I'm now currently back at fieldbase wallowing in a pit of melancholy following my return from Danum Valley where I've been out for three weeks. Regretting the decision now to take up a fieldbase role rather than project - still no point crying over spilt milk and all of that.
Since the last post have been around to a couple of places. I went out to the opening ceremony for Charl's gravity water feed system in Sesondoton. That was really cool, the minister for Youth and Sport attended so it was a big occasion for the village and they turned out in full. Top of the entertainment was Charl and her group trying out their skills at the local cultural dancing (unfortunately photo's on Charl's camera - watch this space). The evening was Karaoke (no suprises) and the unimpressed look from the local elders when charl's group manged to plug in an ipod and all fifteen got up to belt out "By the Way" by the Chilli's was priceless.
(Imbak river before and after rainfall)
Changeover happens at a hotel called Borneo Paradise which certainly is paradise compared to some of the project sites. Got my camera back as I managed to leave it in Imbak previously - check out the before and after photo's of the river i was talking about in my last post (above). It's a rare opportunity for me and Charl to catch up for a while as the participants take care of themselves & hang out by the pool and we got time to grab a landrover and go for a coffee in KK.
(Charl & I at the Borneo Paradise beach at sunset.)
(Danum Valley field centre seen from a suspension bridge upriver)
I then had to be up at four thirty for our early bus to Danum. Danum Valley is a protected area of primary rainforest in the middle of a logging concession area. It's a world renowned site for scientific study and probably the most biodiverse area of rainforest of it's kind. We stayed intially at a camp Raleigh built in 2004 which was just up from the fieldcentre itself before moving onto our worksite camp (imaginatively labelled Bridge camp - the project being a bridge build)
(Menggaris camp - built by Raleigh '04, where we stayed initially)
(Bridge Camp)
(The Bedroom)
(the commute to work in the morning)
The camp is basically just a longhouse with a tarp covering it on a trekking path along the river. Our work was continuing to build a suspension bridge which would allow better access for scientists to a different part of the jungle. We spent the first week filling Gabbions (big steel cages) with rocks, an intricate process which involved picking up big rocks from the river and moving up a human chain 100m to the bridge posts. Completely mindless labour but in it's own way really quite fun, I'm now an expert at rock rugby. We then had to help the rangers get the cables across and for the last few days we moved back to field centre so some of the guys could help scientists dig up termites as part of their research - none of the above may sound that exciting in it's own right but it certainly beats making sales calls.
(Our group at the worksite following the infamous post working day mudfight)
(taking the bridge cables across the river - thankfully low at the time)
(View upriver from our worksite in the evening as the mist begins to form)
(series of waterfalls known as the Rhino Pools just up from bridgesite)
We saw a whole plethora of wildlife including elephants, orang-utans, gibbons, red leaf & longtail monkeys, snakes, lizards, flying lemurs, tassiers, bearded pigs and pretty much every form of bug you can imagine (most of which tried to sting, bite or spray acidic urine at me - yes I did somehow manage to pick up small acid burns on my leg which apparantly came from startling some small animal, top marks for bizarre jungle injury to me).
(Tassier)
(Random freaky black & red millipede)
(Pill Bug)
(Chameleon)
(Rhino Beetle - I think)
(one of many hand sized nastly looking spiders)
Top wildlife incidents included our lunchtime monkey visitor who was partial to the fig tree above our camp and seemed to make a sport of chucking half eaten figs down at us ( he also once then proceeded to follow up with his post lunch urination, soaking a girl's washing she had out on the line - giving us great comedy ammunition for the last few days), we did make a catapult to try and resolve this issue but unfortuantley couldn't make it powerful enough for the desired range. We also had a bearded pig who would reguarly do his best to trash our camp and at various times ate several bars of soap, packets of anti-malarials, shaving foam and a razor (this guy could eat anything without any ill effects, the true Ned of the jungle world) - we came back one afternoon to find him dragging off Sam's (another PM) entire rucksack into the surrounding jungle, at that point we started to keep a pile of thowable rocks handy as a deterrent. We did try the simple tactic of hitting it with a stick but it was a bit too wily for that and always legged it at the last minute.
