave and Harry on a particularly hot day and ended up coming back covered in mud almost up to my waist. It was entirely my own fault, but it still meant spending the afternoon cleaning my boots, which I hadn’t really thought about beforehand… I suppose that’s what happens when you jump onto a muddy riverbank thinking it looks like a soft landing. If I learn nothing else, at least I’ve learnt that mud on a riverbank is squishier than mud in the forest!
The event of the week has definitely been the elephants. On a couple of occasions we’ve joined Farina on the boat to look for them in the evening. One evening we’d been out for nearly two hours, watching a group of them rolling in the shallow water at the side of the river. On the way back to the centre though, we spotted something that most people don’t get to see – it was a first even for Farina, who’s been studying them for several years now. One by one, the elephants were making their way across the river. They were crossing as family groups in single file, and making their way up the muddy bank on the other side before disappearing off into the forest for the night. As the sun set behind them, the silhouettes became harder to count, but we managed to get a total of 108 before it was too dark to see any more. The herd that live in this area is thought to be of around 150.
Still no internet at the centre, so I’m sending this from Sandakan. It took an hour on the boat and a couple of hours in the car to get here (and it’s the second attempt, as the town’s internet connection was down for the day before!), so I’m really hoping it’ll work this time! Not sure when I’ll next have the chance y’see!
I hope you’re all keeping well – good luck to Jenny for the move to Geneva!
Now Chloe and I are more or less on our own again, well, almost. We’ve got Harriet here until next week, and the family that live here are lovely. The language barrier is slowly being cracked, which is rather helpful, although it’s more a feeble chipping away with a toothpick than smashing it with a sledge hammer. That said, whilst the three young children were running rings around me (quite literally) this evening, I said to myself “If I had any idea what you’re saying, we could play a game”. At that moment Amoi tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘stuck!’ before running off to hide behind a table. Fantastic! For the last week, I’ve just assumed that they’re running around in circles hitting me, when in actual fact they’ve been trying to play ‘stuck in the mud’! They must think I’m a very slow learner, but at least now I can join in rather than standing like a clueless grinning idiot.
Unfortunately I couldn’t really participate this evening as I was still wearing a bright pink dress, decorated with black flowers. This isn’t something I’d brought with me to the jungle. Eja, the young girl, had brought in three brightly coloured outfits whilst we were munching our noodle soup at dinnertime. After dinner, she appeared with Adong who also lives here, both in beautiful flowy outfits. Adong’s husband, Mus, took photos of us all with Chloe’s camera, and if the internet will let me, hopefully I can put the photo on here!
This week Chloe and I have been reading article after article about orang-utans as background reading before we start our project. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be reading about, and it’s definitely better than most of the things we have to read back in Cardiff, but it feels a bit odd sat reading in a building in the forest, so we’ve been taking lots of jungle-breaks! I went on one walk with Chloe, Dave and Harry on a particularly hot day and ended up coming back covered in mud almost up to my waist. It was entirely my own fault, but it still meant spending the afternoon cleaning my boots, which I hadn’t really thought about beforehand… I suppose that’s what happens when you jump onto a muddy riverbank thinking it looks like a soft landing. If I learn nothing else, at least I’ve learnt that mud on a riverbank is squishier than mud in the forest!
The event of the week has definitely been the elephants. On a couple of occasions we’ve joined Farina on the boat to look for them in the evening. One evening we’d been out for nearly two hours, watching a group of them rolling in the shallow water at the side of the river. On the way back to the centre though, we spotted something that most people don’t get to see – it was a first even for Farina, who’s been studying them for several years now. One by one, the elephants were making their way across the river. They were crossing as family groups in single file, and making their way up the muddy bank on the other side before disappearing off into the forest for the night. As the sun set behind them, the silhouettes became harder to count, but we managed to get a total of 108 before it was too dark to see any more. The herd that live in this area is thought to be of around 150.
Still no internet at the centre, so I’m sending this from Sandakan. It took an hour on the boat and a couple of hours in the car to get here (and it’s the second attempt, as the town’s internet connection was down for the day before!), so I’m really hoping it’ll work this time! Not sure when I’ll next have the chance y’see!
I hope you’re all keeping well – good luck to Jenny for the move to Geneva!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Video Diary from the Field Course!
Okay, so I can't watch it myself due to lack of speakers/dodgy net connection, but apparently there's a video diary one of our lecturers took during the field course!
It can be found here:
http://cardiffuni.typepad.com/borneodiary/
Splendid! Hope it's not too terrible, though I think I managed to avoid the camera quite a bit!
