Where's your caravan.....

Semporna Regatta Lepa, Borneo
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

I had heard that Borneo was a great place for seeing turtles, sharks and other large see creatures so now I was able to walk once again I headed off for some diving fun.

Semporna is the jumping off point for diving in the South East and I happened to walk into it right in the middle of a massive Sea Gypsy Regatta.... I'd never seen a sea gypsy let alone one in a regatta so I thought this could be fun - I wanted to catch a glimpse of a sea-caravan. Good plan except of course all the hotel rooms in the town were taken - I'd booked my diving but not accommodation! Doh!

This could be fun. I was going to be diving from a resort on a nearby island but could I find a room before shooting off? Thankfully 'Uncle Chan' from 'Uncle Chan's' diving company was kind enough to check out some local hotels and hostels but with no luck - no room at the inn, anywhere. Uncle Chan stepped up to the mark. "No problem, you can sleep in my spare office if you like. Bit of a mess but I'll clean it up a bit. OK-la?" So off we popped to see his office and yeap, he had some cleaning to do, even if just to brush some of the rat's droppings away. Well it was a free nights kip... I could push past it!

Off to find some gypsies! There to greet me were dozens of beautiful boats lining the harbor, all decorated with flags and bunting, musicians and dancers.

The Regatta Lepa as it's properly called has been held every year since 1994 and is a celebration of the original style of boats built by the Sabah East Coast Bajau community, a community of fishermen from local islands. Hundreds of boats are decorated and compete for the proze for being the most beautifully decorated Lepa in town. In addition to the decoration of the boat with flags each of them are filled with members of the family all crashing gongs, drums and other tuneless instruments to try and attract attention to the boat. It works, well it would if it weren't for the other 4000 gongs being smashed.

Anyway this was a nice little distraction before diving and I ended up with some nice colorful shots as a result, even sneaking backstage during the opening performance - it's amazing what you can get away with if you walk like you know where you're going.

So as the gongs ceased their banging I headed off to the office for a nights kip. I felt guilty as I opened the door, I hadn't realised I was sharing the room with so many others. They seem really pissed off with me disturbing them and with their 4 little legs all scuttled off into the roof, out the window and under the cupboards. That was a fun nights sleep I can tell you!!!!

Balls to this....

Show off!
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

Parental advice.... don't eat whilst reading this blog!

When I started this trip I was paranoid that some strange illness was going to hit me and I'd have to come home early. My immodiums were always handy and ice was a definite no no.

I've always been fit and healthy but for some reason, I guess it's because I was far from home, I was becoming obsessed and paranoid. Every twinge, itch or nagging ache was sure to unfold into some kind of tropical disease. I was a walking time bomb waiting to explode.

This continued for weeks and was crazy. I guess I wasn't being completely paranoid tough as some of my work trips didn't go quite so smoothly. If I remember rightly I've been blighted by bouts of food poisoning, headaches and mass mosquito bites. Oh yeah and then there was that dreaded incident in Austin, Texas which led to me being named shoestring! (due to the amount of surgical packing used to heal a plum sized abscess on my arse!) God, I can’t believe I've brought that one up again!

Well I'm more than happy to say that for 5 months now I have pretty much been a picture of health, no food poisoning and only a couple of colds to scupper me. The only pain I've suffered on my bum was the day after very hot Thai curries - or after a 10 hour bus ride.
No new abscess waiting to send me home.

So what happened in the jungle caught me totally unawares!

Now when you're in the jungle you tend to get hot, very hot. I'm no exception to this other than I seem to get hotter than most, probably due to growing up in a cottage in rural Essex with no double glazing or central heating.
Traveling through Laos and Cambodia didn't seem to cause problems, it was only when I headed off 3 hours from the nearest pharmacist that some part of my body decided to come cause problems, and oh boy it couldn't get much worse!

Turn away now if you're eating!

Constant sweating in a highly humid environment with only a bucket to shower in caused me problems, big red sore problems. In my previous post I said I walked out of camp like John Wayne well this is why - I had self named Jungle Rot! Some cruel chain reaction occurred which left most of my er, er, upper thighs(ish) red raw and VERY bloody painful! What can you do, no ice, no clean water, no chemist.... no hope! I turned to the rice wine for salvation but sadly that only dulled the pain until the morning whereby a crafty walk out of my cabin revealed that the problem was still there!

