Run up to the projects...

Well everyone is back from their project recces and it's great to see them all excited about their destinations for the next 10 weeks or so. Many have came back leeched, especially the boys from Danum Valley which is where I'm based for 5 days in around 6 weeks time. On the flip side they saw loads of wildlife from wild boars to bearded pigs, elephants and snakes. Imbak Canyon was some monkeys flying around the trees. Their campsite sounds fantastic as it's close to a waterfall that's "Straight out the Timotei advert...in fact it's miles better than that".
Off for a sneaky beer, so more soon.
PS : Where are my letters and emails folks!! Only had one letter so far!
PPS : I've got a new career...I'm off modelling on Saturday night! Not kidding, Sabah Tourism has requested a few of us to go to a pub and club (and they've given us a very strict dress code) for a tourism photo shoot, and we're getting paid for it! (well the money will obviously go straight to Raleigh International).

Life Through A Lens

Well the tables may be turned on me soon...a few of us have been invited to attend a Sabah Tourism photo shoot to potentially be models for posters to be distributed in tourism brochures around Asia!! Better put on my best clothes.... bit of a long blog entry tonight...
Anyway, it's all turned very busy in the run up to the participants coming out next week. My diary is absolutely jam packed, but then so is all the other staff members!
Blog updates will definitely be few and far between from the middle of next week as we are all off to jungle camp with the participants, taking pics, training them up and doing all the briefings we have covered.
I've also started the internal newsletter to be handed out next week.
The following week I'm split between field base and the diving part of the adventure phase to get some pics of staff and participants on Mamutik island (can't find a decent site, but check the Mamutik pictures here) doing their PADI qualification. I'll leave them early so I can go for an overnight trip to a Kampong (village) close to Kota Mirudu to view a community project building a gravtiy water feed system. Then I'm back to field base doing some catch up while the team are trail building on the Crocker Range, then joining them for the trek along the Crocker Range. To end phase 1, I'll spend a couple of days doing Mount Kinabalu which stops rising at 4095 metres. I'm really looking forward to this as you start off during the night and then get up to the summit for sunrise...I just hope it's bloody good weather. Pictures of the mountain remind me of Skye back home in Scotland, but instead of walking through four different seasons in a day, you walk through four different ecosystems through jungles and rainforests, but still end up on the top bloody freezing.
After that I'm back to play catch up for a couple of days during changeover, then I'm deploying with another team to another community project which I think is building a kindergarten. After a few days I'll be picked up by the loop vehicle, and go through some horrendous off-road journey hopefully to Imbak Canyon (where's there's only been a couple of hundred folk in), but that will depend on the height of the river, then over to Danum Valley Conservation area for five days. I may get the bus back to a town and fly back from here to get back to field base early.
Between myself and Kate, the PR Officer, we should get pretty good coverage of the projects, but it will mean a horrendous amount of work to get ready for a slideshow and photo comp, and souvenir CD and postcards!!

A couple of us managed to get out for some shopping in KK tonight...it was the usual Asian mall where you walk into some sh!thole looking building that looks like it's a carpark full of cr@p shops...then all of a sudden the place opens up into some mega shopping mall (but still full of really cheap, but cr@p thirts!). Apparently there are 8 of these being built at the moment in the area.

Anyway, radio duty tomorrow.....bed beckons me! No time to proof read this!

It's all gone quiet...except the radio

My flat is rented!!!!!!!! Yaaaaaah. Yup, no more flat renting worries from today as a deposit is down, and I don't have to keep comparing my mortgage payments to the number of 'weeks in Asia' it costs me!
After a hectic time post jungle camp, all project managers are now out on project recce's double checking the site, the community, transport and medical facilities available. There was a real buzz about field base as everyone was sussing out kit orders, accommodation (even if it may be a hammock!), and transport.
My first proper photography part was played taking staff photos while helping out with other stuff. A few of us still managed to pop out for a bit later on, after having a meditation session with one of the staff members. There's even morning yoga some days.
It's all far quieter around field base tonight as everyone has shifted around Sabah....except the radio!! Now that everyone's out and about, the speakers are on in field base, and listened to 24x7...unfortunately that also means getting piped into the office during the day....but it' a lifeline if it hits the fan.

