Selamat jalan 2010

I was thinking the other day about 2010 and how the year turned out for me. And I think by far, it has been one of my most interesting years, and definitely my most nomadic.

In terms of adventures and new experiences, this was the year for me (although I hope not the last for adventures and new experiences). Three months was the longest I was in one place at one time. I was on 3 different continents, 7 countries, 22 airplanes (at least, but i feel like I'm missing some...).

I was going to write about the past year and what it brought, so I started going through pictures, and then got distracted by one thing, so I’m going to sidetrack briefly to write briefly about ravens. They are huge! I had no idea, but I guess I technically saw my first real life raven this spring in Banff and was enthralled yet terrified of this massive creature which looks like it could feed on small dogs and babies. 

Speaking of babies, another wonderful thing in 2010 was I got to be there (well, basically there) for my lovely Adrienne to have her first baby, Lincoln! And I got to meet Lisa’s little Evan, who was born just after I left for England in 2008! I’m so proud to be able to call these wonderful mommy’s my girls, my friends.

I got to catch up with almost all my girls  all over the world in 2010…some of which I hadn’t seen in years, but felt just like a day had passed when we met up, just with a lot more stories. It was especially great to see all my = Primatology ladies in Calgary, where it all began. Who knows if I’ll ever be back in Calgary, (but K’s wedding?!!), but I know that no matter where this world takes us, and how long it is between seeing each other, it doesn’t really matter. It’ll be like no time passed, just with more stories to tell!  

I’ve also made some really great new friends in 2010, and I hope they know that they won’t be able to get rid of me easily!  Other friendships really solidified their place in my heart this year and for all of these friends, I am truly grateful. 

I’m looking forward to the new year, with more trips to new and excited countries! (the Philippines being the one starting it all off in a couple of weeks), and heading off the relatively unexplored areas of Indonesian Borneo, with the BRINCC expedition! And other than that, I have NO idea what 2011 has in store for me, but if 2010 is anything to go by, it’s sure to be an eventful one.

For ALL of you (and it’s a long list) who nurtured my nomadic ways this year, thank you for letting me sleep on your floor, couch, extra bed, wherever!!And I hope to be able to repay the favour at some point!

This time last year, I would have never thought that this is where I would be bringing in 2011 or who I would be spending it with, and who I would no longer be with. Selamat Datang 2011 - I can't wait.

2010: In memory of Jeff: my coffee, wine, stand-up, and music inspiration. 

More from BRINCC!!

Just wanted to let you all know that there is another way you can support the BRINCC expedition, and just in time for the holidays!!! So far we've got 2011 Calendars (made by yours truely); T-shirts - which are organic, fair trade AND carbon neutral - how cool is that!; and wonderful cotton carrier bags so you don't have to use those plastic bags any more and you can proudly show off your support for BRINCC everywhere you go!
Just check out the website for pictures, sizes, details and to purchase to your hearts content! http://www.brinccexpedition.org/Shop/

Also, I'm just over half way to my goal for my personal fundraising...thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far, and thank you in advance for those of you who just haven't gotten to it yet but will soon!!
Every penny counts so please visit www.giving.ox.ac.uk/wildcru where you can make a tax-exempt or gift aid donation through the University of Oxford. Just click on the *BRINCC* option in the list provided, and the rest remains the same! Remember to also send an email to brinccborneo@googlemail.com saying it is towards "Danicas personal fundrasing goal" <3
 

2011 Calendar - £7

Featuring 12 stunning photographs of wildlife.  Each page is kindly sponsored by a conservation organisation working to help conserve these precious species.

BRINCC Expedition T-Shirts -£17

Ladies' T-shirt - Organic, FairTrade and Carbon Neutral!
Priced £17, all proceeds going to Indonesian staff wages for the expedition.
Small, Medium and Large sizes available - green or grey
Please also check out the Men's t-shirts with the same design, available in green and dark red!

BRINCC Cotton Bag -£3 

a short update and what - a new blog?! oh ya!

Helloo!!

After spending 4 weeks back in England, I packed it all up and went on a long flight - however I didn't quite make it back to Canada, went the opposite direction in fact! After spending 2 cold-foot days in London finally catching up with one of my cousins and seeing my lovely friend Vicki from La bundo bundo, I got on a plane heading back to Southeast Asia, and I am now currently sitting back in the forests of the Kinabatangan River watching macaques wandering outside the window.

So far I have been able to spend my mornings and evenings out on the river with the proboscis monkeys which has been a real treat! They are just so silly! We have been watching the same troop for a couple of days, but yesterday was great - there was this thin tree next to the big sleeping tree that these monkeys just love - there might not be much to it, but it apparently is a wonderful bed for at least 3 monkeys at a time. Anyways, after waking up and scratching and stretching for a bit, this one individual decided it was time for a little exercise and starting using her body to sway the tree back and forth multiple times before going for the big leap into the neighboring tree. Then she would climb back up to the small tree and leap again into the big one - this happened 7 times! hehe! gave us time to take some videos and attempt a picture, but leaping monkeys are hard to capture! I should have more chances as a bunch of monkeys were climbing it this morning and leaping off, but my camera was dead :( Here is my attempt thus far (its a bit blurry, sorry!)

I also wanted to let you all know (those of you who care i guess!) that my sister and I are joining up and doing a photo blog - I was inspired by her "take a picture a day for a year" mission she was on, and wanted to join in! We will be alternating days posting pics and following a theme for the week, kind of a comparison between city and jungle life! I'm very excited!  Plus it will be another way that I can keep in touch and update whoever wants an update, since I really do need all the help i can get to keep in touch! The site is called CitytoJungle and you can find it here: http://citytojungle.wordpress.com/ !

But I am still going to keep this blog as updated as possible!! Happy times!

Love D

Sorry there hasn’t been an update post Indonesia as of yet! Japan (and now England) has kept me so busy  but I figure I should get this out there before a month has gone by!  Please excuse the length – although Japan was only 10 days, it was jammed packed and such an interesting place that I probably could just keep writing and writing. But I’m trying to keep it to the point…

We arrived 8 hours late in Kyoto – for some reason our plane decided not to come to pick us up from Kuala Lumpur, and I didn’t look at the schedule until just before the flight was meant to board, so I could’ve known this about 3 hours earlier, but nonetheless, Malaysian Airlines provided transportation and a room at a hotel for everyone on the flight. But if I would’ve checked the silly schedule I would’ve gotten more than 2 hours sleep. Boo! 