It can be found here:
http://cardiffuni.typepad.com/borneodiary/
Splendid! Hope it's not too terrible, though I think I managed to avoid the camera quite a bit!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Monday, 18 August 2008
And then there were two...
We waved cheerio to Becky, James, Verity and Zoe this afternoon. It was sad to see them go, but as Chloe rightly said over dinner, now we have to get on with it. Or ín other words 'man up and get a grip!' We head back to the field centre tomorrow after a 475ish-km bus journey to Batu Puteh where we'll hopefully be picked up and taken the rest of the way 'home'.
We splashed out a bit on our meal this evening. After a day of speeding around KK in search of everything we might possibly need until we're next out of the jungle, this probably wasn't the wisest move, but it tasted good. We went to......*drum roll please*..... PIZZA HUT! Okay, okay so we gave in. I've avoided home-type foods for over a month now, so we decided it was perfectly acceptable to get a pizza. Naturally I got distracted from the usual favourites by the utterly odd new choices presented on the Malaysian Menu, and ended up munching pizza topped with tuna, onion, mayo, cheese and pineapple. It was surprisingly tasty.
I think we're both still quite tired from yesterday's adventures at the moment. We went white water rafting for the day on the Padas River. We opted for the harder Grade 3-4 rapids, and it was a fantastic day! Our rafting-expert, 'Snoop' (assumingly because he looked remarkably like Snoop-Dogg), was especially good at pushing people out of the boat, but he soon came in handy when we realised that one of the other boats contained a Welsh party. Naturally a pirate war commenced and we spent the rest of the 19km journey down the river avoiding/trying to overthrow their boat. We pretty much lost, but there were more of them than us. That and the fact that James found it more amusing to join forces with Snoop and eject the rest of our crew from the vessel at every available opportunity! There were several hilarious falling-over moments, and Verity excelled herself once more by not only falling INTO the boat before we'd even started, but also by stepping through the boat-peoples' polystyrene-box drinks cooler whilst climbing into the motorboat to return upriver. I don't think they were too impressed, but it seemed like the perfect way to end an amusing day.
Chloe managed to top that today, much to everyone's surpise. In KK there's a 'garden of poles'. Í really have no idea what it's supposed to be, but it looks like somebody started putting in the foundations for a skyscraper and thought better of it, leaving assorted height poles in perfect formation. Now they form a curious park, with trees, grass and several paths heading in various directions. We realise now why the paths exist, as Chloe managed to step into one of the smaller of these half-hidden hollow poles up to waist height. Thankfully she wasn't seriously injured - a few scrapes here and there and some soggy trousers as they're full of rain water, but I imagine it was still a bit of a shock!
Anyway, we'll be more careful of seemingly innocent pole-parks now.
Jungle-time tomorrow... goodness knows if there'll be internet access by the time we get back, so I'm sorry if this is becoming a regular time-waster for you, but there may be quite a break before the next update! Please keep checking back from time to time though - you never know!
Hope all's well, it's been lovely to hear from people!
Unil next time,
Rachel x
We splashed out a bit on our meal this evening. After a day of speeding around KK in search of everything we might possibly need until we're next out of the jungle, this probably wasn't the wisest move, but it tasted good. We went to......*drum roll please*..... PIZZA HUT! Okay, okay so we gave in. I've avoided home-type foods for over a month now, so we decided it was perfectly acceptable to get a pizza. Naturally I got distracted from the usual favourites by the utterly odd new choices presented on the Malaysian Menu, and ended up munching pizza topped with tuna, onion, mayo, cheese and pineapple. It was surprisingly tasty.
I think we're both still quite tired from yesterday's adventures at the moment. We went white water rafting for the day on the Padas River. We opted for the harder Grade 3-4 rapids, and it was a fantastic day! Our rafting-expert, 'Snoop' (assumingly because he looked remarkably like Snoop-Dogg), was especially good at pushing people out of the boat, but he soon came in handy when we realised that one of the other boats contained a Welsh party. Naturally a pirate war commenced and we spent the rest of the 19km journey down the river avoiding/trying to overthrow their boat. We pretty much lost, but there were more of them than us. That and the fact that James found it more amusing to join forces with Snoop and eject the rest of our crew from the vessel at every available opportunity! There were several hilarious falling-over moments, and Verity excelled herself once more by not only falling INTO the boat before we'd even started, but also by stepping through the boat-peoples' polystyrene-box drinks cooler whilst climbing into the motorboat to return upriver. I don't think they were too impressed, but it seemed like the perfect way to end an amusing day.
