Week 8 - 15/10/09 Melaka + Kuala Lumpur

Week 8 - Melaka is a nice port town on the west coast of Malaysia. Lots of history and really the birth place of the south east asia boom when trading started with Europe and Africa in the 15th century. The Portuguese were the first europeans to arrive in the early part of the 16th century, bullying their way into town and burning the mosque. Quite interesting that the muslim culture was invited over by the malay people in the 15th century to attract trade from india in exchange for the eastern spices. The Portuguese only managed to keep this main port for just over ten years before being kicked back out, now only a single church ruin is all that remains of their colonial past. The dutch came over in the early 1800s and built their usual collection of churches, town halls ands coffee shops, and many of these still remain today, with locals still speaking native tongue such as hello mister and best price.....

It was only after the second day that we noticed the signs warning of dungue fever, and that was after we had been bitten on numerous occassions. So far so good, no nervous twitching, licking the walls, or swinging from the light shades just yet, but we will see, even though Mariana has an ache in her entire body, but this is definitely not from the swimming nor the 6 hours sightseeing walk in flip-flops!

After the culture of Melaka we headed for the bright lights of Kuala Lumpur which was only 2 hours by road. Stayed in a place in Chinatown called, what for it, the Red Dragon Hostel. There is a large gold gong in reception that is blasted everytime a new guest arrives. We are a little worried about security since we have noticed many people wearing all black and ninja slippers, so will bolt the doors to feel safe.

Kulala Lumpur is nice, a bit dirty on the edges but all the same a good city. The Petronas Towers are really nice even though we will not be getting up at 6am to get a ticket for the viewing gallery, seriously what do they take us for.

Week 7 - 12/10/09 Singapore

Week 7 - Singapore, a truly amazing place. Very clean, efficient, friendly people, great food and thousand miles an hour, right up my street.....

We stayed in China town even though the photos would not reflect this. Much a world apart from the UK chinatown, this is clean, food is good, and there is not a stench of cooking fat.

On our first day we took a guided tour of NUH (National University Hospital) and met Professor Wong who examined Mariana's eyes for any signs of retina detatchment. Thankfully, all was well, so we decided to hit the shops on Orchard Road. Seven hours later, and absolutely nothing to show for it, except sore feet, we headed off to little india for a curry. Little india is great and the food, well I will let Mariana explain that one.

The colonial parts are really nice and the Asian Civilisation Museum gives a really good insight as to when the various cultures arrived in Asia, that was until the British turned up and started putting flags everywhere.

There are plenty of parks everywhere and people even walk in this city, even though the humidity can be a challenge. We even saw a few locals on cycles, yes this place is definitely somewhere I would consider living.

Week 7 - 09/10/09 Pangabdaran + Jakarta

Week 7 - whay a memory. We went to Pangandaran on southern coast to learn how to surf. All was going well on train journey from Jogjakarta until we met a dutch baboo who would not go away. We thught we had lost him since he got off at a different station only to find him sitting at the gates of Pangandaran, what a loser. Pangandaran was very quiet, since it is now low season and it suffered tourism since its last tsunami in 2006 where 700 people lost there lives, but all the same we thought this would be a good place to learn to surf.

Only managed to last one night since the following day after a mornings surf, I (graham that is) had severe abdominal and lower back pain. Mariana quickly went through our medical encyclopedias which we have been carrying around the world, and we agreed that I may have a kidney stome or three. Called sickly Ben since he has had evereything, and he confirmed the symptons were kidney stones. Hopped on a moped and was taken to the local witch doctor who prescribed me with anti-biotics, paracetamol and big dose (other end) painkillers, which we later found out were for haemorrhoids.

After a few hours of more extreme pain Mariana decided we should go to Jakarta and see a specialist at one of the hospitals. I agreed since I would do anythging to get rid of this pain, so we chartered a mini van to drive us 7 hours. After 5 hours of pain endurance and many more pills I finally passed out. Woke in Jakarta and the pain had stopped, so we went directly to the hotel for some rest.

The following day we went to see a doctor, all fine just stay on the antibiotics. WE did wonder around Jakarta, but it is basically a complete shit hole. The majority of people seemed very hostile towards us and we felt very nervous walking around. Very glad to get out and fly to Singapore.

Week 6 04/10/09 - Central Java

Week 6 - Solo, Merapi, Jogjakarta and so on.....

Week 5 27/09/09 Camp Leakey

Week 5 - Most of this week was spent in Tanjung Puting National Park and Camp Leakey where we viewed Orangutangs. Camp Leaky is the place where the famous Birute Galdikas carried our here reseach (similar to what Jane Goodall did on the Gorillas etc). Sadly Tanjung Puting National Park is one of the few places where Orangunags can live relatively peacefully (at the moment). Palm oil plantations have eradicated much of the orangutang's habitat elsewhere, only about 25% of their habitat remain. People in the park constantly have to safeguard the area as well due to illegal logging that has been happening. We learnt during our trip that saving the orangutangs is not an easy things. There are so much more to learn abut it all and still so much that needs to be done. For you at home, please try to use product with sustainable sourced palmoil if possible...

