To old friends and new friends

There are very few things that are more rewarding to me than making someone smile. Sometimes it’s the more important the person is to me, the more rewarding making them smile is. Other times it’s the less they saw it coming that makes it more rewarding. Or the greater the effect it had on uplifting their mood. Or my personal favourite is when I can think of a way to make someone smile that only myself and the other person would understand, and that moment will always be unique to us.

One of the things that is more rewarding to me is when someone shows you that they recognize and appreciate something that you do for them, and they completely catch you off guard with it. One such moment happened in January on Teacher’s appreciation day.

The day started off like any regular Friday morning; pacing the assembly hall reminding students to tuck in their uniform, wishing others luck on the test they are cramming for last minute. And of course, just before the bell rings to begin the school day you have a few students baseball slide into line in order to avoid being late and receiving an after-school detention. As the Toronto Blue Jays have just kicked off their season I think they could take some pointers from my students about sliding into home plate.

But that was about all that was ordinary about that morning. After the announcements finished some music began and students began running to different positions in the gym and collecting all of the teachers and bringing us to the centre of the gym. What followed was a heavily practiced, entirely student organized, very well choreographed dance in a circle around us. To say that it wasn’t at least a little bit awkward at first would be a lie, but when the fear that we might be under attack subsided it was very enjoyable and touching. At one point there were two circles of students around us and the inner circle ran clockwise while the outer circle ran counterclockwise. I felt like I was in a centrifuge but fought the motion sickness so I wouldn’t have to look away from the dance the students had worked so hard to prepare for. At the end of the music the students presented all of the teachers with roses and one of the students said a few words of appreciation followed by a ground shaking round of applause from all the students. We left the assembly hall feeling very happy.

But the most thoughtful part was waiting on our desks for us when we arrived back in the teacher’s room.

15 months ago (wow time flies) when I was interviewing for international teaching jobs I was asked many times what I was like as a teacher and what my classroom would be like. I would make claims like I was extremely patient, caring and understanding. I was humourous and would make ever day a little bit more fun. And most of all that I would have an excellent rapport with my students. The only problem was I had never taught my own class before, I was just describing the teacher that I hoped to be.

Sitting down in my desk on teacher’s appreciation day and reading my card, it was the most incredible feeling that what stood out the most about me to my students was everything that I had hoped I would become as a teacher.

And hey, if none of those qualities are noticed by a few students, at least they can appreciate a nice slam-dunk when they see one. 

Another Winter Olympics, another pair of Canada hockey gold medals

Normally the Olympics are something I follow very closely and with extreme enthusiasm. Indonesia doesn’t quite share my passion for the Winter Olympics. Example, one of my students thought the Olympics were in Korea this year. I suppose Sochi could conceivably be the name of a city in Korea. But another student thought the Winter Olympics were in Myanmar, to which I cannot think of a reasonable defence for this confusion.

Indonesian television shares a similar disinterest for the Olympics but when Canada is in the gold medal game, all true Canadians will find a way to support their team. Fortunately for me my sister’s boyfriend was willing to Skype me during the game, and face the computer to the TV, so I could feel like I was watching the game on Canadian soil. 

A screen shot of how I watched Canada shut out the Swedes for the Gold

Physical Education and Health week

One week in early February marked physical activity and health week. Mostly this consisted of inter-grade sporting competitions, and a morning of aero kickboxing. But the highlight of the week was the healthy food competition. Students submitted their best efforts of a healthy food item that was easy to make, and one of the most important judging criteria was taste. This was an inter-house competition and as the housemaster of red house I was deemed to be in too biased a position to be on the judging panel. I disagree. I tried so hard to persuade, sweet talk, argue, more sweet talk and finally to beg my way onto the judging panel to no avail. Fortunately there was plenty of food for all and I got to experience first hand the masterpieces of all of the talented chefs that I teach.

Yellow house with their healthy shake, and last minute effort at a sandwich only a mother could love

Green house (the eventual champions of the competition) with their diverse array of submissions 

Red house (my house) with the winning dish for the individual challenge

A feast fit for a king! 

This food competition has revolutionized the way I assess my student’s knowledge of biology. Here is a glimpse at my unit plans for the next few chapters:

Unit: digestion

Topics: The alimentary canal, macromolecules, mechanical and chemical digestion

Final assessment: Make a delicious food item for Mr. Trevor and write a two page report explaining the steps involved in digestion when he eats it.

