It is often the case that the simpler the piece of kit the more useful and dependable it is: a compass is more reliable than a GPS, the simplicity and cutting ability of a parang makes it superior to the less suited multifunctionality of a Leatherman, a basic hammock is better suited to the jungle than the most luxurious of tents…
One piece of kit I carry on my EDC (Every Day Carry) belt is such a simple and basic item and yet it is something that solves that important problem of how to carry more water when you have a cut-down EDC setup that doesn’t include large water bladders or extra water bottles.
This item is the Maxpedition Rollypolly dump bag and, in the video below, is a quick review of it and a demonstration of how it can be used to carry an extra 3 litres of water.
This year’s monsoon rains have had a devastating effect in Malaysia with close to 200,000 people forced to abandon their homes because of flooding.
What was the cause of the flooding? Heavier than usual rains are of course a major factor but so too is the effect of human development of areas prone to flooding, as is the surrounding deforestation that continues at a worrying pace in Malaysia.
I am lucky that our house is up in the hills but even here the impact of human development is easy to see. The rivers are full of mud that is washed down from sites cleared for houses or roads – with no vegetation to ‘hold’ the soil the run off erodes the earth – and where does all this sediment end up? Unfortunately down stream the rivers will get shallower (the soil with settle on the river floor where the river flows more slowly) and, therefore the river is more prone to burst its banks during heavy rain. We are also seeing more landslides where people have cleared the slopes of trees and vegetation as, with no roots to hold the soil, it is more prone to slip.
The trees and vegetation (that are cleared to make way for roads and homes) are nature’s natural sponges; their roots not only hold the soil but absorb water during the rains. Without them, surface run off increases and with it the risk of flooding.
I see a lot of developments where engineering tactics (i.e. man made drains, soil support systems) are employed to combat the impact of heavy rains but if we tip nature too much off balance these ‘band aids’ to compensate for the damage we’ve done to the surrounding countryside will be of little help.
As an example, a neighbour of ours who is developing a plot began by cutting down every tree and plant on his land. The result: land slides (his concrete drains were literally washed down the slope). He might blame the land slides on the rains, but before he cleared the land there were no landslides…
As for the poor people who have been forced to abandon their homes because of the floods, both food and water are a problem for them. You might think that water would be easy enough to find during a flood but the problem is to find clean water that is safe to drink.
Which brings us to this video on finding clean water in the jungle because, during the rains, the run off into the rivers is not only full of mud but also contains any animals droppings that are washed down with it (or even dead animals).
I have a love-hate relationship with plastic bottles and bags – I love the many uses they have for the jungle trekker, I hate seeing them littering the trails and campsites.
The plastic bottles used for carbonated drinks are so well made that they can be reused thousands of times and last for years (hundreds of years!) and yet few people reuse them. Why can’t shops offer a refill option? You take your empty bottle in and they refill it for you on the spot and then charge you less than if you buy a new bottle off the shelf. No doubt the manufacturers would be against such an idea as they’d have to install some sort of refilling machine in all the shops and it would reduce their ability to brand what is essentially water with sugar in it – but so what? We should force them to do it and fine them if they don’t.
As for buying bottled water! Are we all nuts?!
Anyway, putting aside my environmental despair for a moment, and ignoring the floating island of bottles in our seas that is now half the size of Australia (!), plastic bottles and bags have numerous uses in the jungle and that’s what I cover in the video below. Some uses you may already know, others are less well known.
Plastic bags can be used to waterproof shelters, to collect water, to store water, to keep things dry (clothes, food, tinder), to keep wet things isolated from dry stuff, to weatherproof your camera, to light a fire, to make cordage, to make an air-core pillow, as groundsheets, or as a makeshift poncho…
“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent” (Dave Barry)
After my last trip to Taman Negara, I resolved to make some sort of water catcher attachment for my tarp so that I could collect rainwater and save myself the hassle of filtering water from the rivers.
As it usually rains in the jungle in the late afternoon, this is the time when you have already set up camp and changed into your dry clothes. As such, should a downpour begin, you probably won’t be inclined to go out from beneath the shelter of your tarp to collect water…it’s much nicer to lie back in your hammock and listen to the rain bouncing off your tarp instead.
