Ha Long Bay and Sapa, Northern Vietnam

Ha Long Bay is absolutely gorgeous. From the boats sundeck the view is amazing and every time you turn around there is another picture perfect scene. The tour we booked was a little weird and a little pricey, but we had a really good time just the same and met lots of really nice tourists. Spent quite a bit of time with a really cute French family (4 daughters!) who are travelling around the world in a year. The guys impressed them with there backflips off the sundeck and I settled for jumping off one of the balconies with them (I did jump off the sundeck once...just to prove to myself I could, but had no interest in doing it again lol). It was an amazing experience swimming around the boat, with all the stars out and these little girls squealing as they jumped together. It was adorable.

The first day we cruised around the islands and stopped at a really commercial looking cave. Neon lights all over. Looked more like a night club than a natural wonder. Then had dinner and drinks on the boat before our night swim.
The next morning we got up at 6am to go kayaking around the bay. It was cloudy so the temperature was a little cooler and really lovely. Then the boat dropped us off on Cat Ba island and we took a bus to Cat Ba National park. Here our guide said he would wait in the bus and that there was only one trail so we would be fine. Turned out there were several trails and the path was covered in jagged rocks, which made walking it in flipflops rather interesting. No one informed us we would be hiking so none of us were dressed for it. The littlest of the French girls ended up doing it barefoot, while her mother struggled to keep up in a dress. We hit a couple of dead ends before finally getting on the right path to the summit. About 3/4 of the way there Rob smacked his head on an overhanging rock. I wasn't concern at first, but then noticed the blood running down his forehead. Luckily at the top we ran into a nurse/well equiped tourist who patched him up for the walk down using gauze, disinfectant and the only clean article of clothing I had in my pack - my underwear. He looked rather odd, but made it down okay. Once we hit the town our guide took him to a somewhat legitimate looking doctor and got set up with 3 stitches. So much for an easy little trek!

We spent that night on Cat Ba island. The hotel and the little town aren't very exciting, but we strolled down to the beach for some drinks and had a great night.
All in all a good tour.

Sapa is a tiny little town in Northern Vietnam. It's about 40 km from the border to China and nestled in the mountains so it is refreshingly cool. The view from the hotel window is amazing. The hills are covered in rice paddies and a dozen different shades of green. The weather this time of year isn't stellar, but when the fog clears and the rain stops this place is truly amazing.
I opted out of the trek the others decided to do and spent the day trekking by myself. The walk down into the valley to see the Cat Cat village is pretty easy and provides great views of the hills. The actual village itself consists mostly of little shops selling hand made goods so that was a little disappointing, but I wasn't very surprised. You can't walk down the street in Sapa without having someone from a minority group try to sell you something, but they are really friendly and leave you alone pretty quickly if you say no thank you. I like Sapa very much. I don't think there is a better place to sit back, drink some tea and enjoy the view.

Hoi An and Hanoi, Vietnam

Didn't really do too much in Hoi An. Mostly just spent a lot of money on tailored clothing and lounged around the hotel's pool (a must in the middle of the day). Hoi an is a cute little town with a really old style throughout (apparently the government insists on it staying like this for the tourists...Has banned glass doors and anything else too modern looking).





Found an amazing place to eat, where I essentially had all my meals. It was called 'The Eating and Drinking Area', nice name lol, and consisted of a row of tables and a roof. Wasn't much to look at, but was dirt cheap and unbelieveably delicious.
My favourites have got to be:
- morning glory in garlic: kind of like spinach...but better
- wontons!: Amazing. Like nachochips with shrimp, mango and veggies on top.
- rice pancake: kind of like crepes with meat and cheese.
- Cao Lao: local speciality, tasty noodles with lettuce, prawn crackers and shrimp.
- pineapple shakes!

The custom made clothing business in Hoi An is booming and you can't walk 10 m without passing a tailor's shop or being approached by a random lady trying to lead you to her out of the way shop. I decided to order things from 2 different places. One was a random little market area with mountains of fabrics and tons of women with sewing machines. From there I ordered a dress and a blazer and put down a $20 deposit on the clothing. After two fittings it became obvious that the women had no idea how to tailor clothing. The dress looked like a bag and the blazer made me look like a football player. My attempts at showing them the picture of the dress and the detailing that changes it from a bag into a nice dressed only ended in them saying 'you not skinny like that model!'. Ok well that was obvious, but didn't change the fact that they had no clue what they were doing. Long story short I ended up walking away from my $20. Lesson learned. The 2nd place I went to, Kimmy Tailor, was a lot more expensive, but much more reputable and organized. From there I ordered a suit, 2 skirts, 2 dresses and 4 dress shirts. I was a little concerned when I put on the 1st dress and it wasn't at all what a wanted, but was immediately reassured when I exited the dressing room and the tailor immediately came at me with a bar of soap (what they use to sketch out the changes) and started changing things. by the third fitting everything looked great!


Took the night bus to Hanoi. Met an Aussie couple on board that broke out a bottle of wine and were just generally hilarious and awesome. Made the bus trip all the more pleasant. Loving the night buses.

Hanoi day 1: checked into Hanoi backpackers, which is 'the place to stay'. It's pretty nice, clean rooms with nice beds and a nice breakfast, but nothing over the top amazing about it.

We were pretty tired from the night bus so we opted to wander around the lake (nice little spot) and then went for massages at the Lien Bien hotel. Turned into a rather weird experience. Went with three guys, but, not surprisingly, ended up by myself. I quickly understood why. I was led into a hallway with lockers and (no one spoke any English) so was motioned to strip....on the spot, in the hall where female staff are having their coffee breaks and hanging out. Random, but ok 'when in Vietnam' right. Next I got into a barrel full of hot water, while two Vietnamese guests looked on curiously. Pretty weird with the three of us sitting in our barrels with only our heads sticking out. Then I was told to get into a scalding hot bath full of brownish water. It was kind of like soaking in a giant tea cup for 15 minutes. Then the most normal part of this whole experience, the steam room, but even it had an added twist: our feet were soaking in buckets with bits of some kind of plant. Then I finally got to the massage portion. The massage itself was ok, but consisted of a lot more pressure point pressing then real deep muscle massaging. I definately prefer the massage I got in the Philippines and Malaysia, but this was a cool experience just the same....despite all the weirdness. Also, the Vietnamese use extremely hot towels from some of the massage, which was a cool modification.

Dalat and Nha trang, Vietnam

Loved Dalat too. Great scenery, rolling hills in all different shades of green. Dalat is also inthe mountains so it is blissfully cold! Purchased a North Face Raincoat and actually got to wear it with the fleece insert! So exciting after 3 months of intense heat. Signed up for a three day hike where we worked our way through fields of veggies, coffee plantations and forests, crossed several sketchy suspension bridges and saw a couple of really nice waterfalls. Had a great time with our guide, Tri, and enjoyed some seriously delicious meals (one consisted mainly of deer soaked in various delicious sauces). Back in Dalat I checked out the Crazy House, which is a hotel set up like an Alice in Wonderland set. Turned out to actually be pretty lame. Very cool ideas, but tiny with huge sections under constructions. Might be a very cool place to stay in a couple of years when it's more complete.







