Project Malaysia 2009

Our thoughts at the moment:

Fraser: ” where is the air con?”

Luke: “macaque attack, callum’s shaken!”

Callum: “Its greate to have been on holiday before we even started work”

Ross: “God i miss ben and jerries…”

Rachelle:”Where is my pen? .. I want my pen back!” (done in silly voice made by martin)

We have been back from our holiday to Poring hot springs for two days and we are already missing the little luxurys we encountered there (please see Frasers comment). Other than air con the highlights of our trip there were, the drunken malaysian man who seemed to think that the hot springs water would run out.  We LOVED the swimming pool with the awsome  slide which wasn’t really that exciting but we entertained ourselves for a rather long time on it. the bed was the best! we have all fallen in love with JACKIE the orangutan who chose to live in the centre.  The locals where very friendly as they waved to us and followed us round the streets .  Unfortunately we were awoken by a rumble in the jungle on our second night which was a war between the r***d (sensored by Byron) dogs, vicious cats and scrawny chickens with a hell of a voice box fighting it out in the allyway.

Our first job was working on the sun bears sanctuary. We have quenched the thirst of the third world with sweat (says Luke) It was very hot today with litle cloud, despite this we managed to get a lot of work done the trench is finished the support poles are in place and nearly all the concrete foundations have been laid. We have been working in very close proximity to the bears and Luke thinks they are really cute and wants to take one home. They are beautiful creatures but our favourit has to be Suriya the baby as she climbs on the roof and growels lowdly.

The camp site has too many spiders for Rachelle’s liking, and the football pitch that was used yesterday has today been turned into the local swimming pool! The little kittens in the cafe are amazing but the owner asked if we wanted to BBQ them ( which is a little concerning)

Team 5 – Rachell, Fraser, Callum V, Luke & Ross

Its so hot! Team four here with the latest update. The projects continue. The Scout Nature Park project is even near completion thanks to our mad hole digging skills. A new work shift began today and we are now working in the Rainforest Discovery Centre. The humidity is a killer and Daniel has changed colour. We have been attacked by an albino tarantula and survived.  the first group are back from their 3 day break and they say they had a great time.  the next group have gone away now but we dont go away for a while and we are all looking forward to the beds and showers.  got to go for dance practice now!

lots of love

alex t, lewis, daniel and euan

Hey guys, we have finally reached our one week milestone! Today, we have been doing our final day at the sun bear sanctuary. We have been working very hard digging trenches; transporting furniture and wood and erecting a fence! The heat would have been unbearable without our trusty friend, the fan! LOL. Dave, our team leader was really sound and allowed us to have lots of breaks, as we really needed them. The Malaysian people were putting us to shame and had to be forced to take a break, whereas we took them voluntarily.

Dave said that we were ‘footloose and fancy-free’, which we tried contextulise and discovered it does not mean taking your shoes off, as Chloe assumed. We were allowed to take 2 hours at lunch time as it is too hot to work in ‘peak -heat’, so we went to the cafe at the near-by orang-utan sanctuary, where we had ‘coke-floats’ and lots of ice cream. Dylan taught the teams the ‘Lynch family favourite: ‘crazy-eights’, which were enjoyed by all, especially Emma McNeill, who was excited at the prospect of playing it at dinner time. Meanwhile, Chloe was getting rather hyper on her cough syrup and found a new accent, much to the annoyance of her team mates. Cameron on the other hand was very into learning Malaysian clap games, and taught them the macarena and the school yard game: ‘double-double’. Andrew, no-where to be seen, screamed across the field to his team mates ‘guys-guys, get over here’, to which they enthusiastically spinted over the jungle, insect fields, in the stifling humidity and blistering heat to witness a mass break-out of incredibly fast, but cute infant orang-utan fleeing their captures. Then we walked home and had tea and went to sleep. Scout’s honour!!!

LOTS OF LOVE TEAM 6 -Dylan, Chloe, Emma M, Andrew & Cameron

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Our first project was working with the fantabulous Sunbears. Oh, dear me . . . They are really cute! The tasks consist of digging tenches two feet deep and one foot wide – that’s a lot of heaving and puffing – all for the foundation of the wall to separate the sunbears from the general public. Dragging and hauling wardrobes, fridges and cabinets down the road to shove into the storage – they have no use anymore. Every twenty minutes of work was then followed by five minutes (or significantly more) standing in front of a fan. OH, the good times! How lazy we are . . . Yesterday, we were visited by a curious orangutan with only three limbs. A clever young chap, he was. He was then lured away by a  keeper with food and he stroled away casually down the road mouth wide open waiting for the food. All in all, we’ve been having a great time and are looking forward to the many good times in front of us.

