-plenty of turtles in sipadan and mabul
-beautiful mabul island
-rare harlequin ghost pipefish (and juvenile with it)
-leaving the oil rig on the elevator the last time (the swedes, me, and our funny chinese friend Lie)
-jumping from the rig
-my diving buddy caroline and I
-plenty more sharks and turtles at sipadan
- a sweet color changing octopus
-more white-tipped reef sharks
-the beautiful mandarin fish
-schooling barracuda
-relaxing on the oil rig elevator after a dive
-caroline and I with schoooling barracudas
-more turtles, sharks, and jacks
-part of the amazing wall at sipadan
-the reef crest
-coming out from the turtle tomb cave
-caroline at the wall
-hanging on at sipadan island
-colorful nudibranch
-the sign we found, turned advertisement for seaventures
-crocodile fish
-the rig
-the toilet for the rig was directly below deck!
-on the deck
-climbing mt. kinabalu
-having fun in the mud at the mud volcanoes on Pulau Tiga
-Fishing boat I found to take me to Pulau Tiga
-Turtle finished nesting at cherating
6/27 Stayed the night at semporna at this cool place called the dragon inn. It's a resort, but they also have a longhouse for dorms. It's entirely stilted and out on the ocean. According to all the magazine articles in the lobby, it is the #7 best floating resort in the world, which I find crazy b/c it's neither that fancy nor is it floating as it's on stilts. But it's cool all the same and weird to see the ocean through the shotty floorboards in the dorm. Got up early and was going to take the bus to Lahad Datu, but some people on a dive trip to mabul (one of the world's best muck diving places) cancelled and so a dive shop was asking people on the street to fill up the boat and gave me quite a good deal, so I did that. it was worth it as we saw lots of cool stuff including some frogfish and the rare harlequin ghost pipefish and leaf fish. Our 3rd and last dive was just turtle crazy. Saw about 20 in one dive! It was very sunny today, so mabul island with it's fantastic turquoise water was just sparkling. This afternoon I explored semporna a bit. The town outside of the dive resort and dive shop area is worlds apart. Quite a poor town. And an interesting thing is that the majority of the houses are built out on stilts over the ocean. Doesn't seem to be the wisest thing, but then again it gives the predominantly fisherman town easy access to the ocean. There's lots of little islands all around here and the water is quite shallow between them, so sometimes you'll just see stilted houses sitting in the middle of the channels or seemingly in the middle of the ocean
6/28 took a bus today to Lahad Datu. It's a definite off the beaten path place. The reason to come here is that the Danum Valley, one of the most pristine rainforests in the world, is 70km's from here. However, only one resort is there and has a monopoly on it, so it's incredibly expensive (250US per night) and so all tourists that go there are coming straight from KK and just shuttled through Lahad Datu, so no one really stays here. What that means is it's difficult to find accomadation. In cities like these, as I've experienced in other off the beaten path places, there are generally two types of accomadation. Local business traveler places, which aren't too bad in price when you think about back home, but which would take up close to my entire budget for the day. They usually have two beds, hot shower, tv, aircon, private bath, all of which I don't need. But the other class is the chinese flophouses which can be quite dirty, unsafe for your stuff, and houses of prostitution. So you just have to ask around to see which has the best repuation, which can be quite difficult when not many people here speak good english, But I think I found a decent one b/c it had pictures of past research teams that had stayed there while passing, so I at least figured there's probably not too much prostitution going on, though the place is still quite shabby. My plan here is to see if I can get a place to stay at the Danum Valley Field Research Centre as the prices would be much better. I arrived today on a sunday, so the office was closed, but I'll try tomorrow. I have some letters from my old boss at RMNP and from Dr. Walser to say that I am keen on research, which they say can help to secure a spot. The bus ride here was a bit depressing, b/c the whole 2 hour ride was through oil palm plantations and on the highpoints of the road you could see oil palms as far as the eye could see. And of course they had signs along the road for the different plantations claiming these to be the new green oil. It's the unfortunate thing that the green revolution and the need to become less dependant on the middle east for oil due to rising gas prices and such happened at the same time, so that people often link biofuels with being green, when in fact they are far from it. It is true that biofuels do burn cleaner than fossil fuels; however, not that much cleaner and they still emit pollution and greenhouse gasses such as CO2 as is the case with burning anything carbon based. Just think of all the pollution from a forest fire. In a place like the United States, where we have such an excess of corn that the government often pays farmers to keep the corn crop lower and avoid having corn prices fall too low, it is one thing use them as biofuels b/c we already have the corn fields, some of which are just being thrown away, and the corn does burn cleaner than a fossil fuel. However, here in malaysia with this so called new green revolution, they have cut down 80% of the remaining rainforest to plant these palm oil plantations. A lot of this is due to a new thing passed in the EU that says all fuel must be at least 20 something percent biofuel. This looks good from policy maker standpoint, but what they didn't realize was that places like malaysia would realize this new "green" gold replacing the black gold and would cut down all their forests to plant palm plantations. In the end, this is hardly a green practice at all as the bio fuels don't burn much cleaner than the fossil fuels, and in the process of