Nha Trang was my next stop. Nice beach town, but pretty pricey and since I spent so much time in Bali and Thailand I didn't really feel the need to stick around for too long. Met up with a German guy named Ingo and checked out a beach party. Started out being a really cool atmosphere, good music and an ice bar, but the party very quickly deteriorated to drunken musical chairs and limbo (participants were mostly 18 yr olds on package tours). Went diving the next day with Octopus Diving. Went pretty well. Best diving in Vietnam, but definately not in the same league as diving in Borneo or Thailand. Had a lovely chat with a Vietnamese guy from Saigon. He had just finoshed a Bio-chem Degree and was away from home for the first time on internship in Nha trang. He was very curious about Canada and I think just genuinely wanted to hear about my travels. Nice change from people trying to sell you stuff!

Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon, Vietnam

I loved this city. The insane amount of motorcycles on the streets, the delicious and ubber cheap street food, the stacks and stacks of photocopied books and possibly the nicest locals yet. The city is also really easily navigated on foot and was the first big city that didn't have me frustrated to the max standing on a street corner breathing in intense amounts of exhaust and thinking "Why did I want to come to this city again!?!" (this is what happened in Manila and Jakarta). However, there is an intense amount of exhaust. All the locals drive around with face mask covering half there face, which left me thinking that maybe I should have one too. I'm also fairly certain that for most women the purpose of the mask is 1/2 to avoid breathing in the exhaust and 1/2 an attempt to stay as white as possible. Some of the women driving their motorcycles are wearing gloves that come up to their shirt sleeves, hats under their helmets, sunglasses and facemasks that come all the way up to meet their sunglasses. Very interesting look. The preference for being pale is also evident when you look around drugstores: ALL the products have labels that say whitening. Even the deodorant! Who really needs white armpits? SE Asians apparently.

I spent 5 nights in HCMC, but two full days were spent hibernating in my amazing aircon and fan room with duvet, fridge, bath and TV with 3 English channels including a movie channel! I was pretty exhausted from my diving in Thailand so staying in was way too hard to pass up. Also, I had no clean clothes...well no clean light clothes. None! So I also used that as my excuse to hibernate for 24 hours while I had my laundry done. Why didn't I go out in my slightly warmer clothing? Because HCMC was 39 degrees!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The heat in Southern Vietnam is INSANE!!!!!!!!!!! Once I got my shorts and tank tops back I didn't mind it so much. EVERYONE sweats profusely, even the locals, and I'm used to it by now. Also, it was quite entertaining to see the Westerners who have just arrived melt. Not nice, but 10 weeks ago that was me so I figure I can laugh now.
Sights in HCMC:
- War Remnants Museum: very very sad collection of pictures taken during the Vietnam war with the US. The explanations and captions are very helpful and provided tons of info on what happened, how many people were involved and what the costs were (human lives and monetary). Absolutely heartbreaking. Especially the sections dedicated to children exposed to Agent Orange.
- Reunification Palace: Huge let down. This is the Palace that housed various important people including Ho Chi Mihn. It's where international politicians and royalty are received and important meetings take place, but really...it's a big house/office building. From the outside the architecture looks really interesting and the lawn in immaculate. On the inside it has faded rugs, faded chairs, faded art. etc. etc. Nothing very exciting. The information provided by the free tour was great. Learned a lot about past rulers and wars, but there really isn't much to look at and it is stiffling with no aircon and only the occasional fan.
- Cholon/China town market: cool place to walk around and check out the local goods.
- Traditional water puppet show: Very cool! Set up with a water stage instead of wood. The musicians and singers were lined on both sides of the stage. They used a combination of instruments and voices to tell a story (in Vietnamese so I didn't really understand, but it didn't matter) while the puppets act out the action in the water. They also used lighting, fog and sparklers to created really cool scenes.
- Day trip to Mekong Delta: in the interest of saving time I signed up for a day trip to two towns in the Mekong Delta. Originally I was interested in seeing the floating markets, but I didn't have high hopes for this because the markets usually get going around 5am and my trip wasn't even leaving HCMC till 8am. By the time we got there the market was dwindling, but I still got a glimpse of what goes on. Essentially instead of having stalls the vendors set up their produce in a boat and then drive up and down the river area selling their goods. Next I got to see a couple of different demos: rice paper, coconut candy (so delicious!) and popped/puffed rice. The popped rice was definately the coolest. They heat up black sand in a huge wok, adding oil every few minutes to see if the sand is hot enough. When the oil starts to evaporate/burn they add in the rice (husk included)and it pops almost instantly.

Phang Nga and Patong Lady Boy Show, Phuket, Thailand

Phang Nga Bay looks exactly the way I pictured Thailand. One hundred percent breathtaking! Huge rock islands jutting out of the water and bordered by sandy beaches. The actual town of Phang Nga is tiny, but its main streets provides cheap accomodation and tasty street food and the locals are really lovely and accomodating so it's a nice place to spot off for a day or two. I took a long boat tour around the bay with Nathan from NZ. Since there were only two of us we had a lot more control over how much time we spent at the various stops and got to skip the more touristy places completely. We puttered around the bay and then stopped to kayak some caves. Didn't actually get to paddle, ust sit in an inflattable 'kayak' (term used very loosely), but our guide was hilarious (insisted we take excessive amounts of pictures and kept telling us what a great choice we made for our honeymoon lol) so we had a good time. Caves were pretty cool. The rocks were covered in jagged edges with seashells imprinted in them. Very interesting formations. From there we got back on the long boat and headed to James Bond Island where they filmed 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. Wasn't horribly interesting. Was very beautiful, but so are all the other islands and this one is swarming with tourists and pushy vendors selling junk. Back on the boat we headed to a tiny island where the boat driver handed us headlamps then pointed at a ladder that lead into a cave (he didn't speak any English so that was the extent of our instructions). Cave was great. We were the only ones there so had the run of the place. Came back out and had a tasty lunch on the tiny beach. After lunch we stopped at a muslim fishing village. Whole village is set on stilts around ahuge rock island that comes straight outof the water. Unfortunately, it has been totally turned into a tourist market. All the usual trinkets and souvenirs. I heard Muslim and automatically put on a long sleeve highnecked shirt. Turned out it wasn't necessary since one tourist was in her bra in the middle of the market trying on souvenir t-shirts. So much for a modest muslim village. We lasted about 5 minutes before heading back to the boat. Overall, awesome day trip.

Hat Patong 2nd Night
I ended up back in Hat Patong the day before my flight out of Thailand. Decided to wander down the main strips of bars and stores. Soon spotted huge gaggle of lady boys dressed a la Birdcage. Ended up going to the show (figured I had to check it out while in Thailand), but quickly became apparent that despite the dozens of people lining up for pics witht he lady boys no one actually singned up for the show. So I took a seat with the 2 other spectators (2!) thinking this was going to be really awkward, but it actually worked out really well because the 2 rather large Americans acted as a buffer so I wans't subjected to any 'in your face' performances. The show wasn't half bad. It was a mix of actual singing (which was good), lip singing (absolutely terrible) and mediocre to good dancing. I think the really bad performers, who were also a\rather unfortunate looking, are purposely mixed in as comic relief to break up the other numbers which were essentially strip show numbers. As for the lady boys themselves, some were really pretty, others closer to scary than sexy. One Marilyn Monroe number was especially nightmare worthy.

