Ulu Papar Expedition

I’ve just returned from a 5 day expedition into the Crocker Range Mountains to assess potential sites for micro hydro development (see map for the region). The expedition lasted for five days, taking in 5 Kampungs (villages), 6 feasibility studies, monitoring two existing systems, a lot of hiking, numerous bridge crossings and at least a dozen leach bites.

The Crocker range mountains

Day 1 saw us get dropped off at the roadside with nothing but jungle on both side and an extremely steep valley to descend. Our first dilemma came when Lugai couldn’t remember whether we took the left or the right fork down the path. After sitting and pondering (just like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings) he decided to take the right fork which lucky for us was the right one. The route was crazily steep and the going very tough but ultimately enjoyable. We arrived at the first village after about 5 hrs of hiking and numerous bridge crossings. We would’ve completed it quicker but Lugai thought it best if he go ahead and scout the route – we found him half an hour later asleep on a rock just up the path.

A couple of the bridges

For our first night we stayed in the village hall handily situated at the side of the river so we could get a refreshing dip. The villagers arrived later in the evening and we discussed the micro hydro systems, what TONIBUNG do and how we can provide clean and efficient electricity from the river. Well I never, as I’m not yet fluent in Malay, I mainly just sat there trying to look like I knew what they were saying – made especially hard when I kept getting jumped on by two of the kids, one who thought he was Superman.

Following the meeting we ate a dinner of wild boar, vegetables and rice and drank a few rounds of home brewed rice wine. It’s a strong custom in the hill tribes to invite people passing in for food and drink so this was a regular occurrence (not that I was complaining!). The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn away to do the site surveys on two of the nearby tributaries. This took most of the morning and we came back for lunch before proceeding on a 3 hr walk to the next village. On the way we popped in at the last house the most remote and did a further survey on a small stream by his house. Of course we were invited in for food and another few rounds of Tapai (rice wine).

In the next village we stayed at the village leaders’ house with his family and again our nightly wash was in the river. More wild boar, rice and of course rice wine. This time the drinking involved playing guitar followed by watching (awful) Malaysian soaps.

Day 3 and another two rivers to assess – these were even more enmeshed in the jungle than the last two and were in a leach central location. I got leached at least a half dozen times, one of which had managed to get inside my shoe and in between my toes where it had been sucking on my blood for a good couple of hours. It was huge by the time I removed it!

Carrying out a site survey

Following the site surveys it was another 3 hour trek to the next village – where we stayed in the school hall. We had another nightly wash in the river before the sun went down. At this point in the journey the river was getting to be a proper torrent making it much more difficult to swim in – crazy to think that only 2 days before it had been so much smaller and calmer. Our dip was followed by another discussion with the villagers on the micro hydro systems, the CREATE centre for training young villagers as engineers and the proposed dam which is threatening to flood the whole area and force the relocation of all the Kampungs in the valley. Following this it was more wild boar, accompanied by fermented deer, rice and of course a lot more rice wine. Tonight’s guitar session involved such prestigious bands as Backstreet Boys & Britney Spears played by Lugai and sang by all (progressively worse as the night went on!).

Day 4 and another two sites surveyed. Following this was a 4 hour walk to the final two Kampungs – the toughest hike of all. At times the path was no more than a hand width wide, right on the edge of a cliff over the river which was now in full flood. We had to cross this 5 times without the aid of bridges, with our bags on our heads and the water coming well above our waists. I think we all fell at least once and at one point I thought I’d completely lost my footing and was about to get washed down river. Luckily I didn’t but I did get completely soaked. We arrived at the village in time for the kids playing football so of course we joined in. Despite the 4 hr hike I still managed a decent performance and got a couple of goals (I also conceded a fair number).

