11 OCT 09

Goldcliff Wetlands, South Wales

An American in Cardiff

I've had (nocturnal) Rachel staying with me in Cardiff this week. She's been learning things at the university (which is more than can be said for a lot of the Freshers I've bumped into this week, but that's another story) and I took the opportunity to show her around Cardiff. True to form nothing goes to plan and these, I believe, will be the most memorable moments of her trip:

1. Shortly after arriving we encountered a middle-aged lady wearing a washing basket on her head.

2. Dismembered pigeon wings on the pavement.

3. Hoards of screaming, drunk students littering the streets.

4. Having to call an ambulance to assist a man with a bleeding head after being bottled after a football match on Thursday evening.

5. Witnessing a passer-by ask a homeless man for 'change for a fiver' and proceeding to walk off when the homeless man pointed out that he somewhat lacked spare change.

So I apologise firstly to Rachel for such a strange visit to Cardiff, and also to Wales, for not giving our cross-Atlantic friends a very good impression of what I consider a fine, fine city!

01 OCT 09

The summer may be over but the sun's still shining in Cardiff, *touch wood*, and therefore I haven't quite missed the boat for an update of the warmer months!

The Great Dorset Steam Fair, which takes place near Blandford each year, was just as busy and steamy as ever. An endless supply of engines, tractors, horses, cider, cars, fair rides and every variety of dog known to man made for an interesting week with the addition of 'Steam Sounds', the latest attempt to occupy trouble-makers in the evenings and provide the eccentric enthusiasts with some light entertainment. Of course, in reality, the enthusiasts were probably still up to their knees in coal throughout the night, but the rest of us witnessed some musical wonders including 'Winston the Singing Farmer'. Ingenious. Also playing (at every available opportunity) was my little brother 'Ant'.


I don't think it's possible to see everything in the five days but you can certainly start to tire of trudging around in the mud, and a highlight for me was taking time out to watch the falconry display.


But naturally, given that it bears the proud title of STEAM fair, the main attraction is the enormous number of steam engines that accumulate in the quiet fields of Dorset each September. I would be surprised to find anything quite like it anywhere else in the world; 200,000 visitors took the steam pilgrimmage to the 41st event. Agricultural machinery, Showmans' engines and the heavy haulage engines all draw large audiences, but my personal favourites will always be the beautiful machines that power the old fairground rides...

16 AUG 09

I've been back for almost a month, although it doesn't seem possible! The jungle feels like it happened in a different lifetime, which it did to some extent I suppose.

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster month at home. Catching up with friends and family, dealing with the loss of Gran and the final stages of her debilitating dementia, work experience at the local newspaper, getting back in the musical loop with Camp Bestival at Lulworth Castle and the general adaptations to English life have pretty much taken it out of me in the last few weeks but, weirdly, I've enjoyed most of it.

This weekend in particular has been fantastic. I promised myself to do some touristy things this summer to reacquaint myself with the wonders of our little island, so I did.
I decided at seven o'clock yesterday morning that I would make the most of the summer deal with South West Trains. By the time Big Ben struck eleven o'clock I was stood underneath it with Lisa and Dom. A quick walk around Westminster and a tube ride to Camden Town led us to meet another school friend, Hannah. Lisa and Dom fit the loosely defined term 'artfag' remarkably well. This means they like to bury their heads in books, listen to music that nobody's ever heard of and take an interest in obscure but intriguing things. With these two at the reigns we ended up standing inside the Roundhouse Theatre looking at an installation by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame). It goes by the name of 'Playing the Building' and consists of a small electric organ wired up to the metal pipes keeping the roof up. As a result of pressing various keys a series of clunks, whistles and rumbles can be heard from corresponding pipes and 'hey presto', you're 'playing the building'. It is, in all honesty, weird, but quite a good way to waste some time if you're an ex-popstar with some spare cash and a slightly addled brain. It also gave us something to do before lunch! And lunch in Camden Market meant that I could have NOODLES, which I've missed!!!

Today I drove school-friend-3, Karen, from Wareham to Glastonbury where we met up with my parents. We drank lots of tea, tried on capes of many colours, browsed bookshops full of second-hand spell guides and eventually climbed up the Tor to visit St.Michael's Tower and see the view over Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire.

I've pretty much adjusted to being back now. The only time it feels a bit weird is when I wake up at night and can't hear any insects, although I still check under my pillow for centipedes. Other things it's hard to get used to include not being able to order a Tiger Beer at a bar, getting strange looks for bidding people 'jumpan' instead of a 'see you later' and mistaking a grey squirrel rustling leaves for a long-tailed macaque. Mistakes anyone could make, I'm sure.

Love to all on the other side of the planet!
Rachel x

15 JUL 09

Rachel, Milena and I at the water-cooler

I can't believe how the time has flown in the last few weeks. It seems like yesterday we were counting down the weeks until 'home-time', and tomorrow we'll be heading towards the airport in just a couple of hours.

