Durian

I finally had a taste of the infamous Durian fruit today. I've meant to many times before so the boss took one into the office, and we all had a taste. The smell wasn't as bad as I expected and the taste of it was......different. Quite a weird texture, but again, not nearly as bad as I had anticipated, and I never had that look of horror some of the other staff or participants had.
Apart from that a pretty uneventful day, probably because I hid in a room with my laptop and worked on the end of expedition slideshow.

Another article about Raleigh International in Panaitan appeared the New Straits Times yesterday.

Slideshow of my work as a Raleigh International expedition photographer

I've removed the previous slideshow and added some more images...still none of them show the jungle, the camps, the kampongs etc, but it's a start. This is a sample of some of the photographs I've taken over the last two months - mostly in the last few weeks.

Manukan Island snorkelling

I managed to take some time out today. I was all relaxed, finished my book during breakfast and was all ready to order a taxi to the ferry terminal. I then made the mistake of walking into the office and had 10 minutes of stress after walking into a discussion about a photo exhibition in 3 days time, that appeared from nowhere... after snapping at people for a while we came to the conclusion it wasn't worth it, then I went and called a cab.
I went to the ferry terminal to get the inter-island ferry to Sapi Island and arrived just in time for the last place on the boat. The expensive ferries leave from Sutera Harbour, but then you're paying what I refer to as the 'Sutera tax' - it's a lovely resort hotel, but it's cheaper to get the ferry from the town centre at Jesselton Point. This is the area I was trying to take photos of several weeks ago, and there's been a huge difference in the area, and going to look pretty smart by the end of the refurbishments. If you take a cab here though just ask for the ferry terminal.
I was a total tourist though and ended up at Manukan Island in the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park... I was on the boat waiting for it to dock at the Sapi jetty, then it pulled away. I was on my way to Manukan. What I didn't realise, is the boat stops for long enough for people to walk off the front, but doesn't actually dock.
Anyway, Manukan was nice, and if you asked me yesterday, this is where I was originally plannig to go. For 51RM (seven pounds) I had my return ticket, park entry fees, and a mask and snorkel for the day.
I had a great hours snorkelling, a bit of reading, and before I was ready for it waws on the boat back to KK. The snorkelling wasn't the best in the world, but it was really relaxing and there was plenty to see, as shown by the pictures.
When I arrived on the island I took a 1.5km walk along a path to 'sunset point. It would have been absolute comedy to be walking behind me. Despite spending the best part of 3-4 weeks in jungle terrain, the dry leaves on and around the path amplified every sound you heard in the surrounding overgrowth. There were so many small lizards around, yet every time I heard something scuttle through the leaves, my heart rate shot and and I occassionaly jumped. The dryness of the leaves makes every noise sound like it's something huge moving around. I didn't feel quite so much of a woose when I saw that two of them were around 4 foot long monitor lizards crossing the path with feet of me. To give you an idea of what they look like, over the last two weeks we've had two reports of 'crocodile' sitings from project sites over the radio. The next day they ate some humble pie... 'erm, it was a monitor lizard'

I submitted a few pictures of Sabah to a request from an online picture agency, but considering there are hundreds of other submissions I won't be holding my breath too much.

Life as a Raleigh International expedition photographer

I was sending an email the other day, first thing in the morning, still tired from the night before, and ended up ranting. The funny thing is, it's probably the most realistic account of my life as the expedition photographer. I've edited it a bit as it originally formed part of an email, and more has happened over the last few days.....this is a summary of some of my last phase when I was hopping around projects. If I get the chance I'll edit it again to make it read better and make more sense!

Before you read it, don't let it put you off Raleigh, or wonder about your kids going on it - some projects have very few incidents, and when you read the stuff below, it probably reads worse than it actually is.


....when you're in a tiny kampong you finally realise you got there after
bouncing along the roughest roads you've seen for several hours, only covering 70km. You get dropped at one side of the river (where you soon find out all your supplies will be dumped) and have to wade across, then walk 1km to end up in a 15 house kampong (village) which is your home for the next 10 days until the loop (resupply) vehicle comes to move you on. The kampong has one car that keeps breaking down, and your only contact with the outside world is the
daily, crackly, hard to make out HF radio contact, and your only chats with
the locals are through an 18 year old Malaysian participant who can speak 80% of their lingo. The only washes you have are in the river you cross every day, (usually carrying the pipes for the gravity water feed system), and upstream you sometime swim or play frisbee. Home is the local community hall, overlooked by the JKKK's house (the head of the village).