So we missed the welcoming banquet on the first night due to this delay, but just got right into it the following morning bright and early! I’ll just do a brief re-cap of the conference, since otherwise it would be way to much (and boring to read/write!). The days basically consisted of being so jammed packed that you barely got a chance to chat with the people you were running into and meeting. Talks were about 15-20 minutes long, and symposiums lasted for about 2 hours straight, then a 15 minute break, then another 2 hour symposium! On 2 of the mornings, in place of talks, there was poster presentations. Half the people were to stand by theirs on one day, and half on the second day. There were such a huge variety of topics being presented and personally knowing quite a number of people who were presenting meant that the days were so busy that it unfortunately didn’t leave much chance for me to see the city. But it was great to hear about everything going on all over the world in primatology and learn more about certain species and topics that I wasn’t too familiar in! Also, gave me ideas for future endeavours and how to improve in what I have already been doing. And it was also great to catch up with old friends, meet people I’ve only ever been in email contact with and to make new friends and future colleagues.

For the first week, we stayed in a hostel which was traditional Japanese in style and set up. It consisted on tatami mats (which I think are the most wonderful things ever), and futon mattresses which fold open – so during the day, the mattresses are folded up along the wall, and at night there were 5 mattresses folded alongside each other on the floor. It was a nice place, with sake to serve in the evenings! They also had a kimono to try on, but unfortunately we forgot about it until it was too late :( During this week, we normally just went out for dinner following the conference, which I don’t know how we would have done without Richard. Finding a restaurant alone would be difficult enough, let alone choosing something to eat – ESPECIALLY for a vegetarian. I’m pretty sure I would’ve just eaten the same thing every day, at the same place, and would’ve missed out on so much of the experience. But the food was amazing...even the raw egg stirred into rice.

We had a couple of days after the conference that we could go visit a few sites for free or reduced rates with our conference passes – I decided to go to the Kyoto Zoo (which ended up being by myself, nooone else wanted to go), and I’m glad I did. I’ve never been to an Asian Zoo (which I know is a huge generalisation already) but wanted to see for myself what a zoo outside of North America or even the UK was like. Kyoto Univerisity has a major role in primatology, and I could definitely tell by looking at their zoo that there is more of a focus on the primate enclosures than any other ones. But even those were lacking. A few primate cages had interesting enrichment, but they were still all cement ground and wire box cage around. Except the African Great Apes (Chimps and Gorillas) which had relatively “large” natural outdoor enclosures. But then again, the Japanese primatologists study a lot on chimps and gorillas. However, once you moved away from the Primate enclosures (excluding the orang-utan), there were some pretty sad cages – the small cats and wild dogs, and elephants and bears and giraffes. Actually, I should clarify, I am saying elephants and bears and giraffes, but there was just one of each. So not only were they in extremely poor cages with hardly any enrichment or room to move, they were alone as well. I could go on and on about it, but I do want to say one good thing about this zoo – their education bit. It was VERY Japanese, and I loved it (even though I couldn’t read it). They had outside most cages/enclosures, signs teaching about the animals but they were all done in the typical Japanese animation style, which I think made it much easier and entertaining for the children to learn. I especially liked the ring-tailed lemur one which was showing cartoons of the tail stink wars by the  males! 

We also went to Arishiyama, a monkey park outside the centre of Kyoto. It was wonderful up there – it was on the top huge hill (small mountain? I have no idea) which overlooked the entire city. On this mountain, they have over 100 Japanese macaques which are free roaming. They feed them at the very top in a cleared area with an amazing view. And I have to admit that I love this type of macaque. Their faces are just soaked in character. The lines and wrinkles and different pigmentation on each of their faces seems to tell a story of a life time of experience. We spent a couple hours at this site and then wandered around the town for a bit and found a beautiful bamboo forest. I love bamboo too! It is such an amazing plant – the strength of them don’t seem to match their size and beauty. I need to learn more about them though (besides their super strength ability for being wonderful building materials), because there didn’t seem to be any undergrowth in the bamboo forest and I wonder if it has been naturally cleared for appearances, or if bamboo has a similar effect pine needles and many other trees have which kill everything around them to eliminate competition. Hmm.

The following day we did a quick visit to a buddist temple, which is the (or one of the) largest wooden structure in the world, then headed over to the Imperial Palace for a tour. However, being a national holiday (Day of the Aged I believe), it was closed and we couldn’t see anything L The palace yard is lovely though, so we wandered around there for a bit.

Next it was off to Osaka, as we were both flying out the next day. We met up with one of my old flat mates, Kengo and he showed us a bit around. It was very nice to catch up with him and see him in his home turf! Richard left early the following morning, but I had the whole day still, so I managed to get lost numerous times, in the true Danica fashion where I have no idea what I am looking at and probably think it is something that it really isn’t, but got to see a lot of the city. There is definitely a huge difference between Osaka and Kyoto – Kyoto being the traditional capital, and Osaka is a booming metropolitan. But I managed to stumble across some gems in the city which made it wonderful!  I headed over to a huge temple that the tourist information lady told me I probably wouldn’t want to go to if I had already been to Kyoto but since I really didn’t get a chance to see much in Kyoto because of the busy-ness of the conference, I decided to head there anyways and it was fabulous. It seemed to be quite a mish-mash of Buddhism and Shinto-ism (?) that I was having trouble telling them apart. I first stumbled into a cemetery which led me to a wonderful little market area full of stalls and hardly any tourists. I thought I had taken the wrong turn but just decided to go with it since I usually find pretty wonderful areas that way. There was one area in a particular (which I believe was Shinto) which had a bunch of statues that people were dropping coins in front of and saying little prayers. These areas were outdoors, right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the market, but they were so calm and serene that you almost forgot where you were, like there were invisible sound-proof walls around them. What a difference between here and Indonesia/Malaysia, where the religion is loud, and at all hours of the day (and night). But in Japan it is so serene and no matter where you are in the city, there are areas you can go to and just be.

I’m so happy I made the (pricey) decision to go to Japan. Not sure if I’ll get another chance, but it is one of the weirdest and most unique places I have been too…and I don’t think I’ll find another place like it.

Donating now made easier!!!!

It is now even easier to make a difference to BRINCC and help fund our expedition. Donations of any size will help buy equipment, fund an Indonesian student to join us, pay for local staff wages or pay for our food for a day!

Every penny counts so please visit www.giving.ox.ac.uk/wildcru where you can make a tax-exempt or gift aid donation through the University of Oxford. Just click on the *BRINCC* option in the list provided, and the rest remains the same! Remember to also send an email to brinccborneo@googlemail.com saying it is towards "Danicas personal fundrasing goal"

Thank you again for all your support!!