One of the river crossings

Following this we went inside where the villagers of course insisted on feeding and watering us (yes more rice wine!). This was our fifth meal of the day and our 4^th round of rice wine. At this point Lugai informed us we weren’t staying in this village tonight but one about half an hour down the road. It would be getting dark in about half an hour so we thought we’d best be setting off. But with the rice wine getting handed around and the rain beginning to hammer on the roof we decided to stay for longer. Thus we finally left 3 hrs later with a very drunk Lugai, falling over every other step.

This last hike, a night time jungle trek, involved crossing the river 3 times – very cool in the moonlight especially with the fire flies in the trees on either side. We arrived at the last village only to find Lugai had taken us to the wrong house so we had to trek back another 10 minutes to his Uncles place, where he promptly collapsed on the hammock and went to sleep. We of course were invited for more food (meal 6!).

The following day we assessed the two systems in place at these two villages – one which has been running for over 2 years and the other which is in the final process of completion.  The first was in very good condition and had clearly been well maintained. Afterwards it was in the jeep and a 2 hr drive back to town.

All in all it was a fantastic trip; experiencing village life, trekking through the jungle, sampling the local cuisine and assessing the numerous rivers. It was also great to see the villagers’ enthusiasm for the micro hydro systems and their willingness to learn, build and manage the systems themselves. Now it’s back to the office to process the data collected and assess the capabilities of the various rivers for micro hydro systems. My legs are exhausted, I have numerous leach bites and a stomach full of rice wine but it was definitely well worth it :).

The pig

Our stall at the exhibition

My walk to work

Week 2 Update

Highlights of this week includes;

• Promoting the micro hydro/solar/wind/hybrid electricity generation system to the Governor of Sabah
• Singing Malaysian karaoke
• Agitating the pig
• Getting to know the neighbours (with plenty of rice wine!)

On Monday & Tuesday we attended a conference on the ‘Heart of Borneo’, run by the Forestry Commission. The conference was focussed on sustainable practices in the Borneo rainforest in the Malaysian provinces of Sarawak, Sabah and Indonesian Kalimantan. The conference was well attended and covered everything from sustainable forestry practices, Orang-utan, sun bear & pygmy elephant protection, cataloguing new species, protecting primary rainforests and of course renewable electricity generation for the indigenous communities. Our stall included a prototype micro hydro solar hybrid system and got a heap of interest (thanks of course to my sales pitch!). I now have a pocket full of business cards and hopefully a lot of future business for TONIBUNG.

To celebrate the conference we went out for beers and burgers and finished up singing in a karaoke bar. There was some truly awful singing but the beer was cheap and watching/listening/singing karaoke was very entertaining. There was also a pool table and after winning two games of pool I got beat by a local lad, who had had so much booze he could barely stand. Even though he was focussing on the white with one eye he still absolutely decimated me and then promptly fell asleep in the corner!  I drowned my sorrows with a couple of 90’s power ballads on the karaoke.

Yesterday and today I’ve been assessing the pig’s digester. It’s not been used for a fair while so I have to do a bit of gardening to unearth some of the parts. The pig got agitated with me hanging around his pen so much judging by the smell and the noise he was making. However, that’s not such a bad thing the more excrement he makes the more electricity we can make :). In the evening we were invited over by one of the neighbours, who are an amazingly friendly and welcoming bunch, to drink home brewed rice wine, eat smoked wild boar and chat about life. By the end of the evening three of them were asleep at the table, either from too much rice wine or my boring chat!

Tomorrow we are off to the mountains to assess two of the existing hydro systems and carry out feasibility studies for a further three. I’ve just bought myself a pair of Adidas Kambungs – trainers made from recycled tyres (at the bargain price of £1) which are apparently best for jungle hiking and trekking through mountain rivers. To get to the villages we’ve got a 1 – 2 hr drive and a 7 – 8 hr hike up the mountains; with the weather over here it’s either going to be super hot or super hot and chucking it down. Can’t wait! Let’s see whether climbing all those Munro’s in Scotland paid off 🙂

