After coming back from Rasa Ria we had 3 days off before starting our new rotation. One of the free nights, 6 of us decided to go into town to some karaoke bars. We got all dressed up and straightened our hair (what a luxury)! The first bar we went to was empty, we walked up to the man at the bar and asked for a menu – they didn’t have one. In fact, all they did have was tiger beer or Carlsberg. He did bring out a (dusty) box of red wine but we couldn’...

We arrived in Tuaran on Saturday - a local town about 45 minutes out from the main city Kota Kinabalu. We are on a nine day placement working at the Nature Interpretation Centre, Rasa Ria (which is part of a 5star resort). As we are staff we aren't living in the hotel but are staying in an apartment in Tuaran, a ten minute drive from the resort. The apartment from the outside looks like a cell block as it has a cage door and padlocks galore. We need 7 keys to...

After 9 days of trekking I was ready for a few days off. On our first day off we all went bowling and out for dinner as a big group. We were the only people at bowling, it was quite funny because you have record your own scores on paper, which gets complicated when you get strike or a spare. The next day four of us had booked an excursion to Selingaan Turtle Island. We got to the jetty and whilst being briefed on our itinerary the lady said the conservation f...

So I have to come to end of my first nine days of trekking without as much as a mosquito bite. I managed to escape all leech bites which I am very happy about. So all of you who were excited to hear my funny leech stories...there aren't any (for now anyway!) Trekking involved five days of counting orangutan nests and another four days of mammal tracking. For mammal tracking we set 30 traps in the jungle and checked them twice a day to see which kind of mammal...

Today I started work and the next 9 days are jungle trekking. We are spending 5 days recording orangutan nests, then 4 days putting out mammal traps to catch small mammal data, we also do 2 nocturnal treks on the last 2 days. The ranger that took us out today was called Gibili and he was lovely. He had a bottle of dettol that paralyses leeches for a few minutes at a time. Before we left he sprayed our boots but it didnt help...he was our leech protector though...