I SAID YES!!...

...Of course I did!! :) It was probably the happiest moment of my life!

What a day! Bro and I had spent the morning clearing vines as usual, and we’d planned to go to the village in the afternoon to do some washing. At the last minute, Martin asked if we’d mind if Bro stayed and helped him in the Eco Camp so would I mind going by myself with Bobby? Of course I didn’t mind, so Bobby and I took the boat to the village and had a lovely afternoon cleaning clothes, folding clothes and eating iceream (a luxury we always try and squeeze in when we go to the village!). It was a nice afternoon as I got to chat with Zaza and Jumah and its always lovely being in the village as everyone’s so jolly and friendly.

We got picked up by Kamsa at about 6 and Chulai (a friend from the village) hopped on with us (which didn’t strike me as weird as she’s often at the camp) and we arrived back at the camp just before dinner. This was actually the longest Bro and I had been apart from each other for over a month, and I had that lovely warm-fuzzy feeling of excitement that I was seeing him again on the boat ride back even though I’d only been gone for an afternoon.

I didn’t think anything was unusual when everyone was super friendly (Kamsa gave me a hug!!)…everyone is generally pretty friendly anyway. I didn’t think anything was unusual when Bro kept running off on errands (“I left my phone at Janet’s”, “I need to find my shoes” (turns up in the same shoes), “I’m just going to change t-shirts” (turns up in the same t-shirt). I didn’t think it was unusual that Janet arrived at the dining hall early, or that there was a table missing in the dining hall (Brodie said it was broken), or that there was a particularly noisy game of Congka going on in the dining hall, or that the staff were milling around. I did however think it was odd that Bro insisted on playing 2 games of Shithead (or ‘Loserhead’ as we call it when we play with the kids) rather than start dinner, as his stomach needs always takes precedence, but even that wasn’t enough to give the game away.

I suddenly realised something was happening when Bro said “Ems, I’ve just remembered-there’s something I want to show you on the lake…an alligator’s climbed up on the bank!!”. For one thing it would be a small miracle if alligators were in the lake as we’re on the wrong continent, but for seconds, the entire congregation in the dining hall suddenly went quiet! And as I followed him down the decking, I suddenly caught sight of something glowing in the distance on the lake!

Bro asked me to hop in the boat, then sailed me out onto the lake in the pitch-black towards what gradually emerged to be the floating pontoon covered in candles and surrounded by hanging lanterns! It looked absolutely magical! My heart started pounding on the boat on the way over…

…We pulled up, tied up the boat, and hopped onto the deck-it was so so beautiful…and that’s when he dropped down on one knee and asked me to marry him!!

I don’t know how to begin to describe how perfect the moment was, and how all-consumingly happy, over-whelmed, ecstatic and elated I felt at that particular moment, but of course of course of course I said yes and in true Salter-style blubbed like a huge baby, so loudly that apparently they could hear it all the way over on the decking!

Bro called over “SHE SAID YES!!” and it was greeted by a their excited whoops and cheers. It turns out they couldn’t see what was going on as we were so far away, but they were all out there watching the little candle-lit blob in the middle of the lake anyway.

Bro and Janet had cooked a wonderful tempe coconut curry, we had a special bottle of Janet’s home-made Kambucha to drink (no alcohol allowed in the camp but it tasted like champagne to me!) and a huge platter of our favourite fruits so we sat out there under the stars and dined like kings and got ridiculously excited about everything that was to come! It was perfect!

The ring!!...And my FIANCE of course!! (Obviously I'm wearing extremely elegant, post-work-in-the-jungle attire, and sporting a very carefully manicured hairdo. What you can't see in this pic are my grubby fingernails and the delightful scab on my ring finger. #lovemoodlighting)

Just after I'd said yes...this is Bro showing me all of the goodies on the table 

A piccie Bro took of the pontoon when we landed back on the jetty later on :)

Eventually we decided to make our way back over to the camp and were greeted by Brodie’s lovely co-conspirators who were all wonderfully excited and wanted to hear all about it, and laugh and chatter about their roles in the elaborate and absurdly successful plan over a slice of delicious chocolate cake made by the very lovely Chulai who it turns out had come over to the camp just to be part of it all and feed us cake! :) It turns out Bro had only told Janet about his plan, but by lunchtime not only everyone at the camp (including guest!), but the entire village new as well! I can’t believe not one of them gave the game away all day! We loved that they were all so excited.