From your very best team.

Edd, Mark, Emma, David, Gavin and Kyle. (Team Awesome-tastic)

We have now been in Sepilok for 3 days, and already we’ve run out of clean clothes. Having spent our first two days setting up camp and getting to know the area, today saw us setting out for our first day of hard graft. Project Malaysia’s best team (3) was sent to the Rainforest Discovery Centre to help extend a nature trail, while the other teams headed off to either the Sunbear Conservation Centre to build a screening wall and fences or the Scout campsite to begin work on the obstacle course. Working through the intense heat was difficult, but regular breaks ensured that nobody passed out. Another thunder and lightning storm struck the campsite during dinner, and it seems as though these may become a regular occurrence on our expedition. Our Malaysian counterparts have also joined us on site and are settling in well, entertaining us with their artistic uses for napkins. Lots of love, Team 3; David V, Grant, Jonny, Scott P and Vari xxx

Well…we arrived safely having fought our way through the airplane chilli’s, jet lag, cramp and airport swineflu queues.

Managed to scale the heights of Petronas Towers and get stunning views of KL despite it being pretty toastie.

After a further three hour flight to Sandakan (and another check for swineflu!!) we finally got down to the hard work of ensuring all is well for the main party.  Our Malaysian friends are, as ever extremely hospitable (feeding us 3 week old fermented duck eggs) and accommodating.

The camping field appears to have a small puddle in the middle after a huge thunder and lighting storm over the last 12 hours, but not too much of a concern as there is ample other opportunities for tent pitching.  Our kitchen is nearly stocked and transport for all our activities has been finialised along with all the homestay arrangements and formal gatherings.

Off to purchase the project equipment and countless tools tomorrow, along with a few other large items.  Looking forward to the arrival of the main party on Thursday with everything sorted!

Love,

Alex & Mark

The advance party gathered in an Edinburgh car park at 8am this morning, carefully weighed their bags and put some surplus haggis in the boot of my car. As I write they should be in Newcastle Airport – if they are lucky sitting with a  cup of tea in the departure lounge, if unlucky contemplating an hours spent in the check-in queue. More from them later…

advance party thinking about spending 24 hours on planes and in airports

Well this weekend was certainly interesting. The constantly changing weather kept us on our toes and unfortunately cut our time with the sumo suits down to only about ten minutes ?. Our work was the usual mix of physical activity and a bit more physical activity with a dash of standing around doing nout but I have to say the tree planting was fairly rewarding, until Martian told us only 30% of the trees would reach maturity. Bad times. There was also plenty of work fixing up the beaver lodge with the rampant weeds cut down and the shed repainted and weatherproofed. In the afternoon we were entertained by the SSAGO group from Edinburgh uni and were set a variety of challenges, a disturbing amount of which seemed to revolve around a pair of stuffed dogs (one of which was apparently a pigeon).

After a delicious tea cooked by the SSAGO guys and gals we went up to the baronial hall for a further brief on culture, hygiene and the John Muir award that we seem to be inline to get for our conservation effort over the final expedition and the training weekends and then retired to the marquee for supper and my opportunity to write this blog as the sole member on the newsletter team on the camp. I’m now done but if I keep typing I can stay in the chair. Gordon says the cake was very nice.
Daniel

This weekend has been a mixture of rain and sunshine throughout the day so we have had to stop and go all day when working out painting and weeding hopefully the weather will stay good for the rest of the weekend and let us get the work done faster.
David V

It’s been a busy week in the planning for Malaysia. It got off to a bad start when the project at the orang utan rehab centre was cancelled on us. Turns out that some volunteers had already rebuilt the nursery play area. As it was only a small project for us we haven’t tried to replace it, but it very disappointing – all the Explorers wanted to do it. Fortunately they took the news quite well and the other three projects look pretty certain.

This was offset later that day by Batuh Putih confirming that they can take both the 3 day trips from the two teams that want to go there and the surplus people that Sandakan Scouts can’t accommodate for the homestay. So another concern put to rest. The number we need to find places for turned out to be less than we thought too, so things are looking up.

The rest of the week was dominated by the forthcoming (& final) training weekend. Bags & tshirts were collected. Tents and cooking equipment were arranged – even if the latter was only confirmed after we arrived! Dodgy weather forecast and a lot of coming & going with the Explorers but should be good anyway.

Brian M

Welcome to the Project Malaysia blog. There will contributions from both participants and leaders with regular updates while we are away. Read and enjoy!