Chloe managed to top that today, much to everyone's surpise. In KK there's a 'garden of poles'. Í really have no idea what it's supposed to be, but it looks like somebody started putting in the foundations for a skyscraper and thought better of it, leaving assorted height poles in perfect formation. Now they form a curious park, with trees, grass and several paths heading in various directions. We realise now why the paths exist, as Chloe managed to step into one of the smaller of these half-hidden hollow poles up to waist height. Thankfully she wasn't seriously injured - a few scrapes here and there and some soggy trousers as they're full of rain water, but I imagine it was still a bit of a shock!
Anyway, we'll be more careful of seemingly innocent pole-parks now.
Jungle-time tomorrow... goodness knows if there'll be internet access by the time we get back, so I'm sorry if this is becoming a regular time-waster for you, but there may be quite a break before the next update! Please keep checking back from time to time though - you never know!
Hope all's well, it's been lovely to hear from people!
Unil next time,
Rachel x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Saturday, 16 August 2008
One for the cadets...
We woke up this morning to find a military recruitment festival had brought itself to the playing field behind our hostel. We'd had our hearts set on roller skating, as read about in our guide-book, but alas it seemed nothing more than a misprint/joke on behalf of the editor, for no matter how we tried to describe 'roller-blading' in the appropriate shopping centre, no-one had any idea what we were talking about. Unfortunately 'roller-blading' doesn't seem to have a direct translation, and asking "Dimana..." (where is...) followed by a sliding motion over the tiled floors got us at best, directions to a shoe shop, and at worst some severely worried looks.
After exhausting our attempts to find the rollerskating place, we decided to go to the recruitment thingy, which I was muchly pleased about as it looked quite interesting! Most of the stands were the usual recruitment-type tents, fairly similar to the ones our forces throw up at public events, but we had the added bonus today of fruit-carving, a Naval ice sculpture and a model of a chicken made entirely out of butter, I kid you not. There was also cake-decorating, with a helpful man who turned the Malaysian sign around to read "Cake Decorating" in English for us. Just incase we wondered why he was adorning a cup-cake with swirly icing. In actual fact we were wondering why someone from the Army was icing a cake, but there didn't seem to be an English sign to explain that one.
I soon homed in on the Air Force stand, with a display of various uniforms and posters that I couldn't read. I could understand the aircraft poster though, and discovered that the Malaysian Air Force also use the Hercules C-130 and the Hawk as a fighter jet. Up until recently, they also trained with the Bulldog. I later chatted to a pilot who could speak very good English and asked him if there were any air cadets here. After a slightly confusing but manageable conversation, we managed to astablish that there are no 'Air Cadets' as we know it, but you can become a cadet for three years before deciding to join up good and proper. There's also three months National Service that's been brought in within the last few years for people who've just finished high school, at about the age of eighteen. There were an amazing amount of familiar bits and pieces scattered about - the Air Publications looked almost identical to ours, and the pilot's last commanding officer happened to be an R.A.F. squadron leader, which surprised me. One difference I noticed was the survival kit stored within each aircraft. If you go down in a plane here you get a comprehensive 'Jungle Survival' pamphlet, along with various hammocks, machetes and 'scary-animal-avoidance-measures'!
There were displays from the dog unit, with Rottweilers to accompany the usual Alsations, and a parachuting display. I was a little apprehensive in the run-up to the jump, as Mr.Pilot from earlier on had told me that there was only a 30% success rate! I said I hoped he meant a 30% failure rate, but alas he said "No, 70% are bad jumps..." Half-expecting three squished jumpers, I was quite relieved when three of them missed the field and landed in nearby trees. One landed in the right place, so he was almost there with the 30%.
The display-of-the-day for me though, and one which I'll never forget, was the Air Force band. I have never before seen a military band play, sing, 'dance' and keep a straight face whilst two ghosts, a man dressed as a woman and a flag-wielding maniac on a bike danced around them. I have now. I wish I could describe it, but it would be stupid to try, so I'll try to put a video up on the internet at some point - it has to be seen!
This evening, after climbing up a hill to a viewpoint for sunset over the city, we returned to the festival for 'cultural entertainment', which turned out to involve being harassed into dancing on stage. Verity and I agreed in the end, as the man was quite persistant and the others didn't look like they were going to budge. It was quite amusing, though the song seemed to go on forever. There was a young girl and a mental middle-aged Malaysian lady up there with us, as the cabaret-style lady belted out a song I couldn't understand. After a while I ran out of generic silly dance moves and we had to result to the Macarena and eventually air-guitar. Depressingly, Malaysians don't seem to like clapping at these events, so the end of the song met with a stony silence and a motionless audience. It wasn't just us being awful, we were the only people clapping the rest of the acts throughout the evening, but it was somewhat unnerving. If you're ever in a band doing a world-tour, don't expect an applause!