(bearded big - and general camp nemesis"
(Bad tempered elephant from section below, unfortunately my zoom is rubbish so this is the best shot i could get)
The most heart stopping moment was witnessing this big old bull elephant almost stomping these two American tourists into the ground. We'd been up on an observation tower elephant spotting and clocked this big old fella with a full set of tusks come out and wonder up and down the track. We eventually (and in retrospect rather stupidly) agreed to the persistent requests to go down and get a closer look, we followed at a distance but as he went round a corner we heard him basically let loose an elephant war cry. The guy up the front of our lot let loose a rather scared sounding expelitive. I don't know if anyone's ever heard the sound a fully grown charging elephant can make but the cry is so loud it goes resonates right through you, it really is the sound of impending death. Have to hold my hands up - at this stage i'd turned to run, however we then heard a couple of screams from further up the road. There'd been a couple of intrepid Aamerican tourists coming the other way down the road as they stopped to try and take photo's the elephant decided he'd had enough and charged them. They we were really lucky because they dived into the jungle and got behind a tree but he followed them in but just missed them. We honestly thought we were going to find two stomped and gored people and we just getting psyched for some pretty traumatic first aid.
Anyway - the moral of the story is if being pestered by a bunch of late-teens to get a closer look at an elephant say no because a) they're really big, b) they're ill-tempered and c) you never know when some random american tourist will turn up and irritate it further.
(Elliott & Jackson on guitars on our beach party night down by the river)
(Me with Pippa & Sam the other two PM's in our group at our end of phase fancy dress party. In case anyone doesn't recognise me I'm on the right, dressed as a pirate with a genuine three week old jungle beard)
On a lighter note my other high points of life at bridge camp included learning how to play "banana pancakes" by Jack Johnson on the guitar, reading the entire Fables translation of "the Illiad" and getting the entire group into the habit of saying "anyone... Beuller..... Fry...." after someone says "anyone" even though most of them have never seen the film as they're too young. Managing the group was a laugh other than the fact that being an old timer now it was a continual battle to retain my empathy for what it was like being 17 / 18 years old and not resort to "hit with big stick" tactics.
(Jungle Sunset)
(The old up & under - can't beat it)
((our hastily put together football team for the end of phase match against the rangers. We lost 12-6 which sounds bad but in terms of ratio that's only 2-1 so it was actually a close game. Of course our team was seriously impeded when an ankle injury put paid to my contribution with twenty minutes to go)
I'm now back at fieldbase and hoping I get to go back to Imbak for 10 days next week as there's a staff member out there who may come out. Even if that doesn't come off I've got opening ceremonies if Longpas'sia, Danum and Miruru to go to to will be back out on the road at least.
Thanks again to anyone who's had the patience to read through all this stuff and left some comments. In repsonse to a couple of the last ones:
Fresher - it is indeed a lot of writing for me. Most people out here are keeping paper journals on a daily basis. I reckon this suits me better as a diary as 1) I can't lose it 2 ) it's legible and 3) it won't get torn up and used as emergency toilet paper when i've eaten some dodgy curry. Thanks for reminding me about the coursework of doom though - ten years and I'd just about managed to forget that particular trauma.
Bro - good to hear from you, hope the new job is going well.
James, hope you & Naomi are good. If you're thinking of getting back out on the road Charl & I will prob still be out early next year if you're heading to the southern hemisphere.
Linda & Les - a bottle of wine and few cold beers are sounding pretty good after I've been off the sauce for almost three months, Dad didn't end up singing "Wild Rover" did he ?
Thanks again for anyone whose read through all this - probably be Charl you hear from next. She comes off project on 9th May and I'm sure she's dying to tell you all some fascinating information about installing gravity water feed systems and post about 30 photo's of grinning little Malaysian kiddies from her village.
Cheers
Si
m)