Hat Patong, Phuket, Thailand

After the liveaboard I got dropped back in Hat Patong, which is the really touristy area near Phuket Town. It's an okay place to hang out for a little while, but isn't very thrilling unless you plan on drinking. So that's just what I did! I headed out with some people from the boat and found a nice place where the bartenders play Jenga and Connect Four with you and, once your drunk enough, ask you to place a wager on who can nail a nail into a giant plank of wood with the fewest hits. Needless to say I didn't partake in the hammering competition since I can barely hit a nail without any alcohol in my system, but it was pretty hilarious to watch.
The main drag is littered with bars playing loud music and half naked men/women/??? dancing on platforms and people showing flyers for "free pingpong shows" (with mandatory 500 baht drinks :S). It's an interesting place and brings quite a few question to mind:
- is that a man or a woman?
- are those real or implants?
- what do they pay for implants over here? (since so many of them have them they have to be sort of affordable right?)
- is he paying her?
- does he know that she's a he?
etc., etc., etc.

Makes for a interesting evening!

Phuket, Thailand - Similan Liveaboard!!!!!

I arrived in Phuket and signed up for a liveaboard trip that left later that day. I was lucky to get the last spot on the last trip offered this season. Monsoon season is coming up and the National Park will be closing soon. We drove about 2 hours from Phuket into the Province of Khao Lak to board the boat. The boat was way nicer than I imagined with three floors, one with equipment, dive platform, kitchen and tiny, but comfy cabins, one with a dining area open on three sides with an amazing view and refreshing breeze, fancier cabins and the captains bridge, and, finally, a sundeck with a hammock and lounge chairs that quite a few people choose to sleep on instead of freezing in their aircon cabins. To my relief, the other tourists were between the ages of 21 and 45 and almost all spoke fluent English. I had been terrified that I would be the only anglo on a boat full of German 60 year old married couples and would spend four days sitting alone and listening in on conversations I had no hope of comprehending.
But instead, the next four days flew by in a blur of diving, eating, sleeping and laughing at each other. We saw a leopard shark, manta rays, Kuhl's stingrays, sea snakes, lion fish, turtles, moray eels, puffer fih, angelfish, lobster, barracuda, and squid. The dive sites in the Similans not only offer a chance to see all these amazing animals, but also clean/clear blue water, brightly colored corals and thousands of tiny fish in huge schools. It was absolutely breathtaking and even the "dullest" of dives left me wanting more. Absolutely amazing experience.

Another thing that I got to experience on the liveaboard was a thermocline. We were waiting to see of any manta rays would show up at a dive site in Koh Bon so we were lined up above this ledge of coral keeping an eye out on the blue (kind of like watching a huge blue screen). I noticed the water in front of me was shifting from clear blue to this funny greenish yellow color and getting really blurry. Within minutes, the cloud had hit me and it was FREEZING! I have yet to find someone who can thoroughly explain it to me, but for some reason the water remains separate, the warm blue and clear and the cold greenish and really blurry (kind of like looking through frosted glass). Sarah aptly described it like watching a sandstorm heading for you. I personally didn't mind it, after the initial shock wore off, and entertained myself by swimming along with my body in warm part and my arms dangling into the cold part. It was very cool!

Overall, I love love loved my liveaboard trip. I think 4 days is about as much as I can handle with 4 dives a day, but I would get on another boat in a heartbeat!

A day in Kuala Lumpur

KL provided a nice stopover. Other than the sketch hostel in Chinatown, that left my scratching at bites on my legs and eyeing my hostel sheet trying to decide whether it had picked up any bed bugs :S (I ended up soaking it in deet for a couple of hours before using it again), KL was a pleasant place to stop for a day and wander around. It's like many other big cities, it's busy and the streets are teeming with people in suits with briefcases rushing to work. Since it was threatening rain and I hadn't eaten since before my flight the night before I couldn't resist when I saw a KFC with free WIFI. Inside it was set up exactly like a KFC in NA (big surprise), but offered rice as a side dish, had a sign stating the food is hallah and the clientele was about half men and women in suits, half women in hijabs. Everyone was chatting away happily while waiting in the enormous line up. Probably looked exactly the way a downtown Toronto KFC would look at lunch hour, but maybe a little happier...?

The KL tower, which provides a great view of the city and the Patronas Towers, is the 5th tallest telecommunications tower in the world. On the viewing deck I was given an excellent audio guide that provided me with just enough detail to keep me interested in the view, but not so much as to bore me. The city has many unique features which were made all the more interesting thanks to the explanations. After the viewing deck I headed to a very sad attempt at an authentic Malay village. Essentially the tower wanted to triple its price and so thought that by adding this cheap addition they could justify it. I wasn't expecting much from it so I wasn;t very surprised or disappointed when it turned out to be a crappy strip of wood buildings selling cheap trinkets at ridiculous prices. Luckily, the dance performance that followed was much more impressive (see facebook for short video).
Overall not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

Balinese Quirks

Here a bunch of random stuff I liked, found hilarious or annoying in Bali:
- you could lick your plate clean and the waiter would still ask if you were finished before taking it away
- 'excuse me, you dropped something' I fell for this at least twice before I was able to ignore it (I hear this maybe 10 times a day)
- 'Same same, but different' the local vendors rational for why their product looks the same, but is twice the price of the exact same thing inthe next stall
- they try to sell you anything you have already purchased so if you have a sarrong clearly you need 6 more. 'One more?'

- By far my favourite: the silent taxi drivers who don't bother yelling 'transport, yes, yes' at you, but instead have a signthat reads "Need a taxi?" on one side and "Maybe tomorrow?" on the other.

And of course, crude or not it has to be mentionned again, "Up the bum, no babies". I had a great conversation with one vendor who was convinced I was lying when I said babies wasn't spelled babys (which is what his t-shirts said). Too funny.

Tulamben, Bali and Gili Trawagan, Lombok, Indonesia

Tulamben is a pretty non-existent village. The US Liberty shipwreck is essentially the only reason a couple of resorts have popped up here. The US Liberty is an easy dive ranging from 10-30 meters depth with lots to see. Excellent introduction for Court's first ever discovery dive :)

During the past 2 months I've heard great things about the Gilis so we decided to go check them out. We opted for the slow/cheap ferry to get over to Lombok ($15 instead of $70) and MAN IS IT SLOW! After 5 hours on the boat (4 of which I was blissfully asleep) Court picks up the Lonely Planet and reveals that Lombok is in fact only 25km away from Bali. Let's do the math on that one: 5 hours, 25 km means we are only going 5 km/hr! No wonder it's cheaper.

Gili is a set of three islands. We decided on Gili Trawagan because gili Air is suppose to be family friendly and gili Meno apparently has severe electricity issues and no internet, which really isn't job application or blog friendly. Trawagan, according to the Lonley Planet, is suppose to be a nice party place with good diving. I must admit I was very disappointed with Gili. It did have some really nice diving (Court got to see a shark which she was esctatic about), but other than that the beach near the hotels is crowded, the turtle sanctuary is a sad sad sight with a couple of turtles floating around in a glass enclosure, the hotels are either expensive or disgusting, the food and drinks are overpriced and the average tourist is either 18 or acts like an 18 yr old (thrilled to be away from Mom's supervision). It is a nice place to hang out for a couple of days, but is definately no better or cheaper than Kuta beach Bali. Another not so charming quality about Gili Trawagan is the surplus of Magic Mushrooms. They are in shakes, on pizza, in the bars, on the streets, etc. etc. One night Court and I were sitting ina quaint little hut with an awesome view of the water when the waiter came over to ask us if we wanted magic mushroom shakes. When we said no thanks he replied 'it's fine, everyone else is doing them. No problem!' Thanks, but no thanks buddy. I'm not going to be peer pressured into taking drugs on some island, hours from any kind of medical help, days from my country just because a bunch of other people think it's a good idea. We had to laugh at his attempt. Overall I'm glad I went to check it out, but would definitely pass on going there again. Happy to be back in Bali and moving on to Phuket, Thailand for some great diving.

