Day 1: Back in the Field

Two weeks later and I found myself heading East again to do more river profiles. This time however, it was a lot more fun (oops! we were supposed to be working) and very memorable too.
The fact that I had to plan, make arrangements, and recruit a team for the whole thing in a matter of a few days was funny, but then it's cool do submit to spontaenity.

Let me introduce the team this time:

Vanny ~ the awesomest extreme 4WD driverYuLi ~ the daredevil
MrLin ~ the Guy

and of course, yours truly.

Oh yea, and there's *ahem* "Baby Snoopy" (whom for the rest of the trip had to succumb to our bullying just to drive Vanny crazy)

He sleeps a lot.

* * *

On the first day, we travelled down from KK at 3.30am so that we'll arrive in Telupid at 7am to meet Randy and Zaime, who handed over the DO meter and myriad of maps. Oh, and the VERY VERY IMPORTANT GPS points and routes.

Digressing a little, I realised that if it weren't for me and my work, the newly obtained GPS by the EnvSc Program would be under-utilised. Being an undergrad before, I know for a fact that the GPS will be brought to field; at the sampling point, the coordinates will be jotted down, and that's about it.

WE tracked our routes and if it weren't for the GPS we would have been terribly lost.

And yea, with technology fieldwork is a lot easier :)

So anyway, back to the first day:
We had a big car, an iPod full of songs. Things didn't get crazy till after we bade the ERE team farewell and made our jolly way to Karamuak and Tongod.

Upstream Karamuak was fun as it has a tagal, weir, so the water's quite shallow to wade around.

Although the water's colour is not so appealing, it's still very tempting to jump in and play around.

Then we continued our journey to upstream Tongod River.

Silly city kids got their big car stuck in mud omg.

See, there was this huge puddle in the middle of the road and we initially thought it's deep so we headed to the (wrong) side. We got stuck.

Thank goodness we had extra rope and there were these really helpful people who stopped and gave us aid. We were towed out by a Kementerian Kesihatan 4WD. So I guess the Ministry of Health does not only help the sick, but also those who are stuck ;)

It's funny sometimes to think that we go to all these trouble to get measurements just from ONE point.

The things people do in the name of research :)

That night we put up a night in the Telupid Resthouse again. Thing is, the Deathmarchers were also there so all the 'posh' rooms were fully booked. We had to opt for the dormitory-style rooms instead which was just as good. We had a room with four single beds, with air-con. The only slight downpoint was that the bathroom were common bathrooms and the Ladies one had no shower and very dim lights. We had our showers in the Men's bathroom instead, with ChinYik keeping a watch outside :)

Being up since 2am knocks everyone out cold by 9.30pm that night.