The Jungle

Hello!

Well here i am in the iternet cafe, they cell cyber cones, cyber bread and cyber wings! Basicaly the colest cafe in the world probably! And they sell almond snickers, which is basicaly one of the only reasons that i frequent it...
Goodness i think that its possible that three weeks have gone buy since i last wrote? Sorry! If it makes you feel better i think ive written even less frequently in my diary, though not for want of expereinces.
We spent last week living up at the nursery about 30 minutes out of kuching. It consists of 6 greenhouses, all housing different species at different stages. Peter who seems to do most of his work there took us around on the first day and told us what he wanted us to do, that was about the only part of the converstaion that wasn't in latin, he speaks fluent plant! Alice and i give him continual looks of blankness, and confusion, we're never sure if he is refering to parts of plants, species, familes....all very confusing. We spent the first day throwing away lots of plants, which confused all of the other workers and then the following days collecting enough mother planst of each species and then throwing more away, and then potting, and then......the job that Peter obviously prized as a big treat. This was to collets one of every species of aroid, drag it up a great many steps and then wheel barrow it to the compost heep and plant it in massive terocotta pots. Peter's pride in this lies in the fact that it is the biggest collection in Asia. But the thing is that they all look suspiciously similar, i mean realy similar, also the locals are obviously just as confused in his hording of them as we are, because one of them told us that he cooks the plant and feeds it to his pigs! Apart from this the week was alot of fun. However there are a great many creepy crawlies residing in the jungel that we had not encountered before. Not only were we ravaged by mossies, and trampled by the worlds largest ants, but we also had to avoid the 'INLAND PRAWN'. Aptly named by my self due to its shell of armour on its back. It's black and red and absolutly massive (i tell no lie), and has picers and lanky yellow jointed legs - 1000 of them to be precise! Even Miles one of the guys who works up there yelled when he saw one, and the told us in a very consilidating manner (more for his benifit than ours i hik possibly!) that if it happened perchance to bite us he thought prehaps that we might cry for two days! So not only did the inland prawn cause us a bit of hassel but when we were working at Tims nurssery he told us that unfortunatly a giant black cobra had taken up residence just behind where he was starting us off. How very gerous of him! He then told us to run if we saw it very fast, but if it bit us to be very clam and walk slowly to the snake bite kit! Not only this but also that it rears up and is much longer than me......v.pleasant!
While we were there we were staying with a family, they lived i a house at the nurserie and we were living up stairs under a tin roof and on floorboards! But on a plus side we did have mosquito nets that were purple and blue and a winne the poo pillow case cover. There was also a choir of frogs right out side our window that generously and free of charge, seranaded us at night.
Alice and i have mayed up multiple games to keep our minds entertained while we work, as all that it realy required is our hands and patience! So far we're quite enjoting the word games, making up storys, rhymes, songs, cartoon characters our favorite being the 'forest fiend', who like the frog we found could camoflage himself to rescue animals! We have also learnt the lyrics to the dysne songs, all the british prime ministers back to gladstoe and disralie, and a couple of shakespears sonnets, not to mention the hour of french that i make alice do! Any more suggestions would be most welcome....were running out of ideas slightly!
We had many compliments on our singing when we went through every musical singing all the songs init that we could remember.
While we were there not only were we fed an enormous amount but we had to also wash in a bucket and pee in the forset so it was quite nice to return!
This week we have been catching the good old bus to the lab to help the ladies pack all week. Our figers now look like we have resident prunes attached to our finger tips! The man at the bus station was very suprised and a little infuriated to find we were still here he said he thought we had left. alice and i have a sneaking suspicion that he might have brought the whole of his village last week to meet us, but we never turned up! Any way were back on class terms now all smiles and good mornings!
Last weekend we went with Ralphs freind Paul to the caves near Bau. This was one of the best trips ever. Not only were the caves spectcular dripping with stlagtights, moss, and bats, but also Paul is an absolute legend. Being Chinnese we were realy learning from and expert when it came to taking photograph of ourselves and the caves at their every advantage. There were multiple cries of 'no here' and 'take a photo'! Not only this but Paul also has a habit of drving on the wrong side of the road, so we spent a lot of the journey there and back swerving from one side of the road to the other. At one point however Paul decided that the right hand side was deff his favorite and stayed there, at this point his chinnese canadian freind, who had spent the large part of the journey singing old british songs to us and expecting us to sing along with 'my bonne lies over the ocean', told Paul he realy should be on the left hand side of the road, and what would our parents say if he killed us, Paul completly misunderstading replied flatly 'no were going to the caves' and continued around the corners on the wrongside, despite the on going argument between the two of them! However we did get there and back in on peice, despite stopping once while paul considered taking a bit of the mountian (i kid you not) home to his garden, the Canadian insisted it was stealing but Paul was not swayed by this argument at all saying he paid his taxes if he wanted a bit of the mountain he could take it. He also asked if we could manage to save any plants for him he would be very grateful!

This week despite the eternaly wet hands has been excellent as well. We got up breath takingly early to go to the market before work two days in a row, where we brought a kilo of prawns (which i had to shell in the evenig while alice pretened, i expect to sleep!), veg and fruit, not to mention the Indian pasteries which we brought two bags of for our breakfast and the girls at the office. However ours were obviously substandard as the next day they brought in some even bigger tastier ones for us! this week its been blissfully sunny and yesterday we spent all afternoon by the river reading and guzzling ice creams.

I'll put all the pictures up tomo, i tryed to do it at work but the computor doesn't like it,

lots and lots of love

Bags

P.S
any games and id be gratful.......!