Gunung Agung - THE MOST RIDICULOUS HIKE EVER

The next thing on our vacation to-do list is to climb a volcano. We get ourselves set up with a company and drive out to the base of Gunung Agung at 1am so that we can climb to the summet in time for sunrise. We're greeted by a tiny Indonesian woman who hands us flashlights and apologizes for not speaking much English (more on this later). So we start off up about 200 steps. I'm already struggling a little because of the late hour (it;s about 1:20am) and having just woken up from an impromptu nap in the van on the way over, but I'm enthusiastic about the climb and excited about sunrise. We stop at a temple and stand around awkwardly as our guide sets up several offerings and says a prayer. Then the real adventure begins. THIS IS NO HIKE FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! IT'S MORE LIKE ROCKCLIMBING THAN 'WALKING'. Unfortunately, our guide can;t communicate this to us as hervocabulary appears to be limited to yes, no, slowly slowly and enjoy. So as we duck under trees and climb over others, scrambled through trenches 3 feet deep and maybe 1 1/2 fet wide all she can really say is 'yes yes' and giggle as I gasp for air and ask if it is like this the whole way up. An appropriate answer would have beend ' No, this is the really easy part', but I guess it's better I didn't know that yet as I was already thinking I keep thinking '5 more hours of this'!?! From the trenches we move into a section that is all rock, but that can mostly be climbed like big unstable stairs, from there it turns into smaller rocks that create severely unstable steps at an angle that requires us to climb them on all fours. Note that now it is almost 3am and we've been climbing in the dark for 2 hours without any breaks and have been up since 8am. To my great dismay, every time I see the flash lights of the other group (who are about 30 minutes ahead of us) stop and ask if they are almost at the top our guide just laughs and says no. She doesn't offer any further encouragement or ETA. My greatest motivation at this point is that stopping for more than 30 seconds makes me shiver uncontrollably and going back down would be impossible and incredibly foolish in the dark so I have no other options except continuing up.
After about 5 hours, 2500 and some odd meters and a couple of moments of extreme panic (sometimes me panicking and Court being the rational/calm one, sometimes the other way around) we finally make it to the top in time for sunrise. We drag ourselves over and into this pit and look over to the east, only to see that a huge bank of clouds is completely blocking out the sun. DAMN, but c'est la vie eh?

The way down is a huge concern to us as in our mninds the dark stretches of mountain not lit by our flshlights are huge chasm. I'm sitting at the top replaying the climb up and remembering the couple of times we had to eadge our way across ledges or full out cross huge holes rockclimbing style, but with no harness and thinking 'how the hell are we going to get down?'. The worrying combined with the intense cold at the top is making it hard to enjoy the view. Court's action epitomize out fatigue, anxiety and loss of interest: I say 'Want to take in this view before we head down', she leans past me to glance at the beautiful peaks of the valcona inthe orange light with a look of total disinterest and says 'yep, got it, let's go'.

The next 6 hours, with the exception of the first 30 minutes when we are giddy with relief at the ease of sliding down the mountain on our backsides, are total hell. With aching knees, scratched legs and arms, sweat drenched shirts and empty bellies we struggle our way down the volcano. A full 12 hours after leaving our van in the parking lot we collapse back into it grateful to be down safe.

We decide a reward is much deserved and check ourselves into a really nice hotel ($30 a night) and spend the next 18 hours basking in aircon, fluffy towels and think duvets.

So after sleeping, eating and having my legs finally repair themselves and allow me to walk without looking physically challenged (this takes 3 days), I look back and think: it really wasn't that bad! lol Just goes to show how well our minds distort our perceptions in a way to comfort ourselves. Gotta love the psychology behind it.

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Court and I headed to Ubud where we were met with ridiculous amounts of rain. Once that let up a little we walked down to the local market where Court was astonished at the amount of Batik fabric (hand dyed using wax to make elaborate patterns) on sale for dirt cheap. That night we discovered just how cheap you can get things at a market if you go right at closing. Everyone seemed desperate to make a final sale and were offering staggeringly low prices for all kinds of things. Makes you wonder how much the stuff is really worth and what kind of quality it is.
After a tasty meal of spring rolls and avocado chicken salad (by far the best meal I've had so far) we purchased tickets to see some traditional Balinese dancing. Unfortunately, it was horribly disappointing. The show was titled 'Kecak Fire Dancing and Trance Dance' so we were expecting fire eating and manipulation and various different dances. What we got was about 60 men sitting in a circle chanting and making noises with their hands, etc., which was cool for about 10 minutes, but then we realized that the actual beat only varied for about 3 minutes and then was repeated over and over and over. Meanwhile, two women entered the circle, danced in slow motion for maybe 10 minutes and then got chased out of the circle by some kind of monkey demon thing (man in a wooden mask). Then they yell at each other in Bahasa for a while and then continue dancing in slow motion. Needless to say, after 45 minutes of repetitive chanting, slow motion dancing and yelling in Bahasa, we snuck out.

The next day was reserved for the Monkey Sanctuary. It is suppose to be along the same lines as the rehabilitation center I visited in Malaysia, but appears to be more of a messed up zoo/tourist trap. Monkeys are wandering around the grounds and into the village (where they are chased out of stores and back into the 'sanctuary'), tourists are teasing them with food and trying to touch them and getting far closer to a unknown wild animal than any intelligent person would recommend (lots of dumb tourists sticking there faces right up next to this 20 pound monkey with half inch sharp claws and teeth the size of a tigers - literally, surprisingly huge sharp teeth). Despite the distance we were keeping, right at the entrance one of the monkeys spotted a lump in Courtney's pocket and came running. He jump up onto her, reached his hand inside her buttoned pocket and pulled out her lip gloss. He then proceeded to untwist the top and lick all the lip gloss of the applicator and then gnawed through the plastic. Meanwhile, his monkey friend has spotted him eating and has decided Court must have more treats. The only signs around the sanctuary say that if attacked drop the food and walk away, but Court doesn't have any food so when this monkey leaps up onto her and starts going through her pockets she doesn't have anything to drop! So I stand around helpless yelling at the monkey and trying to distract him while Court tried not to freak out as the monkey digs his claws through her clothing. Eventually he gives up and jumps down only to go after my bag. I was terrified he'd open it up and take off with my camera or passport so I risked it and hissed at him and stomped my foot at him. At first he looked like he might try to take me on, but then decided against it and walk away. Not a very relaxing morning.

Next we traveled to Klungklung where there is an elephant sanctuary. The sanctuary is really more of a really nice/enormous garden area with elephants romming around and horribly sad looking monkeys in empty cages (decorations I;m guessing...). Aside from the depressed looking monkeys that I attempted to cheer-up with mangosteins and oranges (the staff encouraged this of course) the place is beautiful and the elephant look pretty happy hanging out in big gaggles and munching on plants. We were assigned to Alaura, a two ton, 20 year old female who continuously snacked while she toured us around the property. Much more successful than our morning monkey journey.

