After a long drought in the international travel region of my life, I was finally boarding a plane to elsewhere. Different to any previous trips, this time I was bound for a remote area to volunteer with animals for two weeks, with a more traditional (for me) trip to Singapore for a few days before going home.
I have looked into volunteering at various periods in my life, but have always been put off by the price. It is surprisingly expensive, as you pay for the privilege of working in these environments. Volunteering to me has always been defined as 'freely taking part in an enterprise or task', but not so in international circles. This time was different, as a Christmas contribution from the Folks and Jim helped me on my way.
So, a few days after New Year, I found myself on a plane. There is nothing quite like the experience of sitting in an aeroplane seat. Feelings of claustrophobia, being hemmed in and literally rubbing arms with complete strangers, intense cabin fever, incredibly average food and tiny drinks intermingle with palpable excitement and anticipation. Being on a plane means one of two things, for me. 1: I am about to do something incredible (exciting) or 2: I have just done something incredible (significantly less exciting). Either way, the sacrifice of the time and sardine-tin approach airlines take with the seating is worth it a million times over.
What I am not a fan of, however, is extended stopovers. And over 8 hours in Melbourne's sub par International Airport was not something I was too impressed with. Until I realised I had a very good friend who might help me while away the time.
Suzy met me as I came out of the arrivals in Melbourne. It took me a while to realise why my surroundings were familiar. I was sure the last time I had been was with Mum when I was still in high school. Then I remembered my bleary-eyed stopover on the way home from Qatar. I had spent 10 hours in a self induced coma recovering from an 11 and a half hour flight.
Suzy looked great. Her newly blonde hair shimmered in the late evening light. She came up and gave me a hug. I did not not look great. I was only on the first leg of my long journey, but it had already taken its toll. The last hour before the airport in Christchurch I had hooned around like a mad woman, for the first time ever I had left everything until the last moment. It was hot and sticky and I was dressed warmly for the flight. Nevertheless we proceeded to a bar and set about a good long catch up. I hadn't seen Sooz since her trip to New Zealand and it was so nice to see her again. My extra-long stopover flew by and in no time at all it was time to check in. After a lengthy queue, the lady informed me that I had a middle seat and there was nothing she could do.
Nooooo. The horror. Aisle seat 4 lyfe. I get inordinately dehydrated on planes, and drink (WATER) like a fish. The result is obvious. Asking strangers to move 10 times on a 8 hour trip is not possible, so I would have to take the voluntary dehydration route.
I meandered through duty free, taking my time as I flowed towards my departure gate. Until I heard my name over the sound system. Had I spent too long with Suzy? I knew I was one of the last to check in. Panic. Running. Was my gate one of the first you come to? Of course not. Panting, I arrived at the gate, brandishing my ticket. "Ah, Miss Wilby, thank you for coming up. We can offer you an aisle seat, if you prefer?" Thanks for the scare, Singapore Airlines. In the end, I got a window seat next to a lovely Chinese couple. If you have read any previous blogs, you will know 'lovely' means that we exchanged less words than fingers on my hand in the whole 7.5 hours.
After an uneventful stopover in Singapore, with enough spare time to refuel, rehydrate and charge my phone, I boarded the connection to Sulawesi with no hassle and found myself with a row to myself. Oh yeah.
On arrival at Manado "International" Airport, I queued to get my Visa on Arrival. "CASH ONLY". Crap. I asked the lady what to do. She helpfully shrugged. I went down to customs and politely asked an officer to escort me through customs to the ATM's that are, of course, outside. He understood immediately, and off we went. No, I am just kidding. He didn't speak English. I talked and gestured for many minutes, before he cottoned on and took me through, pointed at the ATM and disappeared. Part of me wanted to run, just because I could have. But I didn't. I got out 100,000 rupiah and went back through, sweat making my Havaianas slippery. My warm travel clothes were cloying. Up I went, back upstairs to the lady, and handed her the money.
"No, not enough." What? What. It's a hundred grand. I went back to my exchange app. 100,000 = $10. Great. Downstairs, different guy, same extended, gesticulating conversation. Out to ATM, thought of running again, got 1.5 million rupiah, for safety. Back through customs, officers pointing and laughing at me. Upstairs. Success! Down to actually go through customs for a stamp, and finally making it officially into the country.
