currently sitting in an internet cafe in koh phi phi just before i head off to bed. the main town here is a bit like a themepark for backpackers with bars, restaurants, shops and tourist shops, and very noisy at night with lots of drunk students, not really my scene, id rather have a bit of peace and quiet to enjoy the beauty, and it is beautiful here. i would upload some photos but this archaic computer has no usb port1
the journey over here was long because i did it all in one go, consequently i spent most of tםday sleeping. got up in the afternoon to book my diving course, which starts tomorrow, and lie on the beach for a couple of hours
the dive course lasts 3 days, then i hope to do some kind of kayak tour on the 10th before i fly off to borneo on the 11th.
Mees yu awlreddy!
Spent 6 night in Koh Phi Phi in the end, stayed in a hostel run by a Germany lady who I had interesting chats with concerning the tsunami and so forth, but that I will save for a later post because my opinion on that is quite long!
I did my Open Water PADI course on Phi Phi which consisted of a confined dive where I practised skills such as taking off my mask etc underwater (something that I thought would be difficult but was fine), and then I had 4 dives in 2 days out in the open ocean. I saw TONNES! The coral reef there is well protected, I saw clownfish, seahorses, a turtle, an octopus, etc etc etc.
I met quite a few people over in Phi Phi, one of them who happens to be good friends with one of my good friends from uni - it's a small world! I met an american guy called Rob who shared my passion for photography, and on my last day in Phi Phi, which I didn't spend diving, we went off on a mini-trek of the island taking loads of photos. It was nice not to feel like I was annoying people by snapping away!
Friday I spent mainly in a plane flying to Borneo. I flew from Krabi to Kuala Lumpur, then onto Tawau in Sabah, Borneo. The departure lounge at KL has a shop selling chocolate from all over the world! I was in heaven! At one point it appeared I would be the only westerner on the plane, so there I was, a lone female westerner munching on some food which seemed ridiculous to them in such a hot country, I got some funny looks! Fortunately 2 brits and an aussie also got my flight, I didn't chat to them on it but after I met Charly at Tawau airport we all ended up sharing a lift to Semporna which is where my dive school is based.
It turns out that these people are professional underwater photographers, and the guy (I think his name is Adam) worked for Associated Press as a news photographer. I mentioned that my grandad used to work as a freelance photographer in Wales, and when I mentioned his name he said he had heard of him, which made my day!
I've had two days diving here so far, the dives havent been as good as Phi Phi yet, but the islands we have dived off are beautiful! Tomorrow we are diving off Sipadan which is legendary for sharks, turtles and barracuda, so I'm very much looking forward to it. And by the end of tomorrow I will be an advanced open water diver!
On Wednesday I'm off to the Philippines, which I'm hoping will be a little less intimidating than being a woman in a Muslim country. Even though we have made sure to cover knees and shoulders we still get unwanted attention from men, nothing bad so far just unpleasant glares, honking horns and 'Mees yu awlreddy' as a nice chat up line. It's definitely nice to be in a group in an area, which apart from the visitors to the few local dive schools, is not a tourist resort.
Dumaguete, Negros Island, Philippines
2008-07-17
I'm currently in an internet cafe in dumaguete on negros in the philippines, which is a geek cafe with smelly noisy boys playing crap computer games. it smells. im token whitey in town and getting ripped off as only a blonde haired white girl can (yes thats right my hair is getting blonder by the second).
on the other hand the filipinos are horrendously friendly and helpful, yesterday i got off a bus in the middle of nowhere in manila, and seeing my struggle to haggle for a taxi, one guy told me he would find one for me, he ran barefooted into the middle of the road in the rain to hail one, and then shouted at another guy for not holding his umbrella over me!
very different from borneo where the muslim malaysians did not appreciate western girls, even though i had knees and shoulders covered. we got stared at, and tutted at, and worst of all, horror of horrors, we got called 'amerikanos'.
im trying to get to a random island tomorrow (apo island) but there is no consistent answer as to when the boat leaves and where from, and like every other asian they wont say no, so conversations go something along the lines of 'does the boat go from dumaguete pier?' 'yes' 'does the boat go in the morning?' 'yes' 'are you just agreeing with everything i say?' 'yes'
so im trying my best to work it out on the internet...
Geev me your munee or food!