planting all the oil palms, they have cut down huge swathes of the most diverse places on earth. Not only is the loss of divesity troubling, but cutting down rainforests is not what you want to be doing when preventing runaway greenhouse gasses. Trees are the number one way to get rid of CO2. I read that an oil palm plantation gets rid of only 10% of the CO2 that a primary rainforest gets rid of. On top of that, rainforests hold in an incredible amount of moisture and cutting down entire rainforests can dramatically change local climates. Not too mention that the loss of trees means more soil erosion which runs into rivers and then into the ocean blanketing coral reefs and killing them. And rainforest soil is known as one of the most nutrient poor. But rainforests are extremely efficient and most nutrients are stored in the trees themselves or in the detritus and dead leaf litter. But as has been shown, once a rainforest is cut, you typically get 5 years max of crop production, which is why rainforests are always being cut down. So in essence, in less than 10 years, the soil will be unsuitable for oil palm trees anywhere. Just shows the complexity of trying to go green. But palm oil is definitely not a green alternative energy source like wind or solar is, really it is just an alternative enery source to middle east oil. But it was really difficult to see just miles and miles of these oil palm plantations where only a few years ago used to be all primary rainforest holding orangutans, clouded leapards, elephants, etc. When we do figure out a way to produce truly green energy (and when the nutrients run out in the old rainforest soil anyways) a place like malaysia will be in real trouble b/c they have based nearly their entire economy on oil palms and tourism. So when oil palms can't grow anymore or are replaced by better fuel and tourism doesn't happen anymore b/c all your forests are gone and coral reefs dead, you're in a bit of trouble. Thus the reason I'm going to see this stuff now before it's all completely gone. Walked a bit around lahad datu. Nothing too special. Just a normal non-tourist city. Interesting is that there are no taxis and instead any one driving around on their normal commute will just honk at you to see if you want a ride. But a very nice man at a restaurant I walked by hailed a car for me for free from a friend of his. And when they find out i'm american they are all quite excited about the big confederations soccer final between brazil and the US. So maybe I'll watch that tonight. The sports bars are always funny here with tonights schedule having the tour de taiwan bike race, and badminton championships as well as the soccer match. Of course they always have the british premier soccer league games and other soccer games. You really miss out on your american sport watching when travelling anywhere else b/c soccer is truly the international sport.
7-3 update* Went to the Danum Valley Field Centre's office in lahad datu and was able to secure a spot as a biologist/researcher, which was great. However, the cheap busses into the rainforest were booked for the next week. As I really wanted to go to Danum Valley as it is trully a highlight of natural borneo, I was willing to wait. But what would I do for the next 5 days. I had wanted to do one of the river jungle camps, especially a highly recommended one called Uncle Tans. I called them up from the field center to see if they had space for the trip that day. They said "no". So I asked again, are you sure you don't have space? Again, "no". One more time, I'm just one person, are you sure there's no room? "No". Okay, well can you put me on the waiting list b/c I'll just come over there anyways (there are at least some other things to do in the area)? "Well, sir, there is actually one space available if you'd like me to book for you" that'd be great.
So it was now about 9:00am and I was in Lahad Datu and I had to get Sepilok near Sandakan by 2:00pm to catch my tour. The towns are only about 2.5 hours apart, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. But here they don't so much have as many busses. Instead they have these minivans that only leave once every seat is full (or every seat has been paid for). So I got to the bus station and sat there in the van for ever and ever it seemed. I was getting a bit nervous we'd make it, but the driver assured me we would. Finally we got enough people squeezed in, and we set off. One of the things I find rather hilarious (and in this case frustrating) is that the van will sit there in the lot for hours, waiting for people; then once it gets enough people it will drive to some random place out of the way in town and fill up petrol while we are all in the van waiting. I just never understand why they don't do this beforehand while we're all waiting at the bus station anyways. Then of course the driver will drive like a bat out of hell to try and make up time. Making the most risky passes you can imagine around blind curves passing 3 trailer long logger trucks with other trucks coming in the other lane and a motorbike on the shoulder. Of course the driver is hardly looking as he is texting someone with his cell phone and lighting his cigarette. I think it would make a lot of people scream, but i guess I have become pretty immune as it appears to be standard asian driving and just turn the page on the book I'm reading or peel my banana. Then of course after all that crazy driving, the driver will pull over to go buy another pack of cigarettes. Then its back to the road again to pass all those same tractor trailers we just passed. After succeeding in this, he willl swerve off the road to go add more load (load na dito!) to his cell phone (add more minutes or texts). But in the end I made it safe and sound and on time to uncle tans' base in sepilok where it would be off to sungai (river) Kinabatangan for river safaris and jungle camp.
I'm actually back from the safari now and heading to Lahad Datu tomorrow to go to danum valley, but I am tired and will talk about the amazing jungle camp and all the primates we saw later
