November... rainy season is upon us

After Thailand we headed to Danau Girang for the night, it was lovely to have another catch up with the other PTY’s and her about what they had been doing and what they had decided to do for their placement projects. The next day we met Mark from the field centre who was going to test our driving in Sabah on the lovely, civilised roads!! Naomi went first and drove us safely on the two-hour trip to Sandakan although here sense of direction was entertaining, once there we had a few bits and pieces we needed to collect before lunch. For lunch Mark took us to a little English tea garden, where they had a croquet set laid out on the lawn and English country decorations, we didn’t have any tea but we had amazing pink lemonade, gooey chocolate brownies and cheese cake. On the way home it was my turn to drive, despite the roads looking lethal with cars over taking and under taking everywhere and big holes in the road, it was quite nice to be driving again and I got my sleeping passenger back to Batu Puti safely!

The next few days we spent at the house in Lahad Datu sorting photographs and seeing how many of my itunes songs we could play, I think we made to 140 songs in one day. After a few days Naomi and I headed back into the forest. Whilst in the forest we went to clear some vegetation by one of the salt licks, I went ahead in the car with one of the boys to clear vegetation at the end of the road. As we got to the end of the road, I looked up and disappearing into the vegetation at the other side of the clearing was 3 banteng! A male, a female and a juvenile! It was amazing and my first sighting of banteng in day light but my second sighting of these very elusive creatures, am I the Banteng whisperer?!

The beginning of November meant that it was time to take on Dad in the Plank Challenge! You can’t put a challenge in front of Naomi and I and not expect us to complete it, so starting with a very easy 20 seconds of plank and building through the month. We finally managed 4 minutes 33seconds on day 30, I think you won dad. As rainy season is now upon us, torrential rain and spectacular thunder and lightning are a daily occurrence, sometimes so close that the floors in the house shake and the night sky lights up just like day time. When we were not working, and in the evenings when we were escaping from the lightening, we had time to get on with our project proposals. I have decided to look at the foraging behaviour and the diet of the banteng. In order to do this I am going to use the camera trap pictures of banteng eating that we have collected. From these pictures I will look at when and where banteng forage ad then try and identify what they are eating! 

In the evenings between work I also had time to do some running, which was a nice change from walking around in smelly jungle clothes and a great chance to see the wildlife, which one night included Bobby the resident one eyed pig that lives around the house and a snake which was crossing the track.

A photograph of a misty sunrise in the jungle.

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Phuket Visa Run

After 3 months of jungle life Naomi and I headed to Phuket, Thailand for a much-needed week off. We had arranged to meet my dad, Lisa and Katie in Phuket and Dad had booked the hotel, arranged an airport pick up and forwarded the information, as we were in the jungle, so all we had to do was to get ourselves there, thanks Dad. We caught the bus to Sandakan in the north of Sabah, the bus was nothing like I had expected, with two levels, a tv and complimentary water, we even had extra entertainment from a little girls playing peek-a-boo through the seats. The taxi to the airport was a bit more like I had expected, the car was like an old Nissan, but in red with a white bonnet and boot. The driver’s seat was so low it looked like he should be scraping on the road, but the car ran perfectly and we made it to the tiny airport safely and checked in at the desk for our flight.

After a ten-hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur Airport, where we used the internet to catch up with the world, we hopped on another flight to Phuket. The plane was very empty but in the flight of just over an hour Air Asia still managed to serve us a fantastic meal, yes I ate aeroplane food! We arrived in Phuket at 4.50 am and went to find our hotel transfer whilst avoiding the other pestering taxi drivers.

We were welcomed into the hotel's huge lobby where we were given complimentary cookies J before being shown to our room. Having been up since 6.30am the previous day we thought we’d catch up on some sleep and then head out to get some brunch, but after 2 hours of trying to sleep we were both wide awake, so got up and went for  walk to the sea front. After rice and noodles for 3 months, we were very glad to find a little restaurant on the edge of the beach that served fresh juice and pizzas and had the bonus of free wifi. After this we headed back to our room for an afternoon of making the most of more internet, aircon and an amazing hot shower, before heading back out to the beach for gourmet burgers and a beer!

With body clocks still on jungle time Naomi and I were awake with the sun and excited about the buffet breakfast. The breakfast was amazing, we had pancakes and bacon, pastries, juices, fresh fruit, cereal and bread and butter pudding! Later in the morning Lisa, Katie and the Birthday Boy arrived, they were not quite as alive as Naomi and I after there long haul flight so the rest of the day was spent by the swimming pool.

The next morning the beach and the sea were calling and the Ironman wanted to show me his swimming, so we all headed down to the beach for a swim in the sea and a run on the beach before another monstrous breakfast and the heat of the day. In the afternoon we headed across to Phuket town to do some shopping and get some dinner, yes breakfast kept me full until dinner!