2008-07-21
I got up at 5.45 this morning to get a ferry at 7 only to find out they weren't doing a ferry at 7 today! So now I have many hours to kill until the 1.30 boat...zzzzzz. Those of you who know me will appreciate how difficult it is for me to get up that early!
I've stayed 1 night in Dumaguete, 2 nights on Apo Island and then another night just South of Dumaguete. I spent a day in the town until Charly arrived sitting on the water front promenade reading and getting harassed by men trying to sell me 'pearl' earrings (the fact that I told them my ears weren't pierced didnt stop them!) and also getting children coming up to me begging. Two schoolkids in uniform saying "Geev me your munee or food!" obviously didnt get anything. I feel slightly guilty not giving anything to others, they would have been happy with 5p no doubt, but I didnt want to be harassed for the rest of the day.
Apo Island was fantastic, we stayed at Liberty's which is a quirky building with electricity only at certain times, and the shower was a bucket, which of course is not the most useful after diving! The island is not really touristy, I think mainly it is a fishing village as you would expect. It had a great community feel to it and we were made to feel very welcome, everyone said hello and all the children wanted me to take their photo! The weather wasn't fantastic while we were there but we had two amazing sunsets, and our room a prime view of them from the balcony so we were extremely happy.
The diving was good, the coral was in excellent condition, and we saw an enormous school of Jacks which was pretty incredible. The Dive Masters were by no means marine biologists and we would have probably seen or spotted a lot more had we had someone who knew what they were looking for. Still, we saw an octopus, black banded sea snakes, more turtles and a cool electric-blue coloured eel that lived in a hole (at some point I need to learn proper names).
The place we stayed in last night was a complete rip-off, the same price as the really nice place I stayed in on my first night here, but dirty, smelly, no hot water and a resident frog. Although I made friends with the owners doberman 'spike'! Yesterday I got my first experiences of riding in a Jeepney and the Tricycles, all an order of magniture cheaper than a cab and much more adventurous! Everyone says hello when we drive past, although Charly laughed when I said I felt like the Queen waving from our trycycle. Apparantly the similarity is linked only my name, and the Queen would not ever wear my shorts, or no doubt my now very dirty favourite light shirt which I wear almost all the time due to it being the most comfortable thing to wear in this humidity!
As well as the photos below I have put some photos up on my facebook page, Click Here
I got up at 5.45 this morning to get a ferry at 7 only to find out they weren't doing a ferry at 7 today! So now I have many hours to kill until the 1.30 boat...zzzzzz. Those of you who know me will appreciate how difficult it is for me to get up that early!
I've stayed 1 night in Dumaguete, 2 nights on Apo Island and then another night just South of Dumaguete. I spent a day in the town until Charly arrived sitting on the water front promenade reading and getting harassed by men trying to sell me 'pearl' earrings (the fact that I told them my ears weren't pierced didnt stop them!) and also getting children coming up to me begging. Two schoolkids in uniform saying "Geev me your munee or food!" obviously didnt get anything. I feel slightly guilty not giving anything to others, they would have been happy with 5p no doubt, but I didnt want to be harassed for the rest of the day.
Apo Island was fantastic, we stayed at Liberty's which is a quirky building with electricity only at certain times, and the shower was a bucket, which of course is not the most useful after diving! The island is not really touristy, I think mainly it is a fishing village as you would expect. It had a great community feel to it and we were made to feel very welcome, everyone said hello and all the children wanted me to take their photo! The weather wasn't fantastic while we were there but we had two amazing sunsets, and our room a prime view of them from the balcony so we were extremely happy.
The diving was good, the coral was in excellent condition, and we saw an enormous school of Jacks which was pretty incredible. The Dive Masters were by no means marine biologists and we would have probably seen or spotted a lot more had we had someone who knew what they were looking for. Still, we saw an octopus, black banded sea snakes, more turtles and a cool electric-blue coloured eel that lived in a hole (at some point I need to learn proper names).
The place we stayed in last night was a complete rip-off, the same price as the really nice place I stayed in on my first night here, but dirty, smelly, no hot water and a resident frog. Although I made friends with the owners doberman 'spike'! Yesterday I got my first experiences of riding in a Jeepney and the Tricycles, all an order of magniture cheaper than a cab and much more adventurous! Everyone says hello when we drive past, although Charly laughed when I said I felt like the Queen waving from our trycycle. Apparantly the similarity is linked only my name, and the Queen would not ever wear my shorts, or no doubt my now very dirty favourite light shirt which I wear almost all the time due to it being the most comfortable thing to wear in this humidity!
