Well I wasn't supposed to be back in the office for another week but after an incident involving a waterfall, a loose boulder, my foot and a 6-10ft fall I decided to rest my legs and come down a bit earlier. To be honest it was mostly so i would be 100% fit for my Laos trip which starts on the 21st. Not that I jumped at the chance to do a bit less work you understand...

Actually I got off lightly, on my second day one of the guys from the local village who help us managed to stab himself in the eye with a tree branch. Unlike me he was not going to stop working until we forced him too. Thankfully he just seemed to have caught the white part so his vision should be fine. Even so if you stab yourself in the eye it's wise to take a few days off.

Also I needed a break from the one English speaking guy who keeps on saying "it's bloody dem" and "or whatevers" in every sentence. It was funny at first but now I want to feed him to the local wildlife. This may also have been also partly due to having a distinct lack of sleep which was mostly brought on by some insect which started chirruping away from 1am-4am every night. What was even more annoying was that every time I eventually got out of bed to find it it promptly stopped. So very irritating.

Much better news was that we acquired a monkey skull guardian thanks to Lassi (pictured below with said skull) who found it lying around and decided it would make a nice addition to the camp. He also caught a deer (I'm still not 100% on exactly how) which was served for the next few days so the food was pretty good this week too...


Work mapping the creeks continued with more waterfalls getting in the way:


Which led to Lassi and I having to walk down vertical mud slopes instead:

Alternatively of course you can just get a machete out and chop footholds into a tree which has fallen over it...


I had some interesting visitors, the best of which was this chap who seemed to enjoy doing absolutely nothing for 10 hours other than sitting by my bed and being quite big

Which I guess gave him something in common with this snail:


Not entirely sure why I've included this guy but he certainly was shiny. He also had a head that made me think of the waiting room scene in beetlejuice.

Finally when they're not working the local crew go out and collect ratan vines which they then make into all sorts of wicker-esque objects. I want to have a go but it looks like quite a skilled job which requires patience so I'm not too sure any efforts I make will be met with much success. Also as a side note everyone here smokes pretty much constantly. It's amazing, they must all be on at least 40 a day. I read up on the cigarettes they smoke (kreteks - basically containing clove) and apparently the tar content is so high they're illegal in Europe. Lovely.


Beard Update: 1 month on and it's, well, a bit shit. Look at my comfy pillow though, even the hard and pointy plastic buckles are soothing on my head while I sleep. So comfortable...


In the office until the 21st now but then I've got 2 weeks in Laos. It's a hard life...