Strange signs from our trip......

We've observed a few strange signs along the way on our trip over the past year.


This was a common one on buses in Rio, where people in certain seats are encouraged to give up their seats e.g. elderly people or people with babies.  Some of the categories may be a little harder to discern than others though, so be careful when offering your seat for the first category in case you upset somebody......

We saw this on the mountain train from Curitiba. Given the number of tunnels, its probably not bad advice, even if it appears slightly obvious.





Here's one that Louis saw in the bus terminal at Sao Paolo, probably a good place to go if you need a packet of Rennies.

For those of you who wondered what happened to Smashie and Nicey, they are alive and well in Ihla do Mel, in Brazil.......

This sign, in Ubatuba, North of Sao Paolo, was a great idea to help you cross the road.  It basically had a countdown from 45 seconds every time it was the pedestrian's turn to cross the road.  Never did find out what the Fat Lab building was though, even though we walked past it a few times.......

In Argentina, on the way to the Perito Moreno Glacier, we wondered whether our little hire car would cope with the road ahead.......

In Kuala Lumpur, we were on the hunt for dinner with the Guanos, here's one of the places we avoided. 

Here's an example of one of the meals there that we DIDN'T try.

Apologies for the schoolboy humour.......but we are travelling with two schoolboys!!

A vote for kindness

As we drove towards the little coastal town of Kota Besud, the ferry point for the Perhentian Islands, you couldn’t help notice that today was an unusual day.  Bunting was everywhere, people thronged the streets waving flags.  Perhaps a visiting dignitary? a public holiday? News of Baders on Tour coming through? No, in fact it was election fever, and the flags were for the different candidates.  

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How could we refuse to 'vote' with these lovely people!

There were clearly two dominant parties, and as the traffic slowed to a crawl, we could see happy people waving their flags, we opened our windows and cheered with them, and a couple of kind ladies gave our boys some blow up flag each to wave.  We had inadvertently found ourselves supporting the “blue” party (although we did put our blue flags away when we later drove through the predominantly ‘green’ part of town!)

I’d like to say that we stopped to find out about their manifestos and policies, but alas, given the taxi driver didn’t speak a word of English, I’m afraid we made our notional decision of who to support based on the friendliness of the people we’d encountered, and their kindness with the boys.   Still, it did spawn a conversation about voting and elections at home so whilst the boys aren’t exactly counting down the days until they can vote, they do have a slightly better understanding than before we drove through that little town. 

And as we passed through the town again a week later, we saw the town was bathed in blue bunting still.  Perhaps kindness had won the day.

What do two million bats look like?

We enjoy an adventure, but lets be frank: sliding through claustrophobically thin, muddy gaps in caves doesn’t overly appeal to us.  Actually the sliding through isn’t so bad, it’s more the getting stuck that is the problem.  

Nevertheless, we found other reasons to make the effort of two separate flights by propellor plane to reach the caves of Mulu National Park, set deep in the vast (remaining) rainforests of Sarawak.   Firstly, it hosts access to Deer Cave, the world’s largest cave passage, and secondly, you can witness the extraordinary sight of a two million strong bat exodus at just before dusk.  

By the way - is it just me that feels a trifle uneasy when your window seat is directly by the propellors, such that, however unlikely it may seem, if one of the propellor blades DID manage to detach itself, the most likely destination would be slicing through my little window.  If I pressed my head back into my seat, I might just get a way with a shaved nose I suppose.......

So when we finally arrived at the tiny airport of Mulu, anticipation levels were running high.  As if to suspend our excitement, we decided to leave the bat exodus and Deer Cave for the last day, and headed off next morning by boat up the river ahead of a hike to a couple of other caves, and later also enjoying a night walk. 

Of course I'd have volunteered my finger,
but I had to concentrate on the photograph....

Amongst our encounters were a huntsman spider which we was not quite as large as we’d imagined........until we saw another one twice the size shortly after! Somehow they don’t look quite as scarey on a tree as they do on your pillow, but nevertheless they are poisonous and you should keep well away.  We learned a useful rule of thumb for spiders: If they are bigger than your thumb, keep away! OK, here's the real rule.  If they use a web to catch their prey, they are less likely to be poisonous - their web is their weapon, whereas spiders that hunt with no web need poison as their weapon to attack their prey.  (The Australian funnel web and red-back are two exceptions, however.) 

