Weekend in KL

I’ve spent the weekend in KL with Jonathan. (I love Air Asia!)

I had a really fun weekend shopping and being silly! We stayed at the Novotel Hotel which is next to KLCC and Bukit Bintang (the shopping area). We literally wandered the malls non-stop all weekend marvelling at how disturbingly cheap everything is!

My favourite mall was probably Suria KLCC, but I also really like Pavillion (it reminded me of Paragon in Singapore, very slick looking). I didn’t actually buy that much, Jonny bought a lot more than me… I bought a really nice bikini from Quiksilver (and in Asia there is always some promotion or other, so I got roped in… buy a bikini and boardshorts and get 30% off plus a free pair of quiksilver flip-flops! Sweet! So although I didn’t technically need the shorts or the flip-flops, why not lah!)… I also bought a pair of Nike+ Trainers (Nike+ is the ipod range… Will bought me a device to sync my ipod to my trainers to record speed, time, calories burned etc, but didn’t realise that you need the special trainers to match).

Anyway, Jonny bought a camera, headphones, work shirts and trousers, trainers, a new pair of prescription glasses… We had a great time wandering the malls. It reminded us of Singapore life. We pretty much grew up in malls like those. We also ate lots and lots of yummy asian food… Huge prawns on dry-style noodles, pepper crab, a big dim sum lunch at the Shang Palace (Shangri-La), hawker food at Chinatown (Wanton Mee and Char Kway Teow), jack fruit, yellow watermelon, mango, papaya, pomelo, fish balls from Old Chang Kee, sugar cane, crysanthemum tea, winter melon tea, grass jelly… the list goes on. It’s been an indulgent weekend!

Here is a pricture from outside our hotel… It’s of the Petronas Towers at KLCC.

On Saturday night, we went out to Bangsar Baru. 9 years ago, Jonny and I went to a swim meet at the KL International School, and although we were both extremely underage, we went out with other people from the swim team to Finnegans Irish Pub in Bangsar… (Expat kids tend to rush the whole going out scene by the way). So we decided to go back and check it out for nostalgic reasons! It was exactly the same, and we even remembered where the 15 and 17 year old versions of ourselves had sat!

 

We also decided to go to the cinema during our time in KL… Golden Village cinemas! I love cinemas in Asia, the aircon blasts way too strong, the seats are so comfy, and the price… it came to the equivalent of £2… Makes me sick!

Anyway, I had a great time just hanging out chatting with Jonny in KL. We always act so silly together! This weekend we both dragged our well-practised Singlish silly voices out of the closet!! We always used to put on a Singlish accent to annoy Mum back in Singapore, so we do a pretty believable version! Can lah… Cannot what… Wah…

I like KL, but it does have an unfinished feel to it. It’s WAY more developed than Vietnam… it’s almost like Singapore, but just an unpolished version. It’s as if not much thought has been put into things. There are loads of shopping centres, but no logical way to how they are positioned within the city centre or how the floors and shops are laid out. I think some people might prefer KL to Singapore because it’s much less rigid and more like old Asia (with the new bits thrown in)… but me, I still have my soft spot for my cushy Singapore!

Anyway, I’ve been doing far too much… I’ve been leaving a massssive carbon footprint with all my flights everywhere. Once I get back to Hanoi, I’m going to get back into the hospital life, and stop flying around like a madwoman!!

Back in Hanoi

I got back to Hanoi on Sunday… and then early on Monday morning I was picked up and taken to Ba Vi District Hospital (about 70km out of Hanoi). I had opted to spend a week out at Ba Vi hospital to see what healthcare provision was like outside of the main cities. A large proportion of the population in Vietnam live in rural villages, and I thought I should see how they receive healthcare in order to get an overall insight into Vietnamese healthcare.

I’m so glad I decided to go out there… The hospital was a real eye-opener! Almost no doctors spoke English though, so I was allocated to this Vietnamese lady who had done public health research in Sweden, and she acted as my personal translator. It was great! I spent some time in the Infectious Disease outpatients department, and she helped me to take histories from patients (mostly diarrhoea histories), and also helped me to ask the doctor questions about HIV, TB, malaria and other infectious diseases in the area. After that, I asked if I could spend some time in the Traditional Medicine department! It was so cool, they have a whole department devoted to acupuncture and herbal remedies!