Another excitement today was I had my first photo shoot to do!! Not quite a professional one....and to be honest I never knew what I was taking them for.... it turned out it was the Sabah Ports revamp of Kota Kinabalu ferry terminal!! I didn't really enjoy it a I was trying to do it in a hurry, didn't really know what kind of shots were required, and couldn't get decent shots of the islands due to the haze....but hey, I did get driven around by a beautiful young Malay (who trashed me at pool while the footy was on in the pub lat night) and got treated to lunch, so can't complain!! A few lessons learned for the next time though...like don't go out with scabby mossie bites and a trashed old tshirt when trying to look like a pro!...or was that meant to be remember how important the weather was?! To be fair I was expecting a phone call before I went out, but didn't get any notice. I'd love to head out again when I have more time to see if I could improve them and be a bit more imaginative as to be honest, I was really hacked off how cr@p my shots were! Unfortunately the shots of the more photogenic Filipino glue sniffers and their mates who run the older boats aren't required.....
Anyway, it's 10pm and I'm still sitting in the field base office...desipte this real work seems a gazillion miles away!! I haven't much joy trying to connect my laptop to the network here but will try again tomorrow to get some pics uploaded (everyone expects me to know everything about PC's here!..luckily the 'virus' this morning was just a disabled network card.....).

Ray Mears, eat your heart out. Jungle Camp

Maybe I'm saying too much about the Raleigh International programme on this blog, but I hope it may be of help to some people considering attending, or volunteering for a staff role.
The blog's been a bit quiet as we have been away at an adventure centre on the Kiulu River having some jungle training. We had a great couple of days there and luckily managed to avoid any rainstorms as it was already slippy enough. We spent out first day getting medical briefs, and being shown how to erect 'bashers' (think tarps and hammocks in trye Ray Mears style!) using bamboo, parangs (large machete type knifes) and mosquito nets. We had a bit of luxury the first night by cooking under shelter, and staying in the equivalent of Ikea bashers - they were erected already, all we had to do was put up the mossie nets.
The next day we loaded all our kit and radios per team and trekked into the jungle. I think my pack must have been about 20 kilos with the camera stuff in there as well as the radio. We set up the radios half way in then moved into camp by the river. It was quite a surreal site watching everyone set up the bashers in the jungle environment, even more surreal watching everyone once it got dark, cursing and swearing at collapsed hammocks or mossie nets under torchlight.
Just after setting up we managed to steal a few minutes to have a dip in the river before cooking up dinner on the trangia stoves, and playing some example icebreaker games. To be honest I had a far better sleep than I thought I would have, but I reckon the ear plugs helped a great deal. I could still hear the most amazing noises through them, so much so I had to check it wasn't chucking it down with rain a few times. Once we were wrapped up under shelter I'm sure there were several folk wishing it had actually had a full on rainstorm for 30 mins to see if our shelters held up!! I did hold off having a number 2 in the long drop (toilet, a.k.a. dug out hole) though...after all I knew we'd be back at field base soon!
After a mock medical situation and radio call in on the way back we had some time for R&R where I managed to walk into Lintas, the part of Kota Kinabalu we are based in.
To get an alternative take on Malay culture we headed for a night of Karaoke....apparently government ministers even sing this to chill out a bit after meetings!

Today the projects were allocated which was exciting to watch as people found out their destiny for the next three months. Although field base is in a city, there are amazing projects to take part in. Projects such as Imbak Canyon are only about 1.5hrs helicopter flying time away from KK, but its a 15 hours road journey to get there, and river crossing are regularly too high for days on end. It sounds amazing in there with untouched rainforest and amazing wildlife. The community and adventure projects are superb for this programme as well ranging from building kindergartens to trekking up Mt Kinabalu to building a water storage facility.
Time to disappear for the night. Over.

Welcome to the jungle...

"Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me"

At least that's how Guns 'n' Roses described it. After a day of some analysing of what everyone wants or expects out of the programme, some HF radio training, and cultural awareness, we went off to a cultural evening of food and traditional tribal dances.
It's our first really early morning tomorrow as the whole group of staff are off to the jungle for training - setting up camp, sleeping in hammocks and under tarps, etc. We'll be back on Saturday!!
I think we have the biggest cockroach in the world in our bathroom tonight as well. I think it's going to eat the wee lizard.

More soon......

Who said this would be a jolly?

Well I arrived at Raleigh field base today, and to some more great people. The guys here have put in a sterling effort to get the place ready, in what has been described several times as one of Raleigh's most palatial field bases! Despite this, it's going to be a hot kip with a few of us in each room, and the mossy nets are up already! We are in the Lintas (I think) area of Kota Kinabalu in a massive house, and have the luxury of a lovely local woman to cook some food. After getting some briefings about my role as a photographer I (admittedly very late) joined in scrubbing some pots and pans from the last programme to get them ready for this trip.

My role is looking like it's going to be very hard work, but really rewarding, and hopefully exactly what I hoped for. As well as photo briefs from Head Office, I have to produce photo CD's for venturers, postcards and maybe other stationary to purchase, help sort out a t-shirt design comp, arrange a slide show and photo exhibition, and cover as many of the projects as possible, including some underwater shots during at least one of the dive phases. This programme looks like it's going to have more than the usual share of visits to projects sites from local government ministers to large name corporate sponsors (think some of the very very well known company names in the world), all of which must be covered if possible.
The usual newsletters and press releases have to be performed as well which are sent to local press and sponsors. My driving force for in this is the on site Raleigh PR Officer, a journalist from one of the big worldwide news channels, who I hope to glean a lot of info from!

Tomorrow is straight into it with the start of staff training, then Thursday until Saturday will be spent in the jungle getting trained from locals how to construct camp areas and survive in that environment.
There are some stunning projects this year in places like Danum Valley conservation area and Imbak Canyon. This article, and this article give more news on previous Raleigh trips to Imbak Canyon. These are renowned areas for conservation around the world, some parts of which are very remote and have seen no more than 200 visitors. One previous group had to camp for four days until the river went down so they could drive across it.

Anyway, I've waffled enough but wanted to say what I was up to. Time for kip!

End of the 'holiday'

Just a quick last post before I get picked up from Raleigh for the start of the 3 months. Great crowd I've met so far. Unfortunately I was too late to get to one of the small islands offshore like Mamutik yesterday. Only 17 Ringgits to get there and back and it was a picture of paradise.

We ate at the Filipino market in KK yesterday. Amazing freshly bbq'd fish and rice, eating with your hands. The tuna was amazing and with a drink it was only 10 Ringgits (around 1.40UKP). During the day the market was mostly fruit and veg with the most amazing array of stuff there. A great place for photos, unfortunately I left my camera at home last night.

Looks like my net access will become more limited so the updates and pics will die down. Have some good ones from the market yesterday. Got my Malaysia SIM card so I have some touch with the 'outside' world.

More soon, just dunno when.....
PS : There's quite a few rats kicking around here....

I'm in friggin' Borneo

How the bloody hell did I end up here? Only a few years ago I thought Borneo was the arse end of nowhere. Now I realise it's huge. 5th (or is it 2nd?) biggest island in the world, and Kota Kinabalu is a similar size to friggin' Edinburgh - 250,000 live here! Yes, sorry folks, the reality is true. Under my hostel, Trekker's Lodge is....a bloody 7-11. It's very built up as well, with 8 large shopping malls going up in the next year or so.
This hostel isn't nearly as neat as the one in Singapore. Pretty basic, and no endless realms of travel books, dive magazines, and local guidebooks like before...although the owners are very friendly. "Lonely Planet-ness" came to light at the airport as I was chatting to another lodge owner who was toiling as he hadn't hit Lonely Planet yet, and had to wait three years to hit the next one, if at all. Jeez folks, it's the day of the internet...look up your own accommodation! (although it may well end up being the same place).
Anyway, hope to hit Mamutik Island tomorrow afternoon for some snorkelling as I met a couple of Raleigh folk in the hostel tonight. Seem a great bunch, so should be a laugh...but hard work. No free net access here, so I think this may be the start of the demise of my blog for a while.
Borneo beckons....for 3 months+! Quite sad reading the guidebook - so much to do here, but we'll be snowed under doing the stuff for Raleigh International.