On Wednesday there was a scuba diving taster session in the hotel swimming pool, being a person who likes to try everything and a lover of water I was keen to give it a go! It was amazing and resulted in us booking onto a day of scuba diving for the Friday, this I was very excited about. In the afternoon we thought it would be rude to go all the way to thailand and not to have a thai massage on the beach front, mine was soo nice that I struggled to get back off the bed once the lady had finished!

On Thursday after our morning exercise on the beach and breakfast, Naomi, Katie and I decided to do some sight-seeing so headed to the south of the Island, guided by our lovely taxi driver. We first went to the Chalong temple a huge Buddhist temple covered in intricate red, green and gold detailing and colourful murals showing the life of Buddha. The temple is said to have a piece of Buddha bone in the top of the high tower and is very popular with tourists who go to pay the respects to the monks who have protected the locals in the past. After the temples we headed to the Big Buddaha, this is an unfinished 45m tall monument of Buddha that was started in 2004 and is built primarily from donations, it is situated on the top of a hill giving a great view out over Chalong bay.

On the way back to the hotel the taxi driver suggested we should visit other places like Fantasia- the elephant circus show, and Tiger Kingdom, little did he know that he was trying to persuade Ecology and Zoology student to pay money to go and see elephants and tigers locked in cages and on chains... i think not! He did however suggest we went to see the Simon Cabaret show which is where we headed that evening! The lady boys of the Simon cabaret show were scarily feminine and left me a little bit shocked and confused, how could guys look so girly?! After the show we went to into a nearby town for dinner and to look around the evening market, we ate in a busy little restaurant, where Lisa ordered a glass of wine and one of the young waiters accidently poured her a glass of fruit syrup! Whoops!

Friday was the day of Scuba diving, we were picked up from the hotel and taken down to the boat in the south of the Island. Once on board we met Simon our diving instructor and he went through the basics of diving with us! We went to two dive locations around the Racha Island and on the first dive we spent 45 minutes at 11.5 meters! When we came up and Simon told us this I was amazed as I thought we’d only been in the water about 10 minutes and I thought we were only just under the surface!!  The water was very clear and the plants and sea creatures were incredible, on the first dive we focused on regulating the pressures in our ears and trying to swim in a straight line.. not as easy as you think.. but on the second dive we were able to look around more and we saw a sea snake, rays and thousands of fish. The boat went to a third dive site where we had the chance to go snorkelling, dad and I thought this would be fun, until I jumped in and got stung by jelly fish! Ouch! On the boat the wonderful staff kept us fed, with breakfast, lunch and amazing pineapple and banana fritters. We also met a lovely couple from Australia who were holidaying in Phuket and when we got talking we discovered that ‘Tegan Jones’ was of welsh ancestry; well she had to be with a name like that!

Saturday was our last day in Thailand, so we decided to have a relaxing day by the beach and the pool. After a game of water polo we headed for the water slide... on the water slide there was a Chinese lady wearing denim shorts, these shorts were not slippery at all so she gave up trying to slide down the slide and walked down it instead. After she’d gone around the last bend of the slide Katie and I waited a while before racing down, as I got near the last bend I caught a glimpse of the lady still walking.. uh oh.. but I was going soo fast that I couldn’t stop and before either of us knew it I knocked her legs from underneath her and took her flying off the end of the slide with me, unfortunately getting her hat wet!!

In the evening we headed to the weekend evening market just outside the old Phuket town, the market was bustling with locals and tourists wandering the lines of stalls selling clothes, CD’s and food. Dad was quite content when he found himself a little bar that sold beers and had a tv and fan, so we left him there while we girls shopped! As this was our last night in Thailand dad thought it was only fitting that we tried one of the delicacies.. deep fried insects! I opted for a grasshopper and it just tasted like any other crunchy deep fried food really, it was just the thought of ts little legs that creeped me out!  We finished our holiday with dinner and cocktails by the beach before packing up, saying goodbye to the family and heading for the Airport.

We landed in Sandakan Airport on Sunday at 12.15pm and the last bus back to Lahad Datu was at 1pm.. it was going to be tight! The airport is tiny so we thought it might be okay but the bags took an age to come through and the taxi queue was long! When we finally got in the driver looked at us as if we were crazy as it was 12.50! eek. We arrived at the bus station and the bus was still there Phew.. but now we had another problem as there as only 1 seat left! The guys on the bus must have felt sorry for us as they let me sit in the seat on the steps and Naomi sat in the one empty seat at the other end of the bus. Time to head back to work!

That was meant to be a brief summary of our week but so much happened that it turned into more of an essay. oops!