Ten days later, you head from the kampong in the loop vehicle, moving around projects for the next few days, covering up to 600km
on a road trip - more than half of it off road, shaking up your inside as you bounce
along the road to the next destination for a night in another wee kampong where they are building a kindergarten, met by 25 kids running towards the land rover. On the way back out at early o'clock the next morning, you bounce along the road back out again, and spend a night in the jungle after trekking in to the BBC's old camp at Imbak Canyon, trying to beat the dark, having just rushed to pass logging trucks spewing out dust for 0.5km behind them, so you can make the river before the pending storm makes it too high to drive across. Once there you are pestered by the group for mail, have to pester them for PR quotes, and smile happily and pretend you are really up for the special quiz they have organised for their welcome guests - the only new faces they see in 3 weeks. As to not miss an opportunity, you then fight the temptation to crash out to do a night trek. 5am beckons before you're ready for it, and at 6am you're trekking back out to the land rover with someone who's had sad family news so you can send them back to base on a bus, but while trekking you're constantly wondering if the river is still low enough to drive back over... then bounce along to the next destination.
After a rare treat of a hotel for a few hours sleep at night in a stopover town (Lahad Datu), it's up early again to greet the party from the Ministry of Youth and Sport who have flown in to visit the project site at Danum Valley, which is 60km from any other human habitation. You have lunch with them, trek in with them, trek back with them, have dinner, take pics of them tree planting, attend a science talk with them, then feel obliged to stay up and sing karaoke with them, before grabbing 4hrs sleep and getting up to watch the sunrise with them, leaving at 0430, then dumping pics on your laptop (specially requested on the land rover) so they can be taken back to the PR person for press releases while you stay there to help build a suspension bridge. A few days later after lugging stones and concrete up steep banks, up a river, or across a river to build bridge foundations, you are settling down for a last relaxing night at the camp. Before you know it, you're acting as a runner between the radio and the PM acting as medic, as someone has got a fever and you are trying to contact field base on one radio, and have another person walking to the rangers camp to radio a boat to come up the river incase we move the person to the hospital. Within 10 minutes my last night is cancelled, and I'm packing my kit, stuffing dinner down my throat (as I don't know when I'll next eat), and heading down the river on the ranger's boat from the camp, guided by spotlight (and headtorches when they cut the engine as the river was low), then bussing it the next morning to Lahad Datu hospita, 2.5hrs away, with with someone who is about to have a temperature of 40.8c taken. Then you try and discharge them (much to the frustration of the staff as a doctor hasn't seen them yet, so they rapidly find the time for a quick consultation) so you can try and pick up a ticket for them at the airport so they can join my prebooked flight back to fieldbase, as they switch rapidly between a pale white, and deep red face. Meanwhile you try and convince the ticket agent, who is questioning whether they should fly, that they have been checked out at hospital and they are ok to fly, and "don't worry, I'll
have him back in hospital in KK within 2 hours"...

Arriving back in field base a day before changeover to catch up with pictures, and see what you've taken 4 weeks ago, you then have to juggle with requests to help
organise games to keep participants occupied the following afternoon at changeover, cope with 6 conversations going on at once in the office, and all the time, 24x7, the white noise of the radio coming across over the loudspeakers incase there is an incident (of which there are several - 3 people were hauled out of Danum for fevers while I was there), and jumping up every time someone sends a fax, as the beeping sounds identical to a radio call from a group.

I was straight into selecting about 40 pics from thousands to go in a magazine, other folk being taken off islands ill, trying to help book flights for 15 staff for a post expedition dive trip, while I should be looking out pics for an
exhibition and CDROM etc etc...

When I was in Danum my journal was almost up to date (except 2 weeks from initial jungle training) and I've written nothing in it since arriving back at field base (which staff on projects seem to think the easy life is).

By the time I get back to field base, any letters I received at changeover seem like they were months ago as so many things have happened, and in reality, it was 5 weeks between getting one letter and me being back in field base I think. I've got 6 postcards I was going to write, and I've had them for weeks, and never had a chance to write them. The only one I've written was to a mate, and that was in Chinese, written by someone on my behalf, to see if he could understand it.