As well as the photos below I have put some photos up on my facebook page, Click Here
Sipadan
2008-07-21
Read through my blog and realised I had written nothing about Sipadan! Sipadan is an island off the coast of Borneo which for you geology/ geography geeks out there is not situated on the continental shelf so therefore rises 650m above the ocean floor.
It is one of the top dive sites in the world and although I have hardly done enough diving to make that judgement myself, it is awesome. We dropped in at South Point practically on top of turtles, which pop their head up above sea level quite frequently. The fish that you can see infrequently at other places are in abundance, swimming in schools right in front of your face, and there are sharks. Not just the odd shark that you might spot elsewhere but everywhere you look! I managed to swim within half a metre of one to take a photo, and at the end of a dive hovered directly above an enormous turtle (bigger than me) until it got annoyed with me taking photos and swam off.
The second dive was at Barracuda point which is world renowned, similar diving but more of a current. You swim along the wall and then head up a channel which has quite a current.
The third dive was White Tip, and we very lucky to see around 20m below us a school of juvenile grey sharks.
The island itself is beautiful and has been conserved well. Tourists are no longer allowed to stay on it and you are only allowed on a small fraction of the island. The army have a small base on it due to kidnappings by Muslim extremists in the past, it is quite disconcerting to see machine guns pointed out at you when you step onto the island!
Bohol-Cebu-Manila-Kota Kinabalu
2008-07-26
I stayed on Panglao Island, just off Bohol from Monday to Thursday. Tuesday I spent diving around Baclisag island. On the dive boat it was me, a japanese guy and the filipino dive crew, which was quite intimidating at first, but after the first dive we all chatted about where we had dived before, and we had a good time. The actual diving I found better than at Apo Island, as well as the usual stuff we saw large schools of Barracuda and Jacks. They were mesmerising to watch, and I could have hovered there for ever watching them, a bit like staring at fire.
A guy offered to take me to a good spot on the island for sunset on his scooter, so we drove out there, saw a few sites on Panglao Island and then watched the non existent sun go down. The sky was beautiful though so the guy didnt understand why I wasn't annoyed, I got some good photos, very different from the usual sunset.
Tuesday I got ripped off a little, getting someone to take me on a tour around Bohol. I got up at 4am to drive to the chocolate hills in time for sunrise, I was the only one up at the viewing point and it was an amazing experience. We then drove onto the Tarsier centre to see the small monkey like creatures, but everything else there was to see my guide wanted more money for, and I was really tired so decided to head back and just sit on the beach in the afternoon.
I got up early on Thursday morning to go dolphin watching, expecting to get on a boat at 6am, although the guys who had organised it for me had messed up and I got more and more annoyed with them trying to sort a boat for me that I just walked off. Someone else stepped in and offered me my own private boat for 1000 pesos (just over 10 pounds) and so I spent an hour and a half watching dolphins in the wild. It was awe inspiring, and it felt like the experience was all mine because the other boats had disappeared so it was only me and my guides out on the water. I felt like the luckiest person alive to be doing that.
After breakfast I took a ferry to Cebu, and spent the afternoon in an enormous shopping mall. I got a bit overexcited, miscounted the money I had left and after buying a few items left myself very short to get to Manila... The next day I had to stop the cab after the meter reached 172 pesos (the airport taxis are more expensive than the usual ones), which confused the driver immensely who thought I was trying to bargain with him. I think he finally understood when I emptied my wallet into his hand! I had a couple of kms to walk to the nearest Western Union, which wasn't too bad. Taxis were stopping asking if I needed a ride and when I said I had no money they thought I was joking and started laughing, I was like 'no, really!'. (I'm not sure I mentioned this before but had my cards stolen in Thailand and my replacement Mastercard doesnt work anywhere, so I'm relying on western union money transfers)
So I arrived in Kota Kinabalu last night and have found my way to Borneo Backpackers. I met an american girl who I had dinner with and we got bought beers by the locals, so spent a relaxed evening after a manic day. Not really sure what I've done today, just been getting more western union money, walking around the markets and shopping malls. In the fish market I saw a shark which had its fins removed for shark fin soup, which was quite upsetting (they just throw the rest of the shark away).