There is something unnerving about fireworks going off right next to the runway during take-off

Slow loris foot which I tried describing last posting. Notice the cute little finger nails and then the mean claw! (Photo: Rich)

Not too much to report for my final week in Java. I wasn’t feeling all that great, so didn’t get to do nearly as much as I had been planning to do. I did get the opportunity to help out with some enrichment for the macaques at the center though, which was interesting, since we basically only had one material to be creative with, bamboo.

A couple days after I arrived at the centre, there was a large number of primates that were brought in – 16 lorises and 15 long tail macaques. The macaques went into quarantine, where they will stay until all the tests come back (for diseases and such). So in the mean time, they are grouped 1-3 individuals to an enclosure. So we made up some bamboo tubes with holes and put their food in there so they had to work a bit more to get the fruit out. It wasn’t much, but it was better and more than what they had before.

2 of the permanent resident pig tails (Photo: Rich)

There are also 4 pig tail macaques that are permanent residents – due to certain physical conditions, these macaques will never be able to be released, so we attempted another enrichment device for them, to keep them more occupied, which required them to pull a piece of rubber tubing through a hole which would allow food to drop out. This ended up getting a bit too complicated with the lack of materials and needed to be refined, which it hadn’t yet by the time I left – hopefully it will though because I think it would be a good one!

Had to go into Bogor, the nearest big city, to print off my poster for the conference in Kyoto, which ended up being a bit of a wild goose chase. Due to Ramadan and Idul Fitri just a day away (those being the answer to basically every question of “why?” this month – why are there fireworks at 3am? Why is their music coming from the mosque allllll night long? Why is there nothing open during the day and why does everywhere close so early at night? Why is there NO FOOD!). Anyways, why was the print shop closed until mid-october? That’s right. There were 2 people sitting outside of it who told us all about it being closed and then directed us to a different one. But as we pulled away, we noticed a sign for another print shop – so we popped in there, but they have to send their printing to Jakarta, so that wouldn’t work. But he gave us the name of another, and called to make sure they were open. So we decided to go to that one instead. Took us awhile to find it (Bogor is a crazy city), and by the time we found it, the rain started. And turns out this print shop didn’t even print posters! Agh! We tried waiting a bit for the rain to die down, and when it wasn’t, we just decided to go to the print shop that this last shop told us about. Again, took us awhile to find, and when we got to the area it was supposed to be, nothing was open. So after about 3 hours of going from print shop to print shop, we ended up at the one that the people at the first shop told us about and it was open and they could do it in about 30 minutes! Oh boy. So we treated ourselves to some yummy pizza – we deserved it! But the rain didn’t stop, and was just getting heavier. Since we were going by motor bike we decided to station ourselves in a coffee shop with internet until it slowed or stopped. But by 2130h, the shop had closed so we decided to make a break for it. Needless to say, we were soaking wet and I have been sneezing ever since, even as I type this.

Ran into friends at the airport in Jakarta which made the hours waiting for my flight much more enjoyable. It’s always nice to see a familiar face or three! Unfortunately, Marie and Susan couldn’t get on the same flight as me, but we are on the same flight to Osaka together (from Kuala Lumpur) and then roomies for the next week so I’m looking forward to that!

Just a quick note about the flight – regarding the title of this posting – I know it is celebration time in Indonesia, but it really is unnerving when there are fireworks going off right next to us as we were taking off! However, by the time we were over the height of the fireworks, it was very pretty – all over the city there were fireworks – quite a sight!

Beng-Beng time with Malaysia Airlines!! Mmmm!

Next stop – Japan. I am so excited – I never ever thought I would be going to Japan, so it was kind of surreal when Rich left yesterday (we have different flights going there), that I could say “see you in Kyoto!” I am especially looking forward to seeing all my monkey people I haven’t seen in ages from my undergrad at the UofC and also to see Chrissy Campbell, my howler monkey supervisor from Panama! Plus all the proboscis monkey people there it will be fabulous! I just have to think about what I want to talk to them about so this quite expensive 10 day trip ends up being worth it! I have no idea what to expect, which seems to be the theme of my summer, and I like it!

Sampai jumpa nanti Indonesia! See you next year! 

Me and Jojo - the little orphaned slow loris. Cute little guy, but remember, not a pet! As soon as he can eat solid food on his own, he'll be out of our hair (literally)

Loris? Lorisi? Lorises!

Guess it is about time for an update from Java! I have been here for a week already and it has been flying by. I can’t believe it is only one more week left until I head north to the land of cherry blossoms!
I am currently about 40 minutes away from the “City of Rain” – Bogor, in a small village (or near…not quite sure) called Ciapus. So needless to say, hujan lagi, more rain.

Flying back to Jakarta went seamlessly, and Richard was there at the airport to greet me and it was so wonderful that he had come in a car so we didn’t have to take public transportation back. Especially because the just over 2 hour journey ended up taking us about 4 because of heavy traffic. So we didn’t get to his site until after dark.

I was going to go up the mountain (Gunung Selak) with Richard the following night, as they have slow lorises that they are in the process of releasing. But true to the name of the area, it rained. And rained and rained. However, I am finding the rain here much more enjoyable than in La bundo bundo. Maybe that is because I don’t actually have to go out in the rain if I don’t want, but I think it is also because of the amazing lightning and thunderstorms that come along with the rain. That first night the thunder was so loud that all the dogs at the guest house except one (so 6!) ran into rich’s room and were hiding under the bed and desk and us.
The following night we made it out, after just a short storm. Basically the way it is set up is that there is a cage that has been put up in the forest on the mountain that just surrounds a bunch of trees and vegetation. They put the lorises that they think are suitable to be released in this enclosure (called the habituation cage), as kind of a half way house between their captive life and being back in the wild. They leave them there for however long until the lorises look as though they are ready to be released (not stressed, foraging and moving around naturally). This time, luckily for me, the cage was set up only about 30 minutes up the mountain, instead of the 4-5 hour walk it has been in the past! We got up to the camp around 9pm, had a cup of ABC Mocca (yum!) and then headed for the cage, which was another 10-15 minutes up. We stayed up there from 11pm to about 530am (although I have to admit I brought my sleeping bag and slept the last 2 hours next to the cage!). It was a full moon that night so it was so bright in the forest (well, relatively), but it was cold!

After leaving the mountain in the morning, I went almost straight out to Jakarta, to help give a presentation at an International School. We had been invited by a Grade 1 class who have had International Animal Rescue (IAR) come give talks in the past. They joined classes, so there were 40 grade 1 students which were full of comments! I did a talk on what Animal Welfare is and Animal Trade. They actually seemed quite interested in it, but I think it was mostly the cute pictures of cats and dogs and lorises that got them. Indri, who was the girl I was helping, who is the education officer at IAR, then showed a few videos of slow lorises and also on taking care of your pets at home (dogs and cats). The kids had so many questions and many more comments, and turns out that a couple of them had monkeys as pets before (one got rid of it because it peed on his head), or fathers had bought live croc’s (which I don’t really get). So basically we were just trying to get in their heads why they shouldn’t buy wild animals as pets and what to do if they saw one at the market.