Black-bearded gliding lizard - that glided away off Frankie's hand as if to prove this.

VERY noisy tree frog

Borneo red cricket

Wagler's pit viper. (So what's it doing in a tree?  The
'pit' refers to the characteristic dents in it's cheeks)

Another river adventure.........

Very tempting to jump on one, where better to try a real Tarzan impression?

Although we've been in many caves over the years, Jules and I had never heard of helictites. These are primarily sideways growths, where a water droplet gets to the edge of a small hole and teeters for so long that it deposits it’s microscopically small limestone crystal on the edge, and over time (a very long time) more crystals are deposited and the helictite grows outwards.  

Example of a helictite

Great white rock shark

T-Rex.....apparently

Only 2,000 years to go then......

The following day, we hiked 4 km to Deer Cave. It was absolutely vast.  The entire cave system is over 200km long.  We walked in well over a kilometre, before the cave passage began to narrow.

The cave was so tall, that unlike the other caves we’d seen, there are no stalagmites - it was explained to us that the water frequently evaporates before it reaches the bottom! This seemed at odds with the steady streams of drops that we could see in front of us everywhere.  Then we realised that this in fact was not lovely, refreshing, cool water, but warm, smelly bat pee, cascading down from the millions of little bats clinging to the roof of the cave! But to be fair, the smell of bat pee pales next to the pungent stench from the bat poo that is EVERYWHERE!  

It's much, much bigger than this meagre effort shows

The final thrill was to watch the bat exodus.  We stared at the cave in anticipation from about 300 metres away.  Strange that this massive cave now looked small, set into the side of a larger mountain. After a while, we saw this curious brown-grey flickering, it was the first tranche of the bats exiting.  They flew outwards and upwards, towards the last rays of the sun, before turning an imaginary corner and spiralling across the sky above us like some peculiar horizontal tornado. As you looked closely, you could see thousands and thousands of bats flying broadly together but each one seemingly moving in random motion within this wider whole. And after they passed, we saw wave after wave of the same thing, almost as if they had arranged to leave the cave in organised groups. It was an amazing sight, and made the lengthy trip well worth the effort.

They just kept coming and coming.......you could hear
an almost menacing buzzing sound as they passed overhead.

Afternoon tea in Borneo

We enjoyed a visit to the Sabah Tea Plantation, the best known and largest producer of tea in Borneo. We figured that in addition to a nice cup of tea, the boys would be able to add this to their lengthening list of “How stuff is made,” which to date includes things such as alcohol, coffee, sugar,  wood-carving, pottery and stone-carving.

Our personable and knowledgeable guide, Hamid, first showed us a video that gave us an overview and some history to the tea plantation.  In short, it has been trading for 30 years and boasts the purest tea in Borneo because of its declared non-use of pesticides, its elevated position (2,300 feet) and the fact that the 1,000 acres of tea plants are nestled within a further 5,000 acres of primary rainforest.

Hamid then guided us around the factory. There wasn’t much activity as it was mid-afternoon and the main part of the production only operates in the morning. Nevertheless we could see the long 12 inch deep tanks where this morning's harvest had been deposited - some 3,000 kilogrammes of leaves that will deliver about 600 kilos of actual tea, either in loose leaf or bag form. 

One of the tanks with newly harvested leaves

He explained about the withering, fermentation and drying processes, noting that green tea is achieved by having a much shorter fermentation period.   He showed us the machinery for cutting, rolling and heating the leaves and then the ongoing processes that help to grade the leaf sizes to meet varying demand.  He also explained how the tea can be combined with other flavours, for example, cinnamon or ginger.  Most of these are found locally.

The packaging room was very busy with teams of people putting the tea bags in various size boxes as they came off the big tea bag filling machines at rates ranging from 1 per second to over 2 per second. 

Hamid, our guide, with us on the tea plantation

Enjoying a delicious pot of cinnamon tea together

The final test was a fine pot of cinnamon tea which we all enjoyed together, which was the perfect complement to the lovely views overlooking the tea plantation. 