To give you some background on the hospital… patients can come from as far as 40km away. It serves a rural/village population, and has numerous satellite community clinics to deal with minor problems. Healthcare isn’t free in Vietnam, but there is an insurance scheme that people sign up to, it’s about US$5 a year (but bear in mind that in rural areas, some people are earning less than US$20-30 per year). If you can’t pay for insurance, you receive a card which entitles you to subsidised healthcare, but you get seen in a different part of the hospital (an even grubbier part). This info is all from chatting to my translator, so it’s not properly researched or anything… but I think it should paint a general picture. 

The hospital has 150 beds. It was pretty basic… it only has one X-ray machine (no CT or anything)… here is the X-ray machine:

There was another doctor in Ba Vi who had done some research in Sweden, and the two English speaking doctors took me under their wing and made sure I had things to do in the evening. We went out for dinner and karaoke!! Karaoke was fun, and so were the dinners… the food served in the rural areas definately do not cater for western tastes! The first night, an entire Chicken was served up… it’s organs (heart, liver, kidneys, boiled blood) were on one plate… Here is it’s head, with some organs in the background:

Another thing that we did in Ba Vi was visit some of the villages, and take New Year money packets to poorer members of the community. This was an unbelievable experience for me, because it enabled me to glimpse into people’s lives and homes, and I saw things that I would never be able to see as a tourist. The villages were a myriad of little crumbling buildings and dirt paths amidst farms and fields… Here is one of the little old ladies that we visited:

I was really enjoying my time in Ba Vi, but at the same time, I felt quite bad because I was taking up a lot of people’s time, and I’m sure they had other things they could have been doing instead of translating for me! I felt that my trip out to Ba Vi was for my benefit rather than being of any benefit for the patients or the hospital. So when they told me that there was transport back to Hanoi on Wednesday, I thought it might be better for me to go back early.

It was quite cold out in Ba Vi… but when I got back to Hanoi on Wednesday, the weather was glorious!! Today, it’s hot hot hot!! Apparently it’ll go colder again by Sunday, but for now I’m loving it. Wednesday night, I watched tv all night! Thursday, I got into tourist mode and took the Lonely Planet walking route to see all the streets of the old quarter (all the streets are named according to what they sell… I walked down silk street, gravestone street, toy street, rope/string street, counterfeit money street, altar street, tin street, musical instrument street)… It was great. I went for lunch at this Cha Ca (Grilled Fish) restaurant. It was slightly embarrassing because they almost refused to serve me. They shouted out loudly ‘not for single person… must have two person… not one person for cha ca’!!! But I begged a bit (no dignity left by this point), and they allowed me to have cha ca for one!

After lunch, I wandered back to my favourite coffee shop overlooking Hoan Kiem lake, and enjoyed the sunshine! For dinner, I met up with Annett and her husband for dinner at Chim Sao. We had catfish, which was quite an experience! These little charred fish plonked on the plate, skin, head, fins, all burnt to a crisp… They were quite good, but there wasn’t much meat on them, just lots of tiny bones that kept stabbing my gums.

Today, I met up with my friend Shazzy (who I met through the new hanoian website). Today we decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch at the swanky Sofitel Metropole hotel. It’s one of the old Asian colonial hotels, like Raffles in Singapore… It was built at the end of the 19th century, and is very French colonial. We ate at the poolside cafe, and felt very posh! The prices in the menu scared me a little… but it’s a treat right? I save my pennies with the Xe Om / taxi drivers so that I can indulge in poolside moments like that!! Here’s a photo of us:

So since getting back from New Zealand, I haven’t done much hospital stuff… but I’m starting at Viet Duc hospital on Tuesday, and I will start treating this more like an elective than a jolly again! Being a lady of leisure is so much fun though!

New Zealand – South Island

So… My time in New Zealand is up, and I’m about to head back to Hanoi after spending two (exhausting) days as a stopover in Singapore to catch up with old friends.