Me describing this is like taking a crappy photograph of the most incredible view you’ve ever seen…I can’t do justice to how simply perfect it was, but I know it’s etched into my memory and will be forever, and I am just so so happy to know that I get to spend the rest of my life with my wonderful, passionate, hilarious, loving and very very sneaky Brodie :) 

Happiest. Girl. In. The. World.

Team Green!

The Vogel family are amazing! They took us under their wing from day one and adopted us as our Tungog Lake Foster Family. Martin, Janet, Bobby and TJ live at the camp in what I can only describe as a supped-up camp deck. They fit an entire 4-people home complete with kitchen, living area and all of their belongings, into a camp deck that usually sleeps 2 people, and has no windows, just mozzie guards. As you can imagine, this requires and organisational feat of epic proportions, and the use of an absurd number of water-tight, squirrel-tight and civet-tight variations of tuppawear and plastic storage units that are able to withstand the crazy climate. This wonderful little home goes by the name of Camp Deck 10 and is the place all the magic happens.

Janet is a whirling dervish of enterprise, of creativity, of practicality, but most importantly a culinary genius who has furnished our stay at Tungog Lake with an array of mouth-watering cakes that would make Delia Smith’s knees quiver. Janet very quickly discovered our naughty sweet teeth, and indulged us considerably by baking a fresh cake every other day or so to take with us while we work, or just to have as a yummy afternoon tea! Every day she’d bring the Vogel Family dinner down to the dining area where Bro and I would usually be finishing off our dinner, and we’d be invited for our ‘Second Dinner’, at which we’d would jump up and help ourselves to a bit of theirs too. This lady is a tremendous cook, and when you consider that she has no fridge, no oven, just a hob and lots of yummy ingredients, it is doubly impressive.

It is Janet who took me out to the lake and gave me yoga lessons and Janet who pumped us full of delicious home made Kambucha if one of us was feeling a little below 100%, who dug into her extensive first aid kit whenever we were short of something in ours (often), who would emerge with special eco-soap which has the double whammy-effect of repelling mozzies, when I was getting too bitten, who showed me how to make environmentally-friendly loo cleaner, who applied first aid when a guest lacerated his hands down to the bone, who surprised us all with her sly moves at Cheat and who made us laugh when she spent a good week mastering a simple hand gesture, and then forgetting it again straight away! She's an inspiration and I have learnt so much from her and her wisdom. 

Martin is like no person I’ve ever met before. He is a rainforest Warrior of heroic proportions who is on a life-long mission to save his beautiful corner of the planet, one tree, one hornbill, one fungus at a time. This man is literally a machine…he is up before dawn, works like a dog all day, and often will still be working at 1,2,3am…or even on occasion all night...whatever is needed to get the job done. He’s a mentor he’s a guide, he’s a DIY-master, he’s a pontoon-builder, a tree-climber, a weed-basher, a welder, a pioneer, an engineer, a one-time barman, a boat-driver…a jack-of-all-trades and master of most of them too, and he’s someone I admire immensely. If I could take half of this man’s drive, dedication and passion for the world then I would be doing OK. I feel privileged to have had the chance to spend this time with someone I respect like I do Martin. 

And it is Janet and Martin who are also responsible for introducing us to a magical and exciting new world….

….a world of the most incredible fruit you can imagine! They have introduced us to Cempedak, Durian, Soursop, Mangosteen, Snake fruit, Starfruit, Dragonfruit and my absolute favourites…boiled Plantain with Janet’s home-made coconut sprinkles (yes it’s as good as it sounds!!) and the very wonderful Tarap. Whenever they do a supply run, they come back with a whole load more, and very generously share it with us…Its absolute heaven! Some of these fruits are like no other thing we’ve tried before-a taste, smell and texture revelation, and we’re addicted! 

Mangosteen

Rambutan (with a cheeky Cempedak in the background)

Tarap (my favourite!)

Cempedak

Star fruit

The only downside?...what are we going to do when we leave Borneo?!! L

Get Ready for the Launch!

It’s launched!! The brand spangly new boat has arrived on Tungog Lake! A whole army of local guys appeared in the morning having tugged it along the river from the village, then hoiked it up the jetty where we met them with our cameras to snap away at the excitement.