My driver picked me up and made a joke about what an honour it was to pick up Victoria "Beckham", and that in the morning he had picked up Jennifer "Lopez". The drive was long - an hour and half on tiny, badly maintained and busy roads, that I later found out was the main way to go.
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| Manado at the top, with Tondano to the left - about a 40 min drive from Tasikoki. |
Eventually I made it to PPS Tasikoki, in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. A huge area of tropical rainforest gave way to a lovely guest house perched on the hill, with a tower for view perusal.
I went inside and noone was there. A teeny Indonesian lady pointed at a bed and put a sheet on it, so I set about unpacking. Around 3, one of the volunteers came in and I peppered the poor girl with questions, and then I met the other two. Brooke was a faithful regular, Linden had been there a week, and Jennifer had arrived that morning. Later, Angela and Simon introduced themselves, the married couple that run the centre, and I met Billy and Selina, two locals that work there and speak excellent English.
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| Our room. |
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| My bed on the left. |
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| Common/food area. |
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| Views from the tower... |
After an early night and my one sleep in, work started at 9am, after a rice-based breakfast. Brooke headed into the 'city' to the hospital where her boyfriend was getting treatment for her broken arm, and Linden showed us the animals and the ropes.
The working days all blend into one, but here is a general description of a 'typical' day, at least while I was there.
6am - up and at 'em. Surprisingly, this wasn't that hard. We got early nights, and I only actually needed my alarm once. We would head out into the jungle to collect 'browse'. Sometimes Billy would drive in the car and we could cover more places and a wider variety, if not, we would unlock 'Wonderland' - an area of the forest with abundant trees and grass, and one white cow. The idea behind the browse was to simulate a natural eating habit in the primates - forcing them to pick through a wide range of green mess to find what they liked to eat, compared to the keeper feed, which was all edible. This was hot, hard and heavy work, and I dripped through the task despite the early hour and "cooler" temperatures.
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The browse was bundled up into about 50ish parcels for easy distribution, and given out to the macaques, masks on to prevent transmitting diseases to the monkeys.
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There were 3 key areas. the solitary monkees were fed first - the most in need of stimulation in their tiny cages. Around the back, small groups in haphazard cages were fed second, usually placing the greenery on the roof or just outside the cage on the floor, for something different, and then the big families and the bachelor pad.
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7.30 - breakfast. Always rice, always fruit (omg, the fruit!). Twice, we got pancakes - they were incredible. Really dense, and a dark brown, they were apparently slow cooked over a two hour period. They were so filling it was a struggle to get through one. We ate them with this homemade peanut butter, that was, like, the best thing ever. So fetch.
After breakfast, we foraged more fruit and leaves if we needed to, sometimes adding other treats to the bags - like huge leaves and these hanging roots ('jungle string') to make food parcels from. Then we created interesting and stimulating ways of distributing food to the animals, starting with the Orangutans.
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| Bento |
Is
Favourites of mine were using the water gun filled with a honey-water mix, huge parcels thrown on the roof, to encourage climbing, or bottles filled with food and marmite-water and then frozen. We made fishing rods to dangle the rood and played catching games. By the time I left, Is - the more interactive one, could read my pointing signal to help distinguish the different types of throws - a high lob or a more direct throw.
We distributed frozen enrichments made the day before to the birds, longtails and, if time, the macaques, before making more to freeze for the next day. Often these were ice cubes, parcels, seed pods, or bamboo straws filled with a variety of ingredients.
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| Longtail macaques (6 total) |
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| Babirusa pigs - critically endangered. The male is even uglier. |
Lunch at 11.30. Starving. Rice, samabl (delicious spicy salsa-like condiment that I was never quite cautious enough with) and some form of veges. All the food was vegan, apart from eggs, a couple of times.
The afternoon began with the Cleaning of the Bears.
There were two sunbears. They are the cutest things. They are about the same size and appearance of young Newfoundlands. Except their log-destroying claws which are as big as my fingers. Step 1: Clean the small cage and distribute the most enticing enrichment we can think of. Step 2: LOCK. Step 3: open the doors to let the bears in, excited to eat whatever we had made. Step 4: LOCK. Step 5: Remove poop and food scraps from big enclosure. Step 6: Creatively hide fresh fruit. Hose down bears tummies if they are getting angsty in the small cage and trying to kill each other. Jump on spot to avoid biting ants climbing up your whole body. Step 7: LOCK. Step 8: Transfer bears, excited to find and eat the fresh fruit. (note: don't make enrichments too exciting that they don't want to leave.) Step 9. LOCK, and observe.