We've booked our climb up Mt. Kinabalu for tomorrow, which has cost 690 ringit, (around 110 pounds), which is quite expensive, but the local travel agencies have created a monopoly on climbing the mountain, booking all but a small percentage of the accommodation in advance so you are forced to book through them with their extortionate profit margins. I think it is the same for Mulu where I intend to go later, so it could get quite costly, but these are once in a lifetime experiences so they're worth it
Mt. Kinabalu - Poring - Sepilok - KK - Mulu - Angkor Wat
2008-08-10
Internet has been painfully slow in the last few places I have stayed so sorry for the lack of updates!
I succesfully climbed Kinabalu, although the weather was horrific, and at 2.30am when we were meant to begin our summit ascent the climb was called off. We all disappeared back to bed, but at 8am managed to persuade our guide to let us go up. Sometimes when the clouds briefly parted we saw some views of distant hills, but at the summit all we could see was cloud. I'm pleased I did it all the same, and despite thinking the climb might be struggle both due to altitude sickness, and also inexperience, I was well ahead of the rest of my group. Fortunately for the summit ascent I met a Dutch guy called Peter who was equally quick and we did up and down in a very quick 3 hours.
After Kinabalu I went to Poring Hot Springs to have a bath and also do the canopy walkway there. I was expecting to stay longer but it really only is day trip material, so the next day I moved onto Sandakan where I met up with some people I met diving in Semporna.
We spent a day wandering around the markets, where in the fish market we saw finless Hammerhead and Guitar Sharks, two endangered species, which was quite distressing, especially since they were all very young. In the late afternoon we ventured to the English Tea Gardens on the cliff overlooking the bay, and drank Pimms, ate scones and played Croquet. It was a very surreal experience in the middle of Sabah!
The next day we ventured out to Sepilok where we went to the Orangutan sanctuary and the rainforest discovery centre. We were lucky to see two adult orangutans up very close to us (photos to follow), and we were surprised to find the rainforest centre (a bit of an afterthought) very interesting. The botanic garden had a collection of plants and orchids and informed us what they were used for. Some of the plants were beautiful.
We were going to see the Proboscis monkeys but decided against a 4hr 4wd trip down a short bumpy road. On the way back into Sandakan Lisa and I paid a visit to the war memorial for the Sandakan Death March. A large POW camp was located in Sandakan during WW2, and all 1800 Australians and 600 Brits, apart from 6 that escaped met their deaths either at the camp, or along the death march trail to Ranau, hundreds of km inland. The survivor stories of the Japanese treatment of POWs was harrowing, and we were quite moved by it all. The memorial itself was in a well cared for park located on the site of the old camp.
That evening Lisa and I, after having trouble booking our trip to Mulu from Sabah decided to take a coach to KK, overnight it in the airport and then travel to Miri (the connecting town for Mulu) the next day to see if we could book from there. Sleeping in the airport was a little uncomfortable to say the least, but the airport closes for the night so it was quiet at least, unlike KL airport a week later.
We managed to book a 5 day 4 night trip from Miri to Mulu for a very decent price, and from our stay there it appears that many people have problems booking the park accommodation due to the incompetence of staff. In fact there is plenty of accommodation not far outside the park, which is perfectly adequate for most people, and if you want to do the Pinnacles or visit camp 5 then there are plenty of people who can help you.
I may have been fortunate, because the guy who organised all the guiding in the park, and one of the most experienced guides there both knew my old Professor at Bristol, Pete Smart, from his time at the park, and so I think my namedropping helped me to sort our Camp 5 accommodation.
Mulu was better than I imagined. The jungle was beautiful, the caves were awesome and the pinnacles were on a greater scale than I had imagined. We also met some really amazing people, including Richard, an experienced guide, friend of Pete Smart, important member of a Longhouse and a man with some very good ideas. We also met two guys who were keen to help the local community, and are also involved in ecofriendly water, aircon and sanitation systems.
An experience I will never forget is the enormous rainstorm that hit us going up the river, soaking us through (luckily I had brought a drybag). We had to trek through heavy rain and mud, I got 6 leeches on me (3 which bit me), and the forest was beautiful. I will definitely go back, 5 days was not enough, I could have spent that amount of time at Camp 5 alone in the middle of nature, and we didnt even start on the adventure caving options.
After a day in Miri with our two new friends (including a beautiful sunset, seeing the local billionaires chinese fortress house, and experiencing a city wide blackout) we had to spend a very restless and uncomfortable night in KL domestic airport. Now we are staying in Siem Reap and saw Angkor Wat this evening, the next couple of days will be packed full of the other temples.
