Borneo Day 2

Today was our sea day.  We had booked a snorkel trip through Borneo Dream Tours and they picked us up at the Jesselton Jetty and led us to their very lovely boat.  We drove (boated? sailed? motored? not sure what verb to use there!) to an island where we got off and spent a couple of hours snorkeling around (aside: did you know that snorkeling only has one "l"? Why is that?  All the other short vowels syllables double their last consonants when adding a vowel suffix).

There were lots of pretty fish.  Also sadly lots of rubbish and lots of people.  Once we got out past the rubbish and past the fish, it was pretty good.  We saw parrot fish and clown fish and lots of other pretty things that we can't name!  Amelie learned to snorkel and enjoy snorkeling so that was a good accomplishment of the day.  Dad and Uncle Vijay I don't think even got their feet wet.  Mum looked after Jarrah playing in the shallows.

Aunty Jill and Amelie suffered the after affects of too much microscopic sea biology biting their stomachs and both were scratching for days and days after!

There was lunch on another island.  Then drop off for another snorkel on the outskirts of another island where the divers were also diving.  We didn't go up on the beach (after a sandfly warning) but snorkeled around that island for a bit.  Unfortunately not nearly as much sea life there to see.  It looked like the coral had been destroyed, apparently they still dynamite fish in the area.  All very sad.

Finishing up there - we picked up the people left on the beach and headed back to the mainland.  Ben couldn't bare to pay the exorbitant prices for a 5 minute taxi ride ($5 each!) and so we all walked back to the apartment, about a 60 minute walk!  All of us ladies still in our swimsuits and maybe a towel.  Probably not the best attire for the long walk through the shops.

Norma and Edwin visited us again that evening and brought some delicious salt fish and some other funny vegetable resembling dinyinthee also fried with saltfish.  All quite delicious.  She brought us a cut up pineapple - the sweetest I have ever tasted!  We packed all our bags up - all the many things that the Aunties brought for us to take home.  Lots of books and school supplies!  Fun.  But no time to look at properly.

Borneo Day 1 (May 15)

We had planned this trip, with my parents, Aunty Jill and Aunty Sue for July last year.  Aunty Jill and Aunty Sue had been going to Australia via Hong Kong and the timing was right for them to make a side trip to come with us to Sabah together with Mum and Dad.  Then Ben got sick.  Mum, Dad and us all ended up in Bangkok hospital instead of going on the planned wildlife safari.  Not nearly as much fun.  Although the girls remember staying in the nice Amari hotel with a swimming pool on the roof and a buffet breakfast with access to as much smoked salmon as they wanted.  Mum, Dad, and our family managed to get refunds on our tickets however Aunty Jill and Sue could not.  They instead rescheduled their dates to May 15-22 and so we at least has some firm dates for all stick to for another attempt at our Borneo trip.

Mum, Dad and our family arrived in Kota Kinabalu at midnight after flying from Sydney and Phnom Penh directly.  It was a very long day for Ben who started it by driving the 5 or so hours from our home to Phnom Penh first!  So we had an easy first day scheduled or so we thought.  The kids were up first naturally.  We were dragged out of bed and the first order of the day was to go swimming in the apartment pool.  We had rented a nice three bedroom apartment for the two nights that we were to be in Kota Kinabalu city.  It was close to amenities - namely some cheap Indian restaurants and a shopping complex.  It had water views except for the construction going on right in front of a car park or some other such building.  We were also waiting for Aunty Jill, Uncle Vijay and Aunty Sue to arrive that night to complete our intrepid group.

So while the buildings were still shading the pool we went swimming.  It was cold.  The sky was blue but it just wasn't hot like it had been in Cambodia before we left.  But swim we did - and play tag and lie in the sun.  Got out before lunch.  Ben had a short swim and then went back up and we found him napping - actually found him napping for most of the rest of the morning through till three - waking up enough to eat the lunch we brought him of dahl and parathas (or roti as it is called there).

There is an old friend of Mum's who married a man from Sabah and has lived there many years.  Norma and her husband Edwin.  Edwin picked us all up and took us over to their house which is on the way inland a little towards the big mountain (Mount Kinabalu, the tallest in SE Asia).

First view of Mount Kinabalu

They took us around the Adventist Mission and school compound, over a rickety swinging bridge and visited a market where they sold the biggest pineapples I have ever seen - and lots of dried fish!  And then they took us out for dinner and we had a way to big meal at one of the yummy restaurants.  Kind of Chinese style Malay food.  Yum.

At 11 pm the Americans arrived from the airport.  Jarrah had been waiting up to see all the goodies that had been ordered from Amazon to arrive via Aunty Sue's suitcase.  In particular a set of horses and horseriding dolls.  She had been counting down the days to meeting Aunty Sue in order to collect on these items.  Finally they arrived but alas, Jarrah couldn't say up long enough.  So only in the morning was she able to receive her presents.

And that was day 1.

Bambi Part II

I think in a developed country we would probably be up for child neglect or for child endangerment or something... so I hope no one reports us when we go on a visit home!

