So, I'm in Borneo! Arrived here on Saturday, but have had a spell of no internet access, so haevn't written sooner! Spent all day travelling on Saturday - I felw from Langkawi to KL and then on to Sandakan. Spent a large portion of my day pulling things out of my backpack to get it down to weight for the airline, and then scanning it, reweighing it, rearranging, rescanning, reweighin etc etc. It was a rather tedious process! Pluss my 15kg bag that left Langkawi, amazingly weighed 16.5kg in KL so I had to take yet more out! When I arrived at Sandakan, I got a taxi straight to Sepilok. Ceciliam, the vet at the orangutan centre had booked me into the Sepilok Resthouse, but when the taxi driver pulled up to a row of falling down sheds, and told me it was the rest house, I felt my heart sink a little! It was boiling hot, ridiculously humid and the only life for miles was the tens of stray dogs roaming the streets. A little old man appeared who spoke no English, and agreed that this was the resthouse, and I started frantically thinking of excuses not to stay there without being rude about his little huts! Somehow tho, the conversation moved onvery quickly in Malaysian, and to my great relief, the taxi driver told me to get back in the car and drove up the road to a single house just outside the gates of Sepilok Orangutan Centre. This was in fact the resthouse, butunfortunately they were fully booked for the night - interesting as I'd been booked in, but anyway! I then jumped back in the taxi and he took me back up the road to the popular Sepilok Jungle Resort. They had rooms, either a dorm for 28RM where I was guaranteed by the owner that I wouldnt sleep a wink cos of the noisy children and ricketty fan (she didn't mention the hoards of yowling cats!) or a room for 69RM. OF course I took the dorm regardless! Ken, an American teacher was the only other guyin there, and we ate together, and then, for want of a pack of cards, played word games for the night! (Tim, I know you just wish u were here!!)

I slept, but interrupted frequently by, as predicted, the children, the ricketty fan and cats screaming. The next day, I was due to meet Cecilia, the vet at the sanctuary at 2pm, so I wandered up there at about 9am, with Ken, and went to the information centre, and then wandered up to the resthouse to see what the deal with accomodation was. I met a group of 12 English, Australian and Canadian volunteers, who were staying at the resthouse and working at Sepilok until Januray - they all seem really cool, and it'll be nice to have some company over Christmas. I spent the morning there chatting to the volunteers, and then went up to meet Cecilia. She's absolutely lovely - so helpful and so enthusiastic about my project, and just helped me sort everything out, and stopped me worrying about anything. She gave me a tour of the centre, and I went to the feeding platform, where wild and rehabilitated orangs come in from the forest to be fed bananas and milk. I saw loads of orangs there - one called Britt with a baby Brittina, (thought of you, Britt Baker, tho she's a girl!) and a few others, and then went up to the nursery to see the orphaned babies playing on their jungle gym - where they play on ropes and trees to help them learn to climb. They are the most adorable creatures in the whole world- I'm in love with them already, and can't wait to spend more time with them. As soon as I can I'll get some photos up for you all to see how amazing they are!

Am at the lab today - doing a lot of improvising with equipment, but again, all the staff here are incredibly helpful, and so interested in what I'm doing ( a little too interested, at one point I found myself surrounded by abou 6 lab technicians all asking me questions while I was trying to work!!!) Will keep you updated anyway, on the fun stuff at least - you probably don't want to hear daily updates of my lab work!!!