I had an amazing time in New Zealand, it is a really beautiful country, and I loved being with Will and my family, and though I am excited about going back to Hanoi for more of my elective, I would almost like to be going back to the UK with everyone (almost… but then I remember the Vietnamese Spring Rolls, the Pho Bo, the weather, the bustling streets… okay, scrap my initial thoughts, everyone else is going back to work and winter… I’m the lucky one!) However, it was sad to have to say goodbye to everyone all over again.

Anyway, since my last entry, I’ve been up to lots and lots. I left off when we had just arrived in Te Anau.

We were staying in a place called Lakeside Motel (and despite the word Motel, it was actually a really nice spacious place. Our unit had two bedrooms, a double bed in the living room, and a proper kitchen, plus it had a great view over the Lake. Sadly it didn’t have a playstation, so we couldn’t continue with our PlayStation SingStar competitons! I don’t know if I wrote about SingStar in my last entry. But Meg, we have to buy a PlayStation and play SingStar… it’s a 2 person Karaoke game where you battle to score the highest points singing songs! So much fun! We played SingStar Party and SingStar 80’s… so cool. Despite my shocking efforts at Karaoke in Vietnam, with some of the songs on SingStar I was scoring pretty high (that’s not saying much though, because Will scored highly in one song without singing a single word correctly..).

Back to Te Anau though… Te Anau is in the Fiordland area of New Zealand. It’s on Lake Manapouri, and is right next to the Doubtful Sound. In Te Anau, on the first full day, Jonathan, Will and I went on a 8 hour trek on the Keppler Track (another of New Zealand’s great walks). It was a really good walk (although we were all a bit ill, and Jonathan’s knees/hips didn’t enjoy the steep inclines). We were lucky with the weather (Te Anau has over 250 days of rain a year…). Here’s a photo of Jonathan and I at the top of Mount Luxmore.

The day after the trek, we were all feeling in the wars… We’d all managed to come down with the lurgy! I won’t go into all the details… on top of the lurgy, Jon’s knees and hips were killing him, Will’s back had gone into spasm from carrying 15kg of camera equipment in that silly bag, and although my parents had been spared the lurgy, my Dad was still fighting off a cough that he’d caught in the UK… and it was almost funny how many ailments we had between us. Will and I have travelled all over to some really grotty places and have avoided illnesses, and it was well developed, clean, perfect New Zealand that brought us down!

Determined not to let this spoil our fun, we went on a Doubtful Sound trip the next day. It was just what everyone needed, great sights, but sat on your bum in a boat/bus for the whole day! The doubtful sound was spectacular! We saw more wild bottlenose dolphins and fur seals! Here’s Jon and Dad on the boat:

The next day, Will went diving in the Milford Sound, and the rest of us took a leisurely drive to Milford Sound stopping at all the scenic spots on route. Unfortunately it was POURING with rain that day (Milford Sound has over 300 days of rain a year!)… but it was very atmospheric with all the low clouds!

After Te Anau, we drove down to Invercargill/Bluff, and made our way over to Stewart Island. Jon, Will and I took a light aircraft over to the Island, whereas my parents opted for the ferry. The weather on Stewart Island was glorious, which was a welcome change from rainy Fiordland. We were staying in a place called Kaka Cottages, which was a cottage with three bedrooms, a living room and kitchenette. That day we all went over to Ulva Island (a small predator-free island off Stewart Island with squillions of birds who enjoy life without rats, stoats, cats, possums etc). My Dad’s attention span is shocking, and he misbehaved on the trip, but everyone else loved it! Here’s a shot from Observation Rock on Stewart Island:

Our first night on Stewart Island was actually New Years Eve… I booked us a table at a lovely restaurant called Church Hill Cafe on the top of a hill overlooking the harbour. We had a long leisurely meal at the restaurant, and then made our way down to the main beach at about 11.30pm. There was a big bonfire on the beach, and live music coming from the South Sea Hotel, the atmosphere was really fun! Just before midnight, all the locals (sailor-folk) let off their flare-guns, and when it turned midnight, the sky was alight with red flares falling down all around us. Will said it was how he imagined the Somme would look! We let off party poppers, and the whole beach sang Auld Lang Syne (spelling?)… it was such a nice way to see in 2008. Here’s a photo of the whole gang in the restaurant before we went down to the beach:

On our second day in Stewart Island, we took an underwater explorer boat in the morning… and Will and I walked to Ackers Point in the afternoon (with a break on the way for some Oyster Catcher photos). I was left sat on a cliff above the beach while Will mingled with a family of Oyster Catchers. I got the cutest photo of him squatting with his new friends!

 

That night at 9pm, the three of us went on a Kiwi Spotting trip to Ocean’s Beach. There were 15 of us on the trip, which is run by a Stewart Island old-timer who was very sweet! We were lucky and got to see 5 Kiwi’s that night… Kiwi’s are the silliest things, I love them! I haven’t put any wildlife photo’s onto my blog, because they’re all taken with Will’s big camera, and I can’t get those photo’s onto my computer, but throughout the trip, we (Will) got some really nice wildlife shots too.

On our final day on the Island, the three of us went back to Ulva Island so that Will could get some more pictures of Stewart Island Robins, Kaka’s, and other birdies. Then in the afternoon, we made our way back to the mainland on the ferry, and headed off to Dunedin.

Dunedin was my final port of call… and it flew by very quickly. In Dunedin we did a tour of Speight’s Brewery. Here’s a cheesey shot of Dad and I at the beer tasting after the tour!

My final excursion in New Zealand was a trip out to the Otago Peninsula to see the Royal Albatross and the Yellow Eyed Penguins… and that was the end of my holiday! Will has all the nice photo’s of the albatross and pingu’s…

I left Will in New Zealand with my family (flights got messed up, so everyone else got to spend more time in NZ than me!), and I flew to Singapore… I was really tired after the 9 hour flight, and had a shower and put my jammies on, and then called some friends to make a plan for the next day… but it was actually a friend’s birthday that night, and I was persuaded to get dressed and get my butt over to Clarke Quay for a night out!! It was a fun night out, and it was so glood to see lots of old faces again, and be reminded of my youth out in Clarke Quay (although it’s almost unrecognisable to the Clarke Quay of my young nights!)… Here’s a flavour of how the night went!

The next day I met up with more friends, and after a day with Louise, I met up with all the boys again and went for a more sophisticated evening at a really stylo-milo bar on Dempsey Road. And here’s a photo of all of us there:

I realise this blog entry is a bit of a bullet point list (and then I did this, then this, then this)… but I just needed to get it all down. I probably won’t be writing for a week or so, because as soon as I get back to Hanoi, I’m heading out to a district hospital called Ba Vi, it’s about an hour outside of Hanoi… I’ll be spending a week out there to experience healthcare outside of the capitol. Should be good, but I doubt there will be much internet. But after that, I might get back into my day by day account of my adventures!

New Zealand – North Island

It’s been a long time since I last wrote! New Zealand has less wifi spots, and I haven’t had any time to visit internet cafes…

New Zealand is a great country, it’s so beautiful… the weather is a little bit erratic, some days the sun blazes down (the sun is sooo intense), and other days it’s been pouring with rain. We’ve tried not to let the weather get in the way of things though.

After Wellington, Will and I drove to the Kapiti coast (up the west coast about 45 minutes from Wellington). We went to Kapiti island where we saw lots of birds (Kaka, Kea, Tui, other birds I don’t know the names of), and did a nice walk. When the boat dropped us back on the mainland, the heavens opened, and the rain continued for the next 2 days (grrrr…).

We drove from the Kapiti coast inland to Tongariro National Park, but our plans to do the Tongariro Crossing trek had to be postponed because of the rain. On the day we were meant to do the trek, we drove to Taupo  insteadwhere Will managed to entertain himself by doing a bungy jump (nutter)!

