I love Jakarta

Well love is strong, maybe "find disappointing" would be a better choice of words. Seriously how can it take 3 hours in a taxi to get from the airport to my hotel 20km away? Fun. On the plus side at least my taxi driver was entertaining. I've been instructed to only take the Bluebird taxis which are the main company here but quite frankly an unlicensed one with a driver who recognised Norwich City from the badge on my t-shirt is surely worth the extra couple of pounds. He said he was a Rochdale fan which wasn't quite what I was expecting to hear.

The only downside was that he turned out to be hugely religious, so much so that he believes every word of the bible. I was quite happy debating with him until he said "well I hope I'm not wrong as otherwise I'm wasting my life preparing for what will happen after I die". He looked so crestfallen at the idea that I couldn't help but change the subject. Interestingly he did believe that a tribe in Kalimantan was capable of using magic to fire daggers at far away targets without having to touch them. I thought this was a fun idea so lied that there were people in England who were capable of causing fires just by looking at objects. Should be fun for the next Englishman who gets into his taxi...

Finally it turns out that there is only 1 English show which is popular over here (which isn't sport related), in fact it's so popular that I've seen it on tv seemingly whenever I've turned one on. Still I guess Mr Bean was pretty big at home too for a while. 15 years ago.

Off to Singapore to stay with Maz and Paddy on Monday while I attend a conference then off to Hong Kong afterwards for another one a week after. As long as I don't get my hands removed for doing something stupid I'll update if anything entertaining happens.

Keg

This bird has skills

Or it's just gone stir crazy from being taken out of the wild illegally before being shoved in a cage and hung outside a shop. They say it's illegal but seeing as how almost every shop has a couple of cages outside it I'm not sure how much anyone important cares.

On the plus side a bird doing backflips is always entertaining.

Or maybe Saturday...

Thanks to some friendly loggers our logistics team were unable to get to the camp (too many felled trees blocking their way) and so we've had to come down. Quite how I managed to get through a blockade of trees and they didn't I don't really know, (although to be fair to them it did add an extra 2 hours to the journey and we weren't carrying big sacks of food). Still, at least it enables me to follow Norwich's glamour tie at Huddersfield in full tonight.

Now I do have some pictures but these were all taken at least 2 days ago due to an incident involving me, some slippery rocks, a lot of water and my camera. If anyone knows how to de-waterlog a camera then please feel free to let me know as my attempts of putting it in a ball of toilet paper and looking upset have yet to bear any fruit. On the plus side the loss of the camera was put into perspective when I narrowly avoided getting hit on the head by a rock. All I knew of it was a large splash behind me (it was about half a metre wide) while I was examining a small cliff. According to someone who was watching a tree fell over up the slope resulting in a domino style event. That at least would explain why about 5 seconds afterwards I found myself covered in leaves and twigs. Needless to say I seem to glance up a bit more often when I'm working now...

Actually if it had hit me on the head then at least I would no longer have to face the cook's idea of "western cuisine". Basically I think he noticed I struggled to finish all the rice based treats we normally get so went out of his way to ensure that I would get food I was more used to. Sadly it appears that he's not so familiar with this food as he is the local stuff. Over the past 5 days I have been served the following:

- Cold pasta for breakfast. Not bad when you're eating it as leftover from the night before, not good when it simply hasn't been cooked.

- A condensed milk and sausage sandwich. Apparently he learned that we often have milk with our cereal so why not milk with sausage? The sausage was also cold.

- Jam and Tuna sandwiches. Seriously. I love jam and I love tuna but up to this point I'd never considered putting them together, funnily enough I still wouldn't... (I did enjoy one guy's definition of the jam being "lazy jam". Presumably he was looking for the word viscous but as I don't know what either word is in Indonesian I should probably be quiet.)

- A tomato and lettuce sandwich. Now that seems fair enough and indeed it is. The only issue I had with it was the addition of chocolate sprinkles. A bold and unusual culinary decision which displays a level of creativity rarely seen outside the confines of the Fat Duck.

