Wednesday, June 21, 2006

   man oh man...i shouldnt stay up to the wee hours of the morning...
H’okay, we finally get this thing finished. This is the last part of my most amazing Malaysian adventures. REMEMBER: check out the alt text to see interesting titbits about my adventures.


BUT FIRST!!!!!

Today is the day marking 18 years of life for one of my closest and bestest friends. So I just wanna say HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISSY!!! I made you a lil pressie.

CLICKY HERE TO SEE YOUR BIRTHDAY PREZZIE!!!

I woulda posted it up here, but photobucket is being all temperamental with me and my comics lately, so you’ll have to make do with a link… gomen. Hope ya have a good one though.

ALRIGHT THEN. LETS DO IT!!! (please bear in mind this is gonna be hella long)

I was a part of Team ALPHA 4 and this was the final phase, PHASE 3, the environmental phase. I was going to Danum Valley, a research centre which contains one of the few areas of natural rainforest left in Malaysia. There’s not a lot left in Malaysia as it stands. Most of it has been turned into Palm Oil Plantations now, and the earth will not be able to recover what its lost any time soon.

I don’t have any proper pics of my group this time round other than this one, and it aint much cop.



In this group we had Myself, Jane (again, for the third time…poor girl), Jenna, Carmel, Reed (from Colorado USA), Paul, Mike, Kate, and three useless and annoying people. Our Project Managers were the totally awesome Merv and Nick, who were hilarious and awesome fun.

This is pretty much what Danum Valley looks like…




Luckily the facilities there were better then the ones in the other environmental project and we were fortunate enough to have a proper roof over our heads, proper toilets, running water and even *gasp* electricity…




Of course, despite the raised decking and the food being locked away tightly, this didn’t deter “Yogi” the freakin Sunbear from coming at night and EATING OUR FRIGGIN FOOD! Seriously, there was this bear and it had huge claws that could tear holes in aluminium and it ransacked our kitchens several nights and ate most of our chocolate and sugar and drank our orange cordial. Darn bear. Not that we were gonna mess with it or anything. ^^;;;;


And that’s not the only wildlife we ran into. We also had encounters with “Porky” the gigantic bearded pig and these guys.



Joe the Lizard



Fireants. Damn those buggers hurt when they bite…



And even Orang-utans! Did you know Orang-utan is actually a Malaysian word? It means “Jungle People”. There see. You live and learn. (then you die and forget it all)

And occasionally (not very often at all in fact) we had one of these



He was big. ^^;;;

Well, the main thing we were doing at Danum Valley was building bridges and trail blazing so that scientists could get to new parts of the conservation area to study stuff.

I was mainly tasked on bridges, which meant I had to carry a lot of ironwood.



Ironwood is really really heavy. Like, so heavy, it’s the only wood in the world that doesn’t float. And we had to carry it a good kilometre or so into the jungle, cuz that was the only way we could get it there. Me and some of the guys made it into a competition and were practically running down the trail with these planks of heavy wood on our shoulders…we managed to do 8 loads in one day (that’s 16 k...8 trips to the site, 8 trips back to get more wood) ^-^ it felt good.

Here are some pics of the bridges we built…





And here are a few inscriptions we put into the bridges (bearing in mind we had no paintbrushes to do this with)



Translated, that says “Appreciate our Nature”



See the alt text for an explanation of that one



Funny story with that last one. We were carving it into the bridge when this HUGE snake shot out of the jungle onto the path and LOOKED AT US! Then it buggered off…scared the pants off of me though…

Of course, it wasn’t all work. We had lotsa fun playing football and volleyball against the rangers, we met with various scientists who told us lots of cool stuff (like this German scientist who showed us ants that explode when you annoy them!) and a lot of important stuff as well, like the bleak future of the rainforests and how we cant ever expect to see it re-grow within our lifetimes…

We also had many trips to various pools.



The not so aptly named Jacuzzi pool. We had people in our group who thought these might be actual pools with tiles and heating and stuff. Morons.



The Rhino pools…eventually the trail we built will lead to a bridge that will cross the river to these pools. At the moment, it’s an hour and a half trek.

And on Mike’s birthday, we went to a waterfall, which was okay, but there were lotsa other little pools we could dive into and stuff. We had a lot of fun that day.



We also went to this observation tree…



The platform is 50 metres in the air. To put that into perspective, that’s just a tad smaller then THREE Freedom Gundams standing on each others shoulders.



Gives you vertigo just by looking at it, don’t it?

And we also went on what was called the Coffin Trail. Why was it called that?



Cuz there was a buncha coffins at the end of it.

We also did a hundred other things, like have a party, have a curry night, played badminton (with insults flying faster then the shuttlecock), fitted random words into our radio reports like “count of monte cristo” and “12x12 ft steel cage”, and started up a leech league whereby you gave yourself points every time a leech bit you. The more intimate the area, the higher the points. Double points for internal bites. (in mouth, on genitals etc…) Another game was Camp Cluedo where you were given a weapon ( a bootlace or a water bottle or a torch or something random) and a location (like in the kitchen or by the football pitch) and somebody who you had to “kill” by giving them the item in the location specified. Of course, everybody becomes suspicious of everybody else, and paranoia runs high when people ask you to pick up stuff or get them something.