We did walk away with a goody bag though, so all is well!
After exhausting our attempts to find the rollerskating place, we decided to go to the recruitment thingy, which I was muchly pleased about as it looked quite interesting! Most of the stands were the usual recruitment-type tents, fairly similar to the ones our forces throw up at public events, but we had the added bonus today of fruit-carving, a Naval ice sculpture and a model of a chicken made entirely out of butter, I kid you not. There was also cake-decorating, with a helpful man who turned the Malaysian sign around to read "Cake Decorating" in English for us. Just incase we wondered why he was adorning a cup-cake with swirly icing. In actual fact we were wondering why someone from the Army was icing a cake, but there didn't seem to be an English sign to explain that one.
I soon homed in on the Air Force stand, with a display of various uniforms and posters that I couldn't read. I could understand the aircraft poster though, and discovered that the Malaysian Air Force also use the Hercules C-130 and the Hawk as a fighter jet. Up until recently, they also trained with the Bulldog. I later chatted to a pilot who could speak very good English and asked him if there were any air cadets here. After a slightly confusing but manageable conversation, we managed to astablish that there are no 'Air Cadets' as we know it, but you can become a cadet for three years before deciding to join up good and proper. There's also three months National Service that's been brought in within the last few years for people who've just finished high school, at about the age of eighteen. There were an amazing amount of familiar bits and pieces scattered about - the Air Publications looked almost identical to ours, and the pilot's last commanding officer happened to be an R.A.F. squadron leader, which surprised me. One difference I noticed was the survival kit stored within each aircraft. If you go down in a plane here you get a comprehensive 'Jungle Survival' pamphlet, along with various hammocks, machetes and 'scary-animal-avoidance-measures'!
There were displays from the dog unit, with Rottweilers to accompany the usual Alsations, and a parachuting display. I was a little apprehensive in the run-up to the jump, as Mr.Pilot from earlier on had told me that there was only a 30% success rate! I said I hoped he meant a 30% failure rate, but alas he said "No, 70% are bad jumps..." Half-expecting three squished jumpers, I was quite relieved when three of them missed the field and landed in nearby trees. One landed in the right place, so he was almost there with the 30%.
The display-of-the-day for me though, and one which I'll never forget, was the Air Force band. I have never before seen a military band play, sing, 'dance' and keep a straight face whilst two ghosts, a man dressed as a woman and a flag-wielding maniac on a bike danced around them. I have now. I wish I could describe it, but it would be stupid to try, so I'll try to put a video up on the internet at some point - it has to be seen!
This evening, after climbing up a hill to a viewpoint for sunset over the city, we returned to the festival for 'cultural entertainment', which turned out to involve being harassed into dancing on stage. Verity and I agreed in the end, as the man was quite persistant and the others didn't look like they were going to budge. It was quite amusing, though the song seemed to go on forever. There was a young girl and a mental middle-aged Malaysian lady up there with us, as the cabaret-style lady belted out a song I couldn't understand. After a while I ran out of generic silly dance moves and we had to result to the Macarena and eventually air-guitar. Depressingly, Malaysians don't seem to like clapping at these events, so the end of the song met with a stony silence and a motionless audience. It wasn't just us being awful, we were the only people clapping the rest of the acts throughout the evening, but it was somewhat unnerving. If you're ever in a band doing a world-tour, don't expect an applause!
We did walk away with a goody bag though, so all is well!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Friday, 15 August 2008
A Traveller's Fortune Telling
We've just arrived back from the island of Mamutik. It's a small island, smaller than Brownsea back at home, but large enough to provide adequate exploring ground for a day. I managed to walk/climb around the outside of it in an hour, without getting my mp3 player wet, which I think's just right for a rock-pooling trip! There was something that made me turn the music off though, and that was the strange scuttling sound that seemed to follow me around the island. Visions of alien-crocodile-monsters initially came to mind, but it soon transpired that every time I stood on a rock, hermit crabs hurried away in all directions in an attempt not to be stood on. They needn't have worried because the last thing I wanted to do in bare feet was to stand on a crab, but they obviously felt threatened. As a result I tried to tread more lightly for the rest of the journey, hoping to see a bit more wildlife. I got the jackpot with two enormous lizards, smaller than a monitor lizard, but much larger than the average creature we'd find at home. In addition, there were jumping fish and all manner of rocky-shore critters that I'd hate to try and identify, (though there was definitely a dogwhelk or two - those days spent down at Kimmeridge with the school weren't wasted...). As for the hermit crabs, well they still dived for cover well before I arrived on their rocks, but I suppose they're quite shady characters anyway so I didn't miss much.
