It’s 2am when Mike shakes me awake, ‘Ian, you’re up’. I roll out of the bunk and pull on a windproof and a lifejacket before climbing up into the cockpit. Mike briefs me in a hushed voice; ‘all quiet, no traffic, wind’s swung round to the south which means that we’re off course – but don’t worry about that, the auto helm’s on wind vane so we’ll go where the wind takes us and see how we’re placed in the morning’. With that he disappears below and pulls the hatch too behind him. I arrange the cushions...

In front of me the river is making it’s way over a small waterfall and behind me I can hear the girls carrying on in the kitchen as they prepare lunch. I am sitting next to a 1:50,000 scale relief model of the Maliau Basin Conservation area which is to be my home environment for the next three months. Home itself is an accretion of zinc roofed shelters that meander across folds in the ground between leggy rainforest trees. As a white man and therefore head and shoulders taller than most Malaysians, I have to continually watch...

My meeting with Prof Ho is documented at Arkitrek under the post of his name. Another fascinating thing for me about Prof. Ho is that he was a member of the 1964 Mt Kinabalu East Expedition during which Prof. E J H Corner of Cambridge University made the third ascent of Kotal's Route to the Eastern Plateau of Mt Kinabalu. This is the route that I followed in complete ignorance with friends Emma and Matt in June 2004. The account of that ascent follows. * * * * * The rotting branch takes on a fresh intensity as I decide to trust...

When I first met Prof Ho Coy Choke he was hunched over his plate clumsily shoveling rice into his mouth. He spoke in a loud abrupt tone without looking up. Once his meal was finished he straightened up, slid a pair of heavy rimmed glasses onto his nose and transferred his attention to me. I tried hard to return the scrutiny but between his heavily squinted eyebrows I was not even able to determine the colour of his pupils. That he was a man of powerful intellect was immediately apparent by the chain of his questions. That he loved...

    'Ripe Hairy Red Fruit' introduces several subjects and questions that have been cropping up over the last two years: Imbak Canyon, Maliau Basin and Danum Valley conservation areas The 'economic value' of rainforest conservation Forest rehabilitation and management   On the Arkitrek itself we had an architectural design brief to work to but in many ways this was secondary to the bigger picture that we were involved in. All of these above mentioned themes will crop up in subsequent posts but first a little...