I also helped out one afternoon when the vet and keepers were giving medication to all the lorises at the center (there are about 100 now – 16 new ones just arrived this last week). Rich is needing pictures of all the lorises to look at their facial patterns (and I don’t know what else), so I was his scribe for the photos he was taking. Not a very big help I was, but it gave me a chance to get really close looks of this funny little critters. Lorises are such strange animals, much different than I was expecting. They have tiny little finger nails on all fingers except one, on their feet, where there is a large claw. When they are a little scared, they clasp their hands together and put them over their face, which I thought looked like hiding from fear, but it might actually be (I’ve been told) that they are getting their poison ready – lorises are poisonous! I love it! They have little glands around their inner upper arms that they lick and when it mixes with their saliva it become a toxin. They hiss and strike like snakes, and they have this black stripe on their back that makes them look like snakes when they are moving. I also had a loris grab onto my finger with his foot – and then his other, and ended up hanging onto my arm with his feet while the loris keeper was trying to get it back into where it was supposed to be going – and what a grip it has!!!! Their hands seem to be structured differently that makes them serious grabbers.

Since then I have mostly been helping Richard with his data – since he is out on the mountain (especially now that they release one of the lorises that was up in the cage when I went out) from about 6pm until 5am, he needs to sleep during the day. He is giving a talk at the big conference in Kyoto in 2 weeks, so I am helping as much as I can with making sure he has all his stuff ready for that. I have also been working on my poster presentation for Kyoto and next step is finally get the article I have been trying to write for the last 6 months out and off my plate! And I’m going to get out and help with the enrichment for the macaques and hopefully lorises for the last week!

Asking for your support :)

In June 2011, we (BRINCC (Busang River Initiative for Nature Conservation and Communities)) will be heading into the northernmost hills of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Borneo. For 4 months, we will travel along the Busang River, surveying primates, small mammals, birds, butterflies and moths, reptiles and amphibians, as well as conducting work with communities in surrounding villages. I am the only Canadian among the 15 scientists on this trip and will be responsible for GIS and GPS mapping of the area.

We want to make the ecological impact of this expedition as small as possible, which means state-of-the-art equipment and minimal use of motorized boats. All the equipment will be used by local people after the expedition to continue monitoring biodiversity in the area or donated to conservation projects in Indonesian Borneo.

In order for this to be possible, our fund raising efforts will have three approaches:
1) each non-Indonesian expedition member will fund-raise for their own expenses,
2) applying for grants and
3) requesting corporate sponsorship.

Each team member is aiming to raise £1000 (about $1500 Canadian dollars) towards the expedition, and I am asking you to consider helping me reach this goal.

As much as I love being in Borneo, there is a greater purpose to what we will be doing as our knowledge will be shared by producing management plans identifying threats to the ecosystem and the local communities, DVD documentaries, blog entries and press releases, and training Indonesian students and conservation workers, to name a few. We will also be getting schools in Canada, Europe and the UK involved.

Borneo may seem far away to us, but many of the decisions we make as consumers has a definite impact on Borneo’s economy and environment. If we know more we may be able to make a positive difference. Borneo is a major producer of palm oil, a product which is used in many products we buy every day, such as a vegetable oil in foods (margarine, bread, chips, cereal, cookies, chocolate, chewing gum, etc.), and other products such as cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, and toothpaste (it makes these products lather!). The increase in demand cannot be met with the current number of oil palm plantations, but only by increasing the total area of plantations. This would require existing forests to be cut down, as land used for other plantations (rubber, cocoa) has become limited and expensive for oil palm conversions. A goal of this expedition is to identify this area as an important area of biodiversity and therefore protect it (and all of its wildlife, including proboscis monkeys!) from the encroaching oil palm plantations that are spreading all over the island.

Whether you are donating to BRINCC through the Canadian, American or UK office of the University of Oxford, you can receive a charitable donation receipt.

For all donations please send an email to BRINCC brinccborneo@googlemail.com stating the amount you have donated and that it is a donation towards "Danica's personal fundraising goal", so your donation can be directed properly.

Here is how you can support me:

1)Donations from UK or Canada please click here

Select “Emergency Fund” and “Donate by Credit Card”
Please complete all the fields and in the field “Subject Studied” please write “DONATE TO BRINCC WILDCRU”

Select “I would like the University of Oxford Development Trust Fund to reclaim tax on this donation and all donations I make on or after the date of this declaration until I notify you otherwise. I am a UK tax-payer and pay an amount of income tax and/or capital gains tax at least equal to the tax to be reclaimed on my donations.”
OR
Select “I am a Canadian tax payer and I would like the University to issue me with a tax receipt.”

2)Donations from USA please click here

In the section marked “It is my preference that” please state “other” and put BRINCC Expedition, WildCRU” in the space

3)Donate by post or from any other country

Please send a cheque to payable to “BRINCC Expedition” to the following address. Please indicate it is a donation towards Danica’s personal fundraising goal.

BRINCC Expedition
C/O Dr Susan Cheyne
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, The Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney House, Abingdon Road, Tubney, Oxon, OX13 5QL, UK

MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR GENEROSITY IN SUPPORTING MYSELF AND BRINCC :-)

Green The Film

From Green The Film

Finally was able to watch a film I had been meaning to watch since I first heard about it in June, called "Green The Film". I encourage you all to watch it. I know some people don't really realise the effect we are having on this earth, that things don't seem different at home, so we must be doing ok still, but I hope that this film will make you realise otherwise. Although some of the shots (or a lot of them) are shown, I am sure, to pull on our heart strings, it is still not an exaggeration. Oil Palm plantations can go as far as the eye can see, and then some, and there is no way that all that area that was once forest could be cleared without killing or removing animals from their home. So even though things might seem to be fine at our home, they aren't in their homes.

Please realise that so much of what we do in the comforts of our supermarkets and shops is directly influencing the forests of (in particular) Indonesia and Malaysia, the largest exporters of oil palm in the world.

The photo I've added is just a screen shot from the credits of the film - have a good look through the list and you will undoubtedly recognise many names.

And please watch the film - it is free to watch on the website http://www.greenthefilm.com/

KL with a bang!

