Bangkok

Bangkok is amazing!! After living in the wild for the last month it's drastically different being in the middle of a buzzing city. I'm staying just off the Khao San Road, which is a famous popular street with lots going on, full of bars, restaurants and people. I prefer Rambuttri Alley just around the corner which is a bit more chilled out. There are street food carts everywhere with people selling delicious food. My first night I just headed out and got really excited.

Started with the spring rolls, fresh passionfruit juice and then pad thai. It's so cheap and easy to get, there's so many choices!! It's great to munch just wandering and watching people passing by.

My hostel, NapPark is brilliant. They have a giant mattress in the lobby with lots of cushions so you can just lay down and chill. You're not allowed to wear shoes inside which really gives it a homely feel. There's either music or a movie on in the background, and giant bookshelves too. Rooms are really nice too. I'm sad to leave here. It's luxury, for only a few £s a night.

I've spent 2 days in Bangkok and I've explored a lot. Started out with the Grand Palace, home of the Emerald Buddah and Wat Pho, home to the enormous Reclining Buddah. Everywhere the temples and buildings are so intricately decorative it's incredible. Not just the temples, but shrines in every little nook and cranny. I went to Chuckachak Market, the biggest weekend market in Thailand that completely blew my mind. I'm buying a new wardrobe here, all the clothes are so beautiful and so cheap! Just got to be careful of luggage allowances for my flights!!

 Everywhere I've gone I've met people and we've ended up adventuring together. It's such a friendly place. I know pretty much everyone in the hostel now and I've been here for 3 days...

I love the Thai food so much that on my first day I did a cooking class. I was the only one so just me, the clef and a trainee chef. It was AMAZING! I learnt to cook red curry paste from scratch, tom yum soup (my new favourite thing EVER!), massaman curry and pad thai. I had to eat every dish too so I got crazy full!

For my last day in Bangkok I went to Ayutthaya, an ancient city that was the second capital city of Thailand. It was destroyed in the Thai Burmese war in the 1700s. Now the ruins of the giant temple complexes remain. It's stunning in it's tumbled-down-ness. The Burmese burnt the entire city to the ground and chopped off the heads of all of the Buddahs. Mostly it's all ruins but some parts have been saved.

This Buddah head was chopped off and left on the ground. This tree grew up around it and have lifted it higher as it has grown.

"Not who-har, Ass-caar!"

I'm back in Fort Dauphin again, with a couple of days left here before I fly north on my way out of Madagascar. I've got mixed feelings about leaving. Sainte Luce is such an incredible place, stunningly beautiful and full of wonderful people, amazing creatures and breathtaking places. I loved my time in the bush, though it was hard both physically and emotionally. I'm sad to leave, but I'm looking forward to the next leg. Already in town I've had a proper bed, a real shower and a pizza - what more can I ask for! I've had wifi again so I could contact my family and hear their adventures, and I can finally upload some decent pictures to make you properly jealous. So here goes...

Life on transects are always interesting, very varied. We might be crossing spindly bridges over rivers, forging through them, hiking through grasslands or dense forest, always flanked by the mountains in the distance.

This is the result of deforestation, open sandy plains where it's very difficult to grow anything. One of SEED's projects, Project Ala is growing trees to reforest some of these areas.

On transect we collect data about creatures we see. Some of them are fairly obvious but mostly they are tiny or really good at pretending to be something else.

This is the Ghost Gecko. He's incredibly rare. One of our guides Aime found him in camp and he seemed to enjoy chilling out on my arm. New tattoo maybe?

These guys hang out in camp. You hear their distinct chuffing hoot and the leaves bouncing around as they jump from tree to tree foraging. These are Red Collared Brown Lemurs, a family about 5 strong, and they are not bothered by our presence at all. Their favourite thing to do is munch on berries and then drop their leftovers onto our heads.

 Some guys really like to hide. This is a Tree Boa

Spot the chameleon? It took us a while of watching the lemurs before someone suddenly said 'has he been there the whole time?' 

We cross the mangroves on pirogues, dug out canoes that have seen their fair share of travel. We use 2 lashed together because they're pretty unsteady and we're pretty clumsy compared to the locals who use them for fishing every day. Paddling through the mangroves is an experience I will never forget. The greatest moment for me was seeing the Madagascan Kingfisher! 

