I will up date on my adventure when I return to NQR. So far I have seen proboscus monkies, magical glowing trees lit up by swarms of fireflies and travelled around on a 50 ft cat called cool bananas. Heaps of photos which I will up load when I return.

Well we have had some positive news. Tests in Indonesia showed the tumour was not cancer as feared but was a result of a hole in his skull allowing brain tissue  through. Sounds scary to me.  Thankfully the doctors felt the operation could be safely handled locally.  An Email from Gertrude explains it all.

- “Hi David and Anne,The operation from Ebok will take place in Feb. The nonfunctional brain tissue will be taken away and the bone by his nose will be closed with bone from the rib.  i will let you know in feb how everything is going. greetings Geertje”

Many cruising yachts put money in to help pay for the tests and the operation. Originally we thought a lot of money would be needed to fly him overseas for the operation.  We had quite a few offers of assistance through this blog, all of which are appreciated by ourselves and the people at Hoga.  At this stage I dont know where the funding is at. We will keep you informed on Ebok’s progress. He isnt out of the woods yet, but it is a lot more positive than it was. Thanks for all the interest and offers.

Background from my previous blog entry in case you forgot-

One of Gertrude’s projects is to get surgery for a 7 year old boy named Ebok who has a large tumour on his face.  He is such a happy kid, keen to talk to strangers like us and get his photo taken.  The growth is starting to block his vision.  The story is even sadder; his parents basically abandoned him thinking that god was punishing them for something by giving them a son with a deformity.  Fortunately he is cared for by the neighbours, Pundang and his family, and the village seems to provide a lot of support.  For a kid with so much stacked against him he has impressive spirit.  He really loves a photo and organises all the other kids into suitable poses, in height order with him in front – of course!

Gertrude has tentatively arranged free surgery in Europe, but the cost of airfares and the stress of such a long trip is a problem for people who have never left their island.  Ideally it would be easier to send him to Australia with two carers from the village and have the surgery there.

Sail Indonesia is a great concept, but you would think that after over a decade of rallies the organisation would be pretty slick by now. It isn’t. Lots of questions remain unanswered, briefings, while not brief, tell very little. The web site has only the basics and lacks detailed information regarding anchorages, admin requirements and the route. The most useful information is found by the links to previous rally participants (ie the Hacking family blog). I think its fair to say that a lot of scare-mongering goes on.

The Sail Indo site is disappointing and many of the handbooks provided are wildly inaccurate, basic things like GPS co-ordinates for anchorages are wrong. The Australian end of Sail indo tends to blame the Indonesian end and shrugs saying “its Indonesia get used to it”. The Indonesian end is very helpful. They try hard to sort out problems, but with accurate information at the beginning a lot of problems could be avoided, particularly regarding visas and port procedures.

The communication issues with Sail Indonesia extend to the locals too. Many of the stops expect over 100 boats to turn up at once! Banners and handbooks refer to the 100+ boat that will visit on specific dates. Local traders and villagers turn up, only to be disappointed with smaller numbers as boats come in dribs. In some cases only 7 boats in total!  I can’t imagine that 2009 is unique in this, the longer passage to Sail Bunaken did cause the fleet to break up more than usual, but I would think that it would be highly unlikely that the majority of the fleet turned up en-mass to any of the stops other than the first few. Cruisers by their nature tend to move at different rates. Why Sail Indonesia hasn’t explained this to the locals and modified their expectations is beyond me. It must be very disappointing for them.

Sail Indo isn’t run by cruisers, they seem to be more interested in racing (most cruisers can’t officially compete because insurance won’t cover it and at the end of the day, cruisers have a different mindset anyway,) The provision of free beer seems to be the number one priority, while I do enjoy a free beer (they do taste better) it isn’t the No1 priority when you come into a port after a long passage.

In Darwin you get the opportunity to buy charts for $300. These are photocopies and stamped “not for navigation” – perhaps they are meant as wall hangings. The reality is that they are better suited as wall hangings. As charts they contain the same detail as the electronic charts and in some cases less. They are not anymore accurate and it is a nightmare to find anything by searching through the dozens of charts, most of which don’t relate to the rally anyway. We felt that it was a waste of money if you have good electronic charts and backups.