The last week's I've been shitting in deep holes (or maybe not deep, depending how long we stopped for), getting leeched on the way back from them, but only finding out once I've returned to my sleeping liner in my hammock, bathing in rivers (or sometimes a trickle of water flowing down a craftily placed bit of bamboo), trying to remember to put on sandals all the time as we saw a small scorpion kicking around, or boots in the jungle for the same reason (or snakes), carrying a water pipe under the 'bat cave' logs etc etc. I got off lightly with the leeches - threw hundreds off, but only 4 'bleeders' - several have been leeched on their nuts!

I've been trying to keep my head down recently as a trek leader has been hauled off the island to hospital so I'll be doing anything to avoid being selected as a stand in (since I've done my mountain leader training) as that'll mean I'm trekking for a week or so rather than doing the photo stuff. I'm still rushing on with the photo stuff, but I may be back in the Crocker Range trekking again before I know it.


BUT...don't let this put you off, it's bloody great fun, and all an adventure!!
While I was browsing around I also found the blog of a previous expedition's PR Officer.

PADI Advanced Open Water

Yaaah, I managed to get two dives in today to complete my PADI Advanced Open Water I started in the Philippines last year. I found out a few things during the dive today, some good, some bad :

• I don't panic too much when it all goes a bit pear shaped
• Even in exotic locations, the visibility can still be piss poor
• My watch was only waterproof to 30m (although now I could take it to any depth)
  

I joined a Raleigh group that had done their Open Water, and moved on to their Advanced this week. We went to 30ish metres, sat on the seabed and wrote A-Z then Z-A on the slate, and it was all hunky-dory. I thought visibility would improve as we descended, but it was that bad you had to be inches away from someone's mask to see their eyes at times. We then sat around for 10 mins or so.....which seemed to last longer than that. I checked the time on my watch, and it was all ok. An instructor came round counting us off, then I wondered whether we should have followed him. Some more time passed so I looked around to see what I could bang my tank with to attract attention...the only thing being my plastic watch, but it did make a noise.
This went on for a while, the other two in my group wondering what the hell I was doing, but I knew it made sense. I heard the bells from the instructor was wasn't confident enough of the exact direction to move towards it. Eventually my air started to get low, so I signalled to my group we'd surface, with a stop on the way (using their depth gauge as mine was wonky). As I rose from the seabed I kept tapping away on the tank, the out of the blue (boom, boom) my instructor appeared. I signalled to her about my air, then took her second regulator as my intake, then slowly headed up with the compulsory stop.
So I felt ok, and afterwards asked the instructor if I did the right thing, and had indicated the correct stop depth to the group I was in, so I was quite pleased with that. It turns out they were doing a quick search for someone...unless I lost a bit in translation.
On the boat back I checked my watch which had a little bit of the South China Sea inside it. Not good. I rapidly calculated that it cost me the equivalent of a month's worth of the beach hut accommodation in Krabi I was looking at last night.

On the plus side, my navigation dive went better than I thought, despite not having too much on the seabed to use for my natural features navigation part.

Raleigh International Press Coverage

There's been loads of articles published, largely due to our ever efficient PRO Kate. This article in The Star is about the gravity water feed system in Kampong Linapasan I was on for 10 days at the start of the month. There's another article about the Opening Ceremony in The Star with more general coverage of Raleigh. I'm trying to work out if the picture online is mine or not, but it's probably just that the photographer was crouching next to me.

I've decided I'm slowly starting to show signs of being a 'traveller' although I'm nowhere near being a real one (yet?). The following are only the first signs :

• I cringe when the shop bill gets close to 30 RM (under a fiver)
• I am wearing a friendship band (rapidly pleated from camping twine!) on my wrist given by one participant at Danum Valley, and I have another one in my pocket, but I haven't got round to burning the ends of the cord yet.
• I leave the town centre of KK and go back to fieldbase as I'll only spend money on things I don't need.
• I've only got a couple of travel dates planned (although I do have flights)

Over the next few days I'll post a no-holds barred account of what it's like to be a Raleigh International Expedition Photographer (come Project Manager, come Admin person, come Logistics person, come Medic etc etc - you don't think you apply for one role and stick to that role do you? That's half the fun!). It'll sound manic (it is) but it's all great fun, and highly recommended.