Cambodia
2008-09-10
Bit of a while since my last post because since I've been back in the UK it has been non-stop sorting my life out!
I experienced my first bit of corruption in Cambodia 10 minutes after getting off the plane. We had to pay twenty dollars for the tourist visa and had to provide a photo for them to have. I only had a photocopy of my passport photo, which should have been fine for whatever purpose they needed it for, since they take an electronic photo of you anyway, but he tried to fine me I think 100 ringit firstly, and then when I said I no longer had ringit he wanted me to pay him 5 dollars. You can tell as soon as they start changing the price that it isnt an official fine, so I just stared at him blankly until he told me to move onto the next counter. I've found that whether on purpose or not the blank stare works a treat when travelling!
We stayed in the Shadow of Angkor guesthouse where we had a double bed each and free internet access, and bizarrely it had a restaurant selling great european food, I had some great hummus and pitta! Lots of people seem to hire bikes to go round all the temples, but having just been trekking for a few days, and Lisa with a twisted ankle we hired a tuk tuk for the 3 days we were there.
We saw A LOT of temples. I had expected them to feel more spiritual but there were so many tourists around that it was difficult to appreciate them for their religious significance. The ones I enjoyed the most were the ones we saw earliest in the morning when no-one else was around. There were also some that had been left in ruins with enormous trees growing out of the stone, it was an impressive example of nature versus structure.
In terms of their architecture it is an interesting comparison between that going on in Europe at a similar time. I think the European cathedrals have much more impressive structures, perhaps as a result of advanced engineering skills, but there was no denying how beautiful the carvings were on the temples.
On our last day we were taking photos of the South Gate to Angkor Thom and Lisa was bitten by a monkey who didn't like the look of her, so we also got to experience a Cambodian hospital! Getting bitten on holiday is highly unrecommended due to the amount of rabies jabs you need after!
Bangkok Airways is the only airline to fly between Siem Reap and Bangkok, and their flights would have cost a lot so we decided to travel by coach instead. Apparantly they bribe the Cambodian government to not improve the road between Siem Reap and the border to make people travel by plane, so during the rainy season the roads are in really poor condition. Unfortunately we were there in rainy season, and it had rained heavily during our stay, so our journey to the border was particularly uncomfortable.
the journey over here was long because i did it all in one go, consequently i spent most of tםday sleeping. got up in the afternoon to book my diving course, which starts tomorrow, and lie on the beach for a couple of hours
the dive course lasts 3 days, then i hope to do some kind of kayak tour on the 10th before i fly off to borneo on the 11th.
Mees yu awlreddy!
2008-07-13
Spent 6 night in Koh Phi Phi in the end, stayed in a hostel run by a Germany lady who I had interesting chats with concerning the tsunami and so forth, but that I will save for a later post because my opinion on that is quite long!
I did my Open Water PADI course on Phi Phi which consisted of a confined dive where I practised skills such as taking off my mask etc underwater (something that I thought would be difficult but was fine), and then I had 4 dives in 2 days out in the open ocean. I saw TONNES! The coral reef there is well protected, I saw clownfish, seahorses, a turtle, an octopus, etc etc etc.
I met quite a few people over in Phi Phi, one of them who happens to be good friends with one of my good friends from uni - it's a small world! I met an american guy called Rob who shared my passion for photography, and on my last day in Phi Phi, which I didn't spend diving, we went off on a mini-trek of the island taking loads of photos. It was nice not to feel like I was annoying people by snapping away!
Friday I spent mainly in a plane flying to Borneo. I flew from Krabi to Kuala Lumpur, then onto Tawau in Sabah, Borneo. The departure lounge at KL has a shop selling chocolate from all over the world! I was in heaven! At one point it appeared I would be the only westerner on the plane, so there I was, a lone female westerner munching on some food which seemed ridiculous to them in such a hot country, I got some funny looks! Fortunately 2 brits and an aussie also got my flight, I didn't chat to them on it but after I met Charly at Tawau airport we all ended up sharing a lift to Semporna which is where my dive school is based.
It turns out that these people are professional underwater photographers, and the guy (I think his name is Adam) worked for Associated Press as a news photographer. I mentioned that my grandad used to work as a freelance photographer in Wales, and when I mentioned his name he said he had heard of him, which made my day!
