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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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