Simon at Sepilok

My last day as Animal Curator.

Once again I had quite a bit of solo time with the Orangutans at the platform before anyone else arrived.
Definitely been the highlight of the Rasa Ria work so far.

But still can't help thinking these 9 days are really not adding much value for either us, or more importantly the orangutans.

This "experiment" to send volunteers here from Sepilok for 9 days out of our 2 month placement in hindsight is not something i'd opt for if given a choice.

But who knows, after a month at Sepilok maybe i'll have a different opinion!!

Another great sunset tonight, this was taken from the hotel reception area as we waited for our lift "home"...

Tonight we met Naima at Transit for dinner and discussed all the "problems" we are having. Expressed concern about the bikes and later groups having to cycle home in the dark alone. Neither the roads or the bikes are lit so that's an accident just waiting to happen. One idea we came up with was to have a dinner allowance rather than having to eat at the same place every night. That we we could explore the area a bit more in the evenings. She said she'd try to sort it out with Albert.

Loads of other bits and bobs discussed, felt good for all of us to get this stuff off our chests.

This past few days is starting to sound really negative I know. It's not that this is a bad time, far from it, we are all experiencing magical stuff every day, but a lot of this we could be doing elsewhere (e.g. gardening, feeding non-endangered animals) and we are all here specifically to help with Orangutan conservation. This doen't appear to be making the best use of our time...

Feeling much better now i'm doing the Animal Curator role. But we all have a problem with the program in that our contact with the Orangutans is less than we imagined it would be. At Sepilok we hear that the others are all very busy and involved in all aspects of the care and rehabilitaion of Orangutans, but here even the Animal Curator is only involved maybe 30% of the day with them. Not once have i been given cage cleaning duties or been asked to help with the daily medical checks.

It has helped that the staff are opening up a bit more to us and vice versa. There are a lot more smiles all round (even from Nick, who has the gardening role now...) so maybe things will open up over the next few days. Even if not for our group, maybe the duties will be sorted out a bit better for the other 3 groups that follow us.
As an example, this afternoon i was asked to take all 3 of the Orangutans up to the feeding platform on my own. Once up there i had 20 wonderful minutes alone watching them playing, before the other Rangers and then the guests arrived. That was a very special time for me.

Also memorable (but not generating quite as much pleasure) was the bite on the chest that Austin gave me on the way back down, both he and Joey love to chew on either your wellies or your hands. Just like human children playing a game of "how far can i push this until i get a reaction?". My loud "OWWWW!!" seemed to make Austin realise that was enough for the day!

Today was also the first Orangutan feeding session that Francesca managed to get into. As a Dad I felt so proud watching Fran taking her pictures of the apes and clearly being captivated by the whole experience. I'm so glad she's been able to share a little bit of this project with me.

All say aaaaah.......

Another refreshing dip in the pool after work and a lovely dinner at Naan, the hotel's Indian restaurant.

Of course, for the 3 of us back in our little room later it was still hotter than any of the curries at Naan......... :-)

Up at 5.30 again, bikes not repaired so we waited for 15 mins for hotel shuttle bus - that didn't look like it was coming so we started hitch hiking. The 2nd car to pass us stopped and we got in, just as apologetic shuttle bus driver pulled up! So we said thanks to the car driver and bused it into work as planned.

My first day as animal curator. Prepared food for goats, tortoises, chickens, geese, peacocks, hornbills and Arra the semi-tame long tailed macaque.

Then the fun really began. I led young orangutans Austin, Siti and Annie up to the feeding platform with Dino and Lynn (two of the full-time animal curators). This is definitely the best job of the three we have to do as we get real contact with the OUs. On the way back down Vicky sneaked a quick picture of me "in action" on her phones camera...
I expected to see Fran and Jan up at the platform but the session was apparently fully booked. The afternoon session was booked up too. Looks like they will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon now.

Met them anyway after the second feed and gave them tour of the Nature Garden. Arra was very friendly today, but obviously i hadn't fed him enough earlier as he sat on my head and checked me for bugs (without success i hasten to add!).
Fran helped feed some of the other animals and the fish.

After work Nick, Vicky and I all showered and changed in the staff facilities and then joined Fran and Jan for dinner at the Coffee Terrace "all you can eat" buffet. Tonight was Italian themed. All 3 of us made sure we got good value for money (especially as this one was out of our own pockets!!)

The ride back to our sauna-come-bedroom was with Remy, a guy who apparently owns the whole boilerhouse complex and will be our driver until the bikes are fixed.

Hi - proving hard to update the blog at the mo. Just a quick note to let you know that it's been a tough start here at Rasa Ria (for various logistical reasons - to be explained...) but all is now going pretty well. I will update more fully when i get some time off that coincides with access to the internet. Keep smiling :-)
Si x

Usual early start again today and another bike ride to Rasa Ria (it actually turned out to be our last one...). As Nick and I cycled off we saw Vicky talking to a local woman standing by the road and she called out that a bus to Rasa Ria would be along soon. After a couple of minutes cycling we looked back but couldn't see Vicky. We waited but after a few minutes we assumed that she'd decided to get the bus too. We didn't blame her! So we carried on. Almost at Rasa Ria I was following Nick when I heard a loud crack and saw Nick swerve and almost crash his bike. One of his pedals had broken off!

Twenty minutes later we see Vicky "pedalling" into the staff area - but BOTH of her pedals had broken off and she was just using the metal spindles!! Straight onto the phone to Naima of course - she said they'd try to replace the plastic pedals with metal ones asap...