The problem with using such old canoes is that they've had a lot of wear and tear! And I mean A LOT. Every trip water starts pouring in from new holes that we plug with the heel of a foot or a hunk of cardboard. And a lot of bailing out goes on. It is the sole responsibility of one person to keep the boat from going down. We often have to stop and get a group bailing mission going. 

One of our transects is on an island and we returned to the boats after a night session to find the pirogue almost completely under water! Once we'd finally got it river worthy again the journey back was mindblowing. Complete darkness with a clear sky and water so still that the whole milky way was reflected there! 

While we wait for fishermen to return with sharks so we can see what species they have caught we like to play Bananagrams on the road. Some of the fish, the tuna especially is HUGE. They carry them on hefty sticks over their shoulders and they often hang down to the ground, almost as long as the man is tall.

 We've been working hard to rebuild the nursery where we're growing plants for Project Ala. We painted wooden boards with a petrol-like sealant to prevent it rotting with and tie ravinala palms onto eucalyptus poles for the roof.

And then there's school. We teach environmental classes at 2 of the local schools, in Ambamdrika and Manafiafy. Hoby was a teacher before joining SEED and he translates for us. He loves music and he's written several songs for the kids which they sing at the beginning of each class. And by sing I mean shout at the top of their voices! We'll always play a game afterwards so the kids can let out a bit of their endless energy. 

"Mada-who-haa?"

I made it to Madagascar. Finally. After 2 delayed flights meant an 11 hour wait in Kenya, a 10 hour wait in 'Tana, the capital of Madagascar and an overnight stay in Fort Dauphin, the nearest local town, I eventually arrived in at the bush camp in Sainte Luce. Although it's only about 50km from Fort Dauphin the roads are so bad that even in the 4x4 kacak it took almost 3 hours. The 'roads' here are just sandy tracks with huge pot holes filled with muddy water that the driver has to manoeuvre around and through at tortoise speed. The water often came up over the bonnet, and that's not to mention the river we drove through! Lots of people around, herding zebu cattle, carrying fruits and fish into town or making the long walk back home.

Our camp is amazing. We have a wooden long house where we eat and hang out - it's the coolest place to be (temperature wise, not like hip and fashionable)! There's a smoke hut where there's a fire going all day and lovely Vaija cooks all our meals - 'mufu' deep fried rice balls, sweet rice and banana bread for breakfast; rice and a different type of bean for lunch, broad beans, lentils, black eyed beans, mung beans etc; and for dinner there's more rice with either a vegetable stew, spinach, pumpkin, a delish eggy omelette and sometimes we even have spaghetti. I am very quickly going off rice! Breakfast is the worst as it is always the same - and between you and me, I'm not the biggest fan of the sweet rice. There's lots of veggies out here, 3 of us at the moment (think it's something to do with the kind of people you get running off to Madagascar to do environmental research!). The meaties sometimes get freshly caught fish or chicken. I witnessed 4 chickens being taken behind the smoke house to end their days when we had a big group of visiting staff arriving. Not my favourite moment!

There's 4 vazaha's (foreigners) in the bush at the moment, Lauren and Callum the research assistants, Ben an Australian volunteer and me. Half of the time there's Jamie too, the research coordinater, but he spends half of his time in Fort Dauphin at the head office. Then there's Josh another volunteer working on another project at the moment who'll be back soon. There's also our guides Tsaraiki, Hoby, Raziva, Babaly and Solo, and a bunch of people who turn up from time to time from other projects or headquarters.

Back to the camp. As well as the long house and smoke hut there's a store hut, a research centre, shower cubicles and long drop toilets, thankfully positioned a decent walk away! The research centre is more of a store room for valuables as it's the only lockable place, so laptops and passports are tucked in there with our projector, reams and reams of research files and books and stacks of random stuff we've got no idea what it's for. We have solar panels in camp so if the sun is shining, and it always is, we can charge phones, ipods and laptops.

There's space for all our tents hidden within the trees - still not enough shade though. (Quick note; don't ever try to go into your tent in the day #sauna #hell). The shower block is out beyond the tents, though I say 'shower' I actually mean bucket. You pull water up from the well, tuck into a corrugated tin cubicle and use half of a 2l coke bottle to pour cold water over yourself. I never thought I'd be a fan of the ol' cold shower but with the temperatures here it is heavenly!! It's a base 33 degrees and it's often very still and humid.

Out beyond the well is the nursery where we're growing trees for Project Ala. We're working with them to help build forest corridors over deforested land. Then there's the bee hives. I've no idea what's going on with them, it's some other SEED project I guess.