It is a good idea to get information from a wide range of sources and even small bits are useful. It’s a question of value for money and expectations. The internet is a cheap source, while the accuracy varies, many cruisers blogs have gems of invaluable information. Google earth is a very useful tool for getting an idea of the locations and best approaches. I printed them off and took them with me. Most cruisers buy a couple of books in order to research the route, given the lack of any real useful info from Sail Indo.

For around a $100 you can buy “101 anchorages”. It is a good coffee table book and has some info useful for passage planning, but that about all. It’s not detailed enough to be of any great use. The book only claims to be a guide and has “mud maps” and that’s all they are. It isn’t a pilots guide and doesn’t claim to be. It is a nice book if you have a $100 spare and plan on getting a coffee table in the future.

South East Asia Cruising Guide vol 2 is also around the $100 mark. We bought it and found it a waste of time for us. It has some very interesting info on Indo weather and tides, has some good advice regarding fish traps etc but it is too general. To be fair it covers a huge area and was not written as a “Sail Indonesia” guide. Again it highlights the missed opportunity by the organisers of sail indo to develop a useful web site.

Sail Indonesia doesnt appear to learn from one year to the next. This year we went to Sumlaki and it was the first time, they were great and tried hard. The rumor is that in 2010 they will dump Sumlaki and go to Kupang. This is the same place that there own website refered to as being voted the most corrupt in Indonesia! It’s also the place that gave the yachties so much grief in 2008 with import duties! Obviously someone has been paid to “fix it up”.

The rally notes suggest bringing pencils, books and clothing to give to the poorer villages as give-aways. While this is a good plan, it is difficult to implement. How to you give it out and to whom? The pencils and books are ok for the schools, but clothing is problematic. In many cases the locals are better dressed than the cruisers anyway. We found that sunglasses, diving masks, fins were in huge demand. The items were practical (mostly) and helped the village support its self. A printer, laminator and photo paper were excellent for giving thanks to guides or locals that helped out. We simply took a group photo (and all Indonesians love their photo taken) printed it out and gave it to them.

Of the boats that started the rally, one sank (Ambon), one crew killed (electrocuted), numerous hit reefs holing water tanks and splitting centre cases, many had lucky escapes losing only paint. Others were not as lucky, the unofficial damage tally included – one bent rudder and cracked a propeller after parking on a reef. Another hit a reef for a 3^rd time taking off the skeg and rudder. This occurred in Bali when he was on his way out of the repair yard he had just had his centre boards fixed after hitting a reef earlier.

One had a new mast step made after to old one broke. Numerous had fuel problems, not from poor quality indo fuel – mostly as a result of poor storing by the yachies or dirty tanks. You can’t leave untreated fuel in plastic jerry cans in hot humid conditions for months and throw it in your tanks without having problems.

Three boats blew gear boxes; one had an engine fire and later blew the box. 2 at least blew engines. Half a dozen had alternator problems. Sails were torn as furlers jammed and the balls fell out. I suspect about 30% of boats with desalinators had them fail at various times. Three boats I know of lost auto pilots and had to wait for parts, belts broke and sensor units failed.

Carry spares and contacts for parts, wiring diagrams, workshop manuals, parts list for key equipment are a must. It is hard to get stuff fixed in many places, but Belitung, Manardo, Kuta and Kumai all had good bush mechanics and workshops.

All in all one of lifes great experiences.

To complete the voyage we took a mini bus, a bus and a train to cross into Singapore. The contrast between Malaysia/Singapore and Indonesia is immense. Sky scrapers  and freeways. I think I miss Indonesia already.  I’m off the boat soon and back to work. Cool Bananas continues on…..just a bit jealous. The Sail Indonesia part is over and Sail Malaysia begins.

The shots are of Singapore, the Art Centre, the skyline and Raffles Hotel

The trip was not what I expected, it is so much more. It hasn’t turned out how I expected. I finished on a different boat for starters! I have learnt a lot about myself and other people and made new friends. Reading the blog will give you an idea of what I have got out of the trip. Ok, enough introspection.

Left Belitung in light conditions for a night-day-night-day sail to Mesanak 260 Nm away. Belitung was our clearance port and customs and immigration signed us out of Indonesia. They post dated it to give us time to get out. This saved us a trip to Batam.

We headed off over seas that were oily flat. The steel grey skies merging seamlessly with oily grey seas. Overlayed with flickering lightning as micro storms moved around us. Every now and then, we would run into one, winds hit 20 knots briefly, rain dumped and then if cleared as quickly as it came.