Anyway, It was soo incredible to see the orangunatgs and wish I could go back. It was really peaceful sitting in the djungle and waiting to see if any Orangutangs would appear. Me and Graham could have spent hours there. Most of the oranguinatgs try to stay away from humans though which is a good thing!

We can add that we also saw crocodiles in the river within the park! Not good water for swimming...

Week 4 20/09/09 Kahingai

Week 4 - It is an amazing thing waking up to the sound of all animals in the jungle including the Gibons. We also always knew the morning was sneaking up on us when the cock started singing 5 in the morning. Week 4 was adventures! We got the opportunity to do jungle treks, klotok trips up river, rice blessing. There are not enough words to explain this amazing place. The leaches during the jungle trek was a bit uncomfortable, especially as they started sucking blood from us. I did wear my leach socks (that we got from Felipe and Corinne, thank you very much!) and that did help:) The experince was fantastic though. The close encounter with the spider was Grahams achievement. I have to add the the locals had removed the poison prior as a precautionay measure during the rise planting. We did also discover a Scorpion nest when building the toilet. Scary...

In addition to building the dam and the only community toilets in the village we held english lessons for the children. Graham was a very popular teacher and all children was cheering hurray when he came into the classroom. He also went under the name "The Giant" in the village. I did try on a bit of teacing myself. My lesson was about litter and trying to communicate the benefits of not throwing rubbish in the river and everywhere in the village. Can admit it is complicated with no infrastruture for waste in place at all. We had to ourself wash us and all our cloths in the river everyday. It did not feel great seeing all the washing powder going downstream...

We has a farewell ceremony the day before we left the village. It included dancing, drinking rice wine and recieving blessings. It was loads of fun but tiring. Graham did some funky african dance moves with his notorious hip twitch. Think he forgot the theme of the evening. Maybe he got himself confused with a night out in Essex as well, not sure where it came from...

Week 3 13/09/09 Kahingai

Week 3 - more hard labour on the toilets that we are building. Currently the locals extend their bottoms out from the edge of a piece of wood and left rip into the river. Yes, the same river that they bath in, wash their clothes and take drinking water from. Saying that, we also had to wash our clothes and bath in this same water each day. The toilets are being provided to give them an alternative to the river and further incentive to stay in the village.
The rice field trip was a bit of a religious ceremony, Graham thought it was a race to see how many seeds could be sown in 30 minutes. All the locals were making fun of him since he was sweating profusely and was about ten metres ahead of everyone else. The whole point of the day was to slowly put the rice in the fertile ground and pray for the rains to come. We went and had lunch in a long house, then sampled the local rice wine, basically rocket fuel.
Mariana struggled to eat any food since she was sitting next to a basket of smoked meat including head, hoofs and arse which once was a deer called bambi.
As before, we were all engrossed in the topic of diseases, and one of the volunteer coordinators actually got malaria and typhoid.

Week 2 06/09/09 Kahingai

Week 2 - Arrived in Kahingai, which is about 7 hours from Pangkalan Bun. We travelled by ambulance and stopped off at a town called Nanga Bulik. The views on the journey were disturbing, acres of palm oil plantations seen for the the first 5 hours. It is so sad to think just 20 years back all of this was primary rainforest.

The last two hours of the journey, thankfully we found the rainforest, but there is only an estimated 25% left on Kalimantan.
We were warmly greeted by the rest of the volunteer group in Kahingai. Kahingai is one of many small villages located in the rainforest with about 70 families living there. The aim of the project is to encourage the locals to stay put and not give in to bribes from the logging or palm oil corporations.
The first week on camp consisted mainly of hard labour, digging holes, mixing cement, fixing reinforcement cages, all needed for the dam construction. Many of the group, whom had been there for 4 days before we arrived were getting injured or sick. It was quite funny since the main topic of conversation was infection, diarrhoea and malaria.
The food was really nice, but we had only been eating rice noodles and vegetables for one week and the others soon pointed out that it does get boring.
The week past quickly and we were rewarded we a trip to a rice plantation.

Day 5+6 05/09/09 Pangkalan Bun

Day 5+6 - two nights in this hell hole, well that is what we thought at this point in time. Found a good place to eat local the Hotel Bone. So much so, we returned for dinner after a delightful lunchtime buffet. However, things turned a little sour when mariana discover some chicken's feet in the vegetable soup which we previously gobbled during lunch. Dinner ended in a hasty fashion and I went on a quest for Pringles and Ice Cream.

Day 4 - 03/09/09 Last day in the real world

3rd September 2009 - Last day in Java before heading off to Kalimantan. Had a hissing fit this morning during check out as I was getting stressed that we would miss our flight. In reality we are just starting to understand how indonesia ticks, i.e very slowly. Arrived at airport a convincing swedishly 2 hours before our flight. Our ticket did not match the scheduled flights on the board and no check-in desks were open, typical. Managed to check in and we took off only one hour later than original departure time.
Arrived in Pangkalan Bun just after lunch and grabbed a taxi into town. We had a reservation at Hotel Bone (prenounced Bone'). I cannot explain what a dump this place is, shared mandi and wc facilities with blood and brown coloured stuff on the walls. Our room did have a window, well mosquito screen. Since it is ramadan, there is absolutely nowhere to eat in this town so we managed to somehow order egg noodles from a local shop. Food was as good as it gets....