Kuta Beach Con't/SURFING

After a couple of days of lounging on the beach we decided we were ready to take on surfing. During our oh so weird experience of being accosted by locals while rendered immobile by drying henna tattoos (see last post), we had met a local named Mateo who promise to have us standing on surf boards in 15 minutes or less. We arrived on the beach and were greeted by Mateo and his nameless sidekick who briefly (VERY briefly-as in 15 words or less) explained to us how to surf. We then followed them out into the surf and waited for our first wave. I was pretty skeptical standing up within 15 minutes, but sure enough, Court was standing up on her first try and I was on my second. Clearly we're naturals lol. We surfed for about on hour with our respective instructors while fielding questions about our personal lives. I'm pretty used to this and pulled out the same story I always do (got married last year, but my husband is still in school so he couldn't come on this trip or he's at a business meeting and I'm on my way to meet him. I vary it depending on how creeped out I feel). Court on the other hand made the mistake of saying she was single and spent the rest of her lesson being invited back to Sumatra to meet Mateo's family, etc. Lol. All very harmless, but still pretty funny. Overall, I was really pleased at how the whole experience went. Would definitely surf again!

That night we made our second attempt at locating the night market for dinner. This time we found the night market, but, unfortunately, it didn't actually have any prepared food and was a total bust. I was very disappointed. Kuta and Gili are both really really weak on street food. It's hard to find and either totally bland or drenched in disgusting grease with crazy hot peppers mixed in. I miss Jakarta street noodles and Filipino street markets.

Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia

Things I've seen/random notes on Kuta:
1- Huge group of drunk string bikini clad Scandinavians -make that VERY drunk- wrestling on the beach in the afternoon. Look of total disgust on Muslim women's faces as they try to walk down the beach without getting hip checked.
2- Indonesian man asking the Swedish guys I'm sitting with if he can take my picture. I refuse (because I'm in a bikini), while the Swedish guy sits there confused. The Indonesian man stands around awkardly until a flash of lightning distracts me and then he snaps my pictures. YUCK.
3- Locals on the beach selling ice cream, bracelets, hena tattoos and wooden dragons, while calling you sexy, beautiful, etc.
4- Court's plane arrived at about 10:30pm and since I was so excited to go meet her I couldn't settle on the beach or focus on my book etc. so I decided I would walk to the airport to kill an hour or so. THe road to the airport is pretty much straight and is lined with huge stores and loads of restaurants so I wasn't at all worried about walking it.
5- Crude bumper stickers (ex. Up the bum, no babies) are sold in mass quantities. Vendors make even cruder comments if you stop to read them. Pains me to think of the impression Westerners have left on the locals. Clearly, at some point, Westerners must have approved of/encouraged/purchased this kind of thing. It's pretty sad when you think about it. No wonder some people think we have no morals.
6- Courtney lying with her head in my lap while she gets a henna tattoo on her stomach and I get one on my back. Since we are essentially helpless, the locals swarm and Court and I are subjected to women shoving bracelets in our faces, while another woman tries to convince me I want a massage (she giving me a free sample and ignoring my No Thank Yous) and Court has her heel pumiced (also a free sample). All we could do was laugh. Don't think we'll encounter a situation like that for a long time.
7- With the exception of one girl who was standing in a Jakarta train station looking very upset as she checked to see what was left in bag (a huge slit had been cut down the side so I can imagine at least her wallet was missing), I haven't seen much theft in Indonesia. However, that doesn't mean I'm being careless either. Court and I decided to head to the beach for a swim one night and delibrately brought only the equivalent of $3-4 and nothing else. Our Swedish friends weren't so saavy and returned to the beach after our swim to find that their beer, money and one digital camera was missing. It sucks, but I can't really say I was surprised...

Jakarta, Indonesia

Quick note on my 2 days in Jakarta:

Jakarta is huge, congested, polluted and exhausting city. Although they have a well developed public transport system, many people still prefer their cars, motorcycles and tricycles so the streets are crammed all the time and crossing the downtown street is essentially impossible (unless you have a death wish). The locals just stick their hands out and walk into the street, but I did not have the nerve to test that strategy out.
I went up their National Monument. It's along the same lines as the CN tower and provides a nice view of the city. I was a little disappointing because from that view point Jakarta looks like any other big city, nothing really distinct or unique about it. Next, I went to the Mosques in the downtown area. It is suppose to be one of the largest mosques in Southeast Asia. It is really big and nicely designed, but unlike famous churches it didn't have any art or decorations really. Beautiful marble work, but a lot of empty space. Very interesting though. I felt a little bad because it had started pouring rain outside so when I entered I was pretty wet and they asked me to put on a robe over my drenched clothes. Not so nice for the next person asked to put it on... oops.

Jakarta did have some really tasty street food. I'm very excited about the food in Indonesia because I've heard so many good things about it!!! Will keep you posted of what I find/eat!

Apo Island March 31st- April 5th

So we've arrived on this tiny island off the coast of Dumaguete city, Philippines. At first I'm a little thrown off because I was expecting a resort and instead am now standing in a dingy looking dorm room with browning mosquito nets and a bucket shower...ok not what I was expecting, but the island has a real charm and soon enough I had forgotten about the very basic accommodations and was loving life on the island.
On our first night there we heard about a disco and went to check it out with Alex and Marcel from Switzerland. Around 9pm there isn't a soul on the dance floor (big outdoor basketball court with disco lights hanging from the hoops and music blaring from a makeshift stage) so the 4 of us are out there dancing all alone as a group of children run around us, half intrigued, half scared of us. It was a very cool atmosphere with the basketball court all lit up in disco lights and the silhouettes of palm trees with a full moon in the background. By about 10pm all the kids and adults are dancing side by side and just generally letting loose to North American music. An island favourite, and most irritating song after 2 days straight of hearing it, goes like this 'don't want nobody nobody, but you. don't want nobody nobody, but you. don't want nobody nobody, but you.'etc., etc., etc. I'm sure you get the picture.

Apo Island Highlights:
- watching Alex and Kate slip slide through the mud in an attempt to reach the beer/water
- star gazing on the rocky beach with Kate. Makes me feel very small, but very fortunate all at once. The world being so big with so many issues and wars, while my biggest concern at the moment is my skinned knees (I did a rather good jkob on them though...)
- Mary's house! She so kindly took us in and rearranged her guests so that we could have a room during the fiesta/Easter celebrations. Simple place, but lovely also. All white walls with pepto-bismo pink trim, and bathrooms on the balconies. Our bathroom had a watchdog pigeon...Okay maybe not watchdog, maybe more creepily tied up pigeon that was looking into our bathroom 24/7, but I assume he had a purpose. Also in random corners throughout the house are nests with tiny little blueish black birds... not too sure what their story was, but added to the charm of the place.
- Dance practice: the island is divided up into 7 sections and then grouped into 3 communities. For fiesta they are holding a dance competition between each of the communities. Each one gets a trained dance instructor and they have been practicing for months. We stumble upon one the final practices and were so impressed we decided we really had to stay for fiesta, this was something we couldn't miss.
- cards by candlelight (power goes out every night at 9pm) with Kate and the Swiss guys.
- screaming pigs! This wasn't a positive highlight, but needs to be mentioned. As I said, it was fiesta on the island. Fiesta essentially entails a lot of visiting friends, community activities like discos AND eating tons and tons of pork. So for days and days at about 5 am the men start moving the pigs from their cages into the area where they'll be killed and this results in the loudest, most disturbing sound I have ever heard an animal make. It is horrible!
- the local church choir. On Easter Saturday, before dawn, they walked down the main road holding candles and singing. They have the most beautiful voices.