James made us a campfire that lasted long after we'd cooked up our pasta and sauce. I think I must have fully acclimatised now because despite Chloe's fabulous field-cooking, I was actually missing the malay noodles! A man from the island brought out his guitar later on and we played for a while on the beach, which sent everyone to sleep. He left his guitar with us to borrow until the morning, which was nice, and I didn't feel like sleeping early on our one night on a desert island, so we played some more and I took a walk with Zoe in search of crabs. Kota Kinabalu looked completely different from across the water. Infact, it quite resembled Bournemouth or Poole when looking out at night from Studland. In the end I decided it was far too warm to spend the night in the tent, so I joined the others on the beach and woke up to the sun rising up behind Mount Kinabalu. Pretty damn perfect really. We managed to get a swim, breakfast and a game or two with our inflatable ball in before the boats of day-visitors arrived, and I was quite glad that the sea had washed away our sand-creations before groups of irritating tourists trampled all over them. The previous evening we'd made a sand monkey, elephant and gecko, and judging by the way people were mindlessly trampling over the coral (okay so much of it was dead anyway, but even so...), they wouldn't have lasted two minutes.
Our boat drivers appeared during the afternoon to have a swim before taking us back to the mainland. One of them had a grandfather with SEVEN wives! His family had passed down the art of palmistry, so naturally we all had to have our palms read. Mostly, this was quite fun, and although I don't pay toooo much attention to these things, I shall let you know what supposedly lies ahead for me.
He predicted that:
-In a couple of years I will have a good, high paying job, (get in!)
-I'm currently wishing to be a great and interesting person, somebody significant and well known (well, doesn't everybody from time to time?)
-When I return home, somebody that I like will have been missing me, but ultimately whoever I marry (which by the way, is expected to be at the age of 27), will really be in love with somebody else (What a cheery thought.)
-I will however, have two "amazing" children though, so I shouldn't complain. They better like monkeys, mind.
-(Now here's the killer, quite literally) He reckoned my life-line is worryingly short. Apparently I only have until forty at the most, probably thirty, maybe less. Probably not a lot less though, logically speaking, not if I'm getting married at 27. So there we have it, what a future to look forward to - although it does sound potentially quite exciting. If all he predicted comes to be, then in the next nine years I should get an interesting, well-paid job, two "amazing" children and a husband who's in love with another woman. But at least now I know that, I can arrange a quick divorce I suppose...
We're back at the hostel now, and I'm sat typing this with a complimentary cup of Nescafe coffee with real sugar rather than condensed milk and wearing my fantastic (Elena and Helen should translate this as horrendous, but I think everyone else will love them) red and green tie-dyed trousers with funny patterns and fish printed all over them! Well on the way to becoming one of the irritating 'travellers' we keep coming across with stupid travelling trousers, big hair and guide-books coming out of their ears. Need to get back to the jungle soon, I think!
Laters, Rach x
James made us a campfire that lasted long after we'd cooked up our pasta and sauce. I think I must have fully acclimatised now because despite Chloe's fabulous field-cooking, I was actually missing the malay noodles! A man from the island brought out his guitar later on and we played for a while on the beach, which sent everyone to sleep. He left his guitar with us to borrow until the morning, which was nice, and I didn't feel like sleeping early on our one night on a desert island, so we played some more and I took a walk with Zoe in search of crabs. Kota Kinabalu looked completely different from across the water. Infact, it quite resembled Bournemouth or Poole when looking out at night from Studland. In the end I decided it was far too warm to spend the night in the tent, so I joined the others on the beach and woke up to the sun rising up behind Mount Kinabalu. Pretty damn perfect really. We managed to get a swim, breakfast and a game or two with our inflatable ball in before the boats of day-visitors arrived, and I was quite glad that the sea had washed away our sand-creations before groups of irritating tourists trampled all over them. The previous evening we'd made a sand monkey, elephant and gecko, and judging by the way people were mindlessly trampling over the coral (okay so much of it was dead anyway, but even so...), they wouldn't have lasted two minutes.
Our boat drivers appeared during the afternoon to have a swim before taking us back to the mainland. One of them had a grandfather with SEVEN wives! His family had passed down the art of palmistry, so naturally we all had to have our palms read. Mostly, this was quite fun, and although I don't pay toooo much attention to these things, I shall let you know what supposedly lies ahead for me.