4.00 - crawl up hill (once we went swimming - below) to relax before dinner (rice), and cards, games and socialising until bedtime around 8.30/9.
 
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Work anecdotes of note:
- We found a cashew tree. It is a big red fruit that looks like a capsicum, that hangs with the cashew growing out of the bottom. Who knew!
- Day 6 - the American Ambassador for Indonesia visited (his daughter did not want to help pick up bear poo.) to help push through local legislation to help protect the endemic wildlife. For the days prior, there were cleaners everywhere cleaning up the jungle. I saw one guy clearing up leaves from under trees. No joke. The ones cleaning enclosures, gutters and the road made more sense, but the guy sweeping the jungle floor was pretty funny.
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| Ambassador is second from the right in blue/purple. |
- We had a massive rainstorm one night. Simon turned our entry light on to collect termite queens that emerge during the wet to colonise new rotten logs. I wish I had taken a picture. There were, quite literally, thousands. You couldn't see the floor. The bears went nuts the next day when we hid them in big bamboo logs (ew - worst job of the trip).
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| From left - Jen, Alyssa, me, Linden, Callum, Mark, and Lista at the front. |
- During my last week, 4 new people (above) arrived to volunteer, and this opened up the scope of jobs to do - we began 'interior decorating'. Teams would carry on usual activities as others cleaned and reorganised the vacant enclosures before the animals were swapped over - hiding food and putting new logs and branches in. It was hard, hot work, and the primates were excellent at ruining it in the most alarmingly fast fashion.
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| Raking poop, rotten food and mud out of the pond before draining. *retch* *hurl* |
- On my last day, I was asked to restore some paintings in the education centre and contribute my own. I painted the endemic species of monitor lizard, and considering that I haven't earnestly painted or drawn in any detail since I was in high school, I was quite proud of my work. I didn't quite finish, but got up early enough before my flight to add the detail needed.
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| Restored lowland anoa. |
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We got 4 days off - unprecedented, but gratefully taken. The first day off, we decided to hire a driver and explore the local area, specifically Tomohon and Tondano - nearby towns. After a long drive, we came to a volcano.
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| My trip buddies - Linden on the left and Jennifer on the right. |
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| The steep walk up (drip..drip..) ended in a great view of the slightly smoking crater, and not much else - it was high up in the clouds. |
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We headed downhill for lunch - at Chinese restaurant Green Garden. Apart from the injection of some seafood into my vegan diet, and the cut I am pretty sure the driver took for taking us there, the only thing of note was the view to the volcano - it was very odd to see something so tall, that was green all the way to the top - the trees and grasses not giving way to tussock and barren rock.
We drove through the city after lunch - taking in the local culture from our air conditioned vehicle. We stopped at some natural hot springs that are used for bathing by locals - I walked too far around the divider - so many naked women, all at once. My eyes... We saw the building grounds for traditional houses, and more scenery.
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All up, it was a great overview of the area and people, but it was a very long time secluded in the car, and not doing that much, really. It was not my favourite day out.
My favourite was taking a boat out snorkelling.
We headed to Lembeh Straight - a section of ocean close to Tasikoki. We were the only ones on the boat (off season) and we got the 'volunteer discount'. It was an average day - but the rain made it pretty great for snorkelling. We went out twice before lunch (included in price) and once again after.
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The first time we followed a sea wall close to the shore - hands down the best I have seen as an adult. So many different types of creatures - well preserved. I was worried about rubbish - but only saw a few pieces. Unfortunately my snorkel was completely broken - so i just used my mask, taking deep breaths. It was endlessly frustrating.
After the first hour out, we headed to the main boat for a rest, and the lady at the office had promised cookies. There were no cookies. We headed to the mouth of the straight, me with a new snorkel in hand. This one was only slightly broken - I could get away with about 5 breaths before I needed to empty it, and I got pretty good at blowing hard to clear it out the top, rather than come up for air (good ab workout). The fish were more spread out and less plentiful here. Some sweet masses of coral, but unexciting in colour and dotted over fairly boring sandy areas. Huge colonies of sea urchins were the most fascinating of this trip, and I studied them for a while - if you look long enough, you can see them moving gently, trying to stab the fish. Heading back to the little boat that ferried back and forth from the big one, I practised my flips and diving, as I waited for the other two.
