Bat(u) that Puteh! Part 1/2
So hey. I've been home from Malaysia for a WHILE.
TIME FOR PICTURES!
One of the reasons I haven't posted pics yet is because... phase one was much more linear. We were trekking. We learned to dive, walked about for a couple of weeks, then climbed a mountain.
In Batu Puteh we were very settled. We woke up every morning at about six o'clock, we got picked up by boat to get to work at the eco lodge by sevenish. We had scheduled chores and days off and once a week we'd go on a trip.
First of all. We were living under tarps on the bank of the Sungai Kinabatangan - which isn't really saying much since it's the second longest river in Malaysia. Monkeys live there. So do orangutans, and rhinos and elephants and a shit load of gorgeous birds... basically, the project was to help build an eco lodge and help the local villages make a profit from their natural resources that doesn't involve logging.
I recall lots of pictures getting taken of me while I was digging, wheelbarrowing, hacking at dead wood, dragging dead wood, stripping rattan and washing sacks, but... I have been unable to locate any. (My own camera was out of commission for a lot of the time in Batu Puteh, which is one of my biggest regrets. I don't have enough personal pics.
You saw this sign as you jumped off the boat...
Walked along this pathway...
And saw THIS oxbow lake.
That's where I was working every day.
It took a while to get into the swing of things, but this is where I learned the Value of Hard Labour. We spent whole days doing riddles and puzzles while we dug holes; we sung at the top of our lungs while we wheelbarrowed stuff, we used each other's stomachs as pillows during lunch time. (I actually remember the first time someone did that - it was Chloe, the crazy blonde Australian. It was just such a nice, easy gesture - the kind I'm often way too awkward to make - and it made me a lot easier within the group. I didn't find out until our second last day together that we're both massive Robin Hobb fans, and Fitz/the Fool shippers.)
Tummy pillows :) Well, lower back in this case.
We were helping to build these. They were designed to be observation platforms more than accommodation, but a portion of the deck was covered, and there were hooks to affix hammocks underneath.
This will eventually the main administration-type area. It also looks onto the beautiful oxbow lake.
We got a boat to work every morning. Boat was a pretty big way of getting around, especially between villages, and - in the case of Mengaris, the village we were next to - to get to the clean water source. Our camp was a ten minute walk from the village, which was located right underneath a bridge for a busy motorway. The result was this bizarre mix - you'd hear the sounds of traffic and car stereos as equally as you could hear normal jungle noises - birds and insects and monkeys.
The Mengaris cafe. An interesting fact: although most of the homes in Batu Puteh (which is a collection of about four villages within a fifteen-minute walk of each other) were pretty basic - without running water, and corrogated iron roofs - most of the teenagers had mobile phones (good ones!) and several of the houses had satellite TV.
The volleyball court. Volleyball is SERIOUS BUSINESS. Literally the entire village would come out to play, watch, or gossip at the sidelines. Kids running about (they LOVED the Raleigh folks - every time we went to the village, which was pretty much daily, we'd get swamped by little kids. Little kids holding your hands, asking you things in English, peering shyly at you or boldly singing at you), grannies gossiping, teenagers shooting each other glances from the sidelines.
Our camp was pretty basic, but after trekking it seemed like a palace. We had a long wooden dining table, which everyone put a lot of effort into defacing; a shelf for our mess tins; a smaller table we cooked at; and a basha - essentially, a sort of frame for everybody's hammocks. Everything was under thick tarps.
This is Lois by the basha. There were so many insects everywhere that everyone was desperate to keep things off the ground; washing lines sprung up everywhere, and anything that could be used as a hanger was. I remember almost being horrible late for work because I'd left my wellies on the ground one night and found a huge spider lurking inside it. Shudder.
We also had The Jetty. The jetty was both a blessing and a curse. With the jetty, we could wash ourselves and our clothes every single day. (And god, we needed to.)