It was a very jolly affair with a lovely sense of team spirit, and after much sweating and heaving, the boat slid onto the lake to the sound of our merry cheers!

Here are some photos to give you a sense of the action… (sorry for the random order-internet slow so I can't easily re-jig)

1 - 2 - 3 heave!

Martin checking the new engine works!

Almost there...

Asman's happy!

Martin showing his strength!

Here it comes!...

Incidentally, the boat is officially called Ability (chosen by our largest crowd-funding contributor), but unofficially we are calling it 'Pyjama Lagi' after a rather unnsuccessful attempt by me

Creepy Crawlie Heaven!

This morning I was on the loo at our camp deck when I heard a scream from above, followed by an “Emma come quick! GIANT SCORPION!!”

Bro had picked up our washing bag from the floor and this cheeky chappy was sat underneath, at the foot of our bed….

I kid you not he was about 6 inches long (longer if you were to unfurl his sting) and his bloody pincers were almost as wide as he was long…And he was nooooot happy! When we fetched TJ he said it was the biggest he’d ever seen and this boy lives in the jungle!! Annoyingly after a brief moment of excited gawping, he scurried under a gap in the side of the camp deck before we could get a proper picture, and equally annoyingly there was no chance we were going to leave him there so that he could wriggle into our bed or make a home in our backpacks. So we had to get this very angry, very large scorpion out. We eventually succeeded by getting a stick and poking him from behind until he ran out onto the camp deck, claws flared, sting up, and me, Bro and TJ diving all over the place like lemmings. I have a feeling I’ve said this before, but this was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen! Giant scorpion in bedroom, TICK!

The day got better as we were having a rare day off so Janet and TJ drove us to a nearbye tourist spot where you can visit limestone caves high up on a limestone hilltop. This was great as not only did it give us great views of the area, and the river, it is also an old burial site, so you can see coffins placed in the caves that climb up the hillside that have been there for 700 years!

After this we picked up Michael (a rather enthusiastic return guest at the Eco Camp who can way-out talk me by a country mile which you all know is no small feat, and has a ridiculous knowledge of local fauna for someone who’s spent almost his entire life in greater London), and we visited Gamantong Caves-an incredibly impressive cave which is covered in swiftlets and bats. The whole cave sung with the high-pitched screech of bats, and the twitter of hundreds of thousands of birds. These caves are frequented by specialist Malaysians every few months who climb the dizzying heights on flimsy rope ladders and retrieve used nests which are then sold as a delicacy for bird nest soup (it’s the bird spit that apparently hits the spot!!!). This place was like no other I’d ever been and it was a sensory overload of epic proportions. So many noises, so many new things to see and an absurdly potent stink of ammonia from the giant mound of bat shit piled high in the middle. 

These are some Pig-tailed macaques and a baby Red Leaf monkey we passed in the forest on our way (our first sighting of this type of macaque so we were rather excited!)

Ecologically, this place is a dream to experience…There is a constant stream of bird and bat ‘goana’ (poo) flying down from on high (more savvy tourists came with raincoats, goggles and face masks to avoid the inevitable onslaught…we were a little less-prepared and suffered the consequences accordingly…One particular group of Americans were so geared up they looked like something from the set of Ghost Busters), but rather than the floor being covered in the slimy white bird/bat crap we’re familiar with, it actually looked more like a living, crawling compost heap as there is this tight little system of decomposition where cockroaches, cave crabs and other decomposers get working the minute it hits the floor to break it down and do their thing, and this system works beautifully. It’s not for the faint-hearted (we met a couple coming out as we were going in, looking decidedly pale who told us they couldn’t stand it so had to leave)…you will get pooped on, you will have cockroaches scurry over your feet, you will put your hand in bat shit and have to stop yourself from retching but it was totally awesome and I loved every minute of it!!

Here are some of the little gems we met in the cave to whet your appetite! 

A cave racer

Cockroaches feasting on the newest bat carcass...tasty!

Bats!

A cave centipede (the same as the one we saw by our camp deck a few nights ago!)

A cockroach changing skins

Gibbons!