A little more info on Apo Island:
They are a very poor village, but have a really strong community. While diving, we came across a huge dead Trivially fish. Our dive master, Jed, went to investigate and discovered that it had a huge hook in its mouth, but the line was all tangled in the coral so it couldn't be reeled in. It didn't really surprise me when he untangled it and tied it to his weight belt. He dragged it along for about 30 minutes after that in much the same way a child drags along a huge balloon at the circus or something (albeit a big, dead, morbid balloon). It did surprise me, however, when I found out is was 15 kg and fed 15 families that day (Jed gave it away).
According to a dive instructor from England who has been living on the island for 10 years, a survey in 2004 found that the average household on Apo Island netted a total of $1.50 per month (not including fish caught or vegetables grown). Keep in mind that each household is about 5 people. So a free 15kg fish that feeds 15 families is a big deal.

El Nido

An 8-12 hour boat ride from hell going from Coron to El Nido, turned out to be a lovely 7 hour boat ride, where we napped, sunbathed, played cards and read. It was actually really nice. Special thanks to mother nature and her calm sea for that one.

We arrived in El Nido on the 25th of March. This place received a bad review from a couple of people we met in Coron, but we decided to check it out for ourselves and thought it was lovely. Really beautiful place surrounded by tiny islands and lagoons. Beautiful beach and nice people. And I even managed to buy a bathing suit from a really random shop in this tiny tiny, I mean TINY town.

We met up with a Swedish girl (about the 20th Swedish person I've met in Asia) and Canadians (the 2nd and 3rd I've met) and hoped a boat for the day. We left around 9am and spent the day island hoping. We swam in the Twin Lagoons (aptly named Big and Small Lagoon) and shoved ourselves through a hole in a rock wall to swim in Secret Lagoon. Very relaxing day with nothing much to worry about and lots of great scenery. We followed this by a night eating and chatting on the beach. El Nido has a strip of restaurants with good food and excellent chocolate shakes! We also visited Squidos, which had been recommended to us by a couple of travellers and Lonely Planet, and had their famous stuffed squid. It was delicious (stuffed with veggies).

Since we are on such a tight time budget (we're only allowed 21 days if we want to avoid the extra fee and Kate has to be back at work around the same date:() we headed out of El Nido this morning towards Puerto Princessa. We debated about whether we should take the bus or splurge (an extra 200 pesos or 5$) and take an airconditioned van. Thank god we picked the van. The 'bus', which we saw on our way out of town, looked like it was from the 1940's with all the passengers covering their mouths and noses with articles of clothing and masks in an attempt to bloke out all the dust and exhaust pouring in through the windows. Also, the bus ride takes about 8 hours and we made it in the van in 5 hours... mostly because our driver was an Evil Knievel wannabe and barely slowed down for any of the thousands of curves we went around. Big thank you to the wonders of ginger pills as I made it through this ride, which closely resembled the tea cups at Wonderland, without any tummy issues.

No comments on Puerto Princessa yet, except that the hostel we chose is AMAZING! 300 pesos (about 7$) a night for a dorm and they have just about the coolest lounge area I've ever seen with vines hanging down all over, chilled out music and hammocks, excellent WIFI AND a bracelet making station!!!!! I love this place. FYI it's called Banwa Art House for anyone interested :)

Things I've been eating (since Kate asked :)

Well: RICE, EGG and NOODLES. RICE, EGG and NOODLES. RICE, EGG and NOODLES. RICE, EGG and NOODLES. lol

Okay, not only rice and noodles, but a lot of rice and noodles. Some very very tasty, some horribly bland and boring. And you can have egg on pretty much anything imaginable, breakfast, lunch or dinner (and don't rule it out dessert).

Memorable foods (good and bad):

ABC special: I was very excited for this, as I was celebrating and wanted something really special. It was special alright! Approx Contents: ice cream, fruit, blended sweet corn, strange brown liquid...maybe condensed milk, strange slimmy red fruit, strange brown gelatin stuff, kidney beans, huge chunks of questionable ice....

Dim Sum: from Manila. Very tasty. But was disappointed to see that they had shark fin on the menu.

Laksa: this Malaysian soup/stew stuff. Really tasty. Usually has a bunch of different kinds of veggies and some form meat in it. Pretty spicy.

Shrimp tempura and shrimp curry from El Nido! soooooo good.

Fish cooked over open fire on the beach while island hoping in El Nido.

Any kind of fruit shake. They are made with the freshest fruit.

Pancakes: they are about 4 times thicker than you would find in Canada, but tasty.

Palawan here we come!

Our next stop was Coron, Palawan. Here we got to dive some of the Japanese wrecks that were bombed by the US in 1940's. Although I filled out the forms honestly, the dive shop decided to disregard the fact that I am technically only allowed to dive to 18m and took me down to 32m. Our first wreck was the Irako (a food supply ship), which is covered in beautiful rose coral. I decided I was ok with going inside the wrecks, but stayed glued to my dive master just in case anything went awry. It well really well and I had a good time. Kate says she found them eerie and had the sound track to a horror film playing in her head the whole time (but still loved them). What I really found amazing was the amount of coral and fish that had moved into and onto the ship. The next dive was the Olympia, which was a cargo ship during the war. In this one we saw more rose coral, the huge boiler room, really colourful clams, lionfish and blowfish. Overall, I really enjoyed the wreck dives, but think that reef diving is more interesting in general. Swimming around dark rooms and shoving yourself (and your huge tank) through tight openings leaves something to be desired... Still a really cool experience though.

Donsol and the Whale Sharks!

A couple of days in Manila were more than enough (it's loud and packed with people, cars, tricycles and jeepneys) so after successfully locating an underwater housing for my camera, we flew into Legaspi and grabbed a van to Donsol. Donsol is known for its huge population of whale sharks and it did not disappoint. During our 3 hour boat rental, (everyone is alotted only 3 hours) we swam with 7 sharks! And these things are HUGE!!!!! The biggest one we saw was about the size of a bus (not exaggerating) and the smallest was maybe the size of a minivan. You would think it would scary, but they are so docile. You have to swim rather quickly to keep up with them, but only because they are so huge. So the shark is leisurely swimming along and you are on the surface booting it as fast as your fins will take you. Really amazing though and totaly worth the workout.

In a very sad twist, two nights later Kate and I were in a market buying dinner and picked out a fish dish. We were about half done our 'fish', when the lady comes by to ask us if we are enjoying our WHALE SHARK!!! We were both pretty horrified and said 'isn't it illegal to hunt whale shark?' to our taxi driver. He responded (100% serious) 'only if you get caught'. UGHH. So much for the informational video they made us watch about everyone helping in attempting to save the whale sharks.

Before moving on to Palawan, we fit in a dive to Mantabol, about 2 hrs away from Donsol by boat. This area is known as a cleaning station for huge Manta Rays so we were really excited it. Unfortunately, we were 6 divers to one dive master and 3 of those divers were...lets say... aquatically chanllenged. On the first dive one of them manage to slice a piece of coral clean in two because she was so preoccupied snapping pictures and not paying attention. Later, back on the surface, she informed me that she is an environmental educator. The irony was a bit much for me.
Anyway, we did get to see a one huge manta ray (the size of a small kitchen table), which was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, we only got to see it for about 30 seconds before our dive master noticed that we were one diver short (apparently he had been missing for about 5 minutes!!!!!!) so we ended up missing the rest of the dive. The guy was fine, chilling out on the surfaced and smilling and waving as we swam up...apparently he just magically floated to the surface for no reason at all(ie. he messed up and hit the fill button on his BCD instead of empty)and when he finally got back down he couldn't find us. Oh well. C'est la vie!!!