It was supported by empty oil barrels floating underneath - about six of them. This was fine when the river was high. But the river's level changed daily. When it was high, you had to carefully balance along a rickety plank of wood to get onto the jetty. A lot of the time you'd finish washing, try to balance your way back to dry land and fall SPLAT right into the horrible, thick mud. If the river was low, though, the jetty would get stuck in the mud and everyone would need to crowd at the very edge to get close to any water.
We were not allowed in the water. There were CROCODILES in the water.
Normally about four or five of us would was at the same time. Washing time was gossip time. Everyone looked forward to it. :D
Palmer and Ronny, when on camp duty one day, were confronted by a croc while washing. The rest of us were very gutted to have missed it.
Actually, speaking of wildlife, I have the most ridiculously lame and cliched story ever. Yousif and Palmer were given a gift by one of the villagers - three bunches of bananas. (Sabahan bananas are tiny and fat and absolutely gorgeous, btw. Sweetest thing you've ever tasted, ever.) Tourette's Tom and... someone else, I can't remember now, were on camp duty, and left one of the bunches out on the table while they walked down to the village.
While they were gone, monkeys - monkeys! - stole the bananas.
Then shat on the table.
It was like the most unimaginative thing EVER. If you had to come up with a children's story about the jungle, this is the sort of thing that no-one would even think of writing because it's just too lame. I couldn't believe it.
A less dramatic story, but one that I like a lot, is of the day I was doing camp duty. Everyone was rota'd in to get a day off work each, in pairs, but instead you had to do all the camp work - make the meals, bleach the tables, make sure the food was secure and all that. Once we'd got all the chores done, I sat down to write a letter.
Rustle. Rustle.
I looked up, and this massive monitor lizard was making its way up the path towards camp with its weird, swaggering gait. That's what startled me so much, I think - the fact it was using the path, like it was a member of the group that was hurrying back to get a spare shovel or something.
"Um," I said. "Please go away, huge monitor lizard." (I have nothing against them, I was just a little worried about it eating our rations.) The minute I opened my mouth it bolted through the bushes and slid into the river.
"Awesome," I said.
We did other stuff too, of course. WHICH WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF MY NEXT POST.
TIME FOR PICTURES!
One of the reasons I haven't posted pics yet is because... phase one was much more linear. We were trekking. We learned to dive, walked about for a couple of weeks, then climbed a mountain.
In Batu Puteh we were very settled. We woke up every morning at about six o'clock, we got picked up by boat to get to work at the eco lodge by sevenish. We had scheduled chores and days off and once a week we'd go on a trip.
First of all. We were living under tarps on the bank of the Sungai Kinabatangan - which isn't really saying much since it's the second longest river in Malaysia. Monkeys live there. So do orangutans, and rhinos and elephants and a shit load of gorgeous birds... basically, the project was to help build an eco lodge and help the local villages make a profit from their natural resources that doesn't involve logging.
I recall lots of pictures getting taken of me while I was digging, wheelbarrowing, hacking at dead wood, dragging dead wood, stripping rattan and washing sacks, but... I have been unable to locate any. (My own camera was out of commission for a lot of the time in Batu Puteh, which is one of my biggest regrets. I don't have enough personal pics.
You saw this sign as you jumped off the boat...
Walked along this pathway...
And saw THIS oxbow lake.
That's where I was working every day.
It took a while to get into the swing of things, but this is where I learned the Value of Hard Labour. We spent whole days doing riddles and puzzles while we dug holes; we sung at the top of our lungs while we wheelbarrowed stuff, we used each other's stomachs as pillows during lunch time. (I actually remember the first time someone did that - it was Chloe, the crazy blonde Australian. It was just such a nice, easy gesture - the kind I'm often way too awkward to make - and it made me a lot easier within the group. I didn't find out until our second last day together that we're both massive Robin Hobb fans, and Fitz/the Fool shippers.)
Tummy pillows :) Well, lower back in this case.
We were helping to build these. They were designed to be observation platforms more than accommodation, but a portion of the deck was covered, and there were hooks to affix hammocks underneath.
This will eventually the main administration-type area. It also looks onto the beautiful oxbow lake.