He predicted that:
-In a couple of years I will have a good, high paying job, (get in!)
-I'm currently wishing to be a great and interesting person, somebody significant and well known (well, doesn't everybody from time to time?)
-When I return home, somebody that I like will have been missing me, but ultimately whoever I marry (which by the way, is expected to be at the age of 27), will really be in love with somebody else (What a cheery thought.)
-I will however, have two "amazing" children though, so I shouldn't complain. They better like monkeys, mind.
-(Now here's the killer, quite literally) He reckoned my life-line is worryingly short. Apparently I only have until forty at the most, probably thirty, maybe less. Probably not a lot less though, logically speaking, not if I'm getting married at 27. So there we have it, what a future to look forward to - although it does sound potentially quite exciting. If all he predicted comes to be, then in the next nine years I should get an interesting, well-paid job, two "amazing" children and a husband who's in love with another woman. But at least now I know that, I can arrange a quick divorce I suppose...
We're back at the hostel now, and I'm sat typing this with a complimentary cup of Nescafe coffee with real sugar rather than condensed milk and wearing my fantastic (Elena and Helen should translate this as horrendous, but I think everyone else will love them) red and green tie-dyed trousers with funny patterns and fish printed all over them! Well on the way to becoming one of the irritating 'travellers' we keep coming across with stupid travelling trousers, big hair and guide-books coming out of their ears. Need to get back to the jungle soon, I think!
Laters, Rach x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Land Ahoy!
We've decided to go back to our pirate island once again. This time we're taking a tent and a treasure map - 'this time next year Rodney we'll be millionaires.'
Over the last couple of days we've been busy busy with a trip to Poring Hot Springs. I've got to say that the Hot Springs were possibly the weirdest thing we've found. I'm not sure what we were expecting really, but what we got were hundreds of tiny swimming pools with taps to fill them up. As it was absolutely pouring with rain, we decided to explore some of the trails first though, and ended up on a canopy walkway. I've honestly never seen rain like it - even in Madagascar, but maybe that's because we weren't caught in a storm whilst in the forest there. It could be the trees that amplified the effect, but it seemed like the heavens had literally opened and someone had forgotten how to turn the tap off. The walkway must have been 50m high, and was one of those 'wobbly bridge' type structures. Absolutely brilliant - if ever you want to witness things from a monkey's eye-view, this is the place to do it.
We were also lucky enough to see the Rafflesia in bloom. It's the world's largest flower and only opens for a couple of days a year. The taxi driver had asked if we'd like to see it, and it was very cool, but not cool enough to pay the rather large amount they requested on our return to the main road. Thankfully Verity haggled them/bullied them down to a more reasonable offering and we scarpered fairly sharpish. (Having met the smaller group of Cardiff travellers yesterday, we found they'd been well and truly ripped off, so we did rather well in the end!)
Anyway my fellow pirateers are awaiting my presence, and so I must depart for fresh shores. Ta-ra me hearties!
Over the last couple of days we've been busy busy with a trip to Poring Hot Springs. I've got to say that the Hot Springs were possibly the weirdest thing we've found. I'm not sure what we were expecting really, but what we got were hundreds of tiny swimming pools with taps to fill them up. As it was absolutely pouring with rain, we decided to explore some of the trails first though, and ended up on a canopy walkway. I've honestly never seen rain like it - even in Madagascar, but maybe that's because we weren't caught in a storm whilst in the forest there. It could be the trees that amplified the effect, but it seemed like the heavens had literally opened and someone had forgotten how to turn the tap off. The walkway must have been 50m high, and was one of those 'wobbly bridge' type structures. Absolutely brilliant - if ever you want to witness things from a monkey's eye-view, this is the place to do it.
We were also lucky enough to see the Rafflesia in bloom. It's the world's largest flower and only opens for a couple of days a year. The taxi driver had asked if we'd like to see it, and it was very cool, but not cool enough to pay the rather large amount they requested on our return to the main road. Thankfully Verity haggled them/bullied them down to a more reasonable offering and we scarpered fairly sharpish. (Having met the smaller group of Cardiff travellers yesterday, we found they'd been well and truly ripped off, so we did rather well in the end!)
Anyway my fellow pirateers are awaiting my presence, and so I must depart for fresh shores. Ta-ra me hearties!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
I hate banks.
