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)