Short but um, interesting?

I was supposed to be in the jungle until next weekend but the weather decided that it had other ideas. Seeing as we get a heavy thunderstorm every night it takes fairly special weather to cause everyone to leave quite quickly at the first available opportunity. Apparently having trees fall over due to the wind quite nearby was the tipping point. Seeing as I'd barely slept for 3 days and had slightly messed up my legs (due to my apparent desire to convince myself that the shin bone is not connected to the knee bone but is instead repeatedly connected to various types of rock) I was not overly disappointed to come down.

The trek to the camp has changed slightly for two reasons, the first being that I've moved camp to our slightly bigger one further uphill. This means that the walk from where we get dropped off is now 5-7 hours. The second is that the loggers have really done their best to turn the trail into an assault course, in fact the 15 minute stretch where we have to scramble though branches of trees is my favourite, especially since one of the trees clearly contained a group of biting ants. On the plus side it always reminds me of Jonathan getting covered by them in Kenya years ago. Oh how I laughed (and still do...).

In an exciting turn of events we know have power at the camp thanks to the purchase of the generator you can see below being carried over one of the 7 river crossings we have to make. Sadly though as electric light seems to attract many more insects than candlelight I'm not really sold on the whole idea of it yet.

When I arrived at camp I got directed to where I was going to be staying with what struck me as being a slightly overenthusisatic fashion. As it turns out apparently going to the trouble of building a bed for the overly tall guy which is a couple of feet longer than the rest is one of the more amusing jokes you can make...

Others section:

Stats: - Top 5 Western artists over here judging by how often they get played:

5 Shaggy - Yes that rubbish guy who was popular in the late 90's as a joke. Similarities with Mr Bean's popularity over here too I guess.

4 Leanne Rimes - Just shocking

3 Gorillaz - Suprisingly good taste on this one

2 Shania Twain - This doesn't impress me much (do do dodo...)

1 Celine Dion - Specifically that arse wrenchingly bad song from Titanic. It would drive me to tears however there's something about wonderfully out of tune Indonesians who don't know what they're saying giving it all they can. Especially since "my heart will go on" just becomes myahhhhwwwiiggoooonnnn.

Apology: To anyone who I've ever said was stupid for thinking that a bat would ever accidentally fly into them. After one hit me on the side of the head a few days ago I've had to rethink my stance on this. At least it didn't get stuck in my hair which must be worth something.

Video - Finally let me treat you to a typical overtaking manouvre in Sumatra. Yes it may be raining and yes the guy in front may be doing a perfectly acceptable speed but you still have to overtake him dammit...even if it is on a blind corner... Also just to give you an idea of how common this is I took my camera out to film it as soon as I saw the car up ahead as I knew what was coming. Blind corner overtaking really is their speciality here.

A day out in Bukittinggi

I was originally off to climb the most active volcano in Sumatra today but due to the guide declaring it unsafe to do so I decided to wander round the nearby town of Bukittinggi instead. Apparently it's a tourist town but I've really not got much of a clue why that is nor did I see anyone who didn't look like a local. Regardless I went into a nearby hotel to see what was on offer and came away with two things. The first was the panorama, a cliff on one edge of town which overlooks a canyon and is inundated with monkeys. It was also home to an old Japanese tunnel system. The second was the zoo. Like I said there wasn't much on offer.


Note to self: Next time you go to an area with monkeys don't ring a can of fanta otherwise you end up with quite the fan group...

The canyon was quite pretty though. The cliff you can see in the background was probably all made by one eruption from the nearby volcano system. It's about 40m high.

This is Bukittinggi's emblem, in fact they're so proud of it that I sort of expected it to be, well more than just a clock tower that's about 20m high. Instead I was much more interested in the photo below it which seems to suggest that there's a strong Eric Morecambe fanbase in the area...

The mountain in the background here is the volcano I was going to climb. Didn't look to be having any current activity but I bowed to the guides greater knowledge. Apparently lava feels quite hot if you end up in it.

The next few shots are from two hills (one houses and old fort, the other a zoo with species as exotic as the pheasant and the pig...) which are linked by a bridge which spans the main way through town.

Mount Merapi overshadowing the town:

The bridge:

The building back and centre below is the local bhupati's house (sort of like a local MP or mayor). The roof is a distinctive feature of many west Sumatran houses.

A different building which gives a better idea of the roof design (how very exciting...)

As a treat here's a video for putting up with my inability to get a picture of a monkey earlier on in my trip. This is what happens when 1 monkey finds steals the can of fanta you put down while another tries to get at the kit kat in your backpack...

Some stats:

Number of unasked for photos taken with people - 17...in 6 hours...

Number of times I lied about knowing the story behind the Japanese tunnels because I didn't want a guide with me - 8

Number of times a monkey tried to steal my drink - 13

Number of times successful - 1

Number of times I was asked if I played basketball - 9

Amount of times most of the people in one area of town had seen a white man (judging by their quite amazing reactions including random hugs) - 0

Finally congratulations to Charlie and Lucy for yesterday.

Oh and Norwich of course.