The PMs, Merv and Nick, were also excellent cooks, and their crowning glory was “Death by sugar” pudding, which had so much sugar and chocolate and sweet stuff in it, it could have quite easily given a person diabetes…

I got a hell of a lot out of this phase, not so much because of what we did, so much as the people I was with. Especially Merv and Nick, who not only were funny but also challenged me in ways that I hadn’t been challenged before on the expedition.
I think I learned a lot from my time there and became a better person because of it.

Oh yeah, one other thing from Danum…the camp that time forgot…







Me, Merv and Nick had gone on a jungle run on the last day to survey all the work on the trail we had done. At the end of the trail was this old abandoned camp where previous Raleigh expeditions had been before, as well as other it had seemed. There was still lil things like books and stoves left behind…like a ghost town…creepy, yet fascinating.


Well, after that we headed back to Kota Kinabalu (after stopping the night in Bata Puteh, stuffing my face full of food and then puking it all up again five seconds later…) and for the closing ceremony and final beach party.

The closing ceremony was held at a fish restaurant, which was ironic cuz a lot of people didn’t like fish…

And the slideshow was crap cuz the expedition photographer didn’t take a good enogh range of photos and set the whole thing to shoddy music, but the speech by one of the venturers, a friend of mine called Tristan was very good. Jane, my lil Malaysian friend who had to suffer my presence for the entire expedition, also did a speech in both English and Malay! Kudos to her. And I tried my hand at the Bamboo dance again in front of everyone, and did pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

My group, Alpha 4, also managed to win the Skit competition by some bizarre stroke of luck, with our impressions of Raleigh staff members, and so we won free pizza when we went to Kota Kinabalu on one of the last days. Yummy.

The last full day was spent at a beach resort, and everyone just chilled hard core.
We were staying in this lodge here…



Except for these two…



It was a prize somebody had bid for in an auction of promises we held to help raise money for the Malaysian venturers. ^^;

The beach party was fantastic. We played in the sea, we had a barbeque, we sat on the beach, we talked about our time and experiences, we had music…it was a great end to a great trip.





And now I will finish up with some pictures of the really cool people I made friends with on the trip. Theres a few people missing, but these are the people I wanna shout out to.



Merv, my fav Project Manager, who taught me a lot, but kept me motivated and smiling too.



Mike, a really nice guy, bit of a BSer. I got on really well with him.



Reed from Colorado. Awesome guy, funny as hell.



Paul…a bit quiet and reserved, yet highly sarcastic and sadistic…interesting fella.



Justin: really friendly guy from Kula Lumpur. He did a hella lotta translating for us, so kudos to him.



Kate: nice enough.



Sian: insanely happy, especially in the mornings when we were all zombified.



Rob and Phil. Probably by two bestest mates on the trip. Even though his name was also Phil…like mine…



Zoe. A little strange. And a little vertically challenged. But a good friend.



Sam. A bit rough, but a nice guy, hard as nails.



Diana from Scotland. Got scared easy, but strong willed, and got on well with most people.



Peter. A genuinely nice guy although we used to get on each others nerves occasionally.



Loz. This guy would eat anything and everything. Including the really gross stuff like the sardines and the veggie chop suey. Makes me wanna puke just thinking about it…



Martyn. A bit of a moaner but a really good friend on the first phase.



Jenna and Carrie-Anne. i met both of them way back in December and still periodically get emails from Carrie-anne. great girls.



Carmel. down to earth and practical, kept everyone focused but managed to do it without being a killjoy. a good leader when it was her turn.



Jane, Jane, Jane…bless her little heart. She had to put up with me for the ENTIRE expedition. Towards the end things were a little…strained…but she was still willing to smile for the camera. A really cool Malaysian.



Katie. Along with the other Phil and Rob, probably one of my best friends from the trip. A really great girl. ^-^

Also shout out to: Phillipa, another mike, Tristan and John. Thanks guys, you were all great.
And also thanks to Collin, Rosie, Dave, Serena and Nick for being great PMs.
And to people like Johns from Kampung Rita, and Melvyn from Danum Valley. And Amanda, who taught me to SCUBA!! ^^ thanks guys.

And that’s it. Id like to leave you with the last entry in my diary I kept for the trip.

“I'm at a loss for words to try and convey the thoughts and feelings I'm having at the moment. I definitely feel I’ve come out the other side of this exhibition a different person, hopefully a better person with the skills to accomplish what I want in life and to be better at the things I normally do. I come back to England with a slightly altered view on life, with a better understanding of myself, a new drive to do stuff and a whole lot more hair then I started with!!
It’s been one helluva few months and if I think of anything more to describe my experiences, I will jot them down in this journal.
But for now, as the old cliché goes: its been one hell of a rollercoaster.
And in the words of the immortal Green Day:

“It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right. I hope you had the time of your life.”

Yes. Yes I did.”


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Thank you my friends for sharing my Malaysian experiences with me. If you ever get the chance to do something similar, I would thoroughly recommend it.

Welp, I'm going to go to bed. Its 3AM here and Midori wants to go to sleep.
Ciao my friends.

And Happy 18th Birthday Chrissy.

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