Winds of Change..

Man, i am really bad at starting these things ans never finishing them. Ive decided to change the focus of the blog instead of all my experience travelling. i will now attempt to blog about my travels along with wildlife volunteering. hopefully people will be able to read and find out more about the various volunteer projects that i get accepted for. anyways, today i am starting my services at BC wildlife rescue here in Burnaby BC canada. Apparently, they have the best water fowl facilities in western Canada. im really looking forward to learning all i can about our local wildlife here and hopefully gain more experience for my future journeys and volunteer jobs.

Semporna - Tawau

Having just returned from tawau. i feel i should write another entry.. after arrving in sandakan following a missed flight, i was forced to stay one night then proceeded to semporna the following morning. the bus ride was quite nice bust extremly boring, they didnt play any sort of movies..just indonesian music videos.. When i arrived in semporna, i headed by foot to the scuba junkie HQ but got turned around along the way. finally i found my way and registered to go diving the next day. i stayed in their dorm room and met a very friendly girl from Ireland named Fiona (like the ogre from shrek hehehe) we spend the next few days hanging out and talking. unfortunatly she had gotten tonsilitis and couldnt dive for a few days. on the first dive day we headed to Sibuan island, where i saw my first mandarin fish after 9 years of waiting.. the second daay was spent at Mabul and Kapalai house reef where we observed the mating rituals of the Pharaoh cuttle fish. the thrid day was at Mataking where the underwater mailbox resides atop a sunken wrek called the sipadan mermaid. lastly finishing off at Timba Timba with its amazing coral reefs. the next day, my Uncle james from came to get me and we headed to Tawau, the town where i was born. Met some cousins and my uncle Beltran whom i hadnt seen for more than 10 years. we smoked and drank together and jammed on the guitar. the next day i went to visit the grave sites of my granddad and uncles donny, edroy and ferland. was sad to see the state of their graves.. afterward we went to Tawau hills park and i got the chance to see the worlds tallest tropical tree at 88m tall.  the following day, i was taken to the old NBT town of Brumas whee my grandparents used to work and stay, and i visited the old house and surrounding compound. while there we loaded up some old tractor tires for my uncle oil palm plantation. that night i flew back to KK and today i will be haeding to Manila to meet my cousin there. sorry for the rushed format of this entry but i will refine it at a later time. more to come!

Days at Danum pt.1

Arrived back in Sandakan at about 8:30pm then had to wait bloody forever for my checked baggage. which put me at about 9:15.. Now almost midnight and i have a few minutes before i turn in. I'm deciding to start writing about my experiences at danum valley while they are still somewhat fresh in my head.

March 22nd, 2012

I left that morning from the BSBCC staff house with little enthusiasm..i had really gotten used to living and working with the staff..and i still do miss them :( however, i had to move onto different things to broaden my experince range. And so, I boarded a bus to Lahad Datu that morning. the bus ride was long and boring as most are, but eventually we pulled to a stop on the edge of town. I got down, a promptly bought a 10rm phone credit so i could call the man who was to make my dream of visit danum possible. this lovely gentleman, by the name of Andrew Hearn. Andy for short. hes currently working on his PHD studies at ocford university..and i was allowed to tag along! I cannot say enough good things about Andy. very Polite but still a bit whacky..never loses his cool, even in the most frustrating of situations. top guy. i was also introduced to the 2 research assistants Gul and Gilmore. they gave me a lift from lahad datu all the way to danum valley field center..a two hour drive or more..gul and gil sat in the back of the pickup truck, while andy and I made chit chat inside.. Along the way, i saw my first leopard cat and masked palm civet. that night as we arrived i found at the hostel some swedish students who were visiting. that night they had spotted and photographed a tarsier..and so close to the hostel! i spent the next few weeks, almost nightly, searching for this creature but never found any.. the next morning 23rd,i was briefed as to what we were doing. Andy's research required him to have a plausible number of the population of clouded leopards within Sabah..so here in Danum we were going to set camera traps in hopes of making positive IDs of the cats and counting them from a sampled area..the entire range to be sampled was about 100 square kilometers.......yep.. thats alot of jungle trekking and camping..we set about testing the cameras he had brought from his last survey..we filled them with new batteries and cleared the memory cards. the two kinds of cameras used were the panthera brand and the reconix brand. reconix being the better quality and by far the most numerous..bythemselves, the cameras weighed almost nothing.. maybe a few ounces.. but coupled with is steel casing.. they got heavy very fast..ontop of that we were to lug all our camping supplies and food aswell untill some of the backpacks were over 20kg.. however it would be a few extra days of preparation, before we actually set out and camped for more than 1 night..its now getting late a i will continue this at another time.. stay tuned :)

Semananjung..!!