Still....I could be at work.

PS: Turns out Malaysia really is truly Asia - even says it on the ad's here!

Malaysia. Is it truly Asia like the adverts say?

Well my 2nd day in Singapore didn't amount to much as expected. By the time I had woken up for 2 hours again in the middle of the night, and counted 587 sheep before falling asleep again (just prior to ripping the throats of the girls talking on the stairs), I didn't get up til 1030. By the time I chucked out some magazines and paper (only after ripping out some excellent guides to SE Asia and Japan in June's Wanderlust and Travel mags) it was time for a quick snack then the bus across the causeway to Johor Bahru in Malaysia for my flight to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo.
As those of you who know me, you can imagine the sight of me. I 'cheated' at both ends by getting a taxi instead of a bus, but I had to lug my rucksack (held in a thin holdall), my daypack full of 'toys', the laptop, and some other bag that I still didn't manage to ditch yet (well I did get a couple of heavy books given to me before I left!). These all had to be transported from taxi to bus at Singapore's Queen Street bus station, off the bus to Singapore immigration, back onto the next bus for 5 mins to reach Malaysian immigration, then I was meant to get back on to the bus into town.
I decided the local geezer who offered me a lift direct to the airport for 40 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit..which is under £6 for a 30 min cab ride) gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. It saved me lugging the bags again. All that for less than a tenner. I took 2hrs, but I reckon thats about the quickest you could do it, and it could take twice as long if you get buses all the way, and its a busy time at immigration. Oh, and for those who want to know, Johor Bahru has free wifi in the classy "Deli 'n' Meals" cafe.
If I had followed people's advice and took less luggage it would have all been hassle free, but to be honest, there wasn't much I could ditch. I could have ditched the laptop, and all my camera gear, but I don't think it would look very promising if I turned up to be a photographer for three months with 30 locally purchased disposable cameras.....In saying that I'm already looking forward to three months time when I can ditch things like mess tins etc.


Thought for the day... why don't Asian cities just have one bus station so you don't find out which one to get to, depending on where you are going?

Singapore tip of the day : Yaaaah, I made it through Singapore without going to Raffles and buying a Singapore Sling. And to be honest, the thought didn't cross my mind. If I haven't said it before, save yourself $23 (remember these are Singapore dollars readers, not US!) and being hovelled in the 3rd floor or whatever, and go to the New Asian Bar across the road - same owners, but something like the 56th floor (ok, maybe the 30th ish but I dunno), and in you'd get a cracking view of the city. Only thing is blokes need to wear long trousers, long sleeves and no sandals, and I'm on holiday.

Guess I better go and check in. I've also a 122 page document about group health and safety, river crossing, dangerous animals, how to dig a decent pit to sh!t in, and other marvels to read in the next day or so. (Note for Ken if you read this - I took this as a Word document so that's a few hundred grams "shaved" ;-)

Cheesy City Quay picture

Cheesy shot of me, taken by some random punter. 