Manila

March 17-18th:

Things I have seen today:
1- cockfight
2- child deffecating onto plastic bag on sidewalk
3- mice poop on bed in hotelroom and on bed
4- soft porn on public bus
5- man walking down street with cock (presumably heading towards number 1)
6- crooked police officer
7- children playing in delapitated houses/stores
8- Taal Volcano from tricycle taxi
9- child porn for sale in street market
10- Filipino escort with stereotypical Texan
11- enormous cockroach (most likely bigger than mice from number 3)
12- Natalia (Filipino woman) says: yes yes mice (big smile on her face)
Natalia's grandson rattles something off in Filipino (I assume he's explaining what a mouse is)
Natalia: no no no mice (she sweeps mice poop under front rug)
13- my foot swollen to about 50% from yet another mystery bug bite (don't worry it's all better now :))
14- rooster in the airport
15- handheld/stappler like sewing machine! very cool!
16- Police tourist escort up Taal Volcano (just me, Kate and our policeman....not another tourist in sight....so so strange)

Night Dive and back to KK

March 13th, 2010:
It's Saturday night and I'm in the pitch black 15 meters underwater. The green glow from the jetty lights is long gone and I'm at the front of the group so without my flashlight I can't see much of anything. I turn around and watch as my 3 fellow divers and dive master float around searching for interesting creatures. The sound of metal hitting metal tells me my dive master has found something interesting. I haven't the slightest idea how he managed it, but he's spotted an octopus the size of my pinky finger nail. Throughout the dive he also spots eels, squid, crocodile fish, stone fish (guess what this one looks like...), hermit crabs, turtles and loads of other cool stuff.
The night dive was a very surreal experience and made me feel like I was in a movie about exploring the ocean floor. Loved it!

Lesson 6: if you shine your flashlight in a sleeping turtles eyes it can drown because the light 'resets' it internal depth gadge.


Although we hated to leave, Kate and I dragged ourselves away from Mabul and al the amazing diving and headed back to Kota Kinabula for our flight to Manila. The bus ride from Semporna to KK was about 8 hours, which was going beautifully until we hit the 6th hour and KK national park, where the road is best compared to a crazy straw. The bus spent the next 2 hours continuously swerving around corners while the majority of the passengers held on to plastic bags and attempted to breathe deeply. Kate and I managed to hold it together long enough to make it into KK, but, unfortunately, not everyone did and so the tiny bathroom was christened several times over. YUCK!

Semporna Highlights

Here are some of my highlights from my week in Semporna/surrounding islands:
1- cards at Mabul Cafe with Kate
2- watching a sea turtle munch on its lunch approximately 2 meters from me
3- sea turtles as long as I am tall!
4- The Swedes!!! Apparently approx 1/3 of the Swedish populations is actually backpacking around Malaysia (lol, their words, not mine)
5- my 1st night dive! See next post!
6- relaxing on the jetty waiting for our next dive
7- learning to blow air rings (a la smoke ring) under water from Tawfik

Semporna aka a divers' Nirvana

After another long bus ride past miles and miles of palm oil plantations led us to Semporna. I had heard a lot of tourist say it was a real dump and so was pleasantly surprised when I arrived. There isn't much to the little town, but it's filled with friendly people and tasty restaurants. I spent my first day doing Open Water theory, my second on Sibuan aka sunburn island (it lived up to its name and then some)doing confined water dives and then my third doing open water dives in Mabul. Kate and I are now set up at the Scuba-Junkie resot on Mabul island, which allows us to dive any of the islands south of Semporna, including world-renowned Sipadan. A stroke of luck had me at the top of the waiting list (you should book weeks if not months in advance to secure an actual spot as only 120 divers are allowed on Sipadan a day) and on the boat to Sipadan the day after I finished my open water course. Since I hadn't actually booked in time, I had to use the name of the person who dropped out at the last minute and so went by Cornelia Weinzierl from Austria for the day.

Now Sipadan: I can't even begin to explain how amazing the dive sites are there. They are just breath taking. It is essentially a huge wall of coral and then a 600 m drop. No real slop to speak of in some places so you swim along with a wall of amazing coral with tiny fish on one side and open ocean and sharks on the other. It was amazing. We saw tons of great stuff including reef sharks, white tip sharks, huge schools of barracuda, jackfish, bump head parrot fish and green sea turtles.

On a more serious note: Kinabatangan River

So I thought I'd give a little more info on Kinabatangan and what I learned there.

The river itself is surrounded by a very narrow and sometimes non-existent band of jungle. This is because palm oil plantations are taking over this region (and most of Borneo) and are chopping down huge sections of jungle. This is also the reason you can see so many animals along the river, as they really have no where else to go. This kind of thing is happening all over Malaysia and is significantly contributing to the depletion of various animals. For example, male orangutans usually travel long distances after mating in an attempt to avoid inbreading. When plantations move in on all sides of the orangutan he ends up getting stuck in one section of jungle, which prevents him from moving on and also, if the section is too small, causes him to starve.

Lesson 5: probosis monkeys have 2 stomachs, one for non-toxic food and one for toxic substances. This allows them to drink from the dirty Kinabatangan river without encountering any problems. Sugar, however, kills the bacteria in their stomach preventing them from breaking down foods and leads to their subsequent death.

Lesson 6: Orangutans do not share the probosis monkeys' ability to drink river water and so must rely on the dew from leaves, etc. for hydration.

Kinabatangan River Cruises

After a two hour bus ride Andy, Suzi, Kate and I arrived on the banks of the Kinabatangan river. We were ferried across to our lodge, given our welcome schpeil and a welcome drink and then showed to our cabins. We went with a company called Nature Lodge and their set up is pretty nice. Outdoor lobby and front desk, tiny little dorm like cabins (6 people in each) that were pretty clean and comfy and a really nice outdoor dining hall. We set off on our first river cruise at about 4pm and saw some great stuff: long-tailed macaques (there are so many that by day 2 none of us even wanted to stop the boat to look at them any more. zoom in on the pictures and you should be able to see at least 5 in each shot if not more), pig-tailed macaques, hornbills (which thrilled my travel buddies/bird lovers), monitor lizards and probosis (aka big nosed, as in 4-7 inches long, monkeys). Also, got some amazings shots of the sunset over the jungle. Later that night we set out on our first jungle walk. It turned out to be rather boring, with all 12 of us sweating like mad, tripping over logs while searching the trees for interesting animals and coming out of it only having seen insects. Very disappointing considering the group the night before managed to find a slow loris. Clearly luck plays a huge factor in it and we had none that night.

The next morning we were up by 5h45 and in the boat by 6h. We had much better luck and spotted all the animals from the day before AND a lone orangutan, crocodiles, snakes and 3 different types of hornbills, including the rhinoceros hornbill which even I found interesting.

The rest of the morning was spent lazing around in hammacks, reading and playing cards with some guys from sweden followed by two more jungle treks, which were slightly more successful and two more river cruises.


Now I'm back in Sepilok at the same hostel (Paganakan Dii) with Kate from England. Tomorrow were off to Semporna and are going to try to get in to scuba in Sipidan (if there are any spots left). I'm going to try and get my open water course done there so that I can dive more easily for the rest of the trip. Then I'll be off to Mulu to see the famous caves and then I'm not sure where from there. Maybe mainland Malaysia, maybe the Philipines... Will keep you all posted!