Keg

If Carlsberg did jobs you could order...

As I was making my way into the office this morning I saw a very fair haired child in a beige shirt hanging on to the back of a motorbike for dear life (nothing unusual about that, in fact I think it's part of the law that you must have at least one small child hanging off your bike at all times here). Only when we were passing him did I actually properly look at the bike's passenger and it was only then that I noticed that instead of a child on the back of the bike there was in fact a fairly large blonde haired monkey riding pillion instead. I asked the driver why he was allowed a pet monkey to which I was told that it wasn't a pet. In fact it was his coworker. Basically when you think the coconuts in your trees are ripe you ask the man and his monkey to turn up so that the monkey can head up the tree and check. Any ones he finds that are ready to be picked he just knocks off the tree. My follow up question about whether you could hire it to be a personal shopper in a supermarket fell on deaf/confused ears sadly.

Personally I think this is fantastic and I will definitely be ordering a large number of trained monkeys to help with the harvest at home. I'll also try and get a photo of him next time as annoyingly my camera wasn't to hand this morning.

As for the next few days it looks like they're pretty free so I might try and do some sightseeing around a town called Bukittingi.

until then,

keg

It's always nice to have visitors...

Well the first seems to actually be more of a permanent resident as it spends most of it's time running around on the corrugated iron roof of my bedroom. It's basically a pocket sized squirrel and definitely falls into the "cute" category.

The other visitor I had probably doesn't even though he was about the same size as the squirrel. Needless to say that after our encounter I've started to shake my shoes out before putting them on in the morning rather than just blindly shoving my feet into them...

Also finally I know you're all very concerned about the earthquake that hit Sumatra a few days ago (well mum was) but it was nowhere near where I am so I didn't actually even know it had happened.

Off back to my normal place of work today so will be travelling for the national. I think it's safe to say that I will be backing big fella thanks.

keg

Futsal >>>> Geology

It turns out that every other Sunday the camp I'm in head off 2 hours down the road to the local futsal centre before having dinner (while singing some utterly appalling karaoke). Naturally I was quite outstanding, well at least I filled up most of the goal whenever I took my turn as keeper.One of the others actually said I had surprisingly good technique. Barely had the words left his mouth before a ball dropped perfectly for me to volley home from 10 yards out. Sadly instead of hitting the target I hammered it into the roof of the building...about 15 yards wide...bugger.

Team photo:

Blocking my own keepers view. Textbook defending that...

As we left one of the two girls in charge asked to have her photo taken with me:

Then the other one did:

Then one of the other players decided to get in on the act:

Then so did another...

and so on for another 10-12 photos until all the players had got one.

Then the team outside:

Oh yes and finally so did the girl who interviewed me as part of her English studies project.

Seeing as I was the only non-Indonesian in the town I can only assume that she'd been waiting to interview someone for a very long time. Actually that probably explains where she found the time to make up over 100 questions to ask. I think I understood about 30 of them which is great as it was filmed so the recording will be mostly made up of me going "what?" or giving a very unconvincing nod of the head.

All in all one of the stranger days I've had even by the current standards of this trip.

Keg

Happy Easter everyone

No chocolate eggs for me. Balls. Hey ho, I think they'd probably be chocolate puddles by the time I'd get to eat them anyway seeing as it's over 30 here at the moment. Just to update for the next 7/8 days "here" is about 5 hours drive north-east of Bengkulu in South West Sumatra at one of our other projects. It's nearer sea level then the place I'm normally based and so is very hot and full of mosquitoes etc. Apparently there are tigers living round here (+ bears/rhinos/elephants) although I haven't met anyone who has actually seen any of them on site.

Interestingly I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. I came down because the lot I normally work with are all on their break until the 10th and there was someone who said he could use an extra pair of hands for a week or so. This sounded fine however when I changed cars 2 hours from camp (you need a 4x4 to get around here) the guy I was supposed to be working with got out of the 4x4 to get into the car I'd come in. Apparently he's on break for 2 weeks. Oh well I think I might have to use the week to get used to the head and humidity again as well as improving my still rubbish grasp of the Indonesian language.

I got here late yesterday having travelled for about 30 hours overall from when I left my hotel in Hong Kong. Thankfully I did have a short stay (about 6 hours) at Jakarta so was treated to a local hotel room which had this intriguing invitation in my room:


Not wanting to disappoint them I left a note which simply stated that I was unhappy with the lack of a treasure hunt option available on the to do list. Hopefully this will be rectified by the time I get back.

Hong Kong was entertaining with a couple of nights out to make up for the 2 days of conferences. Everyone seemed to be half dead after the 7's tournament though so it was probably a bit quieter than usual.

Just to give you an insight into the fun that is a mining conference/exhibition here is me fulfilling my role as the "token English geologist" while trying not tell the man bothering me to sod off and bother someone else. I got to talk to people from 8am-6/7pm and to be honest it gets a bit tedious after a while.

Off to play some Easter futsal apparently tomorrow. If I fall over and accidentally take out some locals can someone pay my bail?

Cheers,

Keg