Dave has his voice back, and is unexpectedly french canadian. He demonstrated his rediscovered voice by doing vocal exercises outside the window this morning for ages, which was a wierd wakeup call. After a breakfast of french toast, I went over to the resort and hired some boots - the largest they had were an 8, which I could just about squeeze into, & which hurt like hell. Dave, Chris and I set off on a trek to the bat cave, which is 2.8 km away over various hills and down various muddy slopes thick with treacherous roots. We took an hour or so to get there, and when we arrived we met 4 barefoot Irish girls & their guide, E, who had just been through. We headed in guideless (E lent me his torch) & before long we came across a "crapload of bats" hanging from the ceiling. We were fairly covered in bat guano before too long, going into cave after cramped cave full of hundreds of bats. We came to an impasse, where our 3 options were (1) go back the way we came, (2) squeeze through a really slim gap towards daylight, or (3) half crawl through a really low, bat-filled tunnel. I took option 2, found the proper exit and backtracked through the cave to direct the others through option 3, which looked thoroughly unpleasant and ended up with Chris falling into the stream and getting soaked.
On our way back we took 3 or so wrong turns, extending the already exhausting (it was about half one by this point and incredibly hot) journey, while our tiredness was exacerbated by the lies posted on the signs, concerning distance remaining. We got back at 2 on the dot, leaving us half an hour to shower and prepare for 'Rapid Shooting' in the afternoon. This ended up starting pretty late, especially as we had to wait around for 4 dour Koreans to show up. The rapid shooting was fun, we headed upstream in a long wooden boat with the driver (E again) jerking the engine around so that we got as wet as possible. On our way we were informed that the Koreans were going to the Orang Asli village, & we could join them if we wanted for RM 5, which is a bargain (none of us had any money, so E lent us the RM 15 we needed - he said he'd show us where to get cheap beer later as well - Legend). We went up and watched a demo of firemaking techniques, drank from Liana vines and saw how to make and fire blowpipe darts, shooting them at a stuffed penguin. The Koreans started taking really odd photos with the Asli kids, taking them by the hand whether they liked it or not, wandering uninvited into their houses, and generally intruding. We had to wait around for them for ages as a result. We were all soaked and happy on our return, as well as exhausted. Tonight we're having drinks for a Quebecois fellow called Simon's birthday. Ooh, a Malay guy has just walked by with a guitar and been persuaded to play Hotel California, gotta go.
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So after our sing song I headed off to the Bob Marley shop to buy beers - this involves going to a small clothing and nik-nak shop & asking for beer in a hushed voice, which causes the lady to look around furtively before climbing over a stable door to the back room, and returning (in this case) with their entire stock of beer - 8 cans of Tiger. This is all done in a very underhand manner, as if a law is being broken, but it can't be that secret if every traveller manages to find the place on their first night here. We (Dave, Chris, Rijel and myself) went for dinner at one of the floating restaurants, & while we were there we were buzzed by two enormous Cicadas, which were caught by the guys who work there. We examined them for a while, which prompted Rijel to exclaim "By Zeus! He must be at least 2.3 inches, antenna to wingtip!" He really is a remarkable fellow, is Rijel. When we first saw him clad in boots, chinos, a safari style shirt (complete with a little leather tie thing, the only visible concession to his home state of Texas) & a waistcoat with innumerable pockets & accessories attached, including binoculars, a handlens, a monocular, a fob watch and a reasonable sized wood handled umbrella. He has the head of James Van Der Beek and was born in Kenya, but has lived 20 of his 22 years in Texas. He's a great bloke, whose accent has no trace of Texan (or Kenyan for that matter) - he sounds and behaves like an English gentleman of the highest order.
Our beer supply exhausted, we headed over to Woodlands Resort on E's recommendation to get some takeaways, as they have a (far more official looking) bar. On the way back we spied loads more giant Cicadas, and a 5 inch Praying Mantis, which Rijel and E examined with gusto. Out of nowhere E flagged down a passing minibus which gave us all a lift back to our chalet, for free! The rest of the eveing was spent sitting at the Bob Bar, chatting nonsense with the occasional bit of singing. As I mentioned, the purpose of all this merrymaking was to celebrate Simon's birthday, although he didn't even show up until around 1 am. When we finally repaired to bed we found that the dorm in which Simon and the 4 Irish girls were staying was locked, with the key inside. Simon promptly got some hairpins and started trying to pick the lock, while muttering such ridiculous things as "I swore I'd never do this again", "You learn a lot of stuff, growing up in a bad neighbourhood", "I hate myself for doing this" & "No matter where you go, your past always catches up with you eh?" - he only addressed these to me, as I was holding a light for him. I had asked for, and wished for, no explanation as to why he supposedly knew how to pick a lock. All his fiddling ultimately failed, and the day was saved (again) by E, who got hold of a Machete, slid it down the side of the door, banged it, and the door popped open. What a guy.
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