Wednesday, 16 May 2012
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!
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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 :)
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!
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