24 FEB 08

Mum and Dad should be a considerable way towards London now. I was a little concerned that we weren't going to catch our own flight yesterday evening. We'd been ushered into the departures lounge where a soundproof, glass wall separates those waiting to board and those lurking in the corridor, like my parents. For some reason we thought it would be possible to continue our conversation through the wall using a combination of mobile phone screens, waving arms about and mouthing words at each other. We were so carried away trying to work out what they were saying that a glance behind us showed an empty departure lounge, so we made a dash for the plane before they decided we'd taken too long!

We spent the last couple of days of their trip in Singapore. We visited Chinatown and Little India, the zoo and the night safari and the Hard Rock Cafe.

The night safari was brilliant; it's like going to the zoo after hours when the animals are generally unaware of your presence. Of course, this depends on whether you're being loud and annoying or not, which rather a lot of visitors didn't quite seem to grasp. When we managed to lose the noisy people we saw the most interesting things, our favourites of which were the flying squirrel 'flying' from tree to tree in its enclosure and the beautiful clouded leopard. The leopard was nowhere to be seen, but a little patience and an absense of shouting tourists led to watching him stalk around his dimly lit enclosure.The Hard Rock Cafe was also a place to be remembered. The first visit was only intended so that I could visit the gift shop in search of a particular U2 t-shirt and have a browse of the memorabilia inside. It resulted in us staying all evening to watch a live band perform classic rock covers. 'Thanks' to Chloe and Dad I ended up singing a U2 song with them, which was a lot of fun but very strange as the band were so professional sounding and I felt like a real stage invader! Anyway, the manager seemed quite happy with it and our drinks were on the house!
Now we're back in Sabah to concentrate on the orangutans again...

13 FEB 09

After a tense 48 hours last week wondering whether or not the snow would lift enough for Heathrow to begin operating like a normal airport again, Mum and Dad walked into the Arrivals Lounge of Kota Kinabalu airport.

The last eight days have been so busy that I've not had time to write anything, but I'll highlight a couple of our momentous points before the cafe who's internet we're using closes. It's just taken Dad over an hour to type three emails because he's not used to this laptop and has been repeatedly deleting and re-typing them. At least it's nice and warm outside; I imagine that sitting outside a shop at midnight typing an email in England is the last thing most people would be doing in the current weather situation.

Today we visited Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. For me this was the third trip in seven months, but orangutans never get old. Well, they obviously get old but not 'old'. Mum and Dad loved it (I think), and we watched several orangutans feeding on the specially built platform.
There was a young orangutan who seemed intent on winding up the adults in any way he could. This started with a mild pestering of his mother when he'd had his fill of bananas . Not getting anywhere he opted for swinging away from the platform along the rope, designed to protect the nearby saplings from the hungry mob twice a day, and bounding back onto the platform to stand over 'Mum' expectantly. Seeing that 'Mum' was still engrossed in her fruit-feast he chanced a tug at her fur, which resulted in an unimpressed look and Mum turning to face the other direction. The little one then turned to face Dad who was concentrating on a particularly juicy looking piece of lunch and climbed on top of him. Dad shook him off and gave him a very definite 'Do that again and I'll clock you one' stare. He went back to hang around on the rope for a while before getting fed up and swinging over to wind up a family of macaques who were patiently waiting for any leftovers from the great ape feeding session.
The next time I saw him swing into view he was holding a branch twice as long as he was tall in his left foot and trying to maneuvre back to the platform with his prize. I'm convinced he wasn't trying to be awkward, but like so many small children his intentions went misunderstood, and hitting his mother on the head with it whilst trying to drag it onto level ground didn't go down very well. She grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him back to a behaving, sitting position. Sulkily he snatched an entire bunch of bananas and retreated to the rope with the bunch grasped in his feet.
The 'eyes-bigger-than-stomach syndrome' soon set in though and he flumped down next to Dad in search of attention. None came his way, so he started poking his father. This, understandably, was as appreciated as accidentally hitting his mother on the head with a tree branch and resulted in a wrestling match with Dad, who must have been at least four times his size and weight. As we left, the little one stood up looking very proud of himself and probably would have been able to walk away with his head held high, but he chanced one last swipe at Dad and the fiasco recommenced, just as the park closed and we were ushered away from the feeding area.

The jungle's been flooded since the day Mum and Dad (human versions) arrived and it's been touch and go as to whether we'll be able to get there or not, but fingers crossed...

02 FEB 09

It's been over six months since I left Britain to come to Sabah. With five and a half left to go and an awful lot of work left uncompleted I'm starting to see my remaining time disappear faster than a chocolate bar in an ants nest. It doesn't seem possible that in the time I've been out here one friend has moved to work in Geneva, Christmas has come and gone without any mince pie consumption, friends are applying for 'proper jobs' and panicking about being an authentic grown-up and my little brother will have finished his first year at university before I so much as touch down at Heathrow Airport...

...however I'm still very much here and enjoying every second of it. Although we haven't spent a lot of time in the jungle recently, we have had time to get to know the charms of Kota Kinabalu. We've become semi regular attendees of Amir Yussof's open-mic evenings at the 'Office Pub' and invaded more than one game of badminton. Playing badminton on a real court rather than outside the field centre using the path as our net, and regularly tripping over tree roots and rocks, has been really good fun and I'm confident that less shuttlecocks will end up on the roof of the centre when we return. The fact that we're beaten by two thirteen year olds every time should probably be overlooked, but we're thankful that they let us play in the first place so Ellie and Nathan must get a mention!

After an extended deadline I've finally handed in my primate project from the July fieldcourse and sent off an article for our student newspaper 'gair rhydd'. Not very exciting stuff to tell you I'm afraid, but it's nice to have a sense of completing something without the mad rush that all too often accompanies that feeling back in Cardiff. Maybe it's the place, the lack of other things that 'have to be done' or maybe it's the weather, but had this week occured in Cardiff I would have ended up the coffee-fuelled, stressed-out, sleep-deprived wreck that multiple deadlines on the same day have a habit of creating out of otherwise average students. This time the only similarity is sleep deprivation, but that can be attributed to having the internet and trying to stay in sync with Europe on MSN and Facebook.

Rather bizarrely, on Thursday night I shall be picking up my parents from the airport. It's strange because it seems like a complete parent-child role reversal. Thinking back to all of the guide camps, school trips, cadet expeditions andthat adventure to Madagascar, the amount of times Mum asked whether I'd remembered *Insert useful/useless object here* and Dad quizzed me on drop-off times are uncountable. The last few days have been the complete opposite, with me sending emails to ask whether they've remembered things like a hat and suncream which probably seem ridiculous items to pack if you're sitting with frost on the windows and a cat that refuses to go outside because of the freezing temperatures. And however many times I tell myself when the plane gets in, I still have something in the back of my mind that asks whether I've got the right day/month/year/country. I have visions of Mum and Dad standing in arrivals at Kuala Lumpur airport wondering why I haven't turned up yet...
...but we'll see.