First Day In Singapore

I had a very eay going day today. Last night I crashed around midnight, then woke up at 3.30am thinking of all the stuff back home, you know, work, etc (ok, the travel notes I never managed to copy, the mess I left behind and all that). Couldn't sleep for two hours, so popped in the magic camping earplugs then prompty woke at 1pm to an empty hostel room. Initially I thought "bugger", but then I thought "f*** it, it doesn't matter, I can do whatever the f*** I want! It was obviously needed after the rush getting here.
Today was spent takign the No 33 bus from the BetelBox Hostel into town. I only discovered last night it is 7km from the centre, but it's an easy bus trip to the centre, the staff are super friendly and can some up the things to see in record time, and it means beers are $5 instead of $15, a thai lemon chicken and beer is £13.60 instead of ....way more than that.
So, the trip to town was a walk through Chinatown (see pic), some peanut soup for an extortionate 33pence, then a wonder around until dusk. I then headed back to the comfort of my own private room (hmmm.... £10?) and vegged out. I have to come back to SIngapore for my flight to Sydney anyway, so now's the time to relax!
Tomorrow will be a similar day, but staying locally. Depending on the time I get up I may not get far, or I may head to the "East Coast Beach" before I head over the causeway to Johor Bahru in Malaysia to get my flight to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo (this of course depends on whether immigration ask to see proof of my ticket out of Malaysia or not....erm....it doesn't really exist within the visa timescales!!). 

Isn't Norton Anti-Virus Sh!t?

Well, it is. While moving stuff around from one laptop to the newer slimline lightweight Sony, I got a dialer trojan horse virus. The first one ever. Anyway, I had a look online and it didn't look an easy one to get rid of so I had no choice but to leave it just now. I had flights to catch before I could leave!

Anyway, a few days into the trip I did a search with the free AVG Anti Virus which I've used for years, and it cleared the lot out. If only Sony would bump up their prices by £30 and get rid of all the crap software they throw on..... rant over.

Survived

Well I survived the first night in Singapore. This place rocks. I could maybe work here in some later life. Despite being a wee island in SE Asia there's so much to do here...rock climbing, mountain biking, night safaris, cable cars to islands...but I walked twe blocks to the pub (despite passing many on the way...are they really so bad you can't see inside any of them?) So Asian, but so western at the same time....hmm...maybe thats not so good. Survived a few drinkies at the local '57 Chevys'... spent 10 mins thinking I was fleeced on the $5 cheap beers, but then two sets of change arrived (hey I was thirsty after a long flight!). The live music consisted of such classics as 'You to Me Are Everything', 'Acradababra', 'Word Up!' by Cameo, 'Happy Birthday to Ya' and others. By the way, British Airways rocks too...despite the amazing cheap carriers, they moved me to the front of the plane on arrival so I could catch my connection in Heathrow. Try cheap n cheerful Sleasyjet doing that! Anyway, I had to come 'home' to my Hostel tonight...you see my pants were hanging off my arse as the elastic had blown. I was going to leave these behind, the wonderful 3/4 length troos....hey I'm only going to be trek leading, who said you had to check your kit out before hauling it half way around the world. I did use my initiative and stopped pulling the elastic out, and walked back to retrive the catch from the pavement.
I realised I was 7km from the city centre, but despite what they say, everyone is smoking in public and throwing butt ends away. I haven't had the balls to spit on the pavement yet to see what happens.... Shit, maybe I should have eaten tonight...

Welcome to Asia!

I finally made it to Asia. I was determined to be more organised than my sister when she comes home priot to scooting off to her next teaching posting.....well I failed miserably I think. Unfortunately the rush of sorting the flat, the stress of having too many toys in my bag (Underwater camera, flash, compact camera, DSLR and lenses....) kind of took the joy out of leaving. Rushed goodbyes, many goodbyes missed, and leaving loads of crap for my mum to deal with!

But after just making my Edinburgh check-in, I had 1hr 45 mins to make my connection. The flight left Edinburgh 70 mins late. Amazingly both my bag and I managed to cross over to Terminal 4 at Heathrow in time.

Anyway, I'm in Singapore. I'm knackered, despite mucho kip on the flight, but what the f*** am I doing sitting online in the hostel, I've gotto go and explore.

Justgiving - Youth Development Work, Borneo Summer 06

Justgiving - Youth Development Work, Borneo Summer 06: "*Total donated online: �585.00
Amount raised offline: �1,021.00
Plus Justgiving has reclaimed Gift Aid of: �133.97
"

Fundraising target reached! Thanks to everyone who has helped - I've been blown away by the generosity. Will write more later, if you still want to help email me and I'll let you know how. Better do some packing....

Open Source Websites?