Unit: Infectious disease and immunity

Topics: prevention and control of infection disease, the immune system

Final assessment: Make a delicious food item for Mr. Trevor and write a one page report on how the safe food handling and cooking methods you used to make it for him will help to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria.

You get the gist, I will be eating very well until I retire from teaching.

Camp Rock, the musical

My school year is divided into four terms of 10 weeks and term three is by far the busiest. This is in large part due to the fact that close to 50% of our students are involved in the annual musical that our school puts on. Two years ago the school performed Mulan. I confess that this was one of the first things that caught my eye about Bina Bangsa School back at the job fair oh so long ago. Last year was the 10^th anniversary of the school so they wrote their own musical called “This is our story”. This year they decided on Camp Rock. I think it’s a Jonas brother’s movie. To give an example of how legitimate these shows are the school actually purchased the rights to perform the show from a Broadway company in New York.

It would be an understatement to say that I was blown away by the acting, singing and performance the kids put on. It was incredible.

This is one of my wonderful secretary friends Cynthia and I in our Camp Rock Swag

 Did I mention every song in the musical was performed live by our band?

At one point in the musical the actors were asked to point to their favourite teacher. . . 

Now you know where my seat was :P

A very, very relieved cast after the show

 Our male and female leads speaking to the media

Grade 10 and 12 pre-exam camp

The school system I teach in is very exam intensive. It is difficult to count but I think the grade 10s will write 22 exams in May and June. Which means they will also write all of these preliminary exams in April, and have been taking all of these practice exams throughout March. The grade 12 students don’t have it any easier. One thing that our school does right before the term break is put on an overnight camp for the grade 10s and 12s. The goal is for the students to have some fun, bond with each other and their teachers, and hopefully if all goes well they will leave the camp motivated to study hard for their upcoming exams and believing that together we can succeed.

A strange thing happened in the week leading up to the camp. About 50% of our teachers, including our principal, and about 40% of our students got sick. Some sort of bug causing a nasty cough and fever was going around. I was a little worried they were all being turned into zombies. Since when teachers are absent other teachers who aren’t sick cover their classes, I estimated we were about 2 or 3 teachers away from having to cancel school for a few days. I had a very good reason not to get sick so through shear determination and a daily dose of about 6000% of my daily recommended vitamin C I was able to escape the zombie plague unaffected.

As a consequence of being one of the few healthy teachers remaining I was able to make all of the decisions about the itinerary of the camp. And as a result there was evidence throughout the camp that I was the decision maker . . .

For the biology portion of the camp we made homemade ice cream

 Students got creative with ways to shake the bag without getting their hands too cold

Some of the girls were able to trick the boys into shaking their bags for them so their hands wouldn't get cold at all. 

It seems I have a few things I still need to teach these boys

For the movie portion we watched my favourite movie

For dinner we had an awesome BBQ

And in the evening we played my favourite game.

I think everyone had a great time?

Now, on to the reason I was able to will away the Zombie disease that was infecting the school.

Since November I had flights booked to Thailand on March 22^nd to visit a couple of my best friends for the weeklong term break. On a side note, if you are under the impression that best friend is a person that is incorrect. Best friend is a tier and my use of the plural is correct. Many things in life don’t always go as planned, and in Indonesia, things never go as planned. Due to visa issues I was told I was unable to leave the country at this time. Despite my best attempts at it, sulking and complaining wasn’t helping my situation so I finally sucked it up and emailed my friends to inform them I would be unable to join them in Thailand. Within 30 minutes of sending the email I was on Skype with one of my friends, and by the next day all flights had been redirected to Indonesia. That is why these guys belong on that best friend tier I talked about.

Meet Lucas, my partner in crime. 

Everyone has that one friend or sibling with whom they can finish each other’s thoughts. Lucas and I have an eerie ability to read each other and think what the other person is thinking with such subtlety that most people wouldn’t notice the exchange of information that has taken place. At one point on this Bali trip (at Soma Soma, the Reggae bar I mentioned back in August) Lucas and I intuitively and instinctively did an improv synchronized dance routine. Not only did we both spontaneously decide we would do this, but I’d like to believe we put on a pretty good performance. Although, in fairness it may have been absolutely awful from an outside observer, but I am basing its quality on how much fun we had doing it.

Meet Cole, my partner in travel. 