The system I came up with is nothing new in concept but it has the advantage of being less bulky than the plastic funnel type attachments (usually an upturned plastic bottle that is cut in half), it is ultra lightweight, simplicity itself to make and costs virtually nothing. Also, as it doesn’t attach directly to the tarp there is less danger of damaging your tarp with the added weight of the water.
“There is one advantage to having nothing, it never needs repair” Frank Howard Clark
When I started off roading in the jungles of Malaysia I was impressed by the ‘bush mechanic’ abilities of the local 4×4 enthusiasts. These guys would find ingenious ways to fix a car when no parts were available and seemed to be able to do most of this with nothing more than a multi-tool. A useful skill indeed.
Part of the appeal of bushcraft is the idea that we can fashion what we need from the natural world around us, or repair what is broken. But often people forget that the natural world is now a giant dustbin for plastic products of which bags and bottles make up an alarming proportion….plastic has, unfortunately, become a resource in the natural world!
Putting aside the shamefulness of our disposable culture (that is clogging the seas with plastics bags and creating mountains of plastic bottles) plastics themselves are tremendously useful in the jungle. A plastic tarp will make shelter building easy and the Orang Asli were quick to add these to the equipment they themselves take in. Plastic bags are waterproof and can protect your mobile phone or other water sensitive devices, food, kit, clothes etc.
Almost all the plastics we find around us are thermoplastics and this means we can heat them up and mould them (I’ve met a number of Orang Asli who use moulded PVC piping for a parang sheath) or, in same manner as welding, we can melt plastic onto a crack and form a bond.
So, in this video, I look at repairs and improvements you can make to a cheap plastic bottle for use in the jungle. One thing I didn’t mention was that a bit of superglue is another and to go (but you do, of course, have to have some superglue!). Super glue may seem like an odd thing to carry in the jungle but its use as a quick seal to cuts gives it a well earned place in your first aid kit. Saying that, I find it easier to form a bond by melting the plastic and the seal seems to be stronger.
So, with a bit of knowledge you can really get the most out of even very basic and cheap pieces of kit and, should they break, fix them up again…. bush mechanics for the jungle trekker!
Cooking and fire starting have a couple of things in common: in both cases preparation is the most time consuming (and essential) element and in both cases knowing how to do it is not the same as being able to do it. Mastering either skill takes practice.
A couple of days ago I went into the jungle to cook breakfast and demonstrate a few tips and tricks for cooking in the jungle, in particular how to boil water in a leaf. It was also an opportunity to practice my own fire starting techniques as it is the rainy season here and that makes fire starting even more challenging than usual.
Being able to boil water in a leaf was something I’d been curious about for some time. Freelander (a regular contributor to this site) had sent me some photos of daun meliat – a pliable leaf used for boiling water in – but I haven’t, as yet, been able to find/identify it here. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was in Bera where Stem (an Orang Asli) showed me how to make a scoop from a palas palm leaf. My first thought was “could this be used to boil water in?” and after a bit of experimentation I discovered that it can.
The (unopened) leaves of palas are traditionally used in the preparation of ketupat (a glutinous rice dish served during idul fitri) and, as such, I assumed there wouldn’t be any toxicity issues … and I haven’t suffered any ill effects from the water I’ve boiled in palas leaves.
But how useful is it to know how to do this little trick with a palas leaf? Well, it all depends what sort of situation you find yourself in: if bamboo is close at hand then all manner of pots and cups can be quickly fashioned; but what if there isn’t any bamboo, your only water source looks a bit dodgy and you want to boil it first?
What I like about the leaf method is that it’s very quick to make the container and the palas palm is quite prevalent in the jungle, so it is relatively easy to find. In the west the same sort of trick is done with containers fashioned from bark into which hot rocks are placed to boil and sterilize the water.
Knowing how to make bannock is another useful and simple skill to have. The basic recipe is 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt, but you can add in all sorts of other ingredients as well: I usually add in 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of milk powder and as many raisins as the mix will hold.
The jungle contains all sorts of useful leaves – some are enormous (terap/banana leaves) and make shelter building a breeze, some can protect you from the bugs (e.g. tobacco leaves to keep the leeches at bay), dry leaves are an important aid to fire-starting, some can be used as sandpaper, some will stop a wound from bleeding….the list goes on and on and I’ll try to cover at least some of their many other uses as we go along.