My god people, there is no pain and shame in the world like that! To cover up my limp I was trying to convince people that I had hurt my knee but I am sure the guides knew the score. I had a full 24 hours left but ouch, I was in pain.

A strange thing happened though and it gave me a bit of hope for the constantly abused males that live on this planet. No, nobody offered to inspect the rash but on letting it slip to some of the other guys after a few drinks not one of them took the piss. There was a bunch of wincing and leg crossing but everyone clubbed around... we were a strong pack in that jungle, nothing would stop us.

I had offers of bag carrying on the way home and when we finally reached civilisation the lads searched for accommodation whilst I waddled off in search for a chemist. Well thanks lads, you were stars. I found a chemist and found the miracle gel.... oh I worship you. You will never leave my side again. The next day I rose from my air conditioned bed, stretched a leg, bent a knee, tried a step and yes, oh yes, I could walk, I was cured.

Do not leave home without this miracle gel!

Jungle is massive....

Uncle Tony
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

Sorry, I needed to do that!

Wow, what a couple of weeks! Where do I start?

I thought this trip was moving along just nicely with me having fun but it just got a whole lot better. Arriving in Borneo was definitely a good move and one which was not really on the original plan.... what a mistake that would have been.

Arriving in Kota Kinabalu I struggled to get to grips with what to do on this island. Now, if you know me you'll know I can be a pain in the arse when it comes to making certain types of decisions... I have to plan, to weigh up risks, and make up my mind in my own little way..... in other words I faff! Well this trait was a royal pain in the arse this time as there were just too many choices in front of me. I was stuck with a pile of tourist brochures and not a booking in sight. What made it worse what that I bumped into a flustered couple saying that 'everywhere' was booked up and I'd be lucky if I got to do much.

If one of my traits is that I faff, another is that if someone says I wont be able to do something then I just have to prove them wrong, even if it kills me. And this is what happened!

I went to the first internet cafe I could find and within an hour I had booked a stay at 'Uncle Tan's a jungle camp hidden an hour down a raging river. Off I trotted that afternoon to the bus station and before I knew it I was stocking up for some jungle fun. So there I was Leech socks ( a bit like these http://www.mosquitohammock.com/AntiLeechSocks.html) in one hand and some 40% rice wine in the other and meeting a bunch of brits, Sweeds and Japanese ready to head off into the unknown.

First we all stopped off at Sepilok Orang Utan rehabilitation centre where I saw some long lost relatives up close. It's called a rehabilitation centre but was more like a circus as nearly 90 other tourists had arrived to see the feeding time and grab some photos. I'm not sure of the facts but apparently they slowly move the apes away from the tourists and they begin to fend for themselves... some stay for the free bananas. I would.

After this we all piled onto a minibus and before we knew it we were bombing down a river. Within 5 mins the driver slowed the boat down and shouted 'croc'. Fair enough there they were, two little eyes poking out of the water 20 feet from us.... my first croc sighting. The fact that it would have only been about 3 foot long didn't matter, I was in the bloody jungle!!!!

We arrived at camp and it was not bad! Mozzie nets and mattresses in some very rustic and open cabins with only chicken wire offering us protection from the wild savage beasts that lay in wait behind the trees.

As we waited for the briefing we decided to go for a wander... probably a stupid thing to do. Get the briefing THEN wander around a jungle! On my wander I strayed from the bunch and neared a very lame and looking shallow lake. Out came my camera but whilst doing so a bloody croc slid into the water not 3 feet from me! Blimey I cried, a croc! It was a 4 footer this time and could easily have nibbled a foot off or something. The fact I was wearing some very dirty sandles and was sporting some seriously overgrown toe-nails was probably my only saving grace!

Anyway back to the camp and time for the obvious question..."is this jungle safe? Is there anything that can hurt us?"

"Nah" Said Tony, the rather under eager guide. "Just don't swim in the river, there are some 3 metre crocs in there!

"Tony, what are those posters over there warning us of the centipedes, scorpions, leeches, spiders and snakes?" we asked. "Oh yeah, keep an eye out for them too" he replied.

We did!