When your debit card won't work abroad, you assume they've blocked you from using it in an unusual country. So when I rang Lloyds last week and finally got through to a real, live human being, I thought they'd be able to help me. Incorrect. Infact, not only did they inform me that there was nothing abnormal with my account, they patronisingly requested me not to call the credit card helpline for debit card enquiries. They then kindly put me through to the right department (incidentally, the phone number I rang was on a webpage entitled 'USING YOUR LLOYDS DEBIT CARD ABROAD...'), who also told me there was nothing wrong. Nobody seemed particularly bothered that despite having a note on my file to state I was in Malaysia for a year, I still couldn't access any funds, or that the card wouldn't bloody well work. In the end, they suggested that I move my entire banking over to Barclays.
So why, if my account is perfectly useable, have I just had an email from Mum to say that the fraud department have been on to her?
I've just been on the phone to the UK for another half an hour, to find that they blocked my card two weeks ago because 'I hadn't informed them I would be in Malaysia', with the added comment of 'perhaps you should have rung sooner.'
Unimpressed. I may start trading in bananas or something much less complicated.
So why, if my account is perfectly useable, have I just had an email from Mum to say that the fraud department have been on to her?
I've just been on the phone to the UK for another half an hour, to find that they blocked my card two weeks ago because 'I hadn't informed them I would be in Malaysia', with the added comment of 'perhaps you should have rung sooner.'
Unimpressed. I may start trading in bananas or something much less complicated.
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Lok Hawi Zoo!
Today we saw an orang-utan riding a golf buggy.
I must say we were a little surprised a) to be faced with a golf buggy coming towards us at a zoo, and b)that it did infact have an orangutan in the passenger seat. I've quite honestly got no idea why it was hitching a lift, where it was going, or whether the driver realised he was carrying an ape around, but it was still quite entertaining.
Other animals in the wildlife park that particularly caught our attention were the gibbons jumping about as if they'd had one too many espressos, the evil-looking western tarsier with its scarily large eyes peering out of the cage, and one of the few remaining sumatran rhinos, although obviously it would be nicer if they were in the wild!
Laura had a plane to catch back to the U.K. this afternoon, so we'd arranged for the Bas-Mini (mini-bus!) driver to collect us from the park at two o'clock. We weren't running too tight for time, but we still didn't really have enough spare for the driver to disappear off into the zoo for 45 minutes 'looking for us' whilst we waited by the taxi, which is exacty what he did. Thankfully Laura got away from the hostel with enough time to spare, so hopefully she's on a plane now!
After re-assessing our budget this evening, we went out on a mission to feed ourselves nice and cost-effectively. We managed to pick a small place without a visible menu and caused utmost confusion as we tried to communicate with the owner. In the end they brought out six plates of fried chicken rice and we ate for 26RM (about four quid for the six of us!) Nicely done!
Off to find Poring National Park tomorrow, so I'll hopefully be able to recount any adventures in a few days time. Laters x
I must say we were a little surprised a) to be faced with a golf buggy coming towards us at a zoo, and b)that it did infact have an orangutan in the passenger seat. I've quite honestly got no idea why it was hitching a lift, where it was going, or whether the driver realised he was carrying an ape around, but it was still quite entertaining.
Other animals in the wildlife park that particularly caught our attention were the gibbons jumping about as if they'd had one too many espressos, the evil-looking western tarsier with its scarily large eyes peering out of the cage, and one of the few remaining sumatran rhinos, although obviously it would be nicer if they were in the wild!
Laura had a plane to catch back to the U.K. this afternoon, so we'd arranged for the Bas-Mini (mini-bus!) driver to collect us from the park at two o'clock. We weren't running too tight for time, but we still didn't really have enough spare for the driver to disappear off into the zoo for 45 minutes 'looking for us' whilst we waited by the taxi, which is exacty what he did. Thankfully Laura got away from the hostel with enough time to spare, so hopefully she's on a plane now!
After re-assessing our budget this evening, we went out on a mission to feed ourselves nice and cost-effectively. We managed to pick a small place without a visible menu and caused utmost confusion as we tried to communicate with the owner. In the end they brought out six plates of fried chicken rice and we ate for 26RM (about four quid for the six of us!) Nicely done!
Off to find Poring National Park tomorrow, so I'll hopefully be able to recount any adventures in a few days time. Laters x
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Pirates and Guitars
It must seem like I'm constantly on the internet, but I can't resist tapping out a quick update when there's a free computer in the hostel!
Yesterday we commandeered (hired) a pirate ship (small boat) and sailed the seven seas (across the harbour) to a desert island (that bit's true). Using our high-tec diving gear (snorkels) we swam with sharks and killer whales (pipe fish and parrot fish), and sat plotting to take over the world (fell asleep and got sunburnt, damnit!) To summarise, it was a very nice day on a sandy beach with warm sea to swim in! There was also a very satisfying moment whereby we used our skillz to hand-craft a volleyball net from driftwood and grass to 'out-game' the group of 'World Challenge' teens, who'd been forced into a ridiculously organised beach olympics for the whole afternoon. We'd bought a beachball in town, and with the emergency whistle for added referee effect, we definitely had the edge!