We crossed the equator and had a sacrifice to the sea god Neptune. Third crossing of the trip.

We are crossing the South China Sea! History and fiction come to life. Images of Chinese pirates, of float planes with pilots in embroidered leather jackets, the East India Company clipper ships plying the waters to transport valuable spice at any cost, wars with the Dutch, WWII sea battles and sunken treasure flash through my mind. Of course it looks just like any other sea as we motor sail leaving the equator far behind.

We anchored at Mesanak, the last part of the trip was into light head winds and choppy seas. We sheltered on the SE corner of the island in 15 m of water. We could not get too close to shore as a dozen fish traps dotted the coast. These traps were large and stood on bamboo stilts with a platform and good sized hut/house on top. Here we met up with Wanderlust and another NZ boat Morning Star 7.

An early start got us 62 Nm to an island just across from the Singapore straits. We tucked in between some reefs and sandbars. The current was strong and we were in 15 m of water. As a precaution we dumped out all 60 m of the chain. A justified precaution as it turned out.

A brief but savage rain/lightening storm in the night flashed through at 3 am. Spectacular lightning bolts struck each side of us. As I lay on my bunk looking through the hatch at the mega volts arcing across the sky, I reflected that just above me was a 20 metre high aluminium lightening rod and my bunk was sitting on a 300 litre fuel tank! Sometimes I think too much.

We crossed the straits the next morning. Navigating the straits is like pushing a pram across a busy freeway. We stopped and let 4 huge ships past and darted across one lane. We were only doing 3 knots speed over ground against a 2 knot current and a head wind. As far as the eye could see there were ships in lines.

We limped across with only one motor and Morning Star 7 had its problems, stopping repeatedly due to a water pump coupling failure. The pump failed just was we got across and we towed them 6 miles into Malaysian waters. With only one motor ourselves, it was a slow tow against the current, luckily an Irish boat (Leto) came and kindly took over the rest of the 7 Nm tow to the Puteri Marina.

So it should come as no surprise that a typical idyllic tropical island we were anchored next to was something special. A quick, last-minute after thought led us to a dingy ride across to check it out before we up-anchored turned into every kid’s adventure dream on a pirate island.

Ok, not that I normally let facts get in the way of a good story (I do work in the media unit after all) but I do feel compelled to state early on that we didn’t actually see any pirates, find treasure or even see a parrot. However in my mind it was a pirate lair. I will explain.

Firstly here is a non genuine pirate map of where we anchored at Belitung. The red is an exaggerated reef on the charts. The latitude and longitude at the bottom is the anchor waypoint. To the left of our red track mark is the secret island. I am not going to give the latitude and longitude of the secret island because that would reduce the secretness of it considerably. There are 7 islands nearby, go there and check them out yourself. Will go halves in any treasure you find, can’t be fairer than that!

It had the usual perfect white sand beach, palm trees and a water temp of 31C.

Behind the beach the jungle covered the hill in massed thick vines. The noise of insects was deafening. The jungle smelt green and damp.

While the others swum I wondered into the jungle in bare feet, armed only with my SLR Nikon. Tall trees clung to boulders and they in turn were draped in twisting vines. Things scurried and thumped in the dappled light around me. Unseen, but close and noisy.

Suddenly a gap in the dark rain forest canopy spilt light over a narrow ravine between a split in the huge rocks.

Exploring deeper it revealed a tunnel between two huge boulders, a giant cave full of roots draped like an underworld curtain and bats darting back and forth. Calling for back up, Daryl joined the hasty exploration team.

We pushed deeper into the cave, shafts of light beamed through the gaps lighting the way. Twisting between boulders we made our way through the labyrinth, occasionally breaking into larger openings to the sky that allowed the jungle spill in.  

After about 100 metres the cave broke out into a series of caverns. The largest cavern had a pirate hide out built 5 metres up out of wood. Why pirates hide out? Well, what else could it be!

Further proof (as if you needed it) was that it had a cunning secret escape route directly to the sea! Only a pirate would think of that. An underground pool linked through a narrow passage took use through the entire hill to an opening on the other side of the island.

We then had to swim back the dingy. Now we didn’t actually find any treasure, but we didn’t really look hard as we had to head off for the next port. But, if I had been a pirate 400 years ago, THIS is the island I would have buried it. A completely hollow island! How cool is that! Indonesia, nothing is what you expect.