Animal spotting in the rainforests of Kinabatangan

We’ve just spent a couple of days at The Last Frontier, situated on a hilltop overlooking the Kinabatangan river in Sabah, Borneo.  The intention was to have a jungle base from which to explore, both on foot and by boat, the Borneo rainforest. 

Travelling overland across Borneo from Kota Kinabalu to Kinabatangan, you cannot ignore the relentless spread of palm oil plantations, at the expense of primary rainforest; Malaysia accounts for almost half of the world’s palm oil production.  At least 60% of Malaysia's rainforests however still remain intact, unlike the two world's two largest rainforests, in Brazil and the Congo, where much higher rates of deforestation have occurred.  Ironically a large Malaysian Palm oil conglomerate has just announced its investment in a massive 10 year palm oil project - in the Congo!

Land divided by rainforest and palm oil plantations

On arrival at Kinabatangan, you climb up a lot of slippery wooden steps (568, the boys announced triumphantly at the top!) and we enjoyed a delicious lunch of spaghetti bolognese - the finest pasta dish, we agreed, since Louis’ birthday in Cabo Polonio. Jason, the co-owner, who picked us up from our hostel in Sepilok, has a degree in cookery, and is responsible for the exceptional food we enjoyed throughout our stay. 

After dumping our gear in our rooms, we headed off on the boat trip, and there was an air of excitement reminiscent of our Pantanal trip. The boat sped through some decidedly murky water, chocolate brown with sediment, logs and a few plastic bottles ("bottlenose dolphins” as Jules referred to them!).  We saw numerous proboscis monkeys, long-tailed Macac monkeys, some hornbills, fish eagles, and even a very large monitor lizard lying on a branch overlooking the river. All in all a good first trip and we had time to catch up with the other two groups with us, a French family and an Australian couple living in KL.

Back on the river again

Mangrove snake

Large monitor lizard overhanging the river

In the morning, the boys were already looking forward more to breakfast than the trek, having heard Gert, the co-owner, announce the previous evening that there would be banana pancakes for breakfast!  Even that exceeded expectations, with the boys’ pancakes arriving with their names on them, in biscuit writing! At least Louis waited for the photo before wolfing his down!  Louis wondered why Jules and I didn’t have our names on them.  Gert explained that it is only if you are under 18; to which Frankie added “....and of course Mummy is 43 so doesn’t get any!”

We went on a jungle trek, climbing along some steep trails, with Ryan, our guide, helping us spot some wildlife.  At various moments, we saw a large golden web spider, (somehow not so scary when stationary AND a safe distance away) another large monitor lizard, a brown tree skink, a beautiful striped bronzeback tree snake, some ammonite ferns - at least that’s what we called them - a rhinoceros hornbill, a wrinkle-lipped bat and probably the highlight for Frankie, a crested forest lizard that Ryan showed him how to pick up, just behind the neck, so that he wouldn’t get bitten.  Frankie duly obliged without fear. 

Wrinkle-lipped bat

Golden web spider

Striped Bronzeback tree snake

Cute brown tree skink liked climbing on Frankie

Ferns reminiscent of ammonite shells

Frankie with his crested forest lizard

....and a close up of his mouth!

Rhinoceros hornbill

Overlooking Kinabatangan on the jungle trek

Our second boat trip treated us to an exhibition of proboscis athleticism of the highest order, with monkeys seemingly trying to out do each other with improbably large jumps.  One rather portly male may have underestimated his weight, as the branch he landed on after jumping some ten metres, snapped on as he landed on it, causing him to fall several metres further in something of a flurry of flailing limbs and branches as he recovered himself. 

The end of the boat trip

All too soon it was Saturday morning, and time to leave, and as I write this, I am trying to ignore some ninja action movie with unbelievable amounts of blood, guts and gore on the giant screen half way up the bus.  I hope this doesn’t last the entire 4 hours of the journey! For once we’ve encouraged the boys to be glued to their Ipad lest they get nightmares from the mutilations and slow motion decapitations that seems to feature in almost every scene! 

Next stop the crystal clear waters of Mabul Island, where we hope to snorkel with amazing sealife, and, if we're lucky, catch the Wimbledon final, and Andy Murray’s bid for Wimbledon glory, and, more importantly of course, BBC Sports Personality of the Year, as we’ve yet to see a single game this year.  We don’t even know if Andy Murray made it to the Quarter Finals.......