Lunch was a delight - satay chicken sticks. Oh yes. Mmmm flesh of creatures, how I had missed thee. After a big break, two of us headed back out - Linden was seasick. Jennifer was diving, so I was a lone snorkeler. As the boat slowed down, I became apprehensive. We were right in a little village dock - surrounded by boats. I could see floating rubbish, and the water was tinged with brown. I took my third snorkel, and eased in. Following the path of the divers, we headed further in. The water did not look clean. Considering how much seawater had filled my mouth the last two trips, I was not happy, but luckily my snorkel, finally, seemed to be perfect. Soon, we came to a huge mooring rope for one of the bigger boats. If I was to see anything, I had to dive under the rope. I desperately did not want my snorkel filling with the water, so after dithering around for a couple of minutes, the dive guide gesturing me on impatiently from below, I took a deep breath, dove and blew hard through the snorkel as I went. Surfacing - it worked. Relief. I carried on, to unimpressive views muddled with a heap of rubbish. It wasn't long before the divers disappeared into the murk. Still uneasy, I slowly made my way back to the boat, after only about 10 minutes of the allotted 1 hour, careful not to go fast and splash the water into my snorkel. I dived under the dreaded rope again and the boat was in view. Suddenly, in front of my face - BAM - jellyfish. About the size of my fist. All clear and cartoon-ghost shaped with little pink splotches on the inside. It hit my upper lip and it hurt. I know next to nothing about jellyfish, and had no idea if I was in trouble from the sting or not. I carried on even more cautiously, my unease growing to heights unknown to me before, as I am very confident in water. The last 20m to the boat to forever - I was looking around so much and swimming so slowly, at one point, I went backwards with the current. I decided to get over it, and pushed through. I saw heaps of little tiny jellyfish, that I avoided and two more big ones - one the same as before, right next to an odd eel shaped, but clear, one. Gaining the boat was an intense relief. I surrendered my mask and flippers, thankful that the last snorkel had worked impeccably, and ruefully rubbed my lip. It didn't feel swollen, and stopped stinging after about 5 minutes. Then the rain started.
There haven't been too many times I have experienced rain like that. I felt wetter in the rain than I had in the water. It poured relentless as we waited for Jennifer and her guide to surface, heading back to the boat to clean off, and catch the taxi back to Tasikoki.
The taxi was one of the best parts. It was one of the only times I experienced, rather than viewed, the local culture. Little blue vans, door flung wide, whizzed up and down all the streets, carrying locals about. At night, they would flash neon lights and pump loud music out the doors. The steering wheel was a USA flag. It was quaint, slightly dangerous, and I loved it.
The next day off, we hunted out some local batik - pretty unsuccessfully. We stopped at a stunning waterfall, that was 1.5 hours out of our way. The time in the car really grated, but it was lovely.
Hitting Manado, we went to a place called Merciful Building, that was brimming with tourist souvenirs. I could get everything from "I Heart the Merlion" magnets, to an Aussie boomerang. I did find locally made masks painted in the style of batik, and that was enough. We had lunch on the waterfront, with an incredible view towards this island that was a classic triangular volcano, and nothing else.
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On the final day off, we were out of things to do, so Linden and I dropped Jennifer off at the airport, and headed to the mall for something different to eat, and to see a movie. Part of the movie was shot in Jakarta, and featured some dialogue in Indonesian, which was nice. And it had Chris Hemsworth, so you know, yum.
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| Legit. Sure. |
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| The picture doesn't do it justice - but this was actually a full power cut - a black out in the middle of the supermarket. It was daaark. |
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| hone fixing the lighting during the blackout. |
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| A mangled Statue of David - covered up for modesty, flanked the entrance to the mall. |
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| Good English explanation. |
Faster than I would have suspected, the two weeks was up, and I headed for the airport, feeling accomplished and satisfied with my experience. I handed my very last 150,000 rupiah to the driver, smug in the thought that I had managed my finances so well, checked in, and tried to go through customs. 100,000 departure tax. Nice. Out I went, to those dreaded ATM's from my very first day. A $7.50 surcharge to get out the equivalent of $10. I ground my teeth and got out $20 (200,000) and decided to treat myself to some food while waiting for the plane. |
As the plane banked around the top of Sulawesi, I felt for the first time in my travels that I had been as much of a benefit to a place, as it was to me, and it felt good.
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| Jennifer waking me up in a way that I SO appreciated, on one of our days off. |
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