 

Luckily, the rain started to ease up the next day, and we got to do our 8 hour Tongariro Crossing. It was such an amazing walk (it’s described as the best one day walk in NZ). It’s the set of Mordor in Lord of the Rings, and the scenery was stunning… I’ll upload a video of us at the Red Crater/Emerald Lakes soon. Here’s a photo of me after the trek at Discovery Lodge (where we were staying in National Park town).

Straight after the trek we set off for our next stop which was a little town called Reporoa (near Rotorua). We were the only guests at this amazing hotel called River Lodge. The hotel is usually for large groups, conferences, weddings and things… but the owner didn’t have any bookings when I first emailed him to enquire, so he agreed to let us stay there. We had the whole place to ourselves… 40 acres, river, jetty, tennis courts, petanque, obstacle course… it was all a bit bizarre, but lovely! Sean (the manager) was really helpful at suggesting things for us to do, and on our first night we went to a local hot springs for a soak, which felt great after our 8 hour trek and 3 hour drive. (We did read later in Lonely Planet that you can get Amoebic Meningitis from the hot springs in the Rotorua region, especially if you dunk your head.. and I do remember dunking my head and forcing Will to follow suit because it felt so nice… no symptoms have appeared yet!)

During our stay in Reporoa/Rotorua, we tried to visit as much geothermal stuff as possible… it was all so different to anything we’ve ever done before, and we loved it. My favourite was Orakei Korako, which has lots of sulphur pools, bubbling mud pools, and the largest silica terrace in the world. Here’s a photo of me on a walkway at the silica terrace.

Another one of my favourite geothermal spots was at a place called Wai-o-tapu, which has some great geothermal pools including one called the Champagne Pool. Here’s a photo of us in front of it.

After Reporoa, we had a 6 hour drive up to Tutukaka (Northlands) where we were reunited with my parents and my brother. We rented a house in Tutukaka for over the Christmas period. The house was perfect for us, it had a hot tub (which Will and Jonathan refer to as the not-so-hot hot tub), a barbeque, a playstation (we played a lot of games in the evening, such as SingStar which is a fun karaoke game (I don’t mind Karaoke in the company of my own family, who are all worse that me I must say!)). Here’s a photo of Jonathan and I in the not-so-hot hot tub.

It was so nice to see my family… It was wierd to have said goodbye to them in London a month ago, and then be reunited in a house in a tiny little town in New Zealand! Unfortunately, my dad is a bit ill with a cough/cold. Plus, for the first few days they were all very jet-lagged. But we’re all having fun, and everyone really likes New Zealand.

During our time in Tutukaka, we drove up to the Bay of Islands a few times. We visited a historic Mauri site, and I got a cheesy photo with some Mauri warriors!

We also went on a diving/snorkelling trip to the Poor Knights Islands (world famous dive site), and went swimming with wild Dolphins (which I loved!)!!! In addition, we celebrated Christmas! Mum and Dad managed to inform Santa of our whereabouts, so we still got Christmas stockings and lots of pressies on Xmas morning! Mum and Dad cooked a very yummy Christmas lunch! And on Xmas Day we went for an epic 6 hour drive to see 6 Kauri trees (on the map it looked like it would take about 2 hours, but the roads were very winding). Kauri trees are the largest trees in New Zealand, and the ones we drove to see were quite spectacular, but when averaging a tree an hour, it was hard to keep everyone from complaining!

Anyway, today we flew from Auckland to the South Island.. and we’re now in a little town in the fjordlands called Te Anau. We’ve got lots planned, but I’ll save that for the next blog entry…

In New Zealand – back with my travel buddy!

Hooray! I’m no longer travelling solo! Today I was reunited with Will at Auckland Airport, and our 3 week Christmas holiday has begun!

I left Hanoi on Thursday evening, and arrived in Singapore at 1.30am. I spent Thursday and Friday night in Singapore (I was staying with my relatives, who are very sweet, but I think they still think of me as being a little girl, and spent most of the time worrying and fussing over me!!) I also met up with my cousin Sonia, who is almost 16, and we went to check out the Christmas lights on Orchard Road (haven’t seen them in about 5 years!). We had dinner in a brilliant (and verrry cheap) Sushi restaurant, and then went up to the rooftop at Esplanade to check out the view of the Singapore skyline.