We arrived on a Sunday to a huge crowd of locals on the beach. A dozen other boats were in and had been there for a week. We were late as the official program had just finished, but we were still treated like VIPS with boat boys lifting our dingy out of the water and securing it in a taped off area for exclusive use of cruisers. We were escorted through the happy crowds of onlookers to the information tent where we received various gifts. Fuel supplies were sorted out immediately, all for a good price (5000 R) delivered to the boat. These guys were slick, organised and friendly. Within no time we were sitting at a “restaurant” on the beach having a Bintang. The area is mostly Muslim, but they are very easy going. Moving through the crowd required endless stopping for photos much to everyone’s delight. The highlight of the rally has always been the Indonesian people and the warmth from the people at Belitung epitomises it. We caught up with other cruisers and all wanted to stay longer here. Unfortunately most had to leave as visas were running out and the sail Malaysia rally starts soon.

The beach is a favourite with the locals and it was great to see them enjoying it with their families.

The local police were out in force. The guy on the end is a detective…nice fashion

I met the local Tourist Police, Augustian Khadafi. A really nice guy who spoke Japanese and English. He took us for a tour in his private car of the island.

He took us shopping, showed us the sights, including his home and wife. He then took us to his HQ and introduced us to the Chief of Police on the island Kommandant T RUDY!  We spent 30 min with him in his office. I got photos taken wearing board shorts! We then had mango juice and discussed the finer points of policing.  Augustian didn’t know what to do and stood rigidly to attention shaking, I suspect he only meant to show us the boss, not have afternoon tea with him! It was great. I hope Simon reciprocates.

On the return trip we checked out the location of one of Indonesia’s most famous films (the rainbow). A very popular spot with the locals. Some of the local boys were swimming when we got there.

The place even has an abandoned resort, it cool!

We finished up taking Augustas and his brother on a tour of Cool Bananas. They were wrapped.

After the Orang-utan trip up the river I had Cool Bananas to myself for a day while Daryl and Lauren finished their 3 day river trip on the charter boat.

Anchored in a placid river what could possibly go wrong? I did manage to get stung on the stomach by a 5 cm long wasp as I folded washing. It hurt like hell and effectively gave me another belly button so it wasn’t a good start, still the main thing is the very expensive boat and their home was ok.

After wondering around the town I took the laptop into an internet cafe along with the crew from 3-Ships to update the blog and Facebook. It was a bright sunny day, very hot and humid. The pleasant day was brought to an abrupt end as the sky suddenly darkened to the north.

From the north, a huge black mass was rolling in. The heat had been oppressive over the last few days and the air was dead still as the storm cloud approached. Quickly logging off and paying 6000 R for over an hour on the internet, we raced back to the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat or the dingy) and floored it to get back to the boat a km away. The storm was approaching from the other side of the boat. It was a neck and neck race as the sheets of rain approached; I got to the boats just as it hit, off loading the 3-ships crew then scrambling back to Cool Bananas as the rain dumped.

I had just enough time to hook the dingy before the wind and rain hit full strength. More terrifyingly, massive bolts of lightning arced from the boiling black clouds to the land either side of the river. The bolts burned their way onto land, lasting for 3 or 4 seconds. The instantaneous booms vibrated through the boat. I shut the power down to the boat and disconnected radio antennas to reduce the damage of a direct strike. Up to now being on one of the biggest boats on the fleet was great. Having a 20 meter lightning conductor on the roof which was the biggest in the river, was not so great. I did wonder at the time what would happen to me if we got hit as I unscrewed the connectors to the antenna on the very top of the mast.

The flat river began to boil as wind tried to reverse the 3 knot flow, the fleet began swinging in all directions as the current pushed the keel boats one way and the wind spun the catamarans the other. Boats that had been large distances away were now very close. Visibility dropped to only a few metres as the rain thundered down and sideways, with the savage gusts. The boat yawed wildly around as the gusts forced it up stream, then, as it eased the current took over forcing the boat to swing rapidly back.  The lightning flashed and banged continually. I struggled with the zips to get the screens down, everything flapping in the wind adding to the cacophony.

Rushing to pull the dingy completely out of the water I cranked the winch to haul the heavy dingy out of the water. In my haste I made a mistake. The tail of the rope jammed the winch with an over-wrap.  I could no longer raise or lower the dingy and it was suspended only just out of the water. The pressure on the winch was immense and I couldn’t clear it. Bugger!