I've had two days diving here so far, the dives havent been as good as Phi Phi yet, but the islands we have dived off are beautiful! Tomorrow we are diving off Sipadan which is legendary for sharks, turtles and barracuda, so I'm very much looking forward to it. And by the end of tomorrow I will be an advanced open water diver!
On Wednesday I'm off to the Philippines, which I'm hoping will be a little less intimidating than being a woman in a Muslim country. Even though we have made sure to cover knees and shoulders we still get unwanted attention from men, nothing bad so far just unpleasant glares, honking horns and 'Mees yu awlreddy' as a nice chat up line. It's definitely nice to be in a group in an area, which apart from the visitors to the few local dive schools, is not a tourist resort.
Dumaguete, Negros Island, Philippines
2008-07-17
I'm currently in an internet cafe in dumaguete on negros in the philippines, which is a geek cafe with smelly noisy boys playing crap computer games. it smells. im token whitey in town and getting ripped off as only a blonde haired white girl can (yes thats right my hair is getting blonder by the second).
on the other hand the filipinos are horrendously friendly and helpful, yesterday i got off a bus in the middle of nowhere in manila, and seeing my struggle to haggle for a taxi, one guy told me he would find one for me, he ran barefooted into the middle of the road in the rain to hail one, and then shouted at another guy for not holding his umbrella over me!
very different from borneo where the muslim malaysians did not appreciate western girls, even though i had knees and shoulders covered. we got stared at, and tutted at, and worst of all, horror of horrors, we got called 'amerikanos'.
im trying to get to a random island tomorrow (apo island) but there is no consistent answer as to when the boat leaves and where from, and like every other asian they wont say no, so conversations go something along the lines of 'does the boat go from dumaguete pier?' 'yes' 'does the boat go in the morning?' 'yes' 'are you just agreeing with everything i say?' 'yes'
so im trying my best to work it out on the internet...
Geev me your munee or food!
2008-07-21
I got up at 5.45 this morning to get a ferry at 7 only to find out they weren't doing a ferry at 7 today! So now I have many hours to kill until the 1.30 boat...zzzzzz. Those of you who know me will appreciate how difficult it is for me to get up that early!
I've stayed 1 night in Dumaguete, 2 nights on Apo Island and then another night just South of Dumaguete. I spent a day in the town until Charly arrived sitting on the water front promenade reading and getting harassed by men trying to sell me 'pearl' earrings (the fact that I told them my ears weren't pierced didnt stop them!) and also getting children coming up to me begging. Two schoolkids in uniform saying "Geev me your munee or food!" obviously didnt get anything. I feel slightly guilty not giving anything to others, they would have been happy with 5p no doubt, but I didnt want to be harassed for the rest of the day.
Apo Island was fantastic, we stayed at Liberty's which is a quirky building with electricity only at certain times, and the shower was a bucket, which of course is not the most useful after diving! The island is not really touristy, I think mainly it is a fishing village as you would expect. It had a great community feel to it and we were made to feel very welcome, everyone said hello and all the children wanted me to take their photo! The weather wasn't fantastic while we were there but we had two amazing sunsets, and our room a prime view of them from the balcony so we were extremely happy.
The diving was good, the coral was in excellent condition, and we saw an enormous school of Jacks which was pretty incredible. The Dive Masters were by no means marine biologists and we would have probably seen or spotted a lot more had we had someone who knew what they were looking for. Still, we saw an octopus, black banded sea snakes, more turtles and a cool electric-blue coloured eel that lived in a hole (at some point I need to learn proper names).
The place we stayed in last night was a complete rip-off, the same price as the really nice place I stayed in on my first night here, but dirty, smelly, no hot water and a resident frog. Although I made friends with the owners doberman 'spike'! Yesterday I got my first experiences of riding in a Jeepney and the Tricycles, all an order of magniture cheaper than a cab and much more adventurous! Everyone says hello when we drive past, although Charly laughed when I said I felt like the Queen waving from our trycycle. Apparantly the similarity is linked only my name, and the Queen would not ever wear my shorts, or no doubt my now very dirty favourite light shirt which I wear almost all the time due to it being the most comfortable thing to wear in this humidity!