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur (Peninsular Malaysia) with a close call/hiccup with my luggage. The bags weren’t coming out so I decided to use the bathroom while I waited – I wasn’t in there for long, but by the time I came out, everyone had gone and all the bags had gone as well…except one. But not mine. But it was the exact same bag that I have and had a Canadian flag on it as well! So I sat and waited and the air asia staff looked up the details and took off, then arrived minutes later with a couple of frantic looking Canadians. They were just about to put my bag through the security scan as they were going on a connecting flight when they realised the bag they had was FILTHY and a slightly different Canadian flag. So luckily that worked out, but I was sorted of looking forward to shopping if my bag wasn’t returned! Lol!

I arrived at Carrie and Katie’s place after the scariest cab ride of my life and after getting slightly lost! They are just outside of KL, in a place called Petaling Jaya or PJ. I arrived just in time for pedicures with the girls, which was seriously in need. Spent Saturday catching up and eating yummy Katie food (eggplant wrapped around ricotta, mm!)!

Sunday we went off to FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia) for a little nature walk. It is a really pretty walk up to and from the canopy and back down. The canopy walk itself is about 200ft above ground and is 150m long. There are some great views from up there, and get a nice glimpse of the city from a distance. After the canopy walk we went to go find a banana leaf meal and in another terrifying taxi ride, we actually did get into a car accident! Our taxi driver rear ended another car which ended up hitting the car in front of it. No one was hurt thankfully, but the taxi itself was MESSED up. So the lesson of the trip: if you want a cheap taxi ride, an accident will do the trick (not too serious though!).

After eating, we were all ready to just sit and relax after the whole taxi incident, so we went back to their place and went for a swim and laid in the sun for a bit. Once the sun went into hiding, Carrie, Liv and I went off to the Central Market in KL for a bit of shopping and searching for hippie pants (North American pants, not UK pants). The market reminded me of the stalls in Camden Market in London – lots of crafts and fabrics and jewellery! After perusing as many shops as we could, we headed over to the old Chinatown, there they have a huge street market, with knock-off everything you could think of.

Katie, Carrie and Liv had to go to work Monday so I wandered around the city on my own, which consisted of getting lost with almost every turn I took. But I did manage to find everything I was searching for, just taking the longest route there probably is. Besides going back to the markets we went to the night before so I could buy the things I should’ve bought then, I went and saw Merdeka Square, which is their independence square, where on 31 Aug in 1957 (I think that is the year), the union jack was taken down and the Malaysian flag was raised for the first time. They have their independence day celebrations in the square every year. I also went into a beautiful hindu temple, the oldest in KL. I was speaking to a Hindu man who lives in KL before I went in, who asked me where I am from and when I said Canada, I was expecting him to say “oh Toronto” like everyone does, but he said “oh Edmonton!” hahaha. Random! Anyways, this temple was amazing, and what was really cool was that there was some sort of ceremony or service going on when I got there so it was full of people and wonderful sounds (drums and horns) and wonderful smells (incense, fires). The men were lined up wearing towels around their waists, some with white paint on their bodies, and taking some sort of plant up these stairs into a shrine (which looked like a steam room to me). But once they went up the stairs you couldn’t see them anymore. The temple had just been re-done (is redone every 12 years for a special occasion), so the colours were so vibrant in there.

After the temple, I went over to the Petronas towers – the tallest twin towers in the world. And true to my style, I spent the first 30 minutes there accidently taking pictures of the wrong buildings. Lol! When I got out of the train station, there were two large buildings next to each other, but I didn’t understand why they are called the twin towers if they didn’t look anything alike and they didn’t seem to connect the way I had been told they did. I wasn’t too impressed, but they were tall and so I figured that was it. Ended up being the KLCC (the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre), and was a shopping mall inside. One of the buildings I was looking at was one of the twin towers, but the other was hiding behind it. So after I walked all over the mall on all floors trying to find a way up to the view point, I gave up and was about to head back when I saw a bunch of people around the bend, so I followed the crowd and lo and behold some actual twin towers!! However, since it had taken me so long to get there, the viewing platform was closed so I didn’t get to go up and have a look over the city which was too bad. I decided that I would call it quits after that and headed back to Katie and Carries for dinner. We went out for Sushi then back at theirs I made them each one of the bracelets I learned to make in Sulawesi.

KL is an interesting place - totally different than any of the cities that I have been to in Indonesia or Malaysia so far. At times I forgot I was in KL, as it really reminded me a lot of Vancouver. I think mostly because there are people from all over living there besides just Malaysians, whereas in the other cities it has been mainly only Malaysians or Indonesians. It didn’t feel as foreign as somewhere with a 15hour time difference from Vancouver should feel. Also, you could easily and comfortably get by in the city without having to speak bahasa Malaysia because everyone speaks English (although I am sure you wouldn’t get messed around with as much if you could speak Malaysian).

It was a short but sweet trip. It was so nice to catch up with them again and see what their new life is like over in Malaysia! Now it is time to see what Rich's life has been like the last 9 months! Back to Indonesia...