Anyway, early on Saturday morning, I flew out to New Zealand… I arrived at midnight, and spent the night at an airport hotel, because I had to be back there this morning for Will’s arrival – yippee!! So good to have him here!!! It wasn’t a very exciting day, because after the initial excitement at the arrival gate (Love Actually type scene), we had three hours to kill at the airport before our domestic flight to Wellington, and Will was extremely tired from his massively long flight from London! It was nice though just chatting, catching up on the past few weeks, having a cuddle!!

We got to Wellington at 5pm… and it didn’t feel like 5pm because the sun was still so high in the sky! The weather was gorgeous, with perfect blue skies and wispy clouds, a nice warm breeze, and bright bright sunshine. We collected our hire car (managed to get a free upgrade because the el-cheapo tiny car that we had booked had a chipped windscreen, but they didn’t have any others in that size! The upgrade is a really good thing, because our two suitcases didn’t both fit into the boot of the first car!)… 

Now… the place where we’re staying! It’s amazing! We’re staying at the Wellington Club (it’s a posh gentleman’s club in the city centre). Why are we at a private gentleman’s club? Well, I’m a student member of the Royal Society of Medicine in London, which has lots of reciprocal clubs all over the world, and this happens to be one of them. The RSM wrote an invitation letter asking the Wellington Club to kindly extend their services to me, and here we are! On the guest sheet in the club it reads ‘Room 2: Natalie Chew & Partner! We’re paying a heavily subsidised rate for a fab room, and great facilities! It’s very proper… there’s a billiards room, several reading rooms, a self-serve bar, posh restaurant, breakfast room, business centre (free internet, printers etc), gym… The room is so posh, and the bathroom is lovely! It’s a far-cry from backpacker style travelling in Hanoi!

Unfortunately, we’re only here for one night because we’ve got such an action-packed schedule lined up… Will is fast asleep now (he’s shattered), and I thought I’d use the wireless internet to catch up on my blog (sorry for slacking lately). It’s a shame we’re not going to see much of Wellington, we wandered down to the main street this evening (it goes dark so late!), and had dinner at a cute Jazz Cafe with live Jazz music. Anyway, one of the things that I am happiest about now that Will is here is that I have my own photographer back by my side!! No more having to try and capture moments on photo, he’ll be doing that for me… I’m so glad to have my travel buddy back, we always laugh so much when we’re together, and it makes everything more fun to share it with Will! Here’s a photo of me at one of the Quays (taken by Will… therefore perfectly composed, great lighting, no need for me to instruct and say ‘yes, just press down half way to focus, and then fully to shoot… no no not that button…’):

Our first dy together in New Zealand has been brilliant (even though we haven’t done much more than take aeroplanes and eat)… and we’re more excited than ever about seeing and doing everything we have planned. It looks like a great country, and I’m with good company!

Day Eleven – Day Seventeen

Oh my gosh, I have so much to write!

Where to begin? On Thursday morning (6th Dec), I left Hanoi and flew to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia (the Asian equivalent to EasyJet or RyanAir). Sally met me at the airport, and took me back to their house. It was pouring with rain (so my plans to lie by the pool and get some sun didn’t materialise!). Instead, we went to Bangsar shopping centre… I ate at Olio Dome, and looked around Cold Storage (memories of Singapore!)… Then in the evening, we ate at a food court, I had Roti Canai, mmmm!

The next morning, I had to leave to the airport at 4am!! I was flying AirAsia to Sandakan (Sabah, Borneo). My flight was slightly delayed because of ‘technical problems’ (great!!), and I landed in Sandakan at 11am. I was meant to be meeting Becky Davie (another Imperial Medic) at 12.45pm (she was flying in from Kota Kinabalu), so I just sat around at the rather sparse Sandakan airport waiting for her. At 12.40pm I went to to check the arrivals board only to discover that her flight was delayed until 3pm! So I had rather a long boring wait!!