“Water and air, the two essentials upon which all life depends, have become global garbage cans” (Jacques Yves Cousteau)
There is a bewildering array of water treatment gear out there – from steripens to life straws, chemicals to gravity filters – and prices range from cheap, DIY gravity kits to very expensive, top end, purifiers.
I’m not going to go into all the pros and cons of each system because there is a great article here from REI which does that it in some detail. The key thing, though, is to understand the difference between a filter and a purifier: filters get rid of bacteria and protozoa but not viruses, purifiers get rid of all three. To ensure the water you drink in the jungle is safe to drink you either need to use a purifier or, if you are using a filter, you need to first filter the water and then either boil or chemically treat it.
As you will get through a lot of water in the tropics, you want a system that is quick and easy to set up – my millbank bag now stays on my belt so I can get to it quickly for this very reason. After filtering with the millbank I chemically treat the water and move on.
Although chemically treating water is a very convenient method, the nasty after taste and the tendency of the pills to absorb water and disintegrate in transit (due to the high humidity) made it less than ideal for me. Part of the reason for this video is that I find that the Aquamira drops are much better in reducing the after taste of the chemicals than the purisafe pills I was using before and it was an option I hadn’t been aware of.
If you are in Malaysia and want to try some Aquamira for yourself you can buy it through the internet here. One set is good for around 110 litres of water.
The Stanley water bottle was another interesting product I came across and can be used for anything from making a brew to cooking dehydrated foods. The wide mouth of the stainless steel part of the bottle means that is is easy to clean (e.g. if you use it to boil rice). It is not the lightest piece of kit but, as it doubles as both a water container and something I can cook with, it removes the need to carry a pot. It is also very good value for money at about 10 USD. The bottle is only advertised as suitable for cold beverages but I’ve been using it for coffee and cooking without any problems.
Now if they’d made it out of titanium, got rid of the tapered bottom and put a handle on it … well, then it would probably cost a lot more than 10 bucks
My friend Keong (from Sepuh Crafts) organized a very interesting day-out last weekend: the focus was on setting up camp in the jungle, with Raman demonstrating the traditional Orang Asli way, while Keong and I covered some of the modern camping equipment alternatives.
Watching the unhurried ease with which Raman turns the jungle into a home for the night – sourcing everything he needs from the forest – may beguile you into thinking that you could easily do the same. For most of us we could do the same, but not easily and, like any technique that relies on natural resources, it usually takes a lot longer to achieve the desired end, be it building a shelter or finding food. Not only that, but using natural resources depletes the forest.
Nevertheless, the techniques Raman demonstrates are useful to know (in case of emergency/survival situations) and fascinating to watch and, as he said himself, a lot of the new generation of Orang Asli have lost some of these skills that were common place amongst their parents’ generation. For example, I have only met a few Orang Asli who still know how to make fire using friction (and usually this is only done as a tourist side show) – everyone else simply uses a BIC lighter and some rubber inner tube.
Camping equipment is certainly easier to use, quicker to set up and offers a greater degree of comfort than using natural resources – the downside is that you have to lug the bloody stuff around – strapped to you like a monkey on your back. The trick, of course, is to get a balance – to take in the minimum amount of equipment possible without compromising too much on comfort and safety.
However, knowing some basic survival techniques means that you don’t have to carry as much back-up gear as you would otherwise and gives you more peace of mind: should your pack get lost, it isn’t the end of the world (as long as you kept your parang!).
In the video, Raman demonstrates some of the traditional Orang Asli snares. I should point out here that Raman does not use snares himself and has given up hunting altogether. For many of us who have spent any time in the rain forest here, the desperate plight of the wildlife is only too evident and I, for one, have absolutely no desire to add to their woes by hunting them (there are too many people doing that already).
The use of snares (and animal poisoning) in the rain forest is a travesty – I have even come across unchecked wire snares near where I live and who knows what is going on deeper into the forest? The demand for exotic animal body parts seems to grow and grow, and poachers have no qualms about shooting any endangered animal if the price is right.
The situation is more dire than most people realize, particularly for tigers, and, if you are interested in knowing more, check out this video from Save Our Species.