Sepilok, Sabah, Borneo

A bug bite on my arm has swelled from a normal looking bite into a 4 inch by 6 inch monster. It is burning hot and itchy and beat red. I didn't think much of it, but the locals who run the hostel wanted to take a look so I showed them. The looks on their faces were not good. Apparently it is NOT normal lol (big surprise, my skin does things that aren't normal) and they urged me to have it checked out. I'm glad I did because the doctor seemed to share their opinion and wasn't very good at hiding his surprise (OH! WHAT is that?). Anyway, I saw the doctor and got a bunch of meds for only $20. Good deal.
Grabbed a bus from KK to Sepilok, near Sandakan. Took about 6 hours, but we got a really nice air conditionned bus so the ride was quite enjoyable (except for the horror flicks that were being played at max volume...not sure what that was all about). We're now staying in this incredible hostel set in the jungle. The dorms are all on stilts and are beautiful on the inside (filled with bunk beds with clean white sheets framed by walls made of screened slitted deep brown wood with the jungle down below). The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre was well wroth the effort involved in coming out here. They take in orphaned and injured orangutans and nurse them back to health and prepare them for jungle life. The morning feeding session was pretty good, about 6 orangutans swung down from the trees to pig out and play a little, but it was nothing compared to the afternoon. After lunch we enquired about the trails that we had heard about, but not yet seen. Because they are so poorly marked there are few people who actually go down them. So we started off on this path and barely made it 100m when we spotted our first orangutan. It was a medium sized (maybe the size of a fat 6 yr old...) and had no fear. It came right out of the trees and up onto the boardwalk. I'll admit I was a little scared. It wandered down an area marked NO ENTRY so we continued on the path. Not 3 minutes later we spotted a macaque in the trees. Two came up on the boardwalk and we were happily taking pictures, when a third and then four and then fifth, etc, etc. came up. Soon we were surrounded by about 20 macaques (of all sizes). We were a little freaked out, but got very scared when they started charging at each other and showing their teeth. Not wanting to end up in the hospital with monkey bites we backed away down the path. Another amazing life experience I guess! From there we went back to the feeding platform for the afternoon feeding. The macaques had made their way there (they weren't at the morning feeding) and were dominating the food. An irritated looking orangutan was swinging by his feet and knocking the bananas off the platform in what I assume was an attempt to get them away from him. As the other tourists wandered off a bunch of orangutans showed up and were all over the boardwalk. Rangers were following them around and telling people to back up. I watched as a very nervous looking mother tried to keep a death drip on her small sons arm as he tried to free himself.
On our way out the park we came across more orangutans hanging out in the trees and bouncing around on the roofs of the boardwalks. Overall a very cool day and well worth the $10 entrance and $3 camera fee.

Kota Kinabalu/Sapi Island

March 1st we had a lazy day in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo.
I had a lovely time reading on the beach till Suzi and Andy got up at about noon. We wandered into town and found that not much is going on in KK. Mostly shopping centres and a really repetitive market that had hundreds of stalls selling the same things. With no real interest in shopping we opted to go for a massage. It went fairly well, save for when Andy's lady let out a huge burp. Very attractive...and relaxing. I opted for a 1/2 hr massage and 1/2 hr foot replexology (about $15 total) and discovered that my feet are much more ticklish than I had previous thought.
The rest of the day was spent lazing around the beachhouse hostel with all of the other residents (all 6 of us lol).

The following day we went to Sapi Island, which is part of the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park. Sapi is really the ideal place for beginner snorkellers, with really nice coral (green and purple) and tons of fish in a well marked off area where you are safe from the many boats that are ferrying people back and forth. Despite how great it is, it wasn't really that busy. I rented some surprisingly good snorkel gear for about $3 and had a great time. The island is really peaceful and once again made me feel very priveledged to be able to do a trip like this.
Another interesting thing here were the Asian-Muslim women who were swimming in long sleeves and pants and head scarves.

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo

I'm running through the Singapore airport with 2 bags trying to keep my newly found travel buddies in sight. We finally make it to the Jetstar check-in, with maybe 10 seconds to spare before the computer locks us out, but our sprint isn't over yet. We now have 6 minutes to make it through security and to (literally) the farthest possible gate. We arrive out of breath as the sign flashes 'last call' and congratulate ourselves on having made it, only to find out the plane isn't actually boarding for another few minutes! Oh well, we've now had our exercise for the day.

LESSON #2: when booking a last minute flight be sure to note just how last minute it really is.

Fast forward 3 hours: I'm standing with my feet in bathwater aka the South China Sea with a full belly watching the sun set over the water and listening to drums in the background. I'm in heaven! Behind me the local teenagers are having a break dancing competition, with no music, and periodically yelling 'Represent Malaysia. What! What!', to my left a game of beach rugby and in front the islands I plan to visit tomorrow. I don't think I've ever been to a more relaxed place.

LESSON #3: to swim in Kota Kinabalu on a Sunday, when the beach is busy, you are best to be fully clothed.
LESSON #4: Bubbles are popular with children the world over.

Singapore/Sentosa Island/Zoo

In an attempt to get over my jet lag I headed out into the sunshine with an aussie I met at my hostel during breakfast. We decide to make our way to the Harbour front to see what was happening there. The subway system in Singapore is incredible, fast, clean and really easy to navigate. The harbour is a little crazy, beautiful palm trees and blue blue water surrounded by huge, hideous cranes (hundreds of them). Had my first real meal at a food court near by, fried chinese dumplings in this tasty sauce that made my tongue go numb for a little while, and then headed off to Sentosa island. I was pretty disappointed by it. Again, beautiful, but very fake and very commercial. Tried out the luge, it was rather dull, but the chair lift ride up was weel worth the price. From the top you have an amazing view of the harbour with it hundreds of ships.

The next day I headed off to the zoo. IT WAS AMAZING!!! Coolest place I've seen in ages. It's set up so well so that no matter where the animals are in there habitats you can wander around to get a better view. Most of them offer a full 360 view of the animals. Highlights for me were:
- Otters (big surprise eh): so cute and so manu of them (7 or 8). Four of them were playing around and really reminded me of Mia and Percy.
- Polar Bears: one was bored and waiting around for feeding time and so was bounding around his tank and coming right up to the glass over and over(scaring the hell out of unsuspecting small children).
- Orangutans: their habitat is set up so that you can climb a flight of stairs and stand in the middle of it!!! They literally swing around in the trees all around you.
- Cotton tailed monkeys: These guys sit around in the trees at the entrance. I walked into the zoo and stopped in the shade to check out the map and looked up to find one staring at me. So curious.

On my third day in Singapore I met up with Suzi and Andy from England. We went to wander around Orchard St which is suppose to be this amazing shopping district, but having just come from NA it all seemed kind of boring. Looked a lot like any other huge shopping strip with over priced stores. Also checked out the botanical gardens and strolled through a Uni campus (accidentally lol). We then headed off to the famous Night Safari near the zoo. It was interesting, but not nearly as cool as I had hoped. It, again, is really well set up and more interesting than anything I've seen before in NA, but compared to the zoo it kind of fell flat. Did see some amazing tribal dance performances with fire eating and spraying, which were pretty great.

I liked Singapore, but was very excited to move on to a more exotic place (and I was not let down! see next post)