Aug 2007

During the night, Andrew woke up a few times and his ear was really hurting. He decided that he had to go to a real doctor, and that he didn't want to do the homestay if he was sick. I was OK with the change in plans; if you have to stay for extra nights, it might as well be at a place you're comfortable with. Once we had breakfast, Andrew went to find Eddie to ask if we could stay another night and if there was a transfer going out to Lahad Datu where he could see a doctor. Both of these things were a go, and so at 10:00 we piled into a van for the bumpy, dusty ride in to town. We ended up at the reserve's office. We met one of the staff and they had already registered Andrew for a visit with a doctor across the street. It was going to be a while before he could see a doctor, so Andrew went across the street to check his email, and I waited at the office until they had to lock up for errands and then I also went and checked my email. Andrew sent a message off to the homestay people to let them know we wouldn't be coming. After a while Andrew finally got in to see the doctor.

The doctor was very good; he set Andrew up with some medicine. He came to find me waiting at the office, snacking on some langsat that someone gave me and sudoking, and then we went for lunch.

That was a procedure in itself. We were totally confused. The waiter came and asked us what we wanted, and we asked for a menu. He was confused by this, but brought us a menu anyway. We looked at it for a while and tried to order some food. But the waiter just looked even more confused and walked away. Someone else came over and said "some chicken, some beef, some vegetables, rice. OK?" We decided those things sounded like food, and we agreed. The chicken and vegetables were good, but the beef was a little spicy. We ate it all and when they brought us the bill, Andrew realized that he'd forgotten how to tip (because in Japan, you don't have to).They brought the receipt and change on a tray, and he took the change and the receipt and gave the waiter back the tray. He had planned to leave the money on the table, and I only suggested afterward that he should have probably just left the change on the tray. Oh well.

We had agreed to meet the office staff again at 2:30. Once we finished lunch we headed back to the office, but they weren't there. They eventually showed up at 15:15. I had to go to the bathroom, so I was a little cranky about the wait. When they finally showed up, I used the facilities and then went to a drugstore while Andrew waited at the office. Our return trip started at around 16:00. It was an uneneventful drive, although we did see some more hornbills, and eagle, some pigeons, and a stork of some kind along the way. We also saw a 2m-long cobra laying on the road warming itself. Andrew was pretty happy we were in the car at this point. We arrived safely, and he took his meds and had a nap. After Andrew woke up, we realized that we had no plans made for the following day, and it was getting late. Andrew still wasn't feeling great, and we decided that it would be best if we just stayed put. We talked to Eddie again, and we were booked for another night. We ate dinner then sat around talking with Jodi, our guide, about Canadian animals. It was then that we realized that we do have some pretty interesting animals in Canada, but we had always taken that for granted. We think animals in places like Africa, Australia, and Borneo are cool, but we never stopped to think about Canadian animals in that way. It took someone from Borneo saying how cool moose are for us to really realize it.

It was good to just hang out and relax after being in town all day.

We woke up today at 5:30 because our truck was leaving at 6:00 to go bird watching. It was pretty early, and Andrew's head was still in a bit of a fog. As a result, he didn't see too much, but had a good time being out in nature. I saw quite a few different birds, like a blue throated bee eater (of which my picture is not so good, so click here to see what it is). Others I had better photographic karma, so we saw some pied hornbills, a type of eagle, and also a Storm's stork, which is apparently pretty rare. We were informed of this by the professional photographer from Japan who had been staying at the Reserve for 10 days each summer, so we believed him.

We also saw another pig-tailed macaque, and our guide called to it, and incited a confrontation, which I was not so keen to witness. Luckily we drove off before he could attack us.

We arrived back in time for a breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, toast, and mee goreng (fried noodles). After breakfast, Andrew talked to Eddie about his ear, because it seemed to be getting worse. He said there was a small clinic in the 'estate', where the plantation workers and their families live. Max, one of the drivers, drove him up to the clinic, which only appeared to be a couple of women who happened to have the medicine and would give it to you if you needed it. He told them what was the matter, and they gave him some drops and some painkillers, and sent him on his way. He figured 'when in Malaysia, take medicine like Malaysians do'.

When he got back to the resort, it was lunch time, so we ate and settled in for some serious relaxing and animal watching.

It was very hot, so we stayed in the shade until we heard some splashing in the river. We went to check it out and we saw a family of long-tailed macaques playing in the water. For Andrew, watching them play reinforced his belief in evolutionary theory. For me, it was just comedic. We saw a bigger one push a smaller one into the river, and a few playing and swinging on a vine. They looked like they were having a lot of fun.

That afternoon, we decided to make another trek to the mud volcano, hoping to have a better group this time around in terms of quietness. Well, it was definitely worse. The people we were with didn't get the concept of wildlife watching. They hiked in to the site after us, and climbed up the observation tower, talking the whole time, looked around for five minutes, and went back down again to cavort in the mud. Because mud is infinitely more interesting trying to see an elephant. Yeah. I think there was steam coming out of my ears, I was so frustrated. And, after they grew bored with the mud, they asked where all the animals were. Seriously, they did. We suggested to our guide having two different groups go out to the mud volcano; one that thinks mud is interesting, and the other who wants to see animals. After all that, we hiked back to the awaiting truck, and chatted with a Japanese man on vacation with his son. When we arrived back, we showered and ate dinner. We wanted to go on the night drive again, but the truck was full (with all those mud people), so we just packed it in early.