So after dinner we popped on a small speed boat and in pitch darkness we headed off down the river with our guide and driver. Fair play, these guys are good. All earlier impressions were washed away as they sped along the river deftly avoiding driftwood and rubbish with the help of a very powerful flashlight and some good luck.

All of a sudden we would come to a quick stop and head to the shore. Looy, our wildlife spotter had, er, spotted something. God knows what, we couldn't see jack as we headed for the mud. All of a sudden he gleefully lept to shore returning with a frog in his hands - all 4cm's of it! How on earth he spotted that from 40 feet away, in pitch darkness, I will never know.

These guys continued to amaze us with their spotting skills and before long we'd seen 3m long crocs, a storkbilled kingfisher, a 5 foot long python and some proboscis monkeys. Back to the camp I went with a smile on my face. I was loving it.

Back at camp things got wild in a different way, the rice wine came out and we 'bonded'. Judging by the group that left the day before and by the new guys arriving the day after we were really lucky with the people we had in our group, all young (ish) like me and up for a good mix of partying and wildlife spotting.

So then the next day continued with a dawn boat ride and then a morning trek in the jungle. We got to see, proboscis monkeys, long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques, hornbills, more crocs, snakes, lizards and lots of mosquitoes.

That evening the rice wine came out again and before we knew it a bunch of the guys fancied a race through the mud on the lake. "But what about the croc I saw" I piped up remarkably sensibly considering my rice induced state. "Don't worry, there are no crocs there, it was a monitor lizard you saw, very similar"

I was convinced it was a croc but hey, they're the guides so they won the toss. I stayed on shore with some of the other guys who wimped out and off they popped returning very muddy and thankfully unscathed.

The next day we headed off in search of a wild Orang utan. Sadly we didn't spot one but the other group did. When they whistled for us to come over we decided to hide behind a big tree ready to jump out on them when they arrived. They of course didn't and thus that jungle gag backfired on us!!

We returned to camp miserable as sin only to hear the others had seen an Orang. We were gutted and headed out after lunch but still no sightings after 2 hours. Sods law was working in our favour this time as when we arrived back at camp we spotted them behind the jungle block. My week was complete, I had seen a wild Orang Utan.


Sadly the trip was over on the 3rd day and I walked like John Wayne back to the boat whereby we headed off to the next adventure.

I would recommend this trip to anyone. It's not too intense and is put together by some very clever people who will make sure you see some very interesting wildlife.

Oh and by the way, on the last day one of the guides saw a 3 foot croc in the lake. I bloody told you it wasn't a Monitor Lizard!

This world gets smaller....

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in North Borneo..... In walks a guy I was on an island with 2 weeks ago. Not a huge coincidence as we're both on the same island and there are only half a dozen internet cafes. But then walk in a couple who I met twice in Laos and then again 2 months later in Vietnam.

I need to change my haircut... maybe I'll go for a centre parting this time!

Where & When....

Ok, trying hard to catch up on these posts but I keep ending up in places without computers.... it
s great!

Anyway, just as a bit of a round up...

To finish up my Vietnam trip I ended up in Hanoi then Alex (the Italian) and I toddled off on a 2 day bike tour in the Northern hills. Left on the 15th for Borneo. This was perhaps the best scenery I have ever seen in my life and not a single other tourist was seen on the entire trip... bliss!

From Vietnam I flew into KL and then after a 6 hour stop-over I landed in Malaysian, Borneo or now known as Ade's little paradise! I have been camping and trekking in the jungle (www.uncletans.com) where I came feet from wild pythons, hornbills, 2m long crocodiles and orang utans and have just spent the last few days diving off a tiny island in the south east. To date this has to be the highlight of my trip and I'm remembering what it is like to get away from it all and into the wild.... .I am the missing link!

Anyway by some quirk of coincidence after chatting to someone at an orang utan conservation centre I found out there is a research centre in Borneo that has some strong links with Swansea University which is where I studied all those years ago. Well I thought it would be rude not to pop in, especially as an ex swansea student heads some of the research up here.... I'm on my way there as we speak. Who knows where this could lead!!!

Easy Rider

Sunrise over Lak Lake, Central
Highlands, Vietnam
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

With a previous post knocking the tourist traps of Vietnam I was convinced there was another way. I had bumped into someone in Siagon who had mentioned that there were a bunch of people in a place called Dalat who took people round the Central Highlands on the back of their motorbike.