Oh and there's a gym too. An actual Jungle Gym. There are rings hung from a tree, parallel bars for pull ups, stumps for dips, and even barbels made from two jerry cans full of water. It's pretty impressive.

We live on the edge of a village called Ambandrika which is made of worn wooden huts with thatched palm leaf huts. It's one of the 3 hamlets that make up Sainte Luce, along with Ampanasatomboky and Maniafiafy. It's full of people who smile and say 'Salama' when you pass, children desperate for a fist bump and a call of 'Duma' ('boom'), and chickens and pigs who roam wild. We lead Club A each Wednesday (Club Azafady 'gecko') at the school where we teach them about the environment, either a specific creature, the food chain or trees etc. Mostly they love the song at the beginning and the game at the end - I've never seen such a big circle for Duck Duck Goose, (though they say Duck Duck Crocodile) or kids run so fast!! Maniafiafy is a 40 minute walk away on the coast and we go there each Saturday morning for Club A too.

My day is very busy and also very relaxed at the same time. Breakfast is at 6:30 each morning, then we'll go out on a transect for a few hours. Lunch at 12, another session of something before dinner at 6:30 and an evening transect. There are 5 sections of forest we work within (S7, S8 North, S8 Remnants, S8 South and S9) and transects (routes) through each area. To get to the forests we have to cross different bridges of varying stability levels. A lot of the time there isn't a bridge and we just forge through the water. Always a much needed refreshing dip, but slightly scary because there's a crocodile in the area...

Generally the transects are barely there trails through dense forest, but they also pass through plains and my (NOT) favourite, swamps. I'm constantly surprised that our guides can even find the right trail let alone keep us on it. While we walk the transect we look out for either lemurs or herps - frogs, chameleons, geckos and snakes, and record who we find, where we found them, their life stage and other data. Sometimes there's loads of creatures around, other times not so much.

There are 4 species of lemur in this area. The Red Collared Brown Lemur which is the only diurnal species. I had an amazing surprise on my second day here when I looked up while taking a shower to see a female Brown just cruising over the tree above me. Seriously cool. Then there's the Southern Woolly Lemur, the Fat Tailed Dwarf (or Tomasi's) Lemur and the Mouse Lemur. We wander through the transects looking everywhere hoping to spot the reflection of our head torches in their eyes. We saw a Mouse Lemur only a couple of meters away one night when we were out on the road watching a lightening storm light up the sky. He was up in a nearby tree and kinda froze when he realised he'd been spotted and waited us out while we stood staring.

When we're not out on transects there's other data to collect, for example bird watching, shark counting, collecting caterpillars, spiders and fungi, Malagash lessons and we've even been able to make mahampy bracelets. 3 women from Ambandrika came and taught us how to weave the mahampy reeds into patterns. They also make baskets and mats they sell in the markets. Shark counting is a fun one. We sit outside on the road under a tree and play Bananagrams (world's best game by the way) until the fishermen start returning with their catch. Then we try and photograph them and collect information about the species they have caught. My personal favourite activity is when we go out in pirogues, basic dug out canoes. The other day we paddled along the river mouth past the mangroves and down to the sea looking for signs of mosquito net fishing. It was only when we got back a couple of hours later that Hoby said 'you do realise they do the fishing at night..?' Stellar. But it was just incredible paddling in such a stunning place where the water is so still and the mangroves give way to the mountains in the distance.

When we're not scurrying around somewhere there's time to relax. In the middle of the day it's too hot to do anything much so we laze around in the long house talking, playing Bananagrams, attempting to solve crosswords, listening to music and dozing. It's not so comfortable to lie on the long wooden benches for long so I like to retreat to one of the hammocks hidden under leafy trees and palms where there's always a cool breeze.

I'm back in Fort Dauphin for the next few days which means I can connect to civilisation once more. Though I have enjoyed being off grid it is nice to connect to home, and you don't realise how much you depend on google until it's not there. Though saying I'm reconnected, it's a 40 minute walk and the power in the whole town has been out all day so I ended up sitting in an empty cafe a few hours before I was meeting people for lunch, completely unprepared. But now I can finally upload this - I've been writing it in instalments for the last week.