Malaysia has recently enacted updates to the Wildlife Conservation Act (read the 716 Act here) – there are heavy penalties for the use of wire snares (even if they are only found in your possession) and tough measures for anyone involved in the illegal animal trade. The problem, of course, is that setting such laws is the easy part, enforcing them is something altogether more difficult, particularly in the rain forest.
So how can the poachers and the illegal snaring be stopped? Obviously the government has its part to play, but so also do we. I imagine that it is very difficult for poachers to operate in complete secrecy – they need to buy provisions from local shops for starters and, in my experience of living in the country, locals usually know pretty quickly when strangers are around and find out what they are up to.
Malaysia operates a Wildlife Crime Hotline (tel: 019 356 4194) – so if you come across illegal wildlife activity, report it. All it takes is a phone call.
What sort of activity might you come across that should be reported? Anything from restaurants serving wildmeat (e.g. pangolins, bear claw soup etc) to shops selling ivory or tiger parts, or even selling protected wildlife as pets.
The other way we can all get involved is as ears and eyes in the rain forest itself – the more people who visit the rain forest, the less easy it is for the poachers to operate. In this field Mycat is doing a superb job; encouraging members of the public to go on Cat Walks and trailblazer trips into areas where illegal activity is suspected.
I have never understood the concept of hunting as a sport – killing animals isn’t something that is fun to do, at least not for me – and yet there are many people who seem to enjoy it. I have a suggestion for these people – hunting animals is all too easy (all you need to know is the animal behaviour, what it likes to eat and a way of killing it) – now a real challenge would be to hunt for the poachers instead….
In this video I face a few problems – a cobra that came into the back garden, a tick bite that itched to the point that I wanted to cut my own skin off and the search for bamboo shoots that didn’t go at all as planned.
The spitting cobra I managed to snag with my homemade snake removal device (a broom handle with a coat hanger hook on the end) – I pulled him out of the tree and onto the ground and almost immediately lost sight of him in the grass (and I beat a quick retreat!). Normally, of course, you would simply leave snakes alone and they will, generally, leave you alone – but I was worried that this one might go down into the car park and bite the dogs.
After three days the itch from the tick bite finally subsided – but they are really very unpleasant and worth avoiding if you can (they carry disease as well).
…and then there was the bamboo. I was very confident of quickly finding some bamboo shoots for this video as I come across them all the time. Turns out I was over confident and, for whatever reason, the bamboo shoots I was finding were all rotten. However, this was a useful lesson to relearn as, in the jungle, it is foolish to rely on finding the specific plant you need and much better if you have a repertoire of plants that you can fall back on.
When I was eleven or so, I was given a copy of the excellent SAS Survival Guide and, with the impatience of youth, flicked idly through it (glancing only at the pictures) and closed the book convinced that I could survive anything (even a nuclear war!)….but of course I couldn’t; there is a huge difference between watching someone doing something and being able to do it ourselves…on top of which, nature likes to throw you a curve ball every now and again as well!
There are many survival TV programs that have done the rounds and, in some of them, it seem to me that the ease with which the expert finds food, or lights a fire, or builds a raft (!) can be misleading.
Ray Mears, of whom I’m a fan by-the-way, makes a lot of quite difficult skills look remarkably easy – I imagine this is because a) he clearly is very skilled at these techniques and b) the process is edited to speed it up (as many viewers won’t be interested in the fine details behind the techniques). This is fair enough as, at the end of the day, he is making a TV program (rather than teaching a course) and therefore has to take out some of the more mundane (but often very important) points.
Les Stroud is someone who manages to realistically convey the difficulties of surviving in the wilderness. For this he receives a certain amount of flak from arm chair survivalists who mock the fact that he can’t find food (which he generally doesn’t) or for the fact that he complains about the weight of camera equipment he has to lug around and rarely gets a good nights sleep. To me this picture he paints is a realistic one, generally things don’t go exactly according to plan in the wilderness. Far from being a moaner, he strikes me as someone who has a very positive attitude and the flexibility to deal with the inevitable set backs. Also, very importantly, he is on his own out there: there is no camera crew. This is a very psychologically important point indeed as it is much harder to face any difficulties if you are truly on your own in the middle of nowhere.
