Saturday 30 October 2010

My Raleigh story in Photos (Part III)


Hello dearies! I feel a sudden urge to upload some more photos of my expedition on this lovely Sunday afternoon. The weather is rapidly getting colder day by day, its already snowing loads up north, so I just pray that it doesn't reach London! When people get older, they no longer do snow fights, thus the only thing left with snowing is the horrid slippery roads when the ice melts.

A big sorry to my expedition mates, especially GQ, for the long delay for phrase 2 and 3 photos. By the way, I am debuting my Phrase 2 photos right here, so that means the blog readers get to see my photos first hand! Yippee :) Some exclusivity huh?

Here goes:

Phrase 2 - Environmental project at Sepilok

Our job - Complete the boardwalk for the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center.

FYI, the Sun Bear is an endangered species found primarily in Southeast Asia. They are the smallest species in the bear family and can be identified through the distinct white patch on their chest. Like every human has unique finger prints, no two white patches are the same.


These bears face threats of extinction mainly due to deforestation and illegal poachers. The Sun bear conservation center (SBCC) takes in baby sun bears (most of their mothers have been killed by poachers), rehabilitate them, and set them free into the wild when the bears are ready to feed themselves.

As part of their awareness raising campaign (and fund raising), they are opening a visitor center somewhere in year 2011. Thus, my team was there for 3 weeks to help build a boardwalk leading to the visitor center.

Our home (Jungle Camp as we call it) is a 45minutes walk + trek to the worksite. So lots of walking involved everyday!

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This is our worksite when we found it. The frame was made by teams from the last expedition.

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We started by finding used wood that is usable, and started debolting them. Debolting is the most tedious part of the project! I can still rmb wrestling with the spanners to get them out of the extremely rusty bolts. Not fun.

Then it went on to drilling. Not an easy job, but friendships bonded along the way (lets say lots of girl chat was involved in the process)

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We had unexpected visitors in Jungle camp one day.

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Thats just one of them by the way. There were 3 orang utans that swung by that day! They were rehabilitated by the nearby orang utan center and released into the wild after that. So, technically, these were wild orang utans we were seeing!

Some days later, one alpha male orang utan actually CAME IN to our dining area and started trashing about the place, in the presence of GQ, J-Mo, Nabo and Tomnus (No, these are not their real names, just nicknames)! Argh, why wasn't I there too!!??

We also decided to organise a fancy dress party to spice up our time in Sepilok! I have never been involved in any kind of costume party before, so here goes my debut costume.

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Hmm, you'd probably not be able to guess what it is, so I will just tell you. I intended to be a Malay warrior! Well, I do look vaguely like one, you have to at least give me credit for the glamorous head gear, sarung, and ultra tanned skin, no?

Loved Mica's 3 leaves idea, and Nils 3 bowls costume that reminds me of Mr.whatshisname in one of Enid Blyton's books! FYI, he is a character with saucepans of different sizes and colours hung around his body, and he never remembers his name, so people just call him whatshisname!

On the last day, we held an opening ceremony for our bridge, complete with red ribbon cutting (in our case, AWAS tape cutting) and our very own awards ceremony!

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I was awarded the 'BEST CHEENIUS'. Justified, I would say :)




Monday 25 October 2010

My Raleigh story in Photos (Part II)

Hello readers! Sorry for the stagnant state of my blog, but I have been extremely busy since coming back to London. Have been bogged down by settling in my new flat, getting internet connection, finding a part time job, and of course, studying (To be fair, I haven't been doing much of it since term started XD).

Finally, I got the camera cable from my brother (since I left mine back in Malaysia), so here are some selected photos of phrase 1! Its only a selected few, for more photos, please check out my facebook. For phrase 2 and 3, I am debuting my photos here, so stay tuned!


Phrase 1 : Kindergarten project at Kampung Maliau Layung

This village is located at Pitas district in Sabah. Sabah is the poorest state in Malaysia, and Pitas is the poorest district in Sabah, so you can imagine la.

This is the first time Raleigh is working in the village. Thus, our team has the mission to complete the foundations of the kindergarten and break the ice between the villagers and Raleigh venturers.

This is the kampung.

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And this is our work site. I took this photo after a few days of work, so you can see that most of the main poles are already up. We started with completely flat land with some tree stumps.

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One week later, joices went in.

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While we take a break.

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By the third and last week, the floorboards went on and we took our breaks lying on the wooden platform.

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Of course, its not all just construction work!

We also tried to teach some english to the kids.

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Made giant dominoes game set with some extra help.

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Some had a mudfight in the middle of heavy rain, which later became apparent that it wasn't a very wise choice at all because villagers pee and poo everywhere ;)

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At the end of 3 weeks, the villagers organised a farewell party for us! Out comes the traditional gongs.

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The traditional dance.

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Before we left, we made sure to leave our mark.

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Good bye Kampung Maliau Layung! I will be back soon :)

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About Me

Currently a student in London. Loves travelling, day-dreaming, pigging out on good food and dancing. I think one of the greatest blessings of life is to wake up in the morning without an alarm clock. Having a great time means a deep and meaningful conversation with friends. Absolutely hopeless in networking, words doesn't come out if I am pressured to talk. But if I feel like talking, you would wish you never had ears ;P

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