Fort Dauphin life is very different from the bush. I can finally buy food that is not rice and drink things that aren't water. There's even, get ready for this, a real toilet, with a flush! The town itself is mad. Tiny ramshackle shelters on the side of the road act as stalls with fruits and beans and clothes, interspersed with houses and wobbly alleyways. The markets are busy and bustling selling absolutely everything, and there's lots of nice places to eat. Last night we went to Menuire, a tiki bar type place for incredible vegetable wraps and cocktails. The centre is paved and tuk tuks zip around there, while retro taxis can take you further onto the sandy roads. You do not want to be on the streets at night so we'll get a bumpy old car back after dinner and hope they've understood enough to get us to the right place.

I've got one more day here before we head back to the bush for another 2 weeks. Halfway through my stay already!

On The Road Again

I'm in Madagascar now, and though I left the UK at 5:25pm on Sunday and have been travelling for the last 39 hours I'm still not at my final destination!

Bunny has come with me of course! 

I flew into Kenya at 5am on Monday morning expecting a 7 hour layover, only my flight was delayed by 4 hours. With a very small and unexciting departure 'lounge' it was a struggle, but I finally boarded flight number 2 into Madagascar at 4pm. Arriving in Antananarivo was hectic! Everyone wants to help you and will try to carry your bags for you and give you information - all at a cost of course!

Transferring money, which can only be done once in the country, is very easy; you give the money and they'll give you a wedge of notes that you assume is the correct amount before you get barrelled off with someone leading you towards your prebooked transfer, they then demand payment for leading you there even though you carried your own bags and the transfer driver was walking with you.

I stayed in a nice little hotel nearby before getting a transfer back to the airport at 5am this morning (Tuesday) for a flight at 7:40. Only it's been cancelled. The next flight is at 3pm, so there's another 8 hours to wait.

Thankfully Tsaradia, the airline, booked me into a hotel with breakfast and lunch for the day. I got to experience my first taste of Madagascar as we drove through the bustling streets, already busy at 6am. The ladies are carrying big bundles on their heads while the men and children push big homemade carts piled with vegetables and wares that they set up on sheets to sell. Stray dogs roam the cobbled and cracked streets as busses, bikes and taxis weave in and out of each other. The local minibusses travel with the back door open so people can run up and jump on as they're moving. The buildings are all painted bright colours and covered in old posters and advertising.

It's a sensual overload! Especially on virtually no sleep. I got to the hotel and slept until breakfast, then slept again until now. Lunch is in 15 minutes (rice, vegetables and fries) and then I'm heading back to the airport for flight number 3.

I'm with two German girls, Ella and Mali who are dentistry students travelling down to Taolanaro to volunteer with a dentistry program for a month, travelling rural areas and looking after people's teeth. It was really nice to meet them and travel and eat together, to spend time with similar people. They are the only white faces I've seen and I'm definitely feeling a long way from home. Though everyone has been lovely and helpful and we can get over the language difficulty with my awkward bit of French.

The view from the hotel restaurant. It looks like a jungle out there. And yes, that is a random goat is someone's yard.

The view from my room.

A Lot Has Happened!

It's been a long time since my last post!

I finished the season in the Alps, drove home through Italy, France and Spain, and returned to normal life. I got a job in a cafe, and that was that, back to the grind of making coffees and clearing tables. I got promoted, became a supervisor again, and worked long hours to get the pennies in. I kept myself busy when I wasn't working, running, rowing, becoming a yogi and I even started hula hoop classes. And when I wasn't doing any of that I was volunteering with the National Trust helping with ecological surveys, bat studies and countryside management - pulling out/erecting fencing and clearing invasive plants. Phew.

That handsome massage therapist man has stayed by my side, despite living several hours away, and we have now been A Thing for almost a year. A few weeks ago he and his dad took me to Andorra for a week of snowboarding and it was amazing to get back on the slopes! The Pyrenees are very different to the Alps. There you are too high for trees and the snow turns everything into a blanket, while in Andorra being lower down means the pistes are beautiful tree lined runs and rocks arch up out of the ground. It's incredibly spectacular. Plans are already in the pipeline for next year!!

Working in the cafe was fun. I met a lot of great people, gained some serious confidence and collected a decent stash ready for the next adventure, which is coming around pretty quick... Tomorrow in fact!

First stop is Madagascar where I'm joining an ongoing conversation project run by an organisation called SEED - Sustainable Environment, Education and Development. I'm going to be working with the local community collecting data on the forest and the creatures within in. And that means lemurs. I'm going to be spending my time with those gorgeous little wide eyed primates who like to move it move it.