A few mornings ago we woke up at 5.30am to go on an early morning gibbon hunt with Martin before starting work. We'd been out for about an hour and were about to return to camp as we'd not heard a peep from them, when suddenly Martin hissed "Gibbon!!" ...These chaps are notoriously elusive and hard to get a good look at as they sit so high and move so fast, but we'd somehow crept right under them and didn't realise until they were directly up above! This is not the best way of photographing them, so we spent the next hour chasing them as silently as possible through the jungle until they finally got spooked by an unfortunate twig-snapping from Brodie's cumbersome yellow wellies, but we were totally blown away by our little liaison with these furry chaps.

Hello muma and bubs! Salamat pagi to you both!

WEED!

We made our crowd-funding target!! In fact we smashed it, reaching a grand total of £2845! Thank you immensely for your wonderful support and contributions…we feel totally overwhelmed and humbled by your generosity and it is because of you all that we can now get cracking on smashing this weed!

So…funds have been released! Hurrah! So we’ve bought the engine, we’ve bought the wood and now we need to build it. I say we, the very lovely Rice is actually going to build it (I don't think anyone would go in a boat made by me! :s), so we’re just waiting for the wood to be delivered from Sandakan before he can start.

In the meantime we’ve been busy little bees. We’ve planted everyone’s trees in the reforestation site (and we’ve had three days of rain to make them feel welcome…hurrah!), and Bro and I have been working like dogs on the lake. We’ve been out there in the super-hot sun, in torrential rain and in crazy thunder storms. We’ve sweated, we’ve got sunburnt, we’ve been soaked through to the bone, but we’ve almost got the weed in the South end contained to a point where we can start using the new boat on it with a vengeance as soon as it’s finished. Phew! I dream about the weed, all I think about is the weed and I swear I see bloody weed when I shut my eyelids!! 

Danum Valley

Bro and I were desperate to visit Danum Valley as after all the rainforest we’ve seen, we’ve not yet been in virgin forest.

So we booked ourselves on a 3-day, 2-night trip which involved a bus to the small town of Lahad Datu, then a mini bus to a research centre in the heart of the rainforest, which was where we’d be based for our trip.

Our friend Atteh from the village is a guide there, so we tagged along with his group for the three days, and we had an amazing time trekking, doing night walks, getting up at 4.45am to see the  sunrise (one of the best views I’ve ever seen!), swimming in the river and generally immersing ourselves in this new type of forest. We knew we were unlikely to see much in the way of novel wildlife from that we’ve seen in the Kinabatangan, but we were excited just to experience a different type of environment. The trees here are colossal compared to those in the Kinabatangan, and they are simply magnificent!! We spent a lot of time just gawping up into the canopy (I actually have a sore neck as a result of the trip!), in awe of how tall these marvellous trees are.

Late afternoon on the second day we rallied our nerves and made the 60m climb up the tree canopy climb. This just involves a step ladder up a tree. There is a vague cage surrounding it, but this wouldn’t stop you if you fell, so essentially it’s just a straight drop down to Earth if you let go. I was petrified and I’m ashamed to say got myself so worked up on the climb to the first platform (about 40m) that I had a little cry, but Bro came down and said he’d climb up a few steps behind me, so I persevered and made it to the top, super proud of myself! It was worth the fear....what a bloody marvellous view!

The wildlife didn’t disappoint either…my highlights were the gibbons first thing in the morning who make a glorious ‘Ooo ooo ooo’ song to one another, and just look spectacular swinging through the trees, and some red leaf monkeys! This was the first time we’d seen these and after a distant peak on the second day, they finally gave us a marvellous show on the last morning, when we got up super early to try and catch them before they headed off for the day. What stunning little creatures!

 

What perhaps upgraded the trip from great to simply awesome, was that we spent the three days with an wonderful group of people. We all got on so well, and it was great to click with people like that in such a short amount of time. It is perhaps worth mentioning that we were more than a little excited by the fact that one member of our group was the Production Manager of the new series of Thunderbirds (her hands are Lady Penelope’s hands!!) and the writer of the new edition of Sabah’s Lonely Planet!! Starstruck.com! Needless to say we shoe-horned in as many plugs for KOPEL and the Eco Camp and our fave hostel in KK (PODs) as possible and are reliably informed that we’ve earned ourselves a credit in the next edition. Hurrah! Couldn’t have met a more interesting or down-to-Earth bloke, and we’ll definitely be taking him up on his offer of stopping in for coffee next time we pass Cirencester!

An awesome trip all round! J