Having hired a couple of mopeds when I wanted to get around some less touristed areas this seemed like a great way to travel. Plus after my time in Cambodia with LICADHO I was itching to get some more shots for the portfolio but this time of more mainstream subject matter.

So there I was in Dalat after a very long 8 hour bus trip and was bombarded by people trying to sell me tours including the Easy Rider tours. Now this is not the right time to approach me and try and sell me something, I am tired, sweaty and hungry and have just been packed into a seat better suited to a small child rather than a 6'8" lout from the UK.

Eventually my mood lightened as did the shackles on my wallet and I decided to head off on a 5 day tour to my next destination. I spoke to 2-3 Easy Rider guides and finally settled on a guy called Mr Lee. He was a quiet guy and less pushy than the other bunch which certainly meant he went up in my books. We settled at $40 a day which included petrol and entrance into any attraction we went to. He would also pay for his own food which meant we would go to the cheap places!

This is certainly not cheap and similar bus tours could end up at less than half this price. I took the plunge though as I felt I would have far more control over my experience and we could go off shooting without having to be bundled into a bus every 5 minutes.

I was right. We strapped on my rucksack to the back of the bike and headed off. Lee soon realised that this was going to be a long way as he was carrying a big lad with a big bag... it was slow up some of those hills!

The first day we shot off to a coffee plantation, a silk farm and a rice wine brewery then that night we stayed on a lake at a minority village and I was up at 5:30 taking the sunrise picture you see on this post. Over the next 5 days we snaked our way through mountain ranges in the central highlands, able to stop at dozens of villages and take as many shots as I wanted.

It was a great few days and at some point I will adjust this post with the exact trip but for anyone reading this, take a cushion.... 5 days on a bike and 900km is no easy task!

Tourist Vietnam

Vietnamese Flag
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

There are basically 2 tourist routes in Vietnam.... North to South or South to North. Like a little tourist factory everything is geared up to ferry you between these two sites and make your experience as easy and as painless as possible.
'Open Tour' bus tickets are the first purchase, it is very simple to buy a single ticket from a tour operator and then hop off and on at a range of common destinations throughout the country. At each destination there are associated hotels, restaurants and tours operating to push you around the sites. This makes a very efficient experience and you get to see a lot of sites on a fairly tight budget. The only problem is you are not really in control of your experience. It is quite simple to hop to another hotel but often preferential rates go only to people purchasing a tour, tours are busy but they head to the same places as everyone else and runs on a standard timetable making the random sunrise very hard to go and shoot with a camera.

So I tried my hardest to escape convention and headed off to Dalat where I had heard of a tour group called ‘Easy Riders’ who take people on the back of their motorbike to a range of less touristy areas

Small World

AMT_3298
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

When you’re travelling it’s quite common to bump into people a couple of times in the same city, after all you tend to go to the same sites and often end up following the page sequence. Bumping into people in different countries is not impossible but tends to be less common. Having it happen loads of times just gets stupid.

I met Alessandro, an Italian guy in Hongsa when he turned up as I did to volunteer at the elephant festival. We spent a few busy days together there but as soon as the event was over we both headed off in our separate directions assuming to catch up over email one day.

So it was quite a surprise then 2 weeks later when I was sat in a restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and looked up to see Alex walking past. I called out and we caught up over a few happy hour drinks. We once again headed off in our separate directions, him south and me to take some pictures.

The surprise was even bigger the next time. I was in Saigon this time chatting to a Belguim photographer in a busy bar when I happened to look outside and see Alex once again walking past. He had just got in to Saigon and we had no idea we would both be there at the same time.

By this time we just gave up and ended up travelling together for a couple of days before I headed off on my motorbike trip and him on a different route. We’d meet in a few days but would work that out when we got there.

No need! I was sitting having lunch in Hoi An and there was Alex, walking past the café. Another big coincidence!

What was good about this was that we both had very similar interests and a similar sense of humour so we made good travel companions. We hung around for another couple of weeks until we said out goodbyes in Hanoi.

Alex is off to Thailand now and then back home to Italy so I guess the next time we meet will be an even bigger quirk of fate…. Although he has offered to take me round the Alps on his bike so it may not be purely luck!

