Time Flies

The days on this trip are melting away, but I have made some observations over the week...

This trip has been a mixture of success and failure. I failed to complete the Jungle Walk because it was too steep at the beginning. I felt pathetic and worthless following that little problem but, as we say in re-enactment, suck it up princess. I struggled for a bit, but with support from home (god bless the internet and Facebook!) I picked up again.

I have some photos,which have no specific category but things that have caught my attention over the last few days...

This gentleman is the resident musician and he also does a mean doorbell impression - whenever there is a new arrival (or he is bored) he cranks out a tune on the bonang...I remember a kids TV show that had, when the doorbell rang, this annoying refrain of 'There's somebody at the door, there's somebody at the door...etc' - and I now find myself singing this every time I hear the bonang chime...

An impulse buy before setting off was my first pair of jelly shoes for swimming and sea paddling. They are very practical and meet the requirement, especially as the hot sun heats the ground and sand to a blistering temperature - and are a pretty purple...

The man who pays the piper calls the tune...and these two members of staff must have drawn the short straw...it's 33C in the shade and they are dressed as bunnies to give away ice creams around the pool. I was thrilled, initially, to receive a purple lolly - only to discover I do not like yam flavoured ice cream...!

When one's gardeners have to tend the palm trees, they need a bigger scythe - say hello to their leetle friend! I watched, fascinated, as these gardeners carefully manoeuvred this extremely long palm scythe around the pool and into the garden...

We are not the only country with this new Monopoly money made of plastic - Borneo also has new notes, complete with see through bit. While the new notes are shiny and clever, as at home I have a deep seated preference for the old notes....but then I still miss the green pound note ;-)

Even the moths are big here; this is, I think, a sphinx moth I found while talking to the excursions clerk. She trilled 'take a picture, take a picture!' - so I did...fricken huge thing about two inches long...
Postscript to this bit, when coming 'home' last night my neck itched and when I scratched at it something huge and papery flew into my hand and then veered off, crashed into the ceiling of my room and ended up on the ledge out of reach...it fluttered and rustled periodically and very spookily last night until I fell asleep. I think it perished as it has been silent since...

So that brings us to day seven and the main reason I came to Borneo...more tomorrow.