What's great is that everyone seems to have cottoned on to these monstrosities so wait with baited breath every time a plate arrives in front of me just so they have an excuse to enjoy a good laugh before dinner. Bastards. Actually what's really annoying is that the cook (despite me learning the Indonesian for "stop giving me so much") has decided that I'm very big and therefore need to whole plates of his delicious concoctions at every meal. I've tried to make a point by always leaving one plate untouched but apparently the message still hasn't got through. It's like trying to complete a maze where every turn is a dead end, infuriating.

One big change for this week was that one of the locals brought a guitar with him and promised that he would play me some "real music". For real music lovers I dare say the noise that he created would have left a better impression than it did on me (clearly I'm not an expert in the area) as i have to say that it sort of felt like he'd found the guitar a day or two previously and was still seeing what noises it could make. Thank god for mp3 players...

Anyway enough words have some of the pictures I took before failing to teach my camera to swim:

- Butterflies gathering where I empty my mug after every cup of tea

The next two are of a theme. The titles being "I must learn the Indonesian for 'no I really don't want to have my photo taken here' " and "Stop making me pose in front of waterfalls". On the plus side it's always good to be seen with a geological hammer in your hands.

Now the connoisseurs amongst you will enjoy the next one. Following on from my name-making photo "monkey, what monkey?" I treat you to the next in the series "I swear the little fucker was still there when I took it". Originally this photo was designed to be a monkey caught in a natural leafy frame but thankfully I caught myself just in time and instead waited until he left a monkey sized hole in the foliage. I'm sure you'll all agree that this is a much more evocative and thought provoking piece...

Balls.

So to make up for it have a picture of a ridiculous looking butterfly which was almost the size of my hand:

keg

I'll be back on Sunday

Off back into the jungle now for some more high octane geological work so will be back on Sunday unless I do something stupid which enables me to return earlier...

Keg

Some friends I've made so far

Got to love a praying mantis hanging around outside the office:




This butterfly decided that he wanted to drink up whatever moisture had accumulated after a days walking round in the jungle. Lovely...


Seemingly though this is a popular pastime for them

The perspective is slightly ballsed up on this one as the pen is flat whereas the millipede is heading off at around 45 degrees downhill. He must've been about 10"-12" long though.

Mum can skip this next photo.

I actually wouldn't have noticed him (as I'd been walking just shy of 4 hours and was quite tired) however the guy leading the way did this bizarre little hop off the path and almost fell off the side of the hill (about 2 feet left of the snake). No idea if he's poisonous or not but he seemed pretty chilled.

Now for 2 contenders for "wildlife photograph of the year" ....

In this one note how I beautifully managed to miss the three Hornbills which have just flown past the trees on the left. Textbook.

Even better though, in my opinion, was this effort of 9-10 monkeys:

Trust me, they're all in that bush and they were big too. I actually had ample time to photograph them out in the open but instead chose that time to stand there smiling and saying "monkeys" to anyone who'd listen. Naturally as soon as I got my camera out they all fucked off into a particularly thick tree. I'll get them next time though. Possibly.

What I'm actually doing

On my very first day after arriving at the camp I quickly realised that a couple of trips to the gym wouldn't have gone amiss in advance. Basically at that point I still wasn't 100% sure as to exactly what my job would entail. It turns out that the relatively simple answer to this was mapping the geology of the area looking for mineral deposits called 'massive sulphides' (MS). I won't bore you with the details but the process is effectively:

- Walk up every river/creek etc mapping outcrops and looking for boulders of MS.
- Once you've mapped a river look for where the MS stopped appearing and head straight up hill.

- Then dig/look around for outcrops to see if you can find the MS in situ.
- If you find it and there's a lot of it with a high % of metal inside then mine it and sell the metal for cash.

- Invest cash in new top quality central defender for Norwich City.

The creeks themselves look similar to this. In front of me in this pic are two guys with knives (to clear a path) and a bloke who was bored and thought he could act as translator. Seeing as he couldn't speak English this was a somewhat unproductive task for him. I also never quite caught his name, if I had to bet on it I would say it was something like Hassaniegaz but he probably could've just been coughing.

On the same trip I had to climb up and down this waterfall. It's about 5/6m high so the technique used was mostly pulling on vines going up and arse based going down.