Photography news

Was just killing time browsing around about photography when I stumbled upon this article about an IPTC image tags mishap by Lothian and Borders police during the G8 summit - a word of caution for learning photographers in there!!

I also discovered that Olympus are about to launch a 10MP consumer camera featuring an image stabalisation feature for 330 UKP in October! Bummer because I bought a Canon A540 before I headed on my travels and it's shit - usual story, in a rush, needed a half decent manual compact camera that I could get a waterproof casing for. The flash takes bloody ages to, well...flash in that time of need. To add insult to injury, the little box of metal is 100 UKP cheaper over here. Actually it's not too bad a camera, but that feature is very annoying. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong. Or wishing I had just said 'bugger the manual features' and bought one of the dinky little IXUS's.

Post Expedition Plans

I was about to say nothing much to report again - I went for a two pound haircut this morning then continued sifting through pictures again. Being in the office is driving us all a bit mental. Raleigh fever has hit bad - I've got a habit of loosing everything that I've put in a safe place - which was usually my hands five minutes earlier. Today I topped it all, after looking for my toiletries bag (for 4 days) in my pile of stuff lying around my bed in 'Stigs Dump' (yes that's what we call one of the 'boys' rooms) I found it.... Hanging up in a safe place - in the bloody bathroom. This scenario can be played back on things like USB pen drives, sunglasses, wallets and anything else I leave in 'safe places'.

The main news today is several of us have booked a dive trip to Sipadan Island after the end of the expedition. Like being at the top of Mount Kinabalu, this was one of the moments that got me bouncing around the office with joy....that topped with the fact that I have started to make plans for October. I say plans, but it's only the initial destination - everything else will hopefully just fall into place at the time, after a few days on Perhentian Islands, just the way I like it. It's a bit like my trip to Sipadan - I've only booked a one way ticket to Tawau from KK just now as I can't decide whether, or how, to head up to the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary and Turtle Islands National Park, head back to KK, do a dive course, visit my sister in Manila, or head to Peninsular Malaysia...and the best thing? It doesn't bloody matter, they're all good. Good ol' AirAsia - 12UKP flights around Sabah and peninsular Malaysia, 20 UKP to Philippines.

I must be impressed at that as I've just spend 90 minutes pissing about on their website trying to book flights for folk. While I was typing this post I got an email in so I've now also booked a flight from KL to Kota Bahru.....but I've no idea how I'm getting to KL yet. Ahhh, the joys...

Some Pictures Uploaded!

Well I've finally uploaded some pictures for you to view at the Wandering Scotsman Gallery (I'll fix that URL name soonish!). All these pictures are ones of me, so a bit self indulgent, but it will give you a taster of what I've been up to, and what kind of environment I've been living in. Compared to all my photos, there's not many of me as a percentage, but that's the downside of being a photographer I guess. Every moment lost you're 'blamed' for but sometimes I just can't be bothered carrying the camera (and trust me, that's not often), and most pictures of me I had to ask for.

To the Raleigh staff and participants...for the above reasons I'll apologise if I've nicked your pictures for this site, let me know and I'll remove them - a bit hypocritical considering what I say when people say they want to upload a shitload of mine...but hey you've got to try and protect a growing 'portfolio' somehow!

Anyway, at the link above, you'll find pictures from staff training, my birthday paddy field planting, my nominated jungle valentine on the 14th, trekking, Mt Kinabalu, a couple of the Danum Valley camp, a few from the photoshoot for the Sabah Magazine, the staff group, me trying to dry off as we burned rubbish on an open fire, a bit of my 'trekker's beard', my various baths and showers and Kampong Linapasan, Imbak Canyon and Danum Valley and a few more. There's no description which is why I'm waffling.

Enjoy!

Nothing to see here, please move along...well actually..

Pretty uninteresting news today. I've been sifting thousands of photos of mine (and others) to select them for the 06E Expedition Magazine. Eventually they were ready and I popped into the city centre to pop it into the printers. It all went super smoothly, but I guess we'll find out on Thursday or Friday when we head back to see the proofs!

I hooked my laptop up to the net in the coffee bean, and it's been 71 days since the poor thing has had an internet connection! I did try and get some photos online, but gave up and got a taxi back home.

