Terian, Buayan and Tiku Trip: Part Two

Where did we get to....?

Our homestay in Buayan

In Buayan we stayed in a homestay run by Irene and Julius. Irene was a fantastic cook and cooked us breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Based in Buayan for 4 nights we trekked to the site of the proposed intake at Tiku on the first morning as it was only around 1hour away. 

Waterfall in Tiku

Measuring cross-sectional area of river 

The path was very steep and narrow and almost disappeared in places but made it to the river and met some of the locals who were joining us for the day to assist in taking some measurements. We had to climb our way upstream over waterfalls, slippery rocks and fallen trees to reach the proposed site of the intake. Once there we began by taking flow measurements (using salt gulp and float methods as before) and sketching up a proposed intake layout.  After a couple of minor teething problems to do with salt concentration and faulty conductivity meters we got some sensible results and rewarded ourselves with rice and tinned fish for lunch whilst sitting in the river. 

Calibrating Pressure Gauge

Villagers helping with Potential Head Meaurements

Taking Pressure Reading

The afternoon was spent measuring the total potential head of the scheme from the intake down to the powerhouse. This was done using a pressure gauge fitted to the end of a plastic hose by making our way down the length of the river bit by bit taking incremental readings of pressure in bar. It was hard keeping up with the locals at times - they know the river like the back of their hand and were able to skip down the river, whilst we were a little less graceful to say the least. To get an idea of the path of the river, the potential layout of the scheme and where it was in relation to the Kampung we handed the locals a pen and paper and asked them to sketch up a rough plan. For some reason they preferred to use the medium of rock carvings...so we gathered round a rock mid-river to discuss and take some photos.

Discussing with Locals Layout of River/ Hydro-Scheme using "Rock-Art"

River Papar: Our Swimming Spot

After returning to Buayan (and having a quick swim in the river again!) we were informed that the village had organised a meeting for that evening to discuss the Buayan micro-hydro site and for some Q&A. Felt a little unprepared as this was the first we had heard about it and we had not been in Buayan long enough to even visit the site yet. We roughly noted down a few points that we wanted to bring up with the villagers and questions we wanted to ask them and decided that Johan would translate from the local indigenous language into Bahasa Malay, if required and the Moorthy, Lim and Gordon would translate from Bahasa Malay into English for us. The meeting went better than expected and we had a chance to meet the village chief and the technician of the micro-hydro scheme, who would be showing us the site the following day.

Taking notes and sketches at Buayan Intake

The problematic bridge at Buayan

Set off early the next morning, taking a quick hike up to the Buayan site. The intake and forebay are much better quality and a lot more efficient  than that at Terian - there are proper 'engineered' structures in place such as a reinforced concrete weir and a sluice gate with stop-logs. However, the bridge that carries the penstock pipe across a 20m wide ravine is a big issue. You'd probably call it a 'primitive suspension bridge' - it's the same form of construction that is used by the indigenous people in most villages for pedestrians to cross rivers. This type of bridge is fine for this application, but when used to carry a penstock which has limited flexibility, problems are inevitable. In this particular case, one of the bridge supports / anchors (consisting of a mass concrete block) is sliding, it is reported, by around 100mm. Conversations with the local technician revealed that one support was constructed by the villagers themselves which is 4x4 ft on plan at ground level and tapers out to a maximum 5x5 ft at 3ft deep. The other support (the problematic one) was constructed by a UK 'gap-yaaaaaaaaaah' type charity that we won't name. It is also 4x4 ft on plan at ground level, but then tapers in to 3x3ft at 3ft deep. So it's upside down, and a lot smaller than it should be. Jobs a good 'un!

Splashing around in the river

Since this was the last of our site visits for this trip we spent the afternoon by the river again, swimming and having lunch on the beach: our new routine! (We are seriously missing that river since returning to Donggongon!) Was nice to have the entire afternoon off to relax a bit before our trek back which, we were told would involve crossing a river by raft or by swimming. After hearing this, Moorthy and Gordon were determined to teach themselves how to swim so we gave them a few pointers and encouragement. We borrowed some badminton rackets from Irene and got a little tournament going, followed by a really difficult keepy-uppy/volleyball game that no one could get the hang of but were determined to keep playing for a good while! We spent the evening sampling the Buayan rice wine - which was a little more potent than that at Terian. It was going down quite slowly, so we decided to speed things up a bit by playing 21s. To say it 'got out of hand' would be an overstatement, but some of the rules that were introduced got a bit ridiculous. And the next morning Han-lim woke to find he'd acquired several new permanent marker tattoos. Sorry Lim!

Sunset from homestay in Buayan (no added effects or filters- it actually looked like this!)

Before leaving Buayan we sat down and discussed and summed up all our findings from the whole trip and what needs to be done next. We also managed to find some time for a 3-a-side football game! Was a fantastic trip and was great to experience living in the indigenous villages. The sunsets every night were also so impressive (when it wasn't raining!) Can't wait for our next trip now. 

Looks like we're going to be office based this week. Got a call from Banie on Saturday telling us we were going to see a wind turbine being installed at Sabah University (UMS) on Sunday morning. What he should have said was 'you will be installing a wind turbine at UMS'. We only realised this on the day when we rocked up in beach-wear and were given a 20m long column, a corrosion resistant tin of paint and a load of cables. 4 hours later we finally got to the beach (which was our original plan). Anyway, we digress, whilst at UMS Banie told us he needs us this week to put a proposal together for a hybrid pico-hydro/ solar scheme at Mount Kinabalu (highest mountain between New Guinea and the Himalayas, 20th highest in the world (topographically prominence)) base camp. We are both really eager to climb the mountain so are pretty excited at the thought of getting this proposal together to potentially power the base camp. We will keep you posted on how it goes!

Andy and Lauren