As well as the photos below I have put some photos up on my facebook page, Click Here
I got up at 5.45 this morning to get a ferry at 7 only to find out they weren't doing a ferry at 7 today! So now I have many hours to kill until the 1.30 boat...zzzzzz. Those of you who know me will appreciate how difficult it is for me to get up that early!I've stayed 1 night in Dumaguete, 2 nights on Apo Island and then another night just South of Dumaguete. I spent a day in the town until Charly arrived sitting on the water front promenade reading and getting harassed by men trying to sell me 'pearl' earrings (the fact that I told them my ears weren't pierced didnt stop them!) and also getting children coming up to me begging. Two schoolkids in uniform saying "Geev me your munee or food!" obviously didnt get anything. I feel slightly guilty not giving anything to others, they would have been happy with 5p no doubt, but I didnt want to be harassed for the rest of the day.
Apo Island was fantastic, we stayed at Liberty's which is a quirky building with electricity only at certain times, and the shower was a bucket, which of course is not the most useful after diving! The island is not really touristy, I think mainly it is a fishing village as you would expect. It had a great community feel to it and we were made to feel very welcome, everyone said hello and all the children wanted me to take their photo! The weather wasn't fantastic while we were there but we had two amazing sunsets, and our room a prime view of them from the balcony so we were extremely happy.
The diving was good, the coral was in excellent condition, and we saw an enormous school of Jacks which was pretty incredible. The Dive Masters were by no means marine biologists and we would have probably seen or spotted a lot more had we had someone who knew what they were looking for. Still, we saw an octopus, black banded sea snakes, more turtles and a cool electric-blue coloured eel that lived in a hole (at some point I need to learn proper names).
The place we stayed in last night was a complete rip-off, the same price as the really nice place I stayed in on my first night here, but dirty, smelly, no hot water and a resident frog. Although I made friends with the owners doberman 'spike'! Yesterday I got my first experiences of riding in a Jeepney and the Tricycles, all an order of magniture cheaper than a cab and much more adventurous! Everyone says hello when we drive past, although Charly laughed when I said I felt like the Queen waving from our trycycle. Apparantly the similarity is linked only my name, and the Queen would not ever wear my shorts, or no doubt my now very dirty favourite light shirt which I wear almost all the time due to it being the most comfortable thing to wear in this humidity!
As well as the photos below I have put some photos up on my facebook page, Click Here
Sipadan
2008-07-21
Read through my blog and realised I had written nothing about Sipadan! Sipadan is an island off the coast of Borneo which for you geology/ geography geeks out there is not situated on the continental shelf so therefore rises 650m above the ocean floor.
It is one of the top dive sites in the world and although I have hardly done enough diving to make that judgement myself, it is awesome. We dropped in at South Point practically on top of turtles, which pop their head up above sea level quite frequently. The fish that you can see infrequently at other places are in abundance, swimming in schools right in front of your face, and there are sharks. Not just the odd shark that you might spot elsewhere but everywhere you look! I managed to swim within half a metre of one to take a photo, and at the end of a dive hovered directly above an enormous turtle (bigger than me) until it got annoyed with me taking photos and swam off.
The second dive was at Barracuda point which is world renowned, similar diving but more of a current. You swim along the wall and then head up a channel which has quite a current.
The third dive was White Tip, and we very lucky to see around 20m below us a school of juvenile grey sharks.
The island itself is beautiful and has been conserved well. Tourists are no longer allowed to stay on it and you are only allowed on a small fraction of the island. The army have a small base on it due to kidnappings by Muslim extremists in the past, it is quite disconcerting to see machine guns pointed out at you when you step onto the island!
Bohol-Cebu-Manila-Kota Kinabalu
2008-07-26
I stayed on Panglao Island, just off Bohol from Monday to Thursday. Tuesday I spent diving around Baclisag island. On the dive boat it was me, a japanese guy and the filipino dive crew, which was quite intimidating at first, but after the first dive we all chatted about where we had dived before, and we had a good time. The actual diving I found better than at Apo Island, as well as the usual stuff we saw large schools of Barracuda and Jacks. They were mesmerising to watch, and I could have hovered there for ever watching them, a bit like staring at fire.
A guy offered to take me to a good spot on the island for sunset on his scooter, so we drove out there, saw a few sites on Panglao Island and then watched the non existent sun go down. The sky was beautiful though so the guy didnt understand why I wasn't annoyed, I got some good photos, very different from the usual sunset.