The End of My Borneo Adventure….For Now

Two weeks on this river fly by like nothing at all. It is so easy for the days to disappear when it involves the lovely boat and funny monkeys and scary crocs! I feel like this isn’t my last time on the Kinabatangan because it feels more at home to me than most places have. I’ll just have to wait and see when the next time is but I am already looking forward to it!
The last couple days I spent doing a few different things I hadn’t done before! I spent half a day going around helping check camera traps (well….i didn’t help all that much, but I watched them check the cameras!). It was interesting to see the process, which surprisingly involves a lot of raking! The nicest trails I have seen are those for camera traps – all raked and clean from debris! Apparently a nice clean trail attracts animals (especially the cats of interest….and apparently MANY macaques) so it increases the chance of animals walking in front of the cameras. The macaques are so funny to see in the photos of camera traps and I don’t think I will stop giggling every time I see a picture of just the eyes of a macaque staring into the camera, so curious about what is going on that it’s face is basically pressed up against the camera. They also seem to time their matings just right so they are right in front of the camera for it. Camera trapping also involves a lot of sitting on a boat to go in between sites and therefore resulted in some pretty bad tan lines for me! But all in a days work!
Our last day we went for a last walk through the forest in hopes to see a snake, but the closest we got was a large millipede. But it is such a nice forest and SO easy compared to the one in La bundo bundo. I had forgotten that it can actually be enjoyable walking through the forest when you don’t have to worry about falling down a limestone cliff!
The afternoon we went to Gua Gomantong – a MASSIVE bat cave just about an hour and a bit away from the field site. The first thing you notice is the smell. It’s a smell that gets right in your head and seems to push out any other senses that are trying to express themselves. There must be millions of bats in that cave and so the amount of guano and ammonium is enough of a smell to hit you right in the face over and over again. BUT it is still an amazing place. There is a board walk set up which walks the inside perimeter of the cave, which I was very happy for, because the entire floor of the cave is covered in small mountains of guano and cockroaches. I don’t know if you guys have seen the planet earth caves episode but they filmed it in this spot, and had a camera run up the guano mountain. When you look quickly at the ground it just kind of seems shiny, but not anything special. But if you keep your eyes in one spot for a few seconds even, you will see the ground starting to move from all the cockroaches. You also have to watch your step on the boardwalk since the cockroaches are everywhere! And don’t even think about using the handle on the board walk to help yourself go up or down the ramps or you’ll get guano and cockroach allll over you! After going through the cave we sat outside and waited for dusk – and it was amazing. All the bats started streaming out of the cave, and it looked as though they were actually in a stream! They would flow out in a continuous stream and break off into small groups which look just like the bait balls fish go form when they are being attacked (although the bats going into this formation weren’t necessarily being attacked). But there were a few brahminy kites soaring around the entrance of the caves trying to snatch up whatever they could get! But kites don’t seem necessarily built for quick action strikes but it was still really cool to watch!
This cave is an important cave as it is harvested 3 times a year for the edible bird nests. So there were many people living outside the caves, and up on the mountain that work for the bird nest industry. Two of the guys came over and showed us the bird nests and told us a bit about them. There are two types of nests that are collected from the caves in the area (there are many, but only one accessible to visitors) – a black type and a white type. They are made from the birds basically up-chucking (I don’t know the proper word!) and so the nests are kind of gummy and rubbery. The black ones have more feathers in them, but the white ones are basically entirely this rubbery material and the bit that attaches to the wall had a bit of blood in it still. The white nests are more expensive than the black ones, but both are used for Chinese medicines and in soup. They were saying they would get about £400/1000kg of nests, and each time they harvested nests they are collecting about 3000kg worth of nests – so in a year they are collecting about 9000kg of these nests! They do it 3 times a year because the nests take about 3-4 months to be made, and they said that they wait until the chicks have hatched and have left the nest before they harvest them, which I hope is true, otherwise this harvesting would not be able to continue for too long.
We left the field site early Friday morning and headed back to Sandakan. Following tradition of last year, we ordered pizza from pizza hut and had it delivered to the hostel. We each had our own regular sized pizza and it was amazing!! I don’t seem to have a problem completely demolishing a pizza there, and not even feel disgustingly full after! Lol! Also, I found out about a roof top patio that the hostel has, so we ate up there and were able to listen to some beautiful music being played along the water. It was a great way to end the Bornean trip!
Now it is on to Kuala Lumpur for a couple days to visit some of my lovely ladies who are doing some great work there. I can’t wait to lay by the pool!

Monkey Magic!

So apart from the elephants we saw on the first day, the last week and a half has been full of all sorts of creatures! Never a dull moment at and around the site. A couple days into the stay, I was heading back to the hostel for a nap (we had an early morning!!! Lol) and I heard all this noise outside, so I went back outside and there was a male orang-utan! Not a phalanged male, looked more sub-adult, but he was just wandering along from tree to tree with not a care in the world. It is so entertaining to watch them move because a lot of the time they will climb into a small-ish tree (relative to their size) and basically “ride the branch” – sitting on the tree until it bends enough to reach the next tree. And despite all the noise they make when they are moving, as soon as they stop moving they can instantly disappear. And again on Saturday there were 2 orangs (male and female) just outside the main building and mating! How exciting!!

There have also been plenty o’ crocodilia! Same as last year, not too many at the beginning, but the river is a lot lower now than it was when we arrived so there is a lot more beach for them to beach on! And to be honest I would much rather all the croc’s beach on the beaches so I know exactly where they are! The most that I have seen in a day this year has been 8, but that was counting 5 that we just saw the eye shine in the morning when it was still dark, and then 3 in the daylight but one of them was the largest croc I ever did see! First thought was that it was a tree, then that it was two crocs kind of laying in a row, but then realised it was one massive croc! I would say just under 5m (but I also over estimate quite a lot…).

Pigs and monitor lizards have also been plentiful, but are not playing as big of a role as they were last year. But I have to say, one of my favourite things to see is a monitor lizard running frantically. They just don’t seem built for it, and although they really can take off, they make such a ruckus and that their legs are too far out from their body. I love it and it makes me giggle every time, and then impersonate them! And the pigs are occasionally making their way through the site but have seen them more in the forest this year than out (although I am going into the forest more this year).

I have seen a giant squirrel which was fun! And I wish you all could hear the call of a giant squirrel, but basically just think of a laser gun firing repeatedly, and that is it! It’s amazing! The other squirrels which have made an appearance are all pretty neat as well: the pygmy squirrel which is just a couple of inches long is everywhere this year, and I’ve also seen a horse-tail squirrel which is apparently quite rare to see!

I have been spending most of my time this trip with the long tail macaques instead of the proboscis monkeys, mainly because they are less skittish and so it is easier for the students to practice their behaviour data collection methods on the macaques. Apart from forest follows (or attempted forest follows), we have been spending most late afternoons on the boat finding macaques and staying with them as long as they will let us! And we have been getting some great observations of them! The lack of social interaction from the macaques in Buton has certainly been made up for here. They have been so fun to watch! Each group we have found has at least one tiny baby (still black) but most groups will have around 3 or 4 that we can actually see (probably more) and a TON of juveniles and sub adults that just play around like crazy – falling out of trees, pushing their buddies out of trees, hanging off of each others’ tails, and rolling down hills. And they just climb all over everyone – there was one juvenile that kept walking on the heads of a bunch of adults that were sitting on a branch. So he just walked back and forth on top of their heads until they paid attention! There is also one group in particular we have been able to watch for a couple days and they always come to the river bank and drink out of the river. We may have seen it once or twice in other groups, but it is very common in this one among all the individuals!

I wish I knew the birds here as well – maybe one day I will actually remember what I saw for more than 5 minutes so I can look it up when I get back, and maybe actually learn my colours better because for some reason I just can’t seem to remember my colours when it comes to birds. How frustrating! So basically, unless it is a kingfisher, hornbill, white belly sea eagle or brahminy kite, I’m useless! Oh, or an egret! The only species I can guarantee to see on the boat is a great egret!

That is all for now! Actually going to the bat caves on Thursday which I am so exciting about – one of the big Borneo caves with the swift bird nests (that are popular for harvesting) and huge piles of guano! I can’t wait!

Tidak hujan lagi!!!!!