Cooking with Pearly in Penang

We spent a delightful six hours in the company of Pearly Kee and her husband Chandra, at their home in Penang, on their “Penang Home-cooking” course, consisting of a market tour, cookery course and “eat what you cook” lunch.

This considerably extends our gap-year cooking repertoire, previously limited to Tibetan Momos and Argentinian Asado, by adding three delicous ‘Nyonya-style’ dishes - fish in spicy tamarind curry, dark sauce pork and curry kapitan. Nyonya basically describes the fusion of cooking styles and ingredients from Malaysia and China.

After being picked up from our hotel by Chandra, we met Pearly across the road from the wet market. For a moment, our class was in jeopardy, when Pearly explained to us about crossing busy main roads in Penang.  “All locals know that you just walk out, wave your hand and the cars will slow down” Pearly explained confidently. Unfortunately the first car hadn’t read the script, and we were almost immediately mown down by a large red Volvo that swerved around us. In mitigation, the driver probably wasn’t from Penang.

However things promptly picked up when Pearly started showing us knowledgeably around the market.  It was refreshing yet rare to see Louis and Frankie exhibiting such interest in vegetables!  Pearly had us smelling and tasting an assortment of fruits, vegetables and spices - mangosteen, lemongrass, garlic chives, numerous different types of ginger - really bringing the market alive for us. Even our sense of hearing was involved; as Pearly explained to us just how fresh the chickens were, we heard the urgent, terrified squawking of a chicken punctuated by an uneasy silence.  

Pearly showing Louis the giant bamboo

Louis comparing two types of ginger

Fighting with an eel in the wet market

Mmmmmm....smells leafy

Delicious snack made from stringed dough with coconut and sugar on a banana leaf

A crumpety peanut delight

Chandra then drove us to their house where we found three cooking workstations, each carefully arranged for up to four people. Unlike our momo cooking adventure in Kathmandu, this was going to be all hands on deck, as we would be preparing two lots of each of the three dishes as a family. To our right, we had Chami and Tracey, two ladies currently living and working in Malaysia and to our left, Lester, an American gentleman and able cook who deservedly received most of the cooking plaudits on the day. 

Pearly guided us on the preparation of our cluster of vegetables, including a clever garlic squashing technique for instantly removing the skin. We also learned the importance of soaking and washing vegetables to remove parasites. The boys were closely and enthusiastically engaged in the process, Louis with me and Frankie with Julia, refining their slicing, chopping and stirring as the morning progressed. 

Frankie carefully chopping....

Louis garlic-squashing

Vegetables all prepared

We had detailed, colourful menus to follow - and keep - although thankfully, we didn’t need to refer to these too often as Pearly gave clear instructions throughout. If we were in any doubt, Lester was paying close attention and could be relied upon for back-up!

Pearly’s advice reached much further than just talking through and acting out the recipe.  We enjoyed anecdotes about life in Penang, her career in cookery and about the fun and games in putting her last two books together.  

Louis keeps the curry sauce moving about

Frankie rolling the limes to get them nice and soft before squeezing

We learned also about how every Nyonya meal has a purpose beyond merely satisfying hunger - it aims to heal and ease your body too. So, for example, after eating something hot, then rather than reaching for a bucket of water or an ice-cream, try a cooling mangosteen instead.  We picked up many other useful tips too - did you know, for example, that you can tell a fish is cooked when his eyes go white and pop out?

After a few hours of cooking  - you’re expected to keep to a reasonable pace - Pearly comes around for the tasting.  We waited with baited breath as she pronounced her verdict, thankfully all positive!  We had produced three meals that were ready for eating in Pearly’s dining room.  

Well done, team mate!

There followed a very enjoyable, homely lunch as we dined on the products of our labours, complemented by some delicious nutmeg juice, a local speciality.  Our boys’ favourite was the dark sauce pork - no coincidence perhaps that this also happened to have the most sugar!

Our reward - we get to eat what we cooked!

Some photos and shared contact details later, we parted - very full, very satisfied and a little wiser.  Thank you Pearly for your wisdom shared. 

Baders with Pearly and Lester