We met up with the others from Cardiff in the evening and headed to a bar called 'Yesteryears' where an open-mic night happened to be taking place. After much peer pressure, and I mean a serious amount over a period of about two hours, I finally cracked and did a quick 'Big Yellow Taxi' to shut them up. Unfortunately I didn't really suceed in that attempt and a couple of beers later saw a new-found partnership between the dreadlocked singing genius and some merry Brits working their way through the Beatles back-catalogue and many more besides. Need to learn how to say 'no' to these things.
In other news, I am utterly convinced that a ghost is occupying the room opposite ours. All day and all night since we arrived at the 'Stay-In Lodge', there's been a woman in white floating around the corridors. Now I know that some of you had wagers on how long it would take for me to lose my last marbles this year, but I assure you that there is a ghost-lady in our hostel. She's constantly dressed from head to toe in a brilliant white dress witha veil-like headscarf. She's never been seen outside of the hostel, and I imagine that her pasty white features would fry in an instant if she tried. She never utters a word, in any language, so none of us can tell where she might be from. She glides over the floor as if her feet had been replaced by wheels, or my preferred explanation, as if she were hovering above the ground. I can't fathom for the life of me what she could be up to all day, floating about in a trance with a fixed, vacant gaze somewhat reminiscent of something I've seen in a horror film at some point, and so we conclude that she is infact a ghost. If anyone can prove otherwise, that'd be great as it's really rather creepy!
Yesterday we commandeered (hired) a pirate ship (small boat) and sailed the seven seas (across the harbour) to a desert island (that bit's true). Using our high-tec diving gear (snorkels) we swam with sharks and killer whales (pipe fish and parrot fish), and sat plotting to take over the world (fell asleep and got sunburnt, damnit!) To summarise, it was a very nice day on a sandy beach with warm sea to swim in! There was also a very satisfying moment whereby we used our skillz to hand-craft a volleyball net from driftwood and grass to 'out-game' the group of 'World Challenge' teens, who'd been forced into a ridiculously organised beach olympics for the whole afternoon. We'd bought a beachball in town, and with the emergency whistle for added referee effect, we definitely had the edge!
We met up with the others from Cardiff in the evening and headed to a bar called 'Yesteryears' where an open-mic night happened to be taking place. After much peer pressure, and I mean a serious amount over a period of about two hours, I finally cracked and did a quick 'Big Yellow Taxi' to shut them up. Unfortunately I didn't really suceed in that attempt and a couple of beers later saw a new-found partnership between the dreadlocked singing genius and some merry Brits working their way through the Beatles back-catalogue and many more besides. Need to learn how to say 'no' to these things.
In other news, I am utterly convinced that a ghost is occupying the room opposite ours. All day and all night since we arrived at the 'Stay-In Lodge', there's been a woman in white floating around the corridors. Now I know that some of you had wagers on how long it would take for me to lose my last marbles this year, but I assure you that there is a ghost-lady in our hostel. She's constantly dressed from head to toe in a brilliant white dress witha veil-like headscarf. She's never been seen outside of the hostel, and I imagine that her pasty white features would fry in an instant if she tried. She never utters a word, in any language, so none of us can tell where she might be from. She glides over the floor as if her feet had been replaced by wheels, or my preferred explanation, as if she were hovering above the ground. I can't fathom for the life of me what she could be up to all day, floating about in a trance with a fixed, vacant gaze somewhat reminiscent of something I've seen in a horror film at some point, and so we conclude that she is infact a ghost. If anyone can prove otherwise, that'd be great as it's really rather creepy!
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
Friday, 8 August 2008
Pictures!
I thought it was about time to put up some photos from the last couple of weeks!
The Kinabatangan River at dusk.
A Proboscis Monkey settling down for the evening.
The black-backed kingfisher
(probably the best-coloured bird in the world, ever, surely!?)
Orang-utan ...
...and finally... me. My first leech bite, spectacularly positioned to look like a gun-shot wound. I did consider labelling this as 'The Final Straw', given the massive knife in my hand, but thought that might scare the parents a little. It really was just a leech, Mum.
Until next time...
Until next time...
I created this blog to document my year living in the jungle in Kinabatangan, Sabah.
I work in animal care at a rescue centre and as a freelance writer.
Follow me on Twitter @Rachelhenson
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