Thankfully though there are always plenty of trees to grab hold of should you slip:

Most of them come fully equipped with spikes though.

Finally this is our primary outcrop:

Needless to say I have not been up the woodwork structure, especially since that drop off to the side is almost vertical and is about 100ft+ down. The man 2nd to the front could be our next head of exploration. I was all for this (after a whole day talking about sport) until the subject moved to global warming etc. We both agreed that the overpopulation of the planet is a primary factor however his solution of removing all of the middle east was mildly concerning... I actually thought he was joking so laughed at how inappropriate he was being, sadly however this was met with a still very serious face. I stopped talking to him soon after.

Work stats:

Wooden structures designed to be walked on which broke when I walked on them - 3

Hours slept on rice bag bed - average of less than 3 hours per night

Bites from mosquitoes on right leg alone - 30 ish

Bee stings - 4

Hammers lost while falling over rocks - 1

Meals of rice eaten while bread and jam were briefly available - 0

Tracks up and down hills which have been demolished by my attempts to use them - all bar 3

Random fact:

If you're in the jungle and have clothes drying don't leave them hanging out of the rain presuming that they might get a bit drier. They will in fact end up totally drenched.

My first trip to the camp...

I wasn't supposed to be back until next Friday but thankfully logistical problems (a lack of food) meant that I've been able to come back for the weekend, I was even considerate enough to bring a leech with me. Actually it would appear that I like to take them with me wherever I go as in the space of 7 days I averaged 5 a day. Bastards....

The trip to camp itself isn't actually too bad. Firstly there's an hour car ride North from Lubuk Sikaping to Sontang (a small village where everyone seems to dry their grains/nuts on the road which shows more faith in the local drivers than I would have at home. After that it's a 3 hour hike up a gentle slope alongside a decent sized river, although there are some moments where trees have been felled to leaved the sort of assault course more suited to army personnel than geologists. The last 20 minutes of the walk are basically spent in the river itself which is great as my waterproof hiking boots keep that water firmly inside once it comes in over the top (which it always will seeing as the river flows waist high). This picture is a good indication of what the end of the hike is like:

The keen botanists amongst you might be able to make out cocoa plants, nutmeg trees and some other cash crops. Technically they shouldn't be here as it's a protected forest (even though we've been given a mining license...) however they seem to have quite happily chopped down a fair number of trees to clear some space for themselves. Naturally I assumed that the Government would crack down on this sort of behaviour however as it turns out it was the Government itself which built the tarmac path you walk on for the first 30 minutes. Apparently it wanted to win votes in the area and they assumed a 2 mile path through a protected forest was the way to go about it...

After the nice saunter uphill I finally made it to our camp:

Those beds you can see are made from rice bags stretched between wooden poles, like a really shit hammock. The little room on the right is the kitchen where all manners of ricely goodness were made. In fact every meal is rice based, even the odd one which has noodles. Breakfast this morning was a special delight: 1 bowl of rice covered in a cold fish sauce (I ignored the only English speaker when he tasted his and said "tastes like chicken" before laughing manically) with little bits of fish in (also not likely to make it any more chicken-y. I opted for a cup of tea instead.

After we'd all arrived (2 geologists, 1 cook, 9 field technicians) they realised that 10 "beds" wasn't going to quite be enough so built a new hut from scratch:

1 hour later...

It was pretty impressive to watch (I made no attempt to get involved just in case anyone was wondering).

The other integral parts of the camp were the toilet:

and the washroom:

I may have just done a 180 degree turn between taking these two photos to be fair...

I'll do another post tomorrow about the work itself but for now have some more stats. Sadly as I've been with the same people I have no new height related ones (well, not many at least) so instead have a set that I just compiled during my trip:

30-40 leeches picked up

9 rockfalls caused (it's very steep round there)

0 people killed as a result...yet.

1 waterfall fallen off

1 waterfall fall survived (it was only about 4m high).

11 times I've slipped down a hill on my arse unwillingly

50+ times I've stopped myself from falling by grabbing a nearby tree.

12 times that tree has had spikes on it's trunk.

Uncountable: The number of times someone has ducked under something low only to look round and admire my attempts to follow. Apparently this is particularly amusing...