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Trip Start Jan 04, 2008 Previous
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  Taiping, Malaysia, Malaysia
Friday, January 11, 2008

Well, hello! This is likely to be a short entry as this is a quick visit into town after work to find some accomm for our long w/e in Penang -Sat- Tues. Time off all ready?! I hear you say. This will effectively be our 2 w/es put together to allow us a decent bit of time off a distance away. (I've just noticed as I'm sittting here I absolutely honk of sweat -charming I know. Mind you worse still the room Barbara and I are sharing began to smell of Orangs last nite-bit of a worry!)
The zoo is great and the orangs varied. Wasabi a girl of 5 is lovely  and great to play with altho even at 5 she's quite strong and you need your wits about you. Heaven and Pudding are 2 older girls and Pudding is a bit of a psycho  -not to be toyed with, but Heaven is lovely. Hassan, an older chap is ok too but a bit poorly at the mo as he had to have a finger amputated.
Our routine at the zoo is to clear the outside Orang area of leaves , old food etc, then clean their nite accomm -quite smelly (mind you hark who's talking!) We clear out old food and poo, then hose down with water, scrub with disinfectant, hose again and then squuegy all the left over water out. We then change drinking water and put food out. In our area we also have Tamarinds, marmosets, leopard cats (one was dead the other morning  -the other 2 had killed it) and Amy the beautiful black and white Lemur! We also feed the otters (3), they're in a big area with some large birds and their food mix includes fish, prawns and maggots -yum!  -so smelly hands if you get lumbered with  fish!
Our accomm is a nice little house ablut 15-20 mins walk from the zoo where we have to be at 7.50am ready for work at 8am. 8-10 is cleaning, 10-11 is feeding, 11.00-11.30 break, 11.30-12.30 various 12.30-2pm lunch. After lunch every day we do enrichment work (for the animals that is not us!) Tuesday we plaited ropes for the orangs and the lions to play with, yesterday we sewed food into hessian sacks for the orangs and the sunbears and today we cut holes into banana leaf stalks and pushed sunflower seeds , honey and raisins into them again for ornags and sunbears. We watched Wasabi with her banana leaf stalk which was great fun for us and her -she is so gorgeous  - I spent part of my lunch hour today chatting to her and playing with some long green beans-pushing aand pulling them thru the  bars of the cage! 
We've a nice group, 6 girls and a boy -age range 19-47, 3 zoo assistants and 4 Orang project peeps. There's 4 other Orang project peeps who are at a zoo in KL who we meet up with after 15 days zoo work. 
It's hot and incredibly humid here , you break into a massive sweat just walking to walk so you're pretty much dripping once you've done the cleaning!
What's really unusual here in Taiping? Westerners! Therefore everywhere we go we're stared at and hooted and called to-nicely, but it's a bit weird til you get used to it. Peggy is blonde too and gets people coming up to her and demanding to have their photo taken with her! 
My silk sleeping bag liner is perfect in this heat (mum) and my towel is ace (Mel). Just want to say a huge well done to Swindon Scratch choir for what seems to have been a magnificent performance at the Arts Centre. I'm really sorry I wasn't there with you , altho I was in spirit!
Must sign off now  and get looking for accomm. Will get photos sorted for next time -this was just a quickie -will write again after Penang and b4 Borneo I guess.
Lots of love
Asia Sal xx

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Between our house and the zoo	Funky green flowers!	Me cleaning cages (Wasabi watching me!)	Me outside temple on Penang Hill
Our accomm in Taiping - nice huh BJ?	The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.	Wasabi peering thru the bars,is she sweet or wot?	Wasabi picking food out of 'nana palm stem

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