Journey of a Million Miles

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Tuesday : My journey back from the cold front was less tiring than the trip over there. The flight wasn’t really full and that was a good thing. Had no trouble sleeping. I had to stay in Hong Kong over night during my transit back home. Good thing I had a friend residing over in Hong Kong who brought me around for a short tour before I continue my trip back. During my 14 hour transit, I only managed to visit Kowloon and Mong Kok and check out the night life there. Thanks to Katherine for bringing me around!

Goodbye
Canada!
.

My
Tour Guide
Katherine

At
Mong Kok
.

Streets of
Hong Kong
.

Wednesday : And yes Im now back in KL. By now, most people would have learn of my return so I wont mention much about it. A lot of people has been asking me why Im back. Let me say this again, Im back to apply to migrate over to Canada. Since the process for application and approval make take up to a year, I will be hanging around in Malaysia looking for a job meantime. Havent been blogging since the day I got back. Was too busy settling my thing, from paying overdue bills to collecting my pay cheques and searching for jobs to procrastinating in cleaning up my apartment which has collected so much dust during my absence.

John & K. Chye
Scouting

Early
Morning
Watch

Our
Accomodation
.

The
Guest House
.

John
Checking Out
A Drain

Cows in
The Plantation?

Luck must be one my side as I now have a temporary project based job. I was picked for it quite fast I had to say. It happened when I dropped by to see my ex-supervisor who happened to be looking for a replacement person to go for an assessment project since a friend of mine couldn’t make it. The job was to work along with Wildasia to carry out a pilot project in doing a social, economic and biodiversity assessment on Sime Darby's oil palm plantations. Kat, and ex-research student of Dr Cathys, will join me in carrying out the biodiversity assessment along with some guys from Wildasia. Since I only learnt of the job which is to start in a matter of 2 days, I was panicking a little as the Wildasia guys were depending on us to develop a method to use aquatic insects as bioindicators to check on the health of their water ways. Spend the whole 2 nights researching for methods. One exciting thing I found regarding the project is that the person representing SIME is a friend of mine, Sheffy, a senior and one of my camping group members. Havent been in touch with her for quite a while since shes busy with work, so this week over at the plantation, there will be a lot of catching up to do!

A Potential
Sampling
Site

Boat
Ride!
.

Stuck in
The Mud
.

Black Baza
(Photo by:
Sheffy)

Some Snake
(Photo by:
Sheffy)

White
Fungi
.

Sunday : Left for Teluk Intan, Perak after a rendezvous with some of the Wildasia people at the K.J. LRT station. Here I met John and Sheema, who has been corresponding and updating Kat and I on the project outline. John is an ecologist, specializing in birds and dragonflies while Sheema is a research assistant in wildasia, specializing in snakes. It took us about 2 hours to reach the plantation. I was really taken in by surprise with the accommodation at the place where they put us up there. Quite well facilitated with Tv, Dvd player, air conditioning and fridge! Wasn’t like what I was told, especially when Sheffy told us to bring along sleeping bags for just in cases. We left for a short recce in the plantation before heading back to the guest house. Later in the evening, we were joined by a couple more of the other wildasia fellows and Sheffy. The other fellows were Kim Chye, bird specialist and Su Mei and Badri, who both will be working on the social and economic assessing.

Doing
Night
Survey

Fireflies!
.
.

Sampling
Site
.

Kat
Doing
Sampling

Anyone
Out There?
Cookenia sp.

The
Dense
Plantation

Sunday – Monday : We spent the first 2 days surveying sites and looking for potential sites for sampling within 2 plantations of SIME. The road conditions in the plantations were so terrible, our 4x4 truck got stuck in the mud a couple of time, but we eventually managed to get ourselves out of the sticky situation. The plantations covered such a wide area that it is highly possible that one could easily get lost inside it. Thank God for GPS, otherwise, it would have been very hard for us to find our own way out.

More Fungi!
Unknown
Species

Plantation
in
Bidor

Checking It
Out
.

Dragonfly
Crotilla
lineata

Stuck in
Mud
Again!

Damselfly
Prodasineura
humeralis

Each morning, the biodiversity team, which includes me, would go out early to catch the dawn chorus when most birds would be out flying. John and Kim Chye would be out there making a record of the species of birds observed within the plantation. At night, we would leave after dinner into the plantation to conduct a night survey, looking for wild animals within the plantation. The night survey was particularly fun as we managed to spot several different animals from barn owls, brown spotted wood owl, civet and leopard cats.

Dragonfly
Neurothemis
Terminata

Dragonfly
Trithemis
aurora

John
Filming A
Dragonfly

Damselfly
Heliocypha
perforata

Damselfly
Neurobasis
chinensis

Waterfall
Near The
Plantation

Tuesday – Thursday : For the first 2 days, we (Sheffy, Kat and I ) had to go on our ways while the birding team, (John, Kim Chye and Sheema) had to go on their own. This is as the assessment sites for both teams are different. We left to Bidor on Tuesday morning to check out on another plantation of SIME’s . This estate in bidor is rather small compared to the other 2 earlier. The managers were saying that this plantation served as a ‘green lung’ of bidor and we find it rather interesting that they even considered so. True enough, after checking on a satellite map, the plantation is the only green patch in the town of Bidor. While the birders were on their own, we went out into the plantation looking for streams to sample. Unlike the other waterways which I have seen in the other 2 plantations, the plantation in Bidor uses natural streams instead of man made drains, which is very good. Should be expecting better results from this site. Sheffy had joined the birders on Thurday, leaving Kat and I to do sampling work on another plantation. Although this plantation is huge, the trees were planted in blocks which made it easy to navigate, so Kat and I had no troubles. An interesting story during the 3 days were that we were jinxed with the ‘dick head’ vibes, as how John would put it in a jokingly manner, where some of us tend to forget and leave things behind during our outing. On our last night before the presentation of results, the management treated us with a nice BBQ dinner at their clubhouse in the plantation, equipped with snooker table and swimming pool.

John in
Action
Again

Sheffy
Posing
With Phone

Kat
Working
In Rain

Rain
Drops
.

Another
Sampling
Site

Site Next
To Golf
Course

Friday : The final day of our assessment for this week. We presented our findings to the management of the plantations. Results? The water quality, in my own opinion, in the first two plantations are not in a healthy condition while the ones in the Bidor plantation is much better. For the 3 plantations, the biodiversity assessment scored about 55% - 60% while the social and economic assessment scored about 60% - 70%. The week had passed real fast although it did seemed long to me in the beginning. That was how busy we were kept. Left for KL at noon.