First Days In Borneo

We arrived at Kota Kinabalu airport late Friday night and got picked up at the airport by a guy called Richard. He’s a Liverpool fan, not the best but preferable to Chelsea or Arsenal. Or Rangers. He drove us to our accommodation for the next six months in the village of Nampasan on the outskirts of Dongonggon town. The place is nice, it’s been build to house the CREATE (Centre for renewable energy and appropriate technologies) staff and workshop. The lower level is all open plan keeping it cool, which is good because it gets very hot, with a kitchen, seating area & toilets/showers. There’s hot water which is also good and a TV which is a bonus. There’s even a western toilet which is handy because I didn’t fancy squatting for the next six months!

There are currently about 15 – 20 guys staying at the place with us, here for the week to attend a conference/workshop on land rights for indigenous communities. They speak better English than we do Malay, are better cooks, better at table tennis, better guitarists and much better singers! We’re better at darts, which is a surprise seeing as I’m pretty shocking at the game. However they are helping us improve our Malay and we’re getting better at table tennis so I’m hoping for a win before the end of the week. I think the singing is a lost cause though. There are also four cats, 3 kittens, 3 dogs, 4 puppies and a pig. The pig is for Christmas :).

We arrived on Friday so naturally on Saturday we went off exploring. Our first major decision was to turn left or right once we got on the main road. We went left, which proved the wrong choice. After walking for about an hour we’d only seen afew houses which were getting sparser and sparser. On heading back we gave Richard a ring who came to our rescue and drove us into Kota Kinabalu. Here we walked through the markets, got some essentials and had a jug of beer on the waterfront. We also ordered some food, I had Tom Yam soup which was more chilli than soup and blew my head off! The fish in the soup was tasty and fresh though; crab, squid, prawns (and some other types whose names I don’t know but were equally as delicious!) all freshly caught.

On Sunday our boss, Bani, returned to Donggongon from Sarawak and came to meet us. It was his third child’s first full moon, which it is traditional here to celebrate. We were invited round to his mother’s house where we met all his family. He has 11 siblings and all the in laws and children were invited – so around 80 guests in total. There was loads of food; pork knuckle, fish, chicken, noodles, rice, tom yam soup (not as hot as Saturdays), fish soup and a bbq of New Zealand lamb. There were also purple eggs which are apparently traditional for a child’s first full moon party. Bani has a great family and it was great chatting and getting to know them on this our first introduction to the Malaysian culture. As well as plenty of food there was also plenty of beer & whiskey – consumed at an alarming rate. We had three bottles of whiskey in the space of an hour, with all the men well and truly slaughtered. I think I drank more whiskey in that one afternoon than I did in Scotland in the three years I was there!

For the last few days we’ve been into the TONIBUNG offices in Donggongong getting up to speed with the existing micro hydro schemes and the projects currently under construction. To get to the office we have to walk on a wooden suspension bridge over a river. Great fun to swing on :). In regards to some of the micro hydro schemes; there’s been a landslide at one site, and another site is currently adding a second intake to increase their capacity. Our aim is to visit these two sites and a third, which is nearing completion, over the next few weeks. We’ll carry out a GPS land survey to design a new penstock & intake replacing what the landslide has knocked out and check on the progress at the other two sites.

Other than that there’s not too much to tell. The food is great, there’s plenty of places to eat out with a meal and drinks costing no more than a couple of £’s. We’re starting to get familiar with some of the Malay dishes and words so we can usually order food without too much confusion and blank looks. It wasn’t so easy to start with.  I don’t know how good the Yorkshire accent goes with the Malaysian language but by the general confusion not so well!

Pictures will follow over the next few days.

Ready to go!

Bags packed and all set to go. The current weather report for Kota Kinabalu is 31 oC with a mix of sun and rain. I fly tomorrow afternoon.

I’ll keep everyone updated on my progress.

Also if people are feeling generous there’s still plenty of time to donate to the cause @ https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/lukemorris1

Cheers

Luke