It is dry in Sabah!!!! I can’t believe how different the weather is from just below the equator to just above. For the just over a week that I have been here, it has rained only 3 or 4 times, and they have been short rains (if during the day) or at night! So nothing really has needed to be cancelled due to rain which is such a wonderful thing!

My first day in Sabah (in the town called Sandakan) consisted of so much shopping! There is this mall in Sandakan which is 5 floors that has everything, so I had great fun buying t-shirts and new shoes to replace my wellies and tops that needed to be replaced after a hard time in La bundo bundo. And then snacks for the next 2 weeks and I somehow ended up with a kilo of rambutan and a kilo of mangis which was amazing! I haven’t had rambutan since panama and I’ve never had mangis but I’ve heard so much about it that I couldn’t wait, but then had to until I could figure out how I was meant to eat it – it was a bit of a mess! I also got a new watch and found some more tiger balm, which I have become addicted too!

The following morning we headed out to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. We got there just as the feeding was beginning and there was even an orang walking on the boardwalk where all the people were. There are some amazing opportunites to see orangs up close there, but it is a weird experience - around 50 people of all shapes and sizes and ages are crowded around this platform and following around the orang (which is walking around on the platform) like a herd of sheep. Then, as if on que (which i guess they actually are), orangutans come from all corners onto this platform half way up a tree which is full of bananas. Something about primates eating bananas bugs me - i'm not sure if it is because it is the stereotypical thing that primates eat, which makes me automatically dislike it, but whatever it is, it bugs me. i have even see wild macaques eat bananas...i dunno. anyways, the orangs come and eat, seemingly posing for cameras for about 30 minutes to an hour. then the area is closed and we were forced to go! despite all that, i still do like the place, and i think it really makes you appreciate orangs once you actually get a chance to see them in the proper wild.

Back on the Kinabatangan river, i felt at home. i love this river. i think our saying from last years trip is very suiting: monkey magic. but not just monkeys, i love the birds too. unfortunately, the progress i was making with birding in sulawesi was false - turns out the only reason i was getting good at it was because the bird expert was walking next to me and telling me what everything was! lol! So out of the 10-15 species of bird i am seeing on the river, i usually can tell what 3 of them are. Back to monkeys: My first proboscis monkey sighting this year ended up being a red morph silver leaf monkey! i just blame it on being away for a year. but it was the longest and one of the best views i've gotten of a red morph so it was still a good thing!

Made it to the field site in good time, dropped our bags off and went searching for elephants!! Last year they left the area just days before us arriving and i was convinced they would do the same again this year. They had been hanging around and AT the site for the last 2 months and they were "slowly" moving on again a few days before we were arriving. but we drove and drove in the boat and could see the path of destruction from the elephants - basically just grass trampled going into and coming out of the river, so we could tell that we hadn't passed them yet, but we were getting pretty far from where they were last seen that we almost turned around. but then there they were - i counted 43 of them and we could hear more trumpeting in the forest behind. There were a couple of tiny little ones, less than a year old, the big adult male who apparently stays with the group all year long, not just when he is in musk, like most male elephants, and a bunch of younger males and females. They were so peaceful to watch - all flapping their ears and eating and splashing water. i definately prefer them to african elephants. maybe its their small size...

I'm going try to add more tomorrow about the rest of the time here - it is almost over though, just 4 more sleeps left!

PLEASE send me emails about what is going on in your life!!! I want to hear from you!!

Love, Danica

The Final Days: Hello Missta (30 July – 4 August)

Last week in La bundo bundo flew by so fast. Maybe because it wasn’t a full week, but probably because it was minggu malas extended. I went out one day to do actual monkey-ing work, but after 8 hours of walking around up and down the limestone death hill, we finally found them at the bottom of the hill on their way back up, from where we came from. So that was a pain. And it actually ended up being one of the few days we had in this whole time where it didn’t rain at all, so we couldn’t blame it on the rain, or leave because of the rain.

I was then invited to join the overnight tree climbing/sleeping experience! It is just the same as the tree climbing I did with the crew before, but this time we head up at about 9pm and we spend the night 100ft up the tree in the hammock!! You still keep your harness on (but still quite scary I would imagine if you were a sleep walker), but take off your boots and helmet and attach them to the hammock. We set off from La bundo bundo about half 7 and on the way came across a reticulated python! It was a “small” one – about 3 m maybe, and not too thick around. However, it scurried off the road extremely quickly once we all jumped out of the van for a closer look! When we got to the tree, we had a little camp fire (or attempted one, which mainly consisted of pouring kerosene on the flames since the wood was all wet) and ate peanuts in attempt to try to dehydrate ourselves before heading up the tree and THEN had to pee. At around half 9 we were ready to climb and as soon as we put on our harnesses the rain began. And it did not stop. So we aborted mission and had to head back to La bundo. I was quite sad leaving but better the rain started when we were still on the ground rather than us already being up in the hammocks ready for bed.

I went for a final time to Kawelli, the village where the farm projects are done for the macaques, and did some GPS mapping of the farms there on the Sunday which turned out to be another beautiful day (except for the hour of rain in the middle of it!). We weren’t allowed on one of the farms any more for some reason, so weren’t able to GPS it, but Rudi, my guide, said he could do it and I never saw a better stealth mission than his. He didn’t go on their property, but walked around the outside of the fence to get the perimeter, but was so sneaky that I even kept losing his even though I was trying to watch him the whole time. I was meant to go along with Marc the following day to join the civet project but it ended up raining ALL night and was raining in the morning so I decided against it as I didn’t want to get my boots all wet before Wednesday and having to wear them all wet on the plane (Sorry marc!!). The day got eventually nicer but I ended up spending in the computer lab helping out with stats and gps stuff, when Christine, the Tarsier scientist, popped her head in and asked if I was still joining her, since they were meant to be leaving in 5 minutes. I had completely forgotten and to get down to my house from where we were and then back up would’ve been about 15 minutes. I only had my flip flops with me, but luckily I was able to find a pair of abandoned boots in the office that were mostly my size and threw those on. But I was wearing non-jungle clothes and didn’t have socks. Or water. Or a head torch – which is probably the most important thing if you are going out into the forest at night (but Tine had an extra one she nicely let me use). Once we got up to the tree, she said “ok stand here and watch to see if any come out of the holes in the tree” and I was just like “oh, it that one? And that one?” and saw 2 tarsiers within the first minute of being by the tree. I attribute it to the fact that I was wearing my “Nocturnal Primate Research Group” t-shirt, which seems to draw out the primate creatures of the night. They stuck around for about 25 minutes before heading off into the forest for the night.