When she arrived, we were met by a family friend who happens to be the chief vet at the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, and he informed us that we’d be living on site with one of the vets!! (I had no idea where we were going to be staying beforehand, so it was a rather nice surprise!) When we arrived at the centre, it was already after closing time, but the vets took us to the outdoor feeding platform and nursery to see some of the rehabilitated orang-utans! It was amazing! Tourists never get to go to the nursery, so we felt quite VIP-ish!

That first evening, there was a barbeque because one of the main sponsors of the project was in town! All the UK volunteers (on a 2 month programme in Sandakan) were also at the barbeque. The karaoke machine was blasting away (but I steered well clear after my earlier karaoke experience), and the beer was plentiful! Becky and I managed to make it onto the top table with the main sponsors (Rick, an American, and some other guy who owns a big hotel in Kota Kinabalu). Therefore, our table also had plenty of wine, and a big bottle of whiskey! It was a good drinking environment for me because we were outside in a dark garden, so my red alcohol face was well masked (plus most people in Asia go red when they drink too, so it was no biggie!)… It was quite an amusing, surreal night… We were suddenly in the jungle with lots of orang-utans, and having a loud unexpected party with a bunch of strangers (who were mostly hippie types who’ve ventured out to Asia for a life-changing experience cuddling orang-utans!)

The next morning, we went and did what the tourists do at Sepilok… basically watch a video about the centre, then go to the viewing platform where you watch the 10am feeding time… It was good, but there were lots of people, and the feeding platform was quite far away compared to how close we had been the day before. Will is going to be very disappointed with my photo’s… they were fairly crap! But it was still fun to watch the orang-utans having a good time with their banana’s and sugar-cane sticks! That afternoon we went to the Proboscis Monkey Centre. The vets knew the owners of the Proboscis Monkey centre (because they often have to treat any monkeys that get injured/sick), so again we got treated like VIPs! Here’s a photo of Cecilia, Me, Becky and Sen.

After that, the heavens opened, and we got drenched walking from the car to Agnes Keith’s house (Agnes Keith is a woman who lived in Borneo before and after WWII, and wrote several books including Land Below the Wind. Her lovely house has been turned into a museum). Here is a photo of Becky in front of Agnes Keith’s house.

In the evening, we ate a huge meal at a seafood restaurant… the prawns were enormous, and the oysters were CRAZY big! Check out the Oyster!!

The next morning we got to see some of the baby orang-utans having their baths. The centre rescues orang-utans that are being kept at pets, or who have lost their mothers for some reason. The orang-utans are rehabilitated, taught how to live in the wild, and then released when they are ready (e.g. have shown adequate nest building skills, able to find food by themselves etc). The whole rehabilitation process can take over 10 years. Some orang-utans will never learn how to build nests, and will therefore never be able to be released properly into the wild, yet some pick up all the skills easily and go off happily into the wild. There are numerous stages at the centre… newcomers live indoors, and they are allowed out into training areas (with ropes, tyres to swing on etc) to learn how to swing. The young newcomers are bathed, fed by bottle, and monitored closely by nurses who take the role of a mother. Here is a baby called Churrio having his bath! He’s 1 year old.

Once they get older, they can start to live in a semi-open area, and play on ropes leading out to the jungle (but they’ll still come home each night for dinner and to sleep in the enclosure). Then if they are ready, they can be released (but many of the released orang-utans still pop back to the feeding platforms each day to supplement their diet with some milk and bananas!) The jungle at Sepilok has now reached capacity, and so orang-utans are now being released into another section of jungle called Tabin. It’s a great set-up, and the orang-utans are well cared for. The vets deal with all sorts of problems… one orang-utan was recently electrocuted on a overhead power cable, which just shows how much damage humans are causing by encroaching on the orang-utans habitat. They also see a lot of fractures, diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition. Here is a photo of me with Churrio at bathtime!