For the rest of my day, just more watering & weeding. Apart from the feeding sessions watching the orangutans it feels like a waste of time being here.
To cap it all, at the Coffee Terrace at lunchtime we were told that we would all have to pay for our own meals from now on. That was not what we had been told by Albert, so we made another call to Naima and she said she'd try to sort it all out. By the time it came to paying the bill there was still an issue so we handed the phone to the waitress and asked her to talk to Naima about it. Finally sorted out, or so we thought...
Later that afternoon one of the Rangers told us that they'd been at a staff meeting a little earlier and the subject of us getting "free" lunches at the Coffee Terrace had come up on the agenda and that all of the staff had been told to make sure we pay for our meals. Here we go again we thought. Another few phone calls and the mix-up had been hopefully been sorted out once and for all.

All of us are struggling to say motivated at work with so many logistical problems and hassles going on. But a good way to forge a strong team maybe?!

By now I was just looking forward to seeing my daughter Francesca who was arriving at Rasa Ria for a holiday with her mum starting this afternoon. So after work i went looking for her. After getting no reply from their room I soon found them strolling on beach. Big hugs! Had a swim in the pool with Fran, not strictly allowed for "staff" but out of uniform it was easy for me to blend in with the other guests. Later we met up with Nick and Vicky and we sat chatting and bitching about our situation as the sun went down.

Great sunset tonight...



Bikes not fixed yet, so Hotel laid on a shuttle bus back to the room, then it was dinner at Transit.

Another hot night. Not getting any easier to sleep...

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...

Monday started very early for Group 1 (that's Vicky, Nick and me) with a 5am rise and a transfer to Sandakan airport ready for the first flight of the day back to Kota Kinabalu.
The rains have returned once more so our walk across the tarmac to an aging Fokker 50 would have been better made by canoe. Thankfully we were provided with umbrellas to minimise the damage to just a light soaking.
As we approached KK the skies cleared and we knew we could look forward to a lot better weather for the next 9 days.
We were met at the airport by the Rasa Ria shuttle bus and were soon back at reception, initially being welcomed by unknowing staff as guests to the hotel once more. That was soon corrected by Naima our work contact there!! After a quick tour of the "behind the scenes" staff area of the hotel we were shuttled off again to see our "staff accomodation"...

...and what a shock that was:

One tiny room for us to all share, they had somehow squeezed in 2 sets of bunk beds, a kettle and a desk fan to complement a slow-turning ceiling fan (which was struggling to lower the temperature below that of a fan oven).

To cap it all there was a huge Man Utd poster on the wall, vintage 2002/3 season (the last time they were any good i believe....).

Talk about a hell hole - i'd rather have been in a turkish prison cell!!!

Back to Rasa Ria and things not much better. Gardening duty for me and i was asked to do watering for the rest of the afternoon. Hmmmmm. Not much in the way of orangutans involved in that!
Later we met Naima for dinner Naima at "Transit", a muslim cafe/restaurant near to our house with a menu entirely in the local lingo. Thankfully Naima was able to translate the basics for us, which as this is supposed to be our dinner venue for the next 7 nights too ws a real blessing!
Then it was back to our baking hot room and a struggle to put up our mozzie nets. Let me tell you now, mozzie nets and bunk beds were never designed to go together.......

Really restless night, i dont think i slept for more than 3 hours in total. I don't think i'll be able to survive this heat every night...

Sunday is officially a rest day for all of us.
What was left of the morning after the party had finally wound up was spent sleeping.

Today Nick, Vicky and I (Group 1) have to bag up the things we will need for the next 9 days at Rasa Ria. The rest of the stuff we can leave locked in our room ready for when we get back.

We might also be able to see another Orangutan feeding session at 3pm if we put on our green work shirts... :-)

We have finally found out from Albert what the arrangements for us are to be at Rasa Ria:
We are no longer going to be in the staff quarters on site but instead will be put up in a staff dorm room about 10-15 minutes bike ride away from the main complex. Yes, i said bike ride - LOL!!!
Because we will need to start work before the shuttle bus picks the other staff up they have hired us cycles to use. If we want any breakfast before work we will need to cycle into Rasa Ria by about 6.30am and then eat at the staff kitchen there, before starting work at 7am. Lunch will be at the Coffee House on site and our evening meals can be taken at a cafe near our accomodation.
Can't wait to get started.....

BTW We need to fly from Sandakan to KK very early tomorrow morning and i'm not expecting to be able to update the blog again until probably Wednesday now...

Turned out to be a H-U-G-E party last night.

Not only was it for welcoming the new volunteers but it was also the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations, so all of the friends and family and neighbours of the staff were here too.



Mr Chong (who owns the resthouse) organised two dragons and drummers to perform traditional dances all around and inside the house.


Later on Nick had a go at the drumming and I was encouraged to perform my own version of the dance with one of the dragon heads on.

The young kids seem to think our effors were hilarious for some reason.....!!

It was also a farewell party for Melvyn, one of the Sepilok staff, who was being transferred to work at the zoo in KK after 21 years working with the Orangutans here at Sepilok. Melvyn likes a whisky is all i can say!

Last but not least, as the clock struck midnight it was also the start of fellow volunteer Ruth's birthday. A cake was duly presented and shared.

PS Happy to report that the karaoke was mostly left to the Malay experts - they all seem to have incredible singing voices (i think they get a lot of practise!)