In Search Of The Sun!: A summary of my summer : A trip to Lake Kenyir

One important highlight of my summer is the 12-day trip to Lake Kenyir in Terengganu (Malaysia). I was hired as a research assistant to Lainie, a PhD student in the Department of Biological Sciences, for her thesis on dung beetles at the lake. Lake Kenyir is the biggest man-made lake in Southeast Asia, consisting of more than 340 islands. Therefore, it is an ideal site for Lainie's research, which is to study the relationship between species richness and ecological functions, because different sizes of islands contains different number of beetle species. To put it in simple terms, we would like to test whether dung beetles performs better ecological functions (remove dung) if the community is made up of more species (bigger islands).

To be hired on this trip was seriously what I've been hoping for. Throughout the whole trip, we would be living on a houseboat on the lake without any handphone connection (let alone internet connection). To maximize the limited time we had in the field, we were always on the lake, totally isolated from the 'outside' world, except when food supplies ran low, the boatman would go to the jetty to stock up. This gave me an extremely good opportunity to test my limits in doing field work--to see whether I can survive in the field for a long period of time and to really test my passion for it.

This is the houseboat that we had been living in for 12 full days.

The upper floor of the boat is the bedroom
(note the blood on my right knee, that was from a leech bite!)

The lower floor is the 'living room', dining place, kitchen, toilet etc...
The lady in the photo is our dear cook, Makcik.
Besides Lainie and I, there were 4 more people on board: Makcik and our boatmen Zuki, Rahim and Mat

Well, before we could really set off to the lake, we needed cow dung as a bait for the dung beetles. So here we were in the cow farm chasing after cows, picking up after them whenever they hmm..

After getting all the cow dung that we needed .... we were off! =)

Lainie and I heading off towards one of the islands. We parked the houseboat somewhere on the lake, and went to the islands for our experiments on motorboats. The guy behind me was my trusted boatman, Zuki. Zuki is 2 years older than me, but he already has 2 kids! =)

Rahim and Mat were Lainie's boatman, and Zuki was mine. I must say, he is the most talented guy I've ever seen! Lainie used a GPS to locate all the points where she set the traps, but I didn't have any since we only have one GPS. So, whenever we split into 2 teams to carry out the experiments, I rely fully on Zuki to locate the traps. Zuki has a whole functional GPS embedded in his head =) Not only that, he could even remember the positions of the traps that Lainie set on her previous trips. He has the best memory and spatial sense that I've ever seen. Zuki always laughed at me because I was completely hopeless in the forests, everywhere looked the same to me. I just need to walk 20 steps and I couldn't find the place where I started at! (believe me, it's really hard to navigate in a forest) But for Zuki, nothing can be simpler!

Lainie packing the dung

Me with the packed dung. Believe it or not, we had to use human dung for some of the baits. The container I'm holding has my own... *ah hem*... dung.

Packed cow dung =)

Dung removal experiments. To test how much dung did the beetles remove.

Pitfall trap. The cup beneath the bait is fulled of saturated salt water to preserved the trapped beetles.

Lainie preparing the canopy trap with Rahim and Mat. The canopy trap is to capture dung beetles that specialize at the canopy level.

Mat setting up the canopy trap

My full fieldwork attire. Straw hat = good ventilation, keeps spider webs & twigs from eyes when bushwhacking through the forest. Long sleeves = prevents scratches & leech bites. Pouch = has everything I needed in the field. Long pants. Leech socks = knee length, keeps leeches from creeping underneath pants. Trekking shoes = a present from GC, water- resistant, strong & sturdy, very comfortable, very well-ventilated, best shoes in he world!
(I know, I looked ridiculous! But in the forest, style is not the priority! Hehe)

This is my favourite seat on the boat. When Zuki drove it really fast, I felt exactly like Jack in Titanic, screaming "I'm the king of the world~~~~"

Well, a little bit of background info about Kenyir. It was originally a river. In 1978, the government started the construction of a Kenyir hydroelectric dam. The river was blocked and 38000 hectares of forests was flooded by rain water that filled up over time. Therefore, you can imagine that beneath the lake lies a whole stretch of dead (drowned) forest. All across the lake, one could see dead tree trunks sticking out of the water surfaces... like warriors that kept guard even though the fight was long over. These trees gave Lake Kenyir a melancholy, solemn, and somewhat creepy feeling.

Now, some cool animal sightings!

A crab that Mat caught at one of the rivers. See, he's saying "Hi!"

A wild boar mite trying to eat its way through my shirt.

Giant tortoise on its way back to the lake after laying eggs on one of the islands.

A spider with magnificent "horns"! It's saying "Hi!" too =)

Rhinoceros Hornbill perching near our houseboat. We could hear Hornbill and gibbon calls early in the morning. =)

Remnants of an elephant skull... victim of illegal poaching

As for the food...
Well, we had to stay on the houseboat for 12 days. Throughout the whole trip, the boatmen had been fishing for catfishes and snakeheads (Toman). So we've had the luxury of eating fresh fishes every day.

Rahim and their catch, a Toman

A seriously big fish

However, towards the end of the trip, we ran out of vegetables, and it wasn't worth it to go all the way to the jetty for supplies. Therefore, we decided to eat ferns!

Makcik picking out the edible ferns

Ferns and fishes! =D Yum Yum!
The dish in pink is ferns too. It has that colour because of the anthocyanins (pigments) in the young fern leaves.

Now, for some excitement in the water!

Lainie had a "One day one dip" policy =) She insisted in taking a dip in the lake after a long day. It was very relaxing and revitalising! Since I'm hydrophobic (can't swim), I always had a life jacket with me whenever I went into the waters.

Since our daily excursions relied so much on motorboats, I decided to get my hands on one of them!