My final day in La bundo bundo was low key – just computer stuff and an attempted bird walk that got rained out (surprise surprise!). However, there was a little staff party night that night which was really nice, getting a final hurrah before taking off – which included bintang for all, chicken for most and cake for the vegetarians!! (but we shared…hehe). However, but 11pm I figured I should probably go and pack, seeing as I was leaving at 0730am the following day!
My final adventure involved a motorbike and 2 heavy bags. I’m glad that adventure is over, but I have to admit, once I got over the terrifying bit of thinking I would fall off, I did quite enjoy it, but I would never want to go on a bike in a busier place than Bau Bau! And in line with Indonesian time, my flight leaving was over an hour late, but luckily I planned for that, so I made sure I had a couple hour wait between my flights.

Then I was in Malaysia! :)

Project Malas (22-29 July)

One week left in Sulawesi, I can’t believe that my time here is almost over!
This last week I have been taking it quite easy. I was wiped after La Pago and so have decided to take a few days out of the monkey world to see what else is out there, as well as helping the students with their stats and data entry every night. I joined up with a few other projects for a day at a time this week to see more – Bat harp-trapping, Small Mammals trapping and a bird walk. The night of bats was really great-although it had rained (again) in the evening, and although there were only 2 bats trapped, they were both quite rare and really interesting! They were both insect bats, the first was called the big eared horse shoe bat, and the second was the leaf-nose bat (the second largest insect bat). They were amazing! I got to help with the processing of it (well mostly writing down the measurements) but got to help in holding the wings down for tissue samples to be taken, and then I got to “pet” them! And if they weren’t nasty biting bats, I imagine a bat would be so wonderful to cuddle. The first bird walk I did was short and sweet, as I needed to get back early for another project, but my list of birds I’ve seen rose from 7 to about 15 in 45 minutes (including a couple of birds that I have been wanting to see this whole time but hadn’t yet!)! It was just me and one of the bird scientists, so he was TRYING to teach me the bird calls to indentify, but I obviously was failing at that because I kept asking him what one certain call was and it always ended up being squirrels! The second bird walk the next day lasted for 3 hours and a part from a student who joined who thought he knew everything about birds, it was still a lovely walk. It was so sunny in the morning (rained the rest of the day though!) and I was able to identify birds that I had learned the day before and saw many many more species of birds and my first boars of the season! And I also joined the small mammal project for a day. My roommate here, Helene, is the scientist for it, and so I went with her to check her traps – she has 100 traps set up throughout the forest in the hopes of catching rats, mice, shrews, etc (sometimes civets!). She then takes morphological measurements and tries to identify the species. But again, it was heavy rain last night (doesn’t sound much like the dry season to me), so nothing was in her traps today which was sad – first time in a month that she hasn’t caught anything and of course it’s on the one day I can go out!

Oh! And my quarter of a century birthday was great! It happened to follow on our day off, which was great! So I went climbing with the canopy access team – Vicky, James and Gordon – climbed a huge strangler fig and got to lay in a hammock 30-35 m up, which was amazingly relaxing, and if it hadn’t rained earlier (again) and the hammock wasn’t soaking, it would’ve made it definitely nap worthy! My dissertation students also gave me a cute card that they made with funny monkey drawings all over it and chocolate! And I received more cute handmade cards and absolutely lovely sarongs from my boss and one from Becca, who is doing her PhD on the macaques here. And more chocolate from others which has been serving a very important role the last few days of helping me get through the in between meal period! And at dinner, the staff came out with a beautiful cake for me that was delicious! But what was funny is that to keep the shape of this 2 level fancy cake, there was a plastic cup and lid in the center of the cake! Hehe!

Next time I get online, I’ll be in Malaysia!! I fly to Kuala Lumpur on the 4th of August and then will be in Sandakan (Borneo) on the 5th, so I’ll be in touch again very soon (and more regularly!)!

Lots of love!
Danica

Funky Monkey Foot (9-21 July)

Since I last was able to update, I have basically been wet. Soooo much rain. I think I had mentioned it in my last post, but the rain continued – and kept continuing! And the major topic of conversation were the state of ones feet and guess the fungus. Being wet for days on end results in some pretty nasty feet – some call it trench foot, or foot rot, but what I like to call funky monkey feet. I didn’t get it as bad as many people but I did need to take a day off to let my feet dry out and then spent a week on paracetamol so that I could walk without being in pain! My feet are almost healed now, and as I THINK the wet season has finallllllly ended (about a month late!), I think they should be fine by the time I leave here! But unfortunately, my purple wellies have seen the end of their life – the coral/limestone in the forest has completely destroyed them and now they are for “style” only as they have holes all in the bottom so as soon as I step in water I get wet and I will be retiring them when I leave Sulawesi!

I spent 2 weeks in the forest, at the camp called La Pago, where the “wild” monkeys live. It was a beautiful camp, and was the first time I felt like I was actually in a true rain forest. It took us about 2 hours to walk to the camp on the Friday and we stayed there until the following Wednesday, then went back on the Friday again until Wednesday. There were so many things to see in the forest here, so no matter if you were just sitting around waiting for the monkeys to re-emerge, or running to find shelter in the heavy downpour, you would always see something crawling or flying around, or flailing about trying to grab hold of you. I have been leeched now more times than I would like to count, and have developed a quite effective way of removal – by rolling them up into balls and flicking them quite far! Among the other creepy crawlies, there were mock vipers (mildly venomous – but will probably just make you fall asleep for an hour or so), froggies and toads of all different colours and sizes, and spiders, which are not all that big here (although there are a few big ones!), but amazing colours like neon blue or neon orange. But the most exciting so far has been a pit viper. Quite dangerous, but not fatal. Just sitting on a tree buttress along a path and one of my students and guides had already stepped over it when I noticed it! It was a juvenile so it was an amazing bright green colour! Unfortunately, I have no pictures of all the fun things I saw in La Pago as my camera batteries died as soon as I got there, so picture-less for the entire last week.

I’ve also learned how to make the local style of jewellery here, out of rattan stems. So after the first week of getting bracelets and rings made for me by my guides and other Indonesians at the camp, I spent my evenings of my last week in La Pago making bracelets and rings for my guides and others! It was a good way to keep busy as there really wasn’t anything else going on.

Nights in the hammock were so nice, I really enjoyed it a lot. Decided to go sans-mosquito net and so it was so nice to be able to wake up and see all the trees straight away, and not be tucked away in a claustrophobic little coffin. And being out in the middle of nowhere also meant it was quiet – oh so quiet, which made waking up at 5 quite a challenge, since in the village roosters and dogs and cats and trucks are at full volume by that time.

Back to the village for party night and birthday!!!!