Things rapidly got worse as the gusts topped 40 knots and within seconds the large dingy flipped on the davits dumping its anchor and stuff into the boiling river. The centre console seat flipped open and was threatening to tear loose as it dragged in the swirling waters. The fuel tanks stayed in clipped in the console. Waves slapped at the top of the outboard which was suspended above the maelstrom. Desperately I hoped it was bolted on tight!

It was then I realized I had not taken my laptop out of the dingy! Leaning precariously over the back of the boat I managed to get a line on the side of the dingy to haul it upright, conscious that if I fell in I would be swept away in the 3 knot current. I flipped the dingy back up and saw that the laptop, in its waterproof pelican case, was miraculously still wedged in next to the console! Waves splashed over the case but it was still there! I retrieved it, cracked the case open and to my relief it was dry. Now all I had to do was recover the $10 000 IRB dangling precariously over the river.

The next 30 minutes were spent setting lines up to haul the dingy up using the Main and Genoa winches. All I needed to do was take the pressure off the jammed line so I could release it. The cockpit looked like a spider- web of lines. During this time bolts of lightning slammed into buildings nearby and the bank only 100 m away. I had our only engine idling in case the anchor dragged or any other boats that may have dragged. Logs and debris swirled past the boat as the rain intensified. At last I got the dingy secured, by now the worst of the storm was over. Not surprisingly I have no photos of the actual event, but this is what the set up looks like.

Daryl and Laurel got back when things had calmed down and the evidence of near disaster was removed. After a thankfully quiet night were moved off late afternoon the next day.

We moved to the mouth of the Kumai River and anchored for the night. We took care to avoid the numerous nets in the river and the huge tugs towing barges. The following morning we headed off at 5 am and motor sailed in the light winds. The heat was oppressive.

The electronic charts for this area are good, still about 200 m to the east out. This is very important as the depths are quite shallow, averaging around 10-15 metres. Some places shoal to less than a metre. Not surprisingly the charts mark numerous ship wrecks. Until now the depths at sea have usually been deep, sometimes as much as 2500 metres of water under the boat. Only as you approached land did the bottom move up to under a 100 m.

It took us 32 hours to do the 200 miles get to the picturesque uninhabited island of Palau Nangka. Three ships came in a few hours after us. Wanderlust took another 24 hours and caused us some concern. Toshi had a fuel problem in Kumai and replaced the filters and I showed him how to bleed the fuel injectors, so we thought the problem was solved. Unfortunately for Wanderlust this wasn’t the case, in the light conditions the engine refused to rev and shutdown regularly. Compounding the problem was the Japanese-English translations and poor radio reception. All we could do was wait and keep trying the radio. After a very long sail against current he got within sight. Daryl and I headed across in the RIB to get his engine going for the tricky entrance through the reef. Sweating like crazy we pulled the fuel system to bits, finally locating a fuel blockage before the water separator and the tank. A piece of string (how did that get in a fuel tank?) and a block of foam the size of a fingernail had caused the dramas. The rubbish had lodged in a hose adaptor that reduced the size of the fuel restricting fuel. An easy fix much to the relief of Toshi’s wife, Syuri who looked extremely pleased to see us.

Palau Nangka is the perfect little island, white sandy beaches, palm trees, a hill (not too big) covered in green jungle, a fringing coral reef and some mangroves. The kind of island I would like to own, not too ostentatious, like Tasmania. We anchored in deep water at 25 m on good holding sand. Anywhere shallower was precariously near bommies or over coral. Here, the charts were NOT accurate. I have roughly marked in yellow the reefs. The safest approach is from the north west, local boats cut the corner and take a shortcut from the east through a narrow gap. It is quite deep (we dived it) but it is subject to strong current and you would need to be very confident to try it. You could get a yacht through it.  

You can see from our track we did a fair survey of the area looking for a shallower spot to anchor, but no luck.

It didn’t matter as the weather was calm and the reef offered good protection from the light swell.

Exploring the island was great, we saw squirrels and evidence of turtle nests. The bay was full of turtles, at one stage we had 6-8 together around the boat. I even saw one dive under the boat and it was the size of a dinner table!

The sandy beaches had masses of shells. We found dozens of an extremely fragile purple shell. It was paper thin and some still had the animal (dead) inside. The shell had a floating “tail” of ultra light blisters. Some had been floating past the boat was as we anchored. They looked like cut off squid tentacles.