Last night several staff went to a slap up meal and night of celebration. We were in the Shangri-La's Cafe TATU for a slap up buffet meal, and that's certainly a way to describe it. I've never seen such a great selection of food in buffet eat as much as you like stye before. From sushi to curry to pasta to seafood, it was all there, including a counter where you selected your food, and stir fry ingredients, and had it cooked in front of you. As we were there early and had the local connections for the compulsory discount, the meal only cost 8.50 UKP, and another 4 UKP for drinks. I even managed to have a lovely pudding of mixed ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce and 'hundreds and thousands', with jelly, sweeties, and a bit of pineapple to make me feel better. The drinks still flowed afterwards, despite a plate of seafood, followed by a plate of stir fry, and a curry before the dessert. Despite seeing the first cheese board since I arrived, I couldn't manage to force it down me, or the bread and butter pudding. The drinks afterwards cost more than the meal and drinks at Cafe TUTU!

With this, and eating a full buffet Sunday roast, I've been eating a bit too well since arriving back at field base...but it's not a normal week as there are a few celebrations going on.

I've also got my deep dive and navigation dive booked for Friday to complete my Advanced PADI in preparation for booking the Sipadan trip tomorrow. I'm spending way too much - get me back to the jungle!

The rest of the week will be more pictures, and more pictures, and I'll be starting to research my October travel plans - maybe consisting of Myanmar, Cambodia, and whatever else takes my fancy (or not). I'll be hooking up with my mate Tracy I met in Whistler many moons ago. At this rate, we've got so much in mind, but both so in a 'let's not plan too much' mode, it could be quite interesting.

Like a typical day on projects, I think I've got no news, but I guess I'm doing ok.....

Other Raleigh Expedition Pictures

I've not had much of a chance to put my own pictures online so here's other staff member's pictures. If you are back from expedition and reading this, please let me know your links and I'll add them to here for others to see.

http://www.james-sheader.fotopic.net
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettledaws/?saved=1 (the first four pics at the moment are from Linapasan, the gravity water feed project I was at for 10 days)

Liquid Addictions

Well it's the first normal day in field base, and all the usual office traits are back... I've become addicted to Nescafe 3-in-1 after being introduced to the little sachets of coffee,'milk' and sugar since being in Linapasan (thanks Emma!) - far more convenient when living in the wilds, where you can't get milk anyway. I've also started to love all the 'fruit tree' branded cans of juice where you get lychee, mango or blackcurrant with aloe vera bits in the can. mmmmm

When at a barbeque in Inobong with the trekkers the other night we were blindfolded and had to try loads of food and a juice...it tasted quite nice, but I've yet to find Kick-a-poo Joy Juice freely available, and get addicted to buying Joy Juice...

Back to work - thousands of pics to browse through...

The Last Phase (and a dive trip to Sipadan) beckons :-)

Well the final changeover has happened - the next one will be the participant's party in three weeks time, then the cleanup, then a dive trip to Sipadan hopefully! This changeover went quite well though, and I received a nice gift from a participant - chopsticks carved by the rangers at Danum Valley. This was a special place - it was a bit like walking through a film set at times, and quite difficult to access as a tourist, unless you go via the tourist area at Borneo Rainforest Lodge - unfortunately I didn't have a chance to see there.

Everything here happens in 'Raleigh time' - you think time is flying by, but at the same time it's difficult to remember what you did a few days ago, as usually so much has happened in between. It makes keeping a travel journal up to date a bit of a nightmare.

I'm in fieldbase all of the last phase so not looking forward to being in a relatively 'normal' office environment...in saying that it's completely different to working 9-5 in a normal job as anything can happen here from people radioing with medical problems, to nice smoothies being delivered from the in-house cook, to uninterrupted laughter as some random comment is made (and trust me, there's plenty of them!).

My head has started turning towards the end of the expedition more and more though. It's not that I particularly want to leave here as there is so much that goes on, but it's good looking forward to having my own time....but maybe not so much having to plan and budget it myself! I need to find a method of earning some money, preferably by some online route, so my trip can last as long as I would like it to.