Cole and I have visited a whopping seven countries together (I’ve only been to nine) including Canada, US, Dominican, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and now Indonesia. Eight countries if you count Montreal. Cole and I have shared a number of cultural/language barrier experiences that are so confusing that we could never begin to explain them to someone else. Most memorable was our 36-hour transit by boat, bus, car, minivan, and more boats from Belize, through Guatemala and onto Honduras, through three currencies of unknown value to us, and almost entirely in Spanish and the universal language of charades. At one point we accidentally crossed the Guatemalan border without going through customs, and it wasn’t until we got on the bus on the other side when someone overheard us saying “I thought we would have needed to talk to customs or get our passport stamped” before we realized we needed to run back and enter Guatemala the much more legal (and slower) way of entering a country.

These are my best friends. There are 3 more of them out there currently in Toronto, British Columbia, and Colombia (real Colombia). Lucas and Cole are in Australia and Calgary respectively so we are nice and spread out across 3 provinces and 4 continents. But I’ve learned that the strength of a friendship is not determined by proximity, and our current living situations gives us all a reason to travel the world.

I can’t share too much about my Bali trip because 1) None of us took any photos and 2) Let’s just say my students and grandparents read this.

This photo should give a reasonable picture of how great a time we had

The highly fashionable, paten pending shirt hat 

Cole and Lucas both had one of their friends from high school join us for our trip. Both girls and both had so much to bring to the table. Both also had cameras, which serves as the only evidence that any of us were even in Bali.

The blonde with the shades on is Ali from Calgary. Ali made the excellent life decision of getting her scuba certification while in Bali. She also performed one of the least graceful back roll entries off a boat in the history of diving. She has permanently left her legacy on Gili Trawangan by breaking the girl’s record for a challenge that one of the bars had. For comparison I scored 3^rd for the boys and she shattered my time.

Directly on my right is Kaitlyn from New York. Like Ali, a very cool girl, with impressive sports knowledge and a strong passion for travel and culture. She’s been living in Australia since November and is currently travelling through much of Asia. Its always interesting for me to find out what motivates other people to travel and Kaitlyn and I spent lots of time sharing travel stories of our favourite countries, where you can find the most beautiful sunsets, the best food and what our dream destination is. Not bad considering she’s American.

I think I would like to share in every blog post what my current top next destination is. After October I was certain I would visit Canada in June and Australia in August or visa versa. In November I was without a doubt going to India and the Maldives in August. After December I was eagerly awaiting my trip to Thailand in March (visa issues *shaking fist). Currently in 2014 I plan to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos. The only part that seems uncertain to me is who I will be able to convince to join me. (Direct shout out to Adonis - See you in Thailand in June)

Singapore, Chinese New Year and Borneo (Orangutans!)

If my memory serves me correctly I have been on 36 different flights so far in my life time, 17 of which have been since my departure from Canada for Indonesia in June 2013. At 68 years of age my dad had never been on an airplane before. That was until one week ago when he boarded a plane for the first time with my half-brother Ian and fulfilled his lifelong goal of visiting the Grand Canyon. I suppose a short flight to Vegas is the first step towards taking the day long journey of coming to visit me in Indonesia. The Grand Canyon looks spectacular and all, but with his admiration of beautiful, natural landscapes, Indonesia will certainly be a country my dad will enjoy seeing.

Bill and Ian at the Grand Canyon

My Dad also had another first as this was the first photo of him ever to make it on facebook. It currently has 104 likes. Not many people can say every photo of them on facebook has over 100 likes!

After a wonderful, and very cold, visit to Canada I arrived in Indonesia and very quickly encountered my old nemesis. . . jet lag. In my experience jet lag is not simply just being very tired, or having trouble sleeping but it is the feeling of opening your eyes when you wake up and you've never felt more awake. Your body has decided that it is morning time and there is nothing you could do to go back to sleep, regardless of what time it is. When I first came to Indonesia in June my "jet lag it is now morning" time was around 4:30am. This was manageable. This time around my body had decided my mornings would begin at midnight. For the first few days my typical day would start at midnight, by about 6am as the sun was rising I'd be ready for some lunch, and at around 5pm I would collapse for the night. Fortunately this only lasted for 3 days. 

Global Youth Summit in Singapore:

Very little time was wasted getting back into another adventure as after one day of teaching, and a one day national holiday I departed to Singapore for five days to supervise a field trip. Some people would find waking up at 4 in the morning to be unbearable. Most people would find supervising 31 children unbearable. Everyone finds airports unbearable. But what I find most unbearable is supervising 31 children at an airport at 4 in the morning. Its a wonder I didn't lose a passport, or a student in the mayhem that ensued. 