We got a boat to work every morning. Boat was a pretty big way of getting around, especially between villages, and - in the case of Mengaris, the village we were next to - to get to the clean water source. Our camp was a ten minute walk from the village, which was located right underneath a bridge for a busy motorway. The result was this bizarre mix - you'd hear the sounds of traffic and car stereos as equally as you could hear normal jungle noises - birds and insects and monkeys.
The Mengaris cafe. An interesting fact: although most of the homes in Batu Puteh (which is a collection of about four villages within a fifteen-minute walk of each other) were pretty basic - without running water, and corrogated iron roofs - most of the teenagers had mobile phones (good ones!) and several of the houses had satellite TV.
The volleyball court. Volleyball is SERIOUS BUSINESS. Literally the entire village would come out to play, watch, or gossip at the sidelines. Kids running about (they LOVED the Raleigh folks - every time we went to the village, which was pretty much daily, we'd get swamped by little kids. Little kids holding your hands, asking you things in English, peering shyly at you or boldly singing at you), grannies gossiping, teenagers shooting each other glances from the sidelines.
Our camp was pretty basic, but after trekking it seemed like a palace. We had a long wooden dining table, which everyone put a lot of effort into defacing; a shelf for our mess tins; a smaller table we cooked at; and a basha - essentially, a sort of frame for everybody's hammocks. Everything was under thick tarps.
This is Lois by the basha. There were so many insects everywhere that everyone was desperate to keep things off the ground; washing lines sprung up everywhere, and anything that could be used as a hanger was. I remember almost being horrible late for work because I'd left my wellies on the ground one night and found a huge spider lurking inside it. Shudder.
We also had The Jetty. The jetty was both a blessing and a curse. With the jetty, we could wash ourselves and our clothes every single day. (And god, we needed to.)
It was supported by empty oil barrels floating underneath - about six of them. This was fine when the river was high. But the river's level changed daily. When it was high, you had to carefully balance along a rickety plank of wood to get onto the jetty. A lot of the time you'd finish washing, try to balance your way back to dry land and fall SPLAT right into the horrible, thick mud. If the river was low, though, the jetty would get stuck in the mud and everyone would need to crowd at the very edge to get close to any water.
We were not allowed in the water. There were CROCODILES in the water.
Normally about four or five of us would was at the same time. Washing time was gossip time. Everyone looked forward to it. :D
Palmer and Ronny, when on camp duty one day, were confronted by a croc while washing. The rest of us were very gutted to have missed it.
Actually, speaking of wildlife, I have the most ridiculously lame and cliched story ever. Yousif and Palmer were given a gift by one of the villagers - three bunches of bananas. (Sabahan bananas are tiny and fat and absolutely gorgeous, btw. Sweetest thing you've ever tasted, ever.) Tourette's Tom and... someone else, I can't remember now, were on camp duty, and left one of the bunches out on the table while they walked down to the village.
While they were gone, monkeys - monkeys! - stole the bananas.
Then shat on the table.
It was like the most unimaginative thing EVER. If you had to come up with a children's story about the jungle, this is the sort of thing that no-one would even think of writing because it's just too lame. I couldn't believe it.
A less dramatic story, but one that I like a lot, is of the day I was doing camp duty. Everyone was rota'd in to get a day off work each, in pairs, but instead you had to do all the camp work - make the meals, bleach the tables, make sure the food was secure and all that. Once we'd got all the chores done, I sat down to write a letter.
Rustle. Rustle.
I looked up, and this massive monitor lizard was making its way up the path towards camp with its weird, swaggering gait. That's what startled me so much, I think - the fact it was using the path, like it was a member of the group that was hurrying back to get a spare shovel or something.
"Um," I said. "Please go away, huge monitor lizard." (I have nothing against them, I was just a little worried about it eating our rations.) The minute I opened my mouth it bolted through the bushes and slid into the river.
"Awesome," I said.
We did other stuff too, of course. WHICH WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF MY NEXT POST.