Can I make this website open source so someone can jazz it up for me and give me a fancy content managed system...? No time for stuff like that! Saw a postcard the other day in a pub "Same Shit, Different Day". Oh how I laughed. Although my same shit days of organisation are almost ending.... ;-)

1 day left, so much to do!

Well if you have had a check of this and there's been nothing appearing, I'm sorry, but it's been manic. Have been sorting out stuff mail order, the new laptop (took ages, and I got a trojan horse virus!), and all my kit - never mind the paperwork. Its way more stressful than working.

Also, here's a couple of pictures of my room in my mum's house 2 days before I left Aberdeen to come back to Edinburgh for my flight.

A funny leaving card

Got the following leaving card from my sister before I left...very appropriate!

  

Bonnie Aberdeen

Who needs Asian sunsets when you get these in Aberdeen? (ok, not quite the same but I nice one to leave with!). Actually this wasn't the sun, it was the moon.
  

All Booked Up!

I managed to make a few phone calls to Trailfinders in Glasgow who I always completely trust with my flights - so helpful, never rushed, and they seem to have access to flights that other's don't have (e.g. my Kuwait airlines trip last year Kuwait-Bangkok-Manila and back for £550!) and for decent prices. I've had a couple of last minute calls from a friend who hopes to be in Asia after my Raleigh expedition, and my sister hopes to be holidaying there too at the end of October so I made some tweaks to try and accommodate these if they happen. After going through the flights I wanted, Trailfinders had me reserved on similar flights to STA Travel, yet at £200 less. On Friday I called up and finally, less than two weeks prior to departure, booked and paid for my seats. So for a mere £848.60 I have a return trip to Australia...with some nice twists in the middle.
LHR-SIN-SYD-AKL-SYD-NRT (overland to) BKK-LHR

In English...
Thursday 14th is D(eparture)-Day out to Singapore.
After a couple of nights there I'll cross the causeway to catch my AirAsia flight from Johor Bahru in Malaysia to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo.
The expedition lasts til Mid September then I'll kick around Asia, and maybe head down to Bali until flying to Sydney in mid December to spend Christmas in Australia. At the end of January I head over to Auckland for a couple of months in New Zealand. I hope to get up to Fiji around this time as well.
At the end of March I fly back to Sydney then on to Tokyo. Somehow from there I'll make my way overland hopefully by ferry to South Korea, then a ferry to China, and down through China and Vietnam to Bangkok for my flight home next June (if it happens ;-) )

Half of me still kinda wishes I had just booked a one way to Malaysia and sorted out tickets using discount carriers and flights from Bangkok....
You can get flights from Singapore to Darwin for £150 return and apparently that's nowhere near the cheapest they are sold for!....maybe the next time!!

Get your motor running

Monday was a bit of a recover from the weekend day, but I did make it into STA Travel to find out more about flights. I got the most superb ticket reserved with an intinery from the UK to Singapore to Sydney to Auckland to Fiji to Tokyo then back to Bangkok...I was just about to book it when the supervisor came over to answer a query and it turns out the "Dreamtime Plus" ticket the consultant just made me up was exactly that - a dream....his routing was not possible with the ticket. After a bit of playing around we got a ticket that got in most of the destinations, and put it on hold.

The rest of my week was spent doing my full Direct Access motorbike licence. It's weird going away as it makes you realise all the stuff you haven't got round to doing. This all started out doing my basic training so I could go on a bike tour at Hidden Cambodia in...would you beleive, Cambodia. My mate recommended this to me last year...however the bug bit and I had booked the full licence. Nothing like cramming some more stuff into my time, and making it harder for me to book flights etc and all that important stuff. Anyway, I'm glad to say I passed, almost with a clean sheet. Riding back into Edinburgh without the instructor's voice in my ear on the radio made it all come true - the freedom of the bike was almost like my new freedom - all I had between me and Borneo was a mad rush of deciding what I was taking, and arranging it all.

Thursday night even got me putting my car on autotrader - a very sad moment as I'd rather store it for a year as it's all bought and paid for, but it's not really practical!