Checking everyone in for the trip to Singapore

The Global Youth Summit is a youth-led platform for students to network, discuss and initiate innovation for sustainable solutions to protect children, fresh water and the natural environment from further destruction. These are not my own words, I stole them from a sign at the summit.

In my own words, I would describe the Global Youth Summit as an environmental conference with over 350 students from 12 different countries. 10 of the countries were Asian nations (Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, China, Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar and Brunei) but one school from Australia participated and one school joined us all the way from Oman. 

Two students from Oman dressed in their traditional attire

The GYS consisted of several very educational and interesting day trips to:

A landfill, on top of Islands that had been built using incinerated and compacted waste,

The Singaporean NewWater plant where recycled water from industry, household drains, and even toilets is processed and made into "New water", which currently meets 30% of Singapore's water needs. 

An incineration plant, which I didn't go to, and the marina barrage which provides water storage, flood control and recreation. 

A model of the marina barrage

In addition to the field trips there were lots of opportunities for students to make new friends and discuss environmental issues with students from other countries. 

A photo of all of the Indonesian students in attendance

There were also many, many talks/presentations from various environmental experts. 

I snapped a photo of me catching one of my students taking a nap during one of the presentations

Then I snapped a photo of one of my students catching me snapping a photo of me catching him taking a nap during one of the presentations 

This very innocent looking expression on my face is how I was always able to stay out of trouble as a kid. He clearly suspects nothing.

There was a lot of media coverage of the event. Magazines and TV stations from several different countries were in attendance to film parts of the conference, and interview some of the participants. Several of my students became instant celebrities being asked to participate in several interviews. 

Answering questions for a magazine from Indonesia

And a magazine from Singapore

The conference was not just about education, but was also about taking action. All schools were required to design projects to address the major environmental issues in their home countries. The projects must be something they could launch in their local community, be sustainable, and have a large, positive impact on the environment. Students then had to present their ideas in front of a panel of judges and an audience of around 500 people. The top 3 teams from the junior and senior categories were then given funding (a total of around $8000 was awarded) to launch their projects. 

Students from my school bravely spoke in front of this large audience (something that makes me nervous to think about doing) and presented their ideas.

The Junior students presented their idea called "Go Green Bina Bangsa" of making tissue boxes out of 100% recycled material.

And the Senior team presented their project called "Dream Green Indonesia" of collecting used water bottles and bringing these to a recycling plant which can use the plastic to melt down and make into blankets. These blankets would then be donated to those in need. 

Very proud of my students for their great public speaking skills, and excellent ideas in their recycling initiatives.

Some additional highlights for me included meeting a teacher from Malaysia who studied for four year at my University, Queen's University in Canada. It was interesting that we lived in the same city for 4 years in Canada, then she went home to Malaysia and I moved to Indonesia, and it was at a conference in Singapore that we met. 

In order to charge my phone I needed to convert to the electricity of several different countries. . . 

During the first day of the conference the mc asked me my name, where I was from and in front of 500 people told me I look like hercules. Its not every day someone tells you that you look like a Greek god but I am always willing to accept a compliment.

Several weeks later at the movies I had the unfortunately realization that he didn't think a looked like a Greek god at all, rather that I looked similar to the actor in the new movie The Legend of Hercules.

An interesting experience

Do you remember what a bank book is? That little booklet that you use to have to take to the bank to record your bank balance before the ages of debit cards and online banking? Think hard, it was probably 15 years ago that you last saw one.

I recently misplaced my Indonesian bank book, which is the only way I can access the money in my Indonesian account. The way I saw it I had two options. I could either A) wait for the technology to catch up and for bank books to become moot (couldn't be more than a few months away), or B) get a new one. I chose option B, but now I think option A may have been the better choice.

Contrary to popular belief that if you lose your bank book you need to go to the bank to get a new one, I was shocked to find out that if you lose your bank book you need to go to the police station. Instead of trying to explain the procedure, which I can't, I'll just describe what I had to do.