Let me elaborate.

We got home home on Sunday from our visit to Borneo with the American Aunties, an Uncle and Grandmama and Grandpapa!  More on that later.  Mum and Dad returned with us to Cambodia and we finally got home on Sunday.  Had a clean up day at home on Monday.  Tuesday morning we were going to start school again for Amelie.  At 7.30 am while I was getting breakfast, we all hear loud loud screeching.  Rushing outside Amelie is making a run for the steps.  Bambi in pursuit.  After the last incident in April, we had locked him up.  His horns then fell off so we let he free again thinking he would be pretty harmless now.

He had knocked her down and she had some nasty gashes on her back.  And on closer look, a very nasty gash just on her hairline about 10 cm long and pretty, pretty deep.  Apparently Bambi also likes to bite.  So off we dash again to the hospital in Phnom Penh.  It was a nice straight cut this time but still they gave Amelie a general anesthetic and we spent another night in the hospital.  Mum, Dad and Jarrah stayed in a nice hotel around the corner (Jarrah needing an ice cream bribe to stay with Mum and Dad).

So we have now learned that Bambi needs to be locked up for life (Amelie's words).  We have had many offers from people to take him off our hands - for less than pure reasons.

The Dressings - sorry no wound pictures

Post Discharge at the hotel restaurant

Trying to get a straight faced shot - impossible

Angus the puppy

Jarrah's Poem

Jarrah just made up this poem:

When I was four I got butted by a boar.

Appropriate.. I hope it isn’t prophetic!

The Birds and another Jarrah Story

It has been a little while since I wrote.  And that was just about one event.  I have lots of pictures that I have taken lately.  And we have been pretty busy.. especially these last few days.  A Sunday before last Sunday, the first of our two latest baby peacocks hatched.  Sadly, out last batch (the two left) didn’t get old enough to be fast enough to run away from our carnivorous deer.  So this time, we built a pen up on our veranda for our new little hatchlings.  So the first hatched on the Sunday.  We found 3 newly hatched baby chickens to keep it company.  On Thursday, another peacock hatched so he had company.  Sadly (another one.. I’m overusing that word) this morning, this one did not seem very strong and he died after about 1 hour.  Not sure what exactly caused that.  Before he died, this morning, .. Oh, first I also need to explain, on Sunday or Monday this week a man came with a baby rabbit. 

Not too much of a baby luckily.  So he is put into the same pen.  He is a cute little bunny, relatively tame for a wild bunny.  Last night Amelie thought it would rain so made a nice temporary pen for him, unfortunately not very secure.  This morning, Amelie woke up to go to the toilet and I tell her to check the bunny.  He isn’t there (of course).  So the first event of this morning was the lost bunny.  Then the sick baby peacock.  Then.. since we were putting the baby peacock in a separate space this morning since he was sick, Amelie thought a little chick would keep him company.  Well the chick got out of her hands, and ended up flying into the dog who swiftly mouthed him.  Dead chick.  And only after that did the baby peacock die.  Anyway, a bad morning to say the least.  Later this afternoon, I hear Ung (or guard) yell something.  It wasn’t clear, so I ignored it.  He then calls on the phone saying that the bunny is out the front.  We head out there and quickly catch the bunny in the cattle grate under the gate!  Phew.  At least one of our problems has been rectified.  Can’t do anything about the other issues. 

We also acquired this week two featherless, blind baby Indian rollers.  They are the ugliest birds at the moment and they make such a racket. 

And, two half grown lapwings who I really want to let go but they just can’t fly good enough and will just get caught, again.  So our house at the moment is quite a baby bird nursery.  There are also the four new baby puppies – enough baby animals to keep us all busy.

I didn’t really want to write about all that right now. 

I wanted to talk about my difficult daughter!

...

Well, I started to write that a couple of days ago and now I can’t remember what the issue was. Oh, I remember now..maybe – but here is an incident describing my problems!

Jarrah was given a colouring  book a few months ago.  She accidently tore the cover off.  She also didn’t like all the pages in it.  So she didn’t like the book anymore. Well we worked out that we could tear out the pages that she liked.  She chose a few and we tore them out.  We then decided that she could make a new book out of them.  We put coloured card paper on the back and the front.  Then it was all pretty and nice.  But oh no.  The pages that she liked were there but also the pages that she didn’t like.  They were there, and that wasn’t acceptable.  I took it apart again to put all the pages that she liked on the facing side.  But that also wasn’t good enough.  Then she worked out that stapling the pages onto the coloured card would get rid of the unsightly side.  So we did that.. for four pages.  But then we only had two coloured paper.  And there were extra pages.  Anyway, we stapled that together.  But then the book had the colouring pages on the cover and backcover.  What to do!?? So finally she worked out that  getting plain white paper as the covers (as I wouldn’t let her have anymore card).  Finally – solved. Phew.

Siem Reap

We had the opportunity to visit Angkor Wat again in April with the youth group from Bowral Church in Australia.  I have mostly pictures of Jarrah because Amelie was always running off!

Playing Hide and Seek