Heres my second attempt at blogging from KL domestic airport..first copy was botched when my battery crapped out.. Was great to miss my flight this morning..NOT! ive only ever missed two flights, but this morning because of idle chit chat, I managed to miss my flight to Sandakan.. so now ive got a few hours to kill before i board the next flight.. My week here in KL has hads its ups and downs..alot of idle time in bewtween awesome time spent with family and friends..I imagine that my experience here is storngly dictated by my connections and probabaly unusual to the usual foreigner..my advice? get some friends or family who are familliar with the city, and you will have a much more experince filled time.. My week started off when i landed last thursday and was graciously allowed to stay in a spare room at my Auntie and cousins flat. HUGE thanks to her and her bf who was so friendly and accommodating. he managed to bail me out of a few sticky situations so THANKS to aunty Nanak and Nathan! I then spend friday with a friend made at the BSBCC Joanne. she took me to see the fringes of the Ampang forest..very lovely area to kill an afternoon walking around and snapping photos. The following days i managed to visit another cousin pepeng who has gotten engaged and is set to marry her fiance Sajid at the end of this year. Congrats guys! her inlaw family was terrific. Had one wild night with Farouk, her bro-in-law-to-be. managed to blow 900rm in a single night on drinks and "entertainment".. another big thanks to Sajid and Farouk and Pepeng!  Managed to score me a 70-300mm nikkor lens for 540rm.. not bad except that the autofocus isnt compatible with my crappy old nikon D40.. oh well still a good deal i suppose.. more to come later!

Reminiscence of BSBCC.. pt 2

7th March, 2012

My reaction after pulling a muscle..

Then came a day when we were working as usual and I had been given the task of collecting browse (leaves) for the use of enrichment for the bear cubs. I approached a small macaranga tree only to find that the leaves and branches were far out of my reach. I then decided I should pull myself up and cut down a few lower branches. and that I did manage to do but not before pulling a muscles in my arm which was not the most enjoyable experience in the world. my arm was HURTIN.. This was my introduction to the newest volunteers Hiu and Estee. I went to the center office clutching my arm in hopes of dampening the pain and having a quick rest. There, I came up two Chinese/Malaysian women, whom i had no idea were starting their first day of volunteering, cleaning out every drawer and arranging objects and items about the office. Estee, who I found out was a Nurse working and living in England, quick convinced me to ice down my arm, gave me panadol painkiller and wrapped my arm in a sling (my first time ever!). Hiu, (from kuala lumpur) who is one of the friendliest people I have ever met, (besides Roshan) then offered me white chocolate almond treats peppered with dark chocolate powder to easy my suffering! who could ask for more? I have the biggest respect for these two women and hold them in high esteem. thanks girls!

Reminiscence of BSBCC.. pt 1

March 2nd 2012,

I had just returned to the BSBCC from a week off to attend a my cousins engagement party in Kota Belud. By chance, Wong had left again just as i arrived, so as it was just, Waipak , David and Daniel the main keepers, and Pia the sweetest finnish girl (with a heart of heavy METAL!) were the sole workers for the moment. It felt really good to be back, like returning to a family after a long leave of absence. It was back to work as usual: The husbandry of cleaning cages, feedin, and providing enrichment. I absolutly loved it! Who would've thought that anyone could miss sweeping bear cells so much? The cooling spay of the power washer as it blasted tiny particulates of bear feces all around me  and into my face... but miss it, I did. For me, the care of such intriguing animals was well worth the effort. Just the be in close proximity to the sunbears and observe thier individual personalities and behaviors was reward enough. At that time I made some new friends with whom were dubbed "the in-betweeners" as they were the fill-ins between Orang utan volunteer rotations (all of them being past volunteers themselves). In the time that I was away, Bermuda, one of the big males had taken his first steps into the outdoor enclosure for the first time in nearly ten years! It was quite sight to see him finally walking around like he owned the place after previously seeing him only timidly poke his head out of his cell to inspect the new open area. I also managed to meet Tomoyuki of Kyoto University, A primatologist whom worked with the "smartest chimpanzee in the world" Ai. His malay was much better than mine and we conversed a bit and quickly became friendly. it was quite refreshing to finally be around like minded people who care about wildlife as much as I do. Shortly, after I arrived though, Pia had to take here leave and was off to Gunung Mulu national park in Sarawak for some hiking to see the famous Pinnacles. Daniel and I made sure to give her a nice send of party with just the 3 of us as no one else there really drank at all. It was sad to see her go, but she was off to better, more exciting things! Roshan was back a couple days later and we were all glad to have his company again.

The search continues..

I have been on the trail of the slow loris and tariser now for a very long time. neither have I come upon..Last night's walk through sepilok did jhowever unveil the rare and elusive colugo, or flying lemur which really isnt a lemur and glides from tree to tree using the thin membrane bewteen its limbs and tail. Then, a second one was spotted! 2 colugos!! how lucky. but still no loris or tarsier.. the search will have to resume on another day.. Giant flying squirrels were also spotted.