I drove my motorcycle, with one of the members of the school's support staff on the back, to the police station. I needed this man to speak Bahasa Indonesian for me at the police station. As soon as I saw the police station I pulled over and we switched who was driving. Why you might ask? I don't exactly have a license to be driving my motorcycle, so driving it into the parking lot of the police station didn't seem like a very good idea. (If you think this is bad, then I won't tell you how many of my students drive without a license or have bribed their way into a license as they are not yet old enough to have a driver's license.) We then went into the police station to report my bank book lost.

The officer chain smoked throughout our chat. His computer was manufactured in 2001. It is the closest computer I've ever seen to having lived through the Y2K scare. Before he would grant me permission to have lost my bank book and get a new one I had to slip him an envelope with cash in it. He opened the envelope and slipped the money into his breast pocket, which I could see already had quite a large collection of money in it. It must have been a good day of taking bribes for him so far. The second reason that I brought a local to the police station with me was that the size of the bribe would have been significantly larger had a foreigner shown up alone with the request.

With the officer's written permission, and his personal phone number in case the bank had any questions, I was able to leave this rather interesting experience with a new bank book.

Chinese New Year

The end of January marked Chinese New Year which for me meant a celebration at the school filled with traditional Chinese clothing, student and guest performances, and at the end of the festivities - a 4 and a half day weekend!

Some lions (dragons?) came to our school to do some cool dance moves

Students dressed in their Chinese apparel. 

My Canada Olympic apparel was the best I could come up with. 

Our staff of Chinese language teachers helped organize a pretty cool day for the teachers and kids. Unfortunately most of it took place in Chinese, which meant I spent most of the time very confused.

Borneo - Tanjung Puting National Park

After the Chinese New Year celebration it was time to fly to the Island of Bornea for the long weekend. Borneo is the third largest island in the world, and the largest in Asia. Three quarters of it is part of Indonesia, one quarter is part of Malaysia and about 1% of it is part of Brunei. It is the only place in the world where the endangered proboscis monkey is found (photos to come) and is one of only two places in the world (the other being another Indonesian island) where orangutans live (also photos to come). Zoos don't count. 

The world's most famous orangutan researcher Birute Galdikas (yes, that is a person's name) spent 30 years on this island researching orangutans. She is what Jane Goodall is to chimpanzee research, and what Diane Fossey is to gorilla research. Infact, the three of these ladies are nicknamed "The Trimates" and all three of them shared the same mentor. She was born in Germany but grew up in Toronto, Canada! Consider the fact that orangutans are found on only two islands in the whole world yet almost everyone in the world knows what they are. This is in part thanks to her research, conservation efforts and making globally aware the fact that this species is endangered due to deforestation causing habitat destruction. In particular Birute would rescue captive orangutans, raise them, and re-release them into the jungle in Borneo. She has been on the cover of National Geographic magazine twice. Genetically, orangutans are our third closest living relative and they are magnificent creatures. 

Check out this trailer of a documentary Warner Brothers and Imax made, narrated by Morgan Freeman, about orangutans and largely following Birute's life work of trying to save this species. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chDeyAHI4ck

This amazing experience began with chartering our own boat (I went with Jeremy and Kassandra, a couple living/teaching in Jakarta who I have travelled to Bali with). The three of us had a whole boat to ourselves which would be our home for the next three days. The only time we left the boat was to venture into the jungle to see primates. Our ship came with a captain, a guide to take us into the jungle, a chef, and a 4th crew member whose duties we never figured out. 

Neither of these yachts were our boat. . . 

We stayed on a more modest ship but it was comfortable and perfect for navigating the narrow rivers in the jungle. 

At night time mattresses were brought up from below deck and mosquito nets were set up to protect us from mosquitos and who knows what else. 

Recognizing how much a cold beer would add to the relaxing environment we were heading into we inquired about bringing some beer out with us. The owner of the boat informed us that alcohol had been banned on this island recently due to too much trouble resulting from the consumption of alcohol. Bummer. . .

Fortunately for us we were in Indonesia and the words "illegal" or "banned" are synonyms for "it'll cost you a little bit extra". As the island is quite a popular tourist destination no time was wasted after the ban in setting up a black market where alcohol is shipped up from Bali and sold at an additional dollar a bottle. We were reassured by the owner of the boat that it was perfectly ok for us to be using the black market. If a police officer caught us, he would have no interest in getting us in trouble with the law, we would just have to make sure he makes a small profit from the crime as well. 

Similarly we were bummed to find out that fishing in the river was illegal. This time "illegal" was code for "only fish at night time".  