The fieldcourse was still in full-swing when we left the jungle yesterday. I'd been helping with the 5am and 5pm primate surveys, along with various other bits and bobs. Our last day was over-ridden by an unshiftable sense of anticipation. It's hard to know what to do when you know you're leaving the next day... walk in the jungle? Help the students? Hang around with the staff? Pack? Finish the newsletter? Drink copious amounts of the addictive Milo drink? In the end I flitted between all of the aforementioned and didn't really get a lot done. I had a brilliant day though. I'd heard a flanged male orangtuan calling in one of the botanical plots and was determined to find him, having not seen an orangutan for nearly three weeks. Unfortunately the forest was flooded and I hadn't believed our lecturer when he said the water was waist-deep at some points. I found that out for myself as the ground fell away beneath the water and I ended up submerging both my camera and my phone. Remarkably, both suvived! I couldn't quite get to the orangutan site, so I about-turned and ran the long way along the circular trail to get back to the same place. As I was running, which is never the best idea in a jungle, I tried my best to absorb the jungle-ness around me, not really minding that I wouldn't see much wildlife at high-speeds. So I was a little taken aback when I came face-to-tail with a King Cobra! This magnificent snake is massive, and although this one was probably no thicker than my wrists, it was about four metres long. I watched it slither across the path and followed it until it reached the hollow of a nearby tree and disappeared inside. I didn't find the orangutan but I certainly can't complain about that!!!

We then took a boat-ride to Batu Puteh with Zainal to say goodbye. The last day has been constant 'Jumpa lagi's (see you again) and the like. I'm pretty knackered, but will be home in a couple of days, where I plan to re-aquaint myself with the sofa and cheese-sandwiches.

It's been a long year that has passed exceptionally quickly. It's been far too long since I've seen people at home, yet time has flown, and I honestly can't believe I won't be here in forty-eight hours time!

Saya akan rindu Sabah. I'll miss Sabah.

07 JUL 09

Hello again!

It's a very busy week. The Cardiff students have arrived for this year's field course, and there are about 34 people milling about the centre today. So far it's gone very well, with the major drama being partly my fault. I lent a butterfly net to some colleagues in Sukau, not realising that it was, infact, our only net. I was happily listening to a talk about butterfly catching when it dawned on me that nobody would be catching any butterflies at all if we didn't get the net back. Unfortunately this only occured to me at ten o'clock at night! Frantic phonecalls ensued and eventually we managed to locate the net and arrange for it to be picked up the next day. I hopped on the boat to pick it up at Batu Puteh after finishing our 5.30am monkey-survey!

I've been allocated to the primate surveys, which means that we start very early and finish quite late, but have most of the day off in between. This is just as well as we still have a mountain of work to get done before we depart the jungle next week. As a result I'm quite sleepy and minorly panicking about getting everything finished but otherwise fine. It's nice to have some excited, new faces to talk to at mealtimes.

I'll write more when I get the chance.
Much love,
Rachel x

21 JUN 09

Earlier in the week we had some unexpected visitors. I accompanied a guest on an evening boat ride, in the hopes that I would be able to answer his questions and point out interesting wildlife. Although I've come a long way from similar activities seven months ago, where a "What's that?!" would be answered with "I don't know... a bird?", my job was made an awful lot easier when we encountered a group of elephants. We knew they would be somewhere in the area, making their way down the riverbanks, but since their last visit to 'our jungle' in October, we've not seen them around. We spent a warm sunset watching them chilling out by the edge of the river, their large heads visible above the aptly named elephant grass. Soon it became dark and we made our way back to the field centre.

The following afternoon we set out on a mission to find the elephants again. I kept my fingers crossed, not least because Chloe and Rachel weren't with us yesterday. I'd remembered for once to put on my sunglasses as winged insects seem to have believe that my eyes are in their designated flight-paths, and thrown on my spare pair of flip-flops after the others had spontaneously fallen apart the day before. I was just negotiating my way down from the rickety jetty into the boat when my sunglasses fell off of my face! Salen, our boat-driver for the afternoon, tried his hardest to fish them out, but they were probably already resting on the nose of a crocodile further downriver.
This small niggle aside, we tried to locate the elephants, but our efforts were in vain. We weren't the only people trying to find them, as Datuk Michelle Yeoh was also in the area trying to film them. She'd been staying in Sukau whilst we were there, but even if we'd bumped into each other I wouldn't have realised it as I'm notoriously bad for recognising people. I really should have twigged with this one though as she's played a Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies and was also in Memoirs of a Geisha. We returned home slightly disappointed at having missed the elephants, but still chuckling at getting a wave from a filmstar on a jungle river.
No sooner had we arrived back than we received information from a shady character that infact the elephants were now with the film crew. Salen resigned himself to a second attempt and started the engine. I jumped into the boat with such force that I broke another flip-flop. Naturally I'd broken the same one (the left, or the 'flip') so I now have two right shoes and no left ones.
We managed to catch the elephants before it got dark, and despite the presence of film crew and equipment it was a very enjoyable evening. A highlight was watching the camera-man fall down the river bank after jumping at a particularly loud 'trumpeting'. I'll try my hardest to get the video clip on here when I can work out how to remove it from my camera!

Rachel

16 JUN 09

Before heading back to the jungle from Kota Kinabalu we took a slight detour to bid farewell to our friends in Sukau. It was our last visit to the village for the foreseable future, certainly for this stay in Malaysia.
Whilst there we sorted out our data/computer issues with Mislin, visited some old friends in a village further downriver and were able to spend some time with the family at the homestay. We also took another trip to the study site where the orangutan-staff were following Jenny and her baby Mallotus. They were particularly 'un-bovvered', munching on leaves in a particularly tall tree, but it was a nice way to spend a day and say goodbye to the field-staff, for the time-being at least!

Of course, there's still a month to go, and a busy one at that. There are lots of jungle visitors scheduled in for the next four weeks, as well as the 2009 field course coming out from Cardiff... I have a feeling it's going to be a hectic time!

More soon,
Rachel