Simon at Sepilok

Up at 5.30 and off we go on our first cycle ride to work.

It was then we realised that maybe they hadn't bought us full-size adult bikes, more like teenager bikes.
Either that or the Malays are a lot smaller than we had previously noticed! Unfortunately Albert hadn't left us with a spanner to adjust the height of the saddles either so off we went into the darkness looking like clowns on mini-cycles.
The bikes have no lights and the roads were not lit.

On our arrival the day before we had noticed the side of the road was littered with cow pats but in the dark they were difficult to make out. Fortunately they were all fairly small (just like the people, it seems the Malay cows are proportionately smaller too!) and most were at least well baked so the regular miniature hills didn't present too much of a problem to our "mountain" bikes!
That was until I bumped over a larger much smellier lump. Nick had just avoided it and we both stopped and waited for Vicky to reach the obstruction. As a car with headlights on passed by she identified the lump as the corpse of a 4 foot long decaying monitor lizard! It was probably killed by impact with a passing car. Well that explained the smell!

By now it was getting a bit lighter and we managed to avoid any further obstacles.

Nick then went off ahead as he had an earlier start than us today (accompanying a Ranger and hotel guests for a "summit breakfast", where they trek to the Observation Tower on the top of the rainforest and enjoy a spread as the sun comes up behind Mt. Kinabalu - Nick said later it was totally spectacular, hopefully we'll get a chance to do that ourselves later...)

Vicky and I plodded on and after about 20 minutes reached the hotel staff area for breakfast at "Cafe De Ria" (sounds so exotic doesn't it??!!). Not quite as good for breakfasts as the Market Diner in Brighton though - in actual fact breakfast consisted of toast and a tray of rice - mmmmmm.... delicious!

My first job of the day after meeting up with Sahirin the gardener (affectionately known as Smiegel for obvious reasons when he smiles...) was 3.5 hours of watering the Forest Garden. After the first 40 minutes i think i exhausted all the possible water spray patterns you can make with your thumb at the end of a hosepipe. It was peaceful though, and i probably got as close as i've ever been to a meditation state of mind.

Sahirin is a funny guy, always smiling and laughing, mainly because his English is almost non-existant! Still a lot better than my Malaya though...

At 10am and 2pm each day all three of us volunteers are supposed to go to the Orangutan feeding platform to observe. Well after 20 minutes today i got passed a message to return to the garden. When i got there they wanted more watering done. Hmmmmm. This is not quite working out right. It looks like they haven't actually seen the schedule that we've been given. The rest of my day was pretty boring. Watering and weeding and very little in the way of orangutan work.

Some good news was that someone at the NIC (Nature Interpretation Centre) where we are working found a spanner so we could raise the cycle saddles to a sensible height. Bushy the young female hornbill was suitably impressed...

After work all of us were pretty low, even Vicky who was Animal Curator and had most contact with the Orangutans today was fed up. This placement wasn't working out. A few tears from Vicky while waiting outside for Nick pretty much summed up the mood. I phoned Naima and told her how we were all feeling, she said she try to sort things out for us and also make sure the Rangers all knew what our schedule with the Orangutans was supposed to be. The prospect of more watering and weeding tomorrow for me was still very depressing...

The cycle home in the dark was even worse than this mornings ride in, it was pitch black and oncoming cars dazzled us often, ruining what little night vision we had. To be honest it was really dangerous. I'm not convinced they can really expect us to do this every day, especially later on when the groups (and i'm not being sexist) just have girls on their own. It's asking for trouble.

Dinner was at Transit once again, this time i got lucky with my "eenie-meenie-minie-mo" luck dip menu order...

Back at the room it was another very hot night, this time i tried the bottom bunk, Nick moved to the top bunk right below our ceiling fan and almost severed his hand as he reached up to catch his towel that Vicky had thrown up to him! Very little sleep again...