…and then there’s Bear Grylls. I watched the video clip of his (unorthodox) bow drill technique (which was surprisingly, very surprisingly) effective and then watched no more. Enough said.
So, for me, I would only fully trust in the junglecraft techniques and jungle foods that I have experience of already – that’s not to say i don’t enjoy watching how other people do things, rather that I like to try it for myself before I rely on it.
Back to bamboo – it is the king of survival resources in the jungle but requires practice before it really unveils all it has to offer. For example, the bamboo fire saw is a technique that I wouldn’t suggest someone attempts (if they were in a survival situation) unless they have successful experience of using the technique already. Why? Because they might simply end up spending far too much time trying (and probably failing) to get a fire going with this tricky technique which would be better spent doing something else (e.g. searching for wood to use in a bow drill).
Similarly, looking (only) for bamboo shoots for two mornings (which was what I did) would not be a good survival strategy. Whereas searching the immediate area for all plants and food that can be eaten would be….flexibility, a good plan and knowledge are key.
The technique of getting water from bent bamboo proved more effective than I had thought – again, this demonstrates why it is worth trying these things beforehand. Before I tried this technique I was uncertain how well it would work (and therefore might not have tried using it in a survival situation) whereas now I know it works I would definitely use it, particularly as it is so easy to set up.
“Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink” (the rime of the ancient mariner)
Because it’s so hot in the tropics you need to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated; but how safe is the water to drink?
Years ago I was trekking up the Peshawar valley in Pakistan and drinking the water straight from the crystal clean river that runs through it. A few days later I saw some of the locals squatting in the river and realised that they used it as a toilet. Not long after that I came down with amoebic dysentery and, a couple of months later when I returned to the UK, I’d lost 20% of my body weight and looked like a concentration camp survivor.
In Africa I caught Giardia from the water (the onset of which was accompanied by the infamous ‘eggy’ burps) and was almost unable to move for 36 hours while my body purged itself.
Here in Malaysia I have watched in astonishment as a fellow camper peed into the same river in which, 20 ft away, others were doing the washing up! I’ve found pesticide bottles dumped into rivers, sewage pipes from villages often empty directly into rivers, tapir (apparently) like to relieve themselves in the same rivers they drink from and run-off from farms can contain all sorts of nasties. The situation is even worse during the heavy rains, when surface excrement and other grot is washed off surrounding hills…and into the rivers.
All of this can make jungle trekkers understandably paranoid about cleaning the water they drink
…and yet, I have also drunk water directly from jungle streams (without filtering or purifying the water) without getting ill in the slightest.
So here’s the thing: if you get dehydrated in the tropics a whole host of associated problems will quickly follow and, without any water at all, you will die in a matter of days. If I was lost in the jungle and was unable to purify the water from streams I would still drink it, no question about that – however, if I was able to purify the water I would absolutely do so, no question about that either.
In this video I look at the basics of making water from streams safe to drink and show some tips and tricks that can be used in the jungle.
If you decide that you want to buy an off-the-shelf filter system instead (and rely only on that), make sure that it purifies as well as filters the water. For example, the gravity fed Millbank bag (basically a tightly woven, canvas sock) will filter water and remove a lot of the nasties, but it won’t purify it (i.e. you should still boil or chemically treat any water filtered through it).
Also, be aware that if your filter cracks or tears (e.g. a crack in the internal ceramic core of a Katadyn filter) then it won’t work properly. Filter systems can also get clogged up fast if used with very turbid water (so you may want to prefilter first through a cloth or bamboo-style filter).
Another option is to buy replacement filter elements and then rig up your own DIY (gravity fed) filter bag. I think Katadyn sell these, but I’m not sure. With more and more people using water filters in their homes, good (i.e. low micron) filter elements are becoming easier to source.
For me, I stick to chemical purification or boiling water as opposed to carrying filtration/purification systems but, at the end of the day, it’s a personal choice and some people prefer to take in a commercially available kit instead.
One last thing, don’t rely solely on being able to boil water: you may not be able to get a fire going and, in a tropical rainstorm, your fire will quickly go out….but then again, during a tropical rainstorm, clean drinkable water is simply falling from the sky!