The weather hadn’t been too great during our time in Sandakan, but we still wanted to go on a jungle trek… One of the orang-utan rangers agreed to take us. We were originally going to do a 4 hour trek, but the weather was pretty bad, and parts of the jungle were flooded, so we decided to go on a 2 hour trek to the Water Hole instead. We were given leech socks, wellies and also wore raincoats, so we thought we were pretty well protected from leeches. We were wrong! Within 5 minutes on the jungle trail we already had at least 5-10 tiger leeches each on our boots and trousers. The ranger brought a spray bottle of dettol water, which makes the leeches curl up and fall off! We were spraying it non-stop. I think the ranger was also taken aback by the sheer volume of ravenous leeches. We realised that no amount of clothing, boots, socks were going to keep the suckers off us! During the trek, we must have sprayed off at least 100 leeches. I got one on my lip, and up my sleeve, Becky was worse-off, and managed to accumulate a fair number underneath her clothes! One leech bite on her arm bled for a good hour afterwards (they release an anti-coagulant). Here is her bleeding leech wound:

 

The trek was really good despite the devil leeches! The rainstorms had managed to collapse most of the bridges along the way, which meant there was plenty of wading through rivers (and at one point we had to wade across the top of a waterfall, which didn’t seem sensible, but the ranger went across, and we figured we’d better follow him!)… Originally we’d thought we would spend a lot of time looking out for jungle wildlife (hornbills, mousedeer, orang-utans, monkeys), but because of the rain, the animals were all hiding, and we were preoccuopied with leech annihilating and scary river crossings! This bridge behind us in the photo had collapsed in the middle, so it was falling to one side. We had to cross it one-at-a-time walking along the middle beam. We thought he was joking when he first suggested it, but he wasn’t! Lots of fun!

Anyway, on our last night in Borneo, Cecilia cooked up a local feast… really yummy. Becky and I watched copious amounts of TV… I think we watched 3-4 movies or something disturbing like that! It was pouring with rain outside, and so the sofa seemed like a good spot! I spent 9 ringgit during my time in Borneo! Sen (Becky’s cousin) insisted on paying for everything… and all the food at the orang-utan centre was free for us. We even got a free ride back to the airport because the taxi-man was also a part time orang-utan ranger!!

My return flight to KL was a bit frightening… We started taxiing along the little Sandakan runway, built up speed, lifted on the front wheels, then slammed back down on the ground before screeching to a halt (with very little runway left ahead… plane wobbling profusely as the pilot tried to bring the plane to a stop). Everyone’s knuckles were white, and our faces were a similar colour. It was so frightening. Then, without explanation, the plane turned around, built up speed and took off in the other direction. Once in the air, the pilot made the normal announcement ‘Welcome on board… approx flight time is…’ And then just at the end of the announcement said ‘Sorry for the departure’. That was it! No explanation! My only thought was that he was initially about to take off in the wrong direction, (scary thought: maybe into the flight path of an incoming plane?)… and then got shouted at by the tower, and quickly slammed back down and turned around. Anyway, it wasn’t fun… We also had some really shocking turbulance on that flight, where the pilot actually told the stewardess’ to sit down, and told everyone that under no circumstance were any of us to get up to use the toilets! Our confidence was knocked by this stage, and we all sat ashen in our seats!

Anyway, safe in one piece, I was back in KL, and went to the Islamic Museum with Sally, before going out for a fabulous dinner at Indochine with Brian and Sally. The next day, I had a lie-in, then packed my things and headed back to the airport for my return to Hanoi.

Today I was back in the hospital… Decided to go to Antenatal Clinic. The doctor only spoke French and Vietnamese, so I put my rusty French to use, and actually did okay! I met Annett for lunch, this time we went to a bakery (branching out from Quan An Ngon!!)… I leave to Singapore (and then New Zealand) tomorrow evening, and she told me that I’m missing some Xmas Expat parties, which is a real shame. Oh well… Tonight I’m going out for dinner with the Swedish girls. It’s our last night together… Really going to miss their company when I am here on my own after Christmas!

Managed to have a nice chat over Skype to all my family members and Will last night… There’s a fair few drama’s going on back home, and I felt very far away from them all last night. I would have loved to transport back to England for the night to be with everyone. I think I was tired, but I began to feel a bit upset at being so removed from it all. I’m feeling much better today, and am really looking forward to seeing Will in a few days time.