And now I'll keep it brief;

From Madagascar I'll fly to Bangkok, Thailand, before travelling north through Chiang Mai and crossing the border into Laos. I'll travel down the Mekong river in a traditional slowboat to Luang Prabang before flying to Siem Reap, Cambodia. First stop in Cambodia is the ancient temples of Angkor before heading to Phnom Penh. I'll cross the border into Vietnam and explore Ho Chi Minh City before flying to Bali and spending a month at surf camp. After some island hopping I'll fly to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, then Singapore, and back to England via Budapest where I meet my brother and his fiancee and friends for their stag/hen do.

Phew.

Watch this space. I'll update when I'm not lost to the jungle!

Alpine Days

It’s been a really long time since I wrote anything. Mainly because time is scarce in mountain life. When I am not working I am either up the mountain or sleeping; there’s not a lot of time left over. We get paid very little for the amount we work so I’ve decided to take my payment in snowboarding time. I weave my day around the best mountain time, and try and get out as much as possible, no matter how knackered I am. As they say, I can sleep when I’m dead – or in my case when the season is over..! Which is exactly one month today.

I still can't get over how stunning it is here. This is looking down at the cloud sitting in the valley below.

I’ve managed to explore the 3 Valleys a bit recently. I spent a day in Val Thorens, carving up the park slope which has boxes, kickers, bridges and giant hands that you can high 5 along the route, ending in a giant igloo. And we went across to Meribel on the most beautiful sunny day after a heavy snowfall. It was incredible, full of long runs through forests and along stunning cliff edges. There’s a giant airbag in Meribel that I’m gunning for so hopefully I’ll get the chance to go across there again!

It's great going boarding with a big group - although you always end up waiting on half the group or chasing down people that have gone the wrong way. This was the greatest day out, on Clare my roomie from training's last day.

I really don't know where to begin, there's been so much going on.

From building snowmen…

 meeting snow dogs…

and snow gods…

 to squeezing through super tiny snow holes in a snow labyrinth

and finding ancient igloo carvings of Pacman!

I also got to meet an elephant - not who you'd expect to see in the Alps.

And I'm having A LOT of fun dressing up as our mascot, Monty the marmot

And even more fun when someone else does it and I'm just 'Monty's Handler'. Trying to get him in the car was an experience I'll never forget..! The you-can-never-let-Monty-be-seen-without-his-head rule made things a little bit more challenging!

Bunny has been having more fun too.

From hot chocolate at the top of the mountain to making new friends =]

There has been so much snow lately that there is fresh powder every day and I’ve been having the best snowboarding I’ve ever known. I love riding off piste more than anything because there’s nothing better than carving fresh lines in untouched snow!! It feels like gliding through the sky. Taking on the side of the mountain and forging my own path – it’s like nothing else.

And of course with lots of snow come lots of moguls – lumps of snow that gets pushed together with paths carved around them – and so the chance to get some air *jump*. Sometimes completely unintentionally because you don’t spot the bulge in front of you – it’s a huge adrenaline rush when you land an unexpected jump! And a literal kick in the butt when you stack it; which happens fairly regularly. I couldn’t sit down for a week after one session when I went down hard twice on the same spot!!!

I’ve been having a lot of fun in the BK Park too. [Don’t ask me what the BK stands for, I have no idea.] Started out with the rollers, rolling bumps kinda like giant speed bumps where you pick up speed going up and down. Then I moved on to the jumps. There’s a row of 4 and by the third you’ve picked up so much speed that you shoot over with a good couple of feet of air underneath you. It is utterly terrifying, I honestly don’t breathe for the whole time and I constantly think I’m about to die, but MY GOD is it a rush!!! I will have to try and get photos/videos.

I’m also practicing 180 jumps and turning 360 as I go downhill. That’s really fun. Though my current favourite thing is ‘buttering’ which I tried for the first time the other day. You put all your weight on your back leg and lean as far back as possible, lifting the front of your board in the air.

So I’m really enjoying learning new tricks and just being out on the mountain. It’s mostly to do with the guy that I’ve been boarding so much with. He’s really good and inspires me to try harder and push myself. His name’s Tom and he works for Massage Me, a company who come to our chalets and give massages to our guests.

The season has been long and hard, with far too little rest, and a lot of pushing my body to the limits. So I guess it’s good my friend is a massage therapist!!

In fact, said massage therapist might be a little bit more than just a friend. And in fact instead of flying home a month today I might be wending my way back through Europe in said massage therapist’s car… 
Watch this space…