Several staff and a few participants are planning a dive trip to Sipadan Island for three days after the trip. It's expensive for my budget at just over 300 UKP for three days, but it does include flights, 9 dives, accommodation and soft drinks. For the destination, it's a bargain as we've got a special deal, but it's a treat. If anyone wants to treat me, feel free!! I hope to do my two Advanced PADI dives on Friday if I can arrange it so it opens up deeper dives during the Sipadan trip. I also discussed potentially doing a Rescue Diver and Divemaster with Borneo Divers after the trip, but just something to consider at the moment...but it's tempting if I can wangle a deal with them! Maybe next year....

I've been up since 5.30am today to wave the buses as they departed for their project sites, but managed to pop out for Sunday roast, and a swim (sleep!) at the country club this afternoon, but now completely knackered. This week is a mad one - a magazine, and two photo exhibitions to plan, along with possible postcards, a cover for the expedition CD, pictures to develop from disposable cameras we gave to a community site, and lots more! I've probably got a couple of thousand of my own shots, plus around 10 participant and staff pictures to look through. A long day beckons!

Sabah Road Trip Report

I'm now back at field base - only been back for a day but it feels like an age.

I am pleased to say I've had a whole host of experiences in the last few weeks though which I'll just skim over at the moment. I've been to several project sites throughout the state of Sabah, and seen a whole load of stuff that the average tourist wouldn't see. There are a few opportunities I've missed, but nothing I'm regretting too much in the time available.

Within the last few days I've tubed down the river at Danum Valley in the middle of the rainforest. I joined the Raleigh camp at their suspension bridge work site (the Rhino bridge if anyone makes it there) and looked down over the river every day which became my relaxation spot, bath and shower for the last 5 days. The river was really low while I was there which meant it was safe to swim across. The first day I explored an area next to the work site we named the Rhino pools and was treated to superb water pools bathed in shafts of sunlight creeping through the rainforest canopy. The following day I triple bagged my camera in drysacks and waded it across for some pictures. After returning to camp one day, I was sitting on the beach and watched long tailed Macaque monkeys jumping around the fruit trees. When everyone else left the riverside beach area, three of them became a bit more inquisitive and walked around the rocks on the other side of the river from me.

The following day, I walked down to the field centre when all of a sudden the tree in front of me sprung alive as I disturbed an orang-utan. Unfortunately I didn't see it full on, but saw it's orange fur jumping around until he was a few trees away from me. There were a few pygmy squirrels kicking around the camp area, and we had a resident lizard living on the tree by the dry food slops area.

Unfortunately I headed away from the camp in a bit of a hurry the night before my departure to escort an ill participant to the comfort of the field centre. We had to move down just as darkness approached and were taken down by the rangers who camped close by us. The up side of this was we were taken by boat, in darkness, guided by the spotlight of the rangers. This was an amazing journey, and something you'd never get access to normally. All you could see was the rangers spotting the banks and the currents by spotlight, and headtorch when they cut the engine on the lower parts of the river. When you looked up, the only thing visible was the outline of the trees and the stars.

At the start of the trip the Permanent Secretary of Youth and Sport visited the project site at Danum, treated us to lunch and dinner, and planted a tree. At night we went to a talk from a Danum ranger then in true Asian style we sang karaoke with the Ministry staff until late o'clock...but remember 11pm is late o'clock in Raleigh time, never mind when we were rising at 4am... The Ministry's hospitality was immense and the whole team were taken to a viewing platform for the sunrise over the surreal misty Danum Valley, then treated to a slap up breakfast on the platform

Today I was looking through the photos from the last few weeks, but was subjected to the artificial stresses created at field base....although I'm loving the stuff I have to do over the next few weeks the simple life of a project site becomes all the more appealing.

I'll write more and put some pictures up soon, but it's likely to be later on next week as the madness of changeover has came round again, so tomorrow it's back to Borneo Paradise for a mad few days with some new participants, and many more knackered ones finding out which project sites they are heading to for their final few weeks....

