Back to the cat city (kuching)

Up early - chickens again. Boat ride followed by minivan. Stopped for drinks, lunch and durien shopping (unfortunately we couldn't find any!). Also stopped off on the way back at semmengoh orang reserve. It was way better than sepilok. At least four orang two young ones and they were about 10 m from us - best two pounds we spent this trip possibly - claire took 97 photos in 45 mins !
Having last group meal now by the waterfront. Most of us have discovered we were bitten lots last night but never mind. Have just done group awards and certificates and some of us are now enjoying food - jack is quite worried as he thinks he has ordered a catchy wee wee burger - his mastery of malay has not improved much , its actually katuliwista - name of the restaurant.
Anyway - probably no blog tomorrow - still deciding what to do and then plane home so , food orders coming in :
lauren - roast chicken
vicky - roast lamb
jack - steak and chips
jake - roast lamb
simon - roast chicken
rhea - tuna pasta bake
james - roast beef
emma - chips n mayo
tom - pasta, bacon and cheese
ian - claire says we can eat with you as house empty - we've obviously managed not to annoy her too much - ah well , there is still time!
I think it safe to say that most of us would just appreciate a break from noodles and rice.
See you all soon at the sava bus stop
Love borneo 2008

Iban again.

Day two with the iban. Chickens kept us awake last night so it was up early for a bathe in the river. Chilled out all morning and walked to waterfall in the afternoon. The iban put on a market for us in the evening so we all started our end of holiday shop !
Early to bed ready for travel day back to kuching tomorrow.

And you think you have a lot of Juice!

Claire says - please Ian can we replace all dairy products with condensed milk, I have just sat and eaten half a tin with a spoon and feel slightly ill now thanks.

She's also addressing any dehydration issues in one hit right now, with the biggest water melon juice we have ever seen...

Iban Day One or 'lets go to the bank'

Today saw us begin our stay with the Iban, a tribe of local people who live in a giant 'long house', this particular one houses around 80 people, who are usually related.

So after a late start as our illustrious tour guide spent an hour in the bank we left only to visit two more banks before we left kuching. Stopped at Serian for fruit buying and some more banks but after that we gave up on bank visits - we were so disappointed - the free tour of borneos banks was really interesting !

Anyway, then it was lunch followed by a last hour in our minivans before transferring to our longboats to the long house.

A cooling dip in the river was followed by dinner , a rice wine ceremony, gift giving ,dancing and consumption of the most important gift we bought - roasted pigs head.

Fortunately they kindly chopped it up and cooked it, so none of us spent too long working out which bit we had.

Strangely emma didn't have any but she did have to travel in the minibus with it when it was raw - bit whiffy apparently - tasted good though.

Good nights sleep - chickens not too noisy but a cockerel apparently tried to attack jack on his way to the loo!

Chilling out in the longhouse at the moment, right next to a guy making one of those wooden tribal masks! Cool.

Kuching...

Today we tarvelled to Kuching. Leaving the Jungle behind was with mixed feelings, the airport (yes) in the jungle would appear to have been furnished to the same high standards as the lodge, and frankly looked like someone built it and the used a star-trek transporter to send it there!

So, a brief fokker 50 twin prop flight later, and we found ourselves back in miri, followed by an equally short 1hr flight to the meropolis of Kuching. Not a lot of time remained today for sightseeing, but we did manage a walk along the riverfront and watched the sun go down.

A small departure was made from asain cuisine tonight, with a visit to the local Lebanese restaurant, as well as a much needed laundry stop for some (but not others - watch out parents!) Martyn and Kay sealed their smelly jungle clothing into a handy drybag which will be labelled biohazard on the return trip I think!

Thanks for all your comments, we shall resume the public dinnertime shaming again from now on.

The picture today shows Jack and Kay performing the 'Leach Walk' - a bizarre gait developed by Jack during the Jungle segment, that apparently deters leaches and creepy crawlies from touching his legs.

To the batmobile robin !

stayed dry again for the 9km trek back to our long boat. River had gone down a lot over night but it was only kay and martyn that got wet feet as they were last in and so had to push off

An hour down river saw us back at park hq again. Most people had a nap in the afternoon but claire and kay - in true can't miss any opportunity fashion - went on the canopy walk. 480 m of very wobbly and high up wonder with a small dose of trepidation from kay when there was an ominous creak and even claire (who borders on completeley fearless) said 'hmmm that doesn't exactly inspire confidence does it?' I chose not to reply.

Park HQ is an interesting mix of people covered in muck who have clearly been in the jungle overnight, and those who stay at the very posh Mulu Resort, which we passed on the way here on the longboat, they are immaculatley dressed, not covered in muck, and as Martyn noted yesterday, have very, very clean shoes! - this definatley makes the jungle slightly less of a wilderness..

An american man is currently saying 'what's the english equivalent of kilometerage' ... Something that Claire finds completely hilarious.. She has just left the table so she can come back and get a look at the guy...

anyway, back to the canopy walk - best spot was the pit viper - well a baby one anyway.

Then it was on to the caves - deer cave huge , garden of eden beautiful - caused by roof of cave falling in and langs cave beautiful rock formations.

Finally at 5pm THE BATS they were great. Right on time - which is more than can be said for the day trippers with clean boots and very large cameras who missed the half hour long chain of bats spiralling out of the caves. They were great. Even better when a bird of prey tried to get a bat !

Very cool day all round. Lads enjoyed burgers and chips depressingly !

Afraid of the dark ?

kindly it stayed dry for the night walk that we went on. Too dark for pictures though however we did see a frog, toad, stick insect, the very rare mulu cave gecko and an as yet unidentified spot by jake that our guide had never seen before. Lads have named it mulu rave worm as it glowed nice iridescent colours when our head torches shone on it.

anyway that was about it for today.