The diving was ok, not great as the guide book suggest. The area is pretty heavily fished by locals from Bilitung which is only 50 nm away. The locals use a home made hookah diving system. A very basic compressor to what appears to be good quality garden hose (good to see only the best is used) connected to a hole in the diving mask. No regulator is used, they just pump air into the mask, breathe through their nose and the surplus air vents through a valve on the nose piece of the mask! No BC (buoyancy compensator) or weight belts. They dive to over 20 m on this rig! Some boats run a dozen divers at once off the one compressor. Most of the crews are fully covered from the sun and spend all day on deck looking like super heroes in their masks.

A dawn shot just to be consistent.

Our guide Yusef and the crew were fantastic, both knowledgeable and extremely helpful. We used “Yommie’s” company – while all the cruisers were happy with the operators we can recommend him – (+62) 0817212102.

The trip up the river was like a scene out of the Bogart movie Africa Queen. Yes I know I am mixing metaphors (similes’?) in wilful disregard of the facts. Chiefly, it’s in Borneo, not Africa or South America, but you get the idea.

We set off in a narrow double decker wooden boat, the single cylinder diesel chug, chug, chugging along. The crew stayed mostly on the lower deck, while we sat up high on the top deck with a tarpaulin slung for shade.

The river even has road signs as it branches off. We headed for Camp Leakey, the home of the longest single study into Orang-utans. Now it is primarily used as a rehabilitation refuge for displaced apes.

The river starts off very wide and a “white coffee” colour and as you do the 3 hour trip up river though increasingly dense jungle, it becomes darker, narrower and finally ends up the “coca-cola river” as our guide calls it. The water is clean, clear but has a brown tinge. You sleep on the boat under mosquito nets set up at night. We didn’t have a problem with mosquitoes or bugs at night. A symphony of jungle sounds keep you entertained and guessing.

Just what does make a noise that sounds exactly like a hand held dremmel grinder cutting metal????? Or is that howl a monkey, a bird or a frog? What about the guttural barking? It turns out to be a gliding squirrel thing the size of a mouse! We saw lizards, monitors, black hornbills, water snakes, squirrels, proboscis monkeys, dung beetles, bats, giant butterflies, kingfishers (kookaburras in clown suits), herons, stick insects and Orang-utans.

Our guide Yusef names trees, animals and birds. The Orang-utans he names personally having worked at the rehabilitation centre for 7 years. Some of the apes are ok with people however some are completely wild and unpredictable. They are not tame but some will hold your hand or can be fed by hand

He points out the quinine tree and how to make the anti-malaria tonic (he knows from personal experience). He tells of the local tribe (Kumai) who until relatively recently still head hunted. They only did it once every three years as a part of a traditional celebration. It usually involved a nearby villager (not Kumai) going missing. The government stopped it (?)  The tribe still has limited contact with outsiders (Indonesians) and smile and run away into the forest when approached. Yusef explained they don’t even have mobile phones or want them! Barbarians. They don’t wear clothes only bark (tree bark, not the noise) too.

Yusef works at the national Park that protects the forest and the wildlife. A special tree police also work in the park to stop poachers and tree thieves. As we move through the jungle he points out a Sandalwood tree. He explains that the timber is worth 20 million R a Kg (same as swallow spit) and black sandalwood which is very rare is worth considerably more. One tree could set you up for life. The Palm Oil plantations are also putting the park and the environment under pressure; huge areas are being logged then burned to make palm oil. While the national park is ok, the displaced animals move to the security of the park stressing the local resources and changing the animal’s social structure, particularly the monkeys and apes. To give an idea of the problems faced, a photograph in the visitors centre shows a man standing on a huge pile of logs illegally felled in the park some years ago. The man was at the time the head of the National Park!

Things are changing and I think there is hope. The inconsistencies and paradox’s in Indonesian culture continue to amaze me. Our guide who is genuinely passionate about saving the forest and wildlife, in the off season works up river gold mining with what is one of the more environmentally unfriendly methods – water jets eroding the river bank. He doesn’t see the conflict of interest, but then he does need to eat and feed his family.

The wildlife, the jungle and people – fantastic- just go there!

When it rains they make “hats” out of leaves!

My favourite is this sign – apparently orang-utans can’t read either– we managed to break every rule.