Vietnam - Mekong Delta rush..

River Market, Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

My time in Vietnam began with a tourist trip to the Mekong Delta which is in the south of the country. We had been warned by 100's of people that there is a very strong tourist industry in Vietnam and you can easily find your whole experience being as part of a guided tour. Despite this, a couple of us signed up to a tour of the Mekong Delta.

It was a nice area but not quite what we expected. There was about 20 of us on this tour and we felt like cattle after about 2 hours. A local Coconut candy factory was actually a souveneir outlet which made a bit of candy, the trip to the rice mill didn't actually show us the mill (until I snuck round the back) and the tropical fruit tasting involved a plate of pineapples and bananas... which is what they had served us at breakfast!

Saying this however there was no way we would have been able to organise this same trip and see so much on our own. There were dozens of river trips, ferry crossings and small bus rides that would have taken me a week to suss out.

The tour did show us a facinating insight into river life and let me taste some nice rice wine so I musnt grumble!

www.Couchsurfing .com

I wrote a post some time ago about www.couchsurfing.com, a website which puts travellers in touch with hosts in various countries. These hosts can either just meet the traveller and offer advice or go that one step further and offer the person accommodation for a couple of nights.

Well through the site I met a lovely Vietnamese couple in Saigon who were kind enough to pick me up from my guest house and take me far off the beaten track to some proper Vietnamese restaurants and bars where they told me a lot about their lives and offered a lot of advice on where to head in the days to come.

Thanks Ha Minh, I’m only sorry I couldn’t stay longer,

If you haven't signed up yet then please do... I'm going to need a place to stay when I get back!!!

zzzzZZZZZZ

God that last post sounded a little too much like work for me!!
Right, I'm now in Borneo playing with Orangutans (from a far) and have realised I still haven't caught up on this blog yet. There's a huge tropical storm outside and I have jungle rot so it's time to get writing and tell you all about it!

Did it Intern out OK?

My last posts left you with as much of a cliff hanger as my current lifestyle could muster - I was contemplating staying in Cambodia to work with a human rights group called LICADHO. Did I stay?

The charity documents and photographs human rights violations and demonstrations and ends up wth 100's of photos which need to be effectively cataloged for future use within the international NGO community and world press.

The idea presented to me was to write a proposal for a new system for managing these images. It would allow other organisations to upload their own images to a central web based library and also have a secure way of managing who could download them. This could end up as a fund raising scheme and also raise the profile of the organisation.

Well I spoke to a bunch of people in the organisation and in the NGO community and I actually ended up talking my self out of a job in the process!! In reality the project could have worked in a different environment but for LICADHO we agreed it would not return the benefits that would make the project worthwhile!

So there was the internship back off the table by my own doing! Oh well!

Despite this minor setback, LICADHO, and in particular their Director Naly Pilorage were extremely helpful during my stay. We worked together on a couple of stories during my Cambodia trip and I was able to cover them with my camera.

I will write a little about these other stories in my next couple of posts.

Er, missing in action.

Ok, I've done it again! Despite all my promises I haven't bothered updating this thing in a while! Well I've over 500 photos to sort through and 2 countries to write about so I guess I should get writing! Maybe a quick coffee first .....

A cut above the rest

A cut above the rest
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the economies of the countries I’ve been visiting are not as strong as many in the ‘western world’. It’s not surprising really as these countries are all nursing the economic wounds of recent civil wars, political unrest and extremist governments. Corruption taints the air wherever you go and this pushes a huge divide between the rich and the poor.

What’s been interesting is how adaptable people become when they have to. When forced to make do, people make do in anyway they can. Everywhere you turn people have used and reused items for a number of different uses. Empty oil drums are welded together to make crude compressors for roadside tyre inflators, gallon plastic bottles are halved to make scoops for bailing out boats, cardboard boxes make crude walls and 1 litre cordial bottles are used for selling petrol. A whole industry exists to make tools and implements from discarded items, nothing is wasted.

We often take a lot for granted when sitting at home surrounded by single use items. Everything has its purpose and if ‘what is says on the tin’ isn’t quite what we want then we’ve all been guilty of discarding it only to drive to Tescos to buy a closer fit.



Is this the real meaning of disposable income – that we can afford to throw things away?