Bump 'n' Grind

I'm sitting in Lahad Datu on the east coast of Borneo. We've just driven along 250km of road lined with Oil Palm trees, and that's only a snapshot of the industry. When you get to any viewpoint, all you can see is oil palm plantations as far as the eye can see.
I've just spent a week at a tiny kampong with 15 small homes making a productive start to a gravity water feed system. I spent the first morning there, which was my birthday, planting rice in the paddy fields for 3 hours. The men walked ahead making holes in the ground, while the women (and me!) threw the seeds in after them. This was a fantastic experience as no-one around me spoke any English, and I spent 3 hours thinking of nothing else except whether I had put the correct number of seeds in the hole - not too much, not too little, and hoping that I won't screw up their harvest!! As an 'orang-putty' I was getting laughed at a bit as it was probably the first time some of them had had such close contact with a white man, or possible even seen on, but I just laughed along.
It was a superb setting with a very small community, and some fantastic kids. We layed around 3km of plastic piping along some treacherous jungle like terrain, across massive fallen logs, and felled large clearings with the locals and their parangs. The JKK (head of the kampong) made us feel very welcome there. I must confess I pretty much had tears in my eyes leaving the project. I'll really miss completing the project, and getting more involved in the community as I think that was just about to turn the corner. I had tried getting invited to some local sing songs as there were always noisy houses every night. A few nights ago, we were lighting an open fire, and a couple of locals emerged from the darkness and helped us along. Through one of the host country participants, we had a conversation with them which was an experience. A couple of us tried their 'jungle baccy' (no, it's legitimate, not dodgy!), while I tried to get an invite to a house...unfortunately my time on the project was running out. Maybe it's because I got the high score on his mobile phone's driving game....

From there I was picked up by the loop land rover that resupplies the teams mid phase, drops of mail, and basically checks all is well. We headed to Imbak Canyon which involved 2 hours of driving off the main road, along logging tracks, once again surrounded by oil palm plantations. The journey was broken up now and again by massive logging trucks creating dust sprays over the trees, and us. There's only been about 300 people entered Imbak. We stayed at a camp used by the BBC when filming a forthcoming documentary. Just under the camp is an amazing waterfall which is used for washing, so we had a quick dip in there, and swam behind the fall.
At night I went out in a small group with two rangers on a night jungle trek. Despite not seeing much (only Mouse Deer) the sounds were amazing, and it was a tad bizarre when we switched off torches and stood in the silence, in the dark, for 5 minutes. I think under 150 people have been into this area so it's quite a priviledge.
From here we left and drove to Mangkuwagu, which is a larger kampong than Linapasan. To access here there is a 2.5-3hr journey along a road that many people would pay hundreds of pounds to off road on. To say it was bumpy would be an understatement - I was all over the place in the Land Rover. Unbelievably, 2hrs into it we stumbled across an oil tanker that was stranded in the mud. I couldn't believe he tried to get that far! The road was really enjoyable though. Everyone we passed either greeted us with a wave or waved back at us. If I was driving and we didn't have the time pressures I would have been stopping every 15 minutes for pictures of the locals.

When we rolled into the house where the project team are staying we had a welcoming committee of around 20 kids running towards us singing with the team - you can't get much better than that.
This morning we went to the school for 40 mins taking pictures, and getting sung to. They were so friendly and welcoming, and they must be the most happy children I've ever met by the looks of it. I was really reluctant to leave here and wanted to stay the rest of the phase.

After this we visited the work site of the new kindergarten briefly then left to head to Lahad Datu. Back along the 3hr off road.... then a 3hr trip on the main road.
Tomorrow we meet some officials from the Ministry of Sport and Finance and head to Danum Valley for a day of show and tell, and some official ceremonies. On Saturday morning I'll wave goodbye to the loop vehicle and stay in Danum until Wednesday before flying back to KK just before the next changeover.

Already it feels like the end of the programme is looming - unbelievable! In a way I look forward to having days to do what I want to but I'm loving it at the moment. I wish I had more community work, but it's great heading around Sabah and seeing the projects. Despite heading back to the field base office in under a week, a real office seems a million miles away, and not something I wish to return to if I can help it (although I'm happy to accept that may change with time!). Unfortunately I remember I'm not getting paid any more, but then a fried rice does only cost 80p if you eat at the right places..! Tonight's meal for 3 was 30RM - less than five pounds for 3 dishes, 2 coffees, 3 smoothies, and a coke!

Off back to our hotel (yes, amazing) as it's a big day tomorrow. I had my first shower for a week and a half this evening. It's only when you hit everyday things like this I realise I've been bathing and chilling in rivers once or twice a day, looking across from the community hall towards the paddy fields, and jungle, and bouncing around Sabah in a 4x4.