This trip was full of many firsts for me, particularly when it came to seeing wildlife. Before our boat even left we spotted a mudskipper.

Now, to travel for hours down a river, in crocodile, monitor lizard and snakehead fish infested water, surrounded on both sides by jungle filled with endangered species of monkeys, rare tropical birds and tropical plants, all in an effort to reach the end destination of Tanjung Puting National Park to see orangutans. . . 

Let's do it!

Kassandra, Jeremy and myself in the jungle in Borneo

It was not long until we began to spot rustling in the trees and stopped the boat, grabbed our cameras and binoculars and held our breaths in hopes of what we might be about to see.

The proboscis monkey is very easy to identify, thanks to its very distinct nose. I'll let you decide for yourself what you think its nose looks like. These monkeys are endangered (again mostly because of habitat destruction through deforestation) but I wouldn't have guessed that to be true based on the hundreds that we saw.

Each group has one dominant male with a harem of females

We saw 3 additional species of primates that I was unable to photograph including macaques, short tailed macaques (which had a pig nose and are carnivorous, hunting animals ranging from rabbits to deer), and the maroon leaf monkey, the Presbytis rubicunda.

The only time we left our boat was when we arrived at the orangutan feeding stations and we walked through the jungle to get to them.

Our guide leading us to the first orangutan feeding station of our trip

When we got to the feeding station we were greeted by this pretty redheaded girl:

you can watch myself, and this orangutan at the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi competing in the newest olympic event, synchronized tree swinging

At the next feeding station we arrived before the food was put out, and this allowed us to spot the orangutans off in the distance and watch them move through the trees. 

On our walk to the station I was able to see a plant I had never seen before, the pitcher plant. 

This plant has modified leaves that allow it to trap insects such as ants in its "pitchers". The walls of the pitchers are slippery so the ants cannot escape, and the ant will drown in the water that has collected in the pitcher from rain. The ant will then be digested by the plant to help meet the mineral requirements of the plant. 

Leave only footprints, take only "pitchers"

Before the orangutans arrive there is another animal that likes to steal a quick meal. 

It turns out sneakiness is a universal trait for squirrels. 

It was really cool watching how gracefully orangutans can move through the trees. They have such incredible control over their weight distribution, being able to balance perfectly on a branch or small tree one moment, then shifting their weight to cause the tree to bend in the direction of the next branch they want to swing to.

I suppose a long day of swinging through the trees can really work up an appetite

At night we ventured through the jungle in search of tarantulas. We didn't find any, but I guess that also means that the the tarantulas didn't find us. We were able to see one species of crocodile though, the false gharial, which is also classified as endangered. 

Croc and I comparing our teeth

After a relaxing, very eventful first day and a half in the jungle seeing so many cool animals, it was impossible to believe that the best was still yet to come. 

We had arrived at Tanjung Puting National Park, and the research station where Birute Galdikas had done her life work. 

This is the house where Professer Galdikas lived for 30 years as she did her research

As many of the orangutans here were raised by Birute herself before being re-released back into the wild they were very tame and accustomed to people.

On the path to the feeding station a mother and her child were just hanging out offering directions to lost tourists for a small fee of one banana

Myself, Jeremy and orangutans

Some orangutans came close enough for a selfie

My favourite primate from the trip was definitely the gibbons, which is technically an ape although it looks just like a monkey to me which puts my biology expertise to the test. This animal has incredibly long arms and as a result must awkwardly hold them in the air when it runs so they don't drag on the ground, which is incredibly entertaining. Their long arms however make them incredibly fast swinging from branch to branch in the trees, which is also very entertaining to watch. 

The gibbons and baby orangutans sharing the milk

With my quick wit and great sense of humour I pointed to this building and joked "did the orangutans paint that building?". To which our guide replied "yes". 

Apparently they had painted it without permission though. My favourite story however was that since orangutans cannot swim they would steal the canoes and paddle themselves across the river. This was a problem because the orangutans would abandon the canoes downstream and the researchers would have trouble keeping track of their canoes. To prevent this from happening the researchers would sink the canoes in the shallow water with rocks so the orangutans couldn't use them. The orangutans were strong enough and smart enough to lift them out of the water, empty them, then proceed on their journey across the river. 

Although most of the primates remained in the jungle, for these three monkeys it was time to return home until the next adventure. What will the next adventure be?

My flights are booked to Thailand in March.

See you there Lucas and Cole