Tuesday I got ripped off a little, getting someone to take me on a tour around Bohol. I got up at 4am to drive to the chocolate hills in time for sunrise, I was the only one up at the viewing point and it was an amazing experience. We then drove onto the Tarsier centre to see the small monkey like creatures, but everything else there was to see my guide wanted more money for, and I was really tired so decided to head back and just sit on the beach in the afternoon.
I got up early on Thursday morning to go dolphin watching, expecting to get on a boat at 6am, although the guys who had organised it for me had messed up and I got more and more annoyed with them trying to sort a boat for me that I just walked off. Someone else stepped in and offered me my own private boat for 1000 pesos (just over 10 pounds) and so I spent an hour and a half watching dolphins in the wild. It was awe inspiring, and it felt like the experience was all mine because the other boats had disappeared so it was only me and my guides out on the water. I felt like the luckiest person alive to be doing that.
After breakfast I took a ferry to Cebu, and spent the afternoon in an enormous shopping mall. I got a bit overexcited, miscounted the money I had left and after buying a few items left myself very short to get to Manila... The next day I had to stop the cab after the meter reached 172 pesos (the airport taxis are more expensive than the usual ones), which confused the driver immensely who thought I was trying to bargain with him. I think he finally understood when I emptied my wallet into his hand! I had a couple of kms to walk to the nearest Western Union, which wasn't too bad. Taxis were stopping asking if I needed a ride and when I said I had no money they thought I was joking and started laughing, I was like 'no, really!'. (I'm not sure I mentioned this before but had my cards stolen in Thailand and my replacement Mastercard doesnt work anywhere, so I'm relying on western union money transfers)
So I arrived in Kota Kinabalu last night and have found my way to Borneo Backpackers. I met an american girl who I had dinner with and we got bought beers by the locals, so spent a relaxed evening after a manic day. Not really sure what I've done today, just been getting more western union money, walking around the markets and shopping malls. In the fish market I saw a shark which had its fins removed for shark fin soup, which was quite upsetting (they just throw the rest of the shark away).
We've booked our climb up Mt. Kinabalu for tomorrow, which has cost 690 ringit, (around 110 pounds), which is quite expensive, but the local travel agencies have created a monopoly on climbing the mountain, booking all but a small percentage of the accommodation in advance so you are forced to book through them with their extortionate profit margins. I think it is the same for Mulu where I intend to go later, so it could get quite costly, but these are once in a lifetime experiences so they're worth it
Mt. Kinabalu - Poring - Sepilok - KK - Mulu - Angkor Wat
2008-08-10
Internet has been painfully slow in the last few places I have stayed so sorry for the lack of updates!
I succesfully climbed Kinabalu, although the weather was horrific, and at 2.30am when we were meant to begin our summit ascent the climb was called off. We all disappeared back to bed, but at 8am managed to persuade our guide to let us go up. Sometimes when the clouds briefly parted we saw some views of distant hills, but at the summit all we could see was cloud. I'm pleased I did it all the same, and despite thinking the climb might be struggle both due to altitude sickness, and also inexperience, I was well ahead of the rest of my group. Fortunately for the summit ascent I met a Dutch guy called Peter who was equally quick and we did up and down in a very quick 3 hours.
After Kinabalu I went to Poring Hot Springs to have a bath and also do the canopy walkway there. I was expecting to stay longer but it really only is day trip material, so the next day I moved onto Sandakan where I met up with some people I met diving in Semporna.
We spent a day wandering around the markets, where in the fish market we saw finless Hammerhead and Guitar Sharks, two endangered species, which was quite distressing, especially since they were all very young. In the late afternoon we ventured to the English Tea Gardens on the cliff overlooking the bay, and drank Pimms, ate scones and played Croquet. It was a very surreal experience in the middle of Sabah!
The next day we ventured out to Sepilok where we went to the Orangutan sanctuary and the rainforest discovery centre. We were lucky to see two adult orangutans up very close to us (photos to follow), and we were surprised to find the rainforest centre (a bit of an afterthought) very interesting. The botanic garden had a collection of plants and orchids and informed us what they were used for. Some of the plants were beautiful.
We were going to see the Proboscis monkeys but decided against a 4hr 4wd trip down a short bumpy road. On the way back into Sandakan Lisa and I paid a visit to the war memorial for the Sandakan Death March. A large POW camp was located in Sandakan during WW2, and all 1800 Australians and 600 Brits, apart from 6 that escaped met their deaths either at the camp, or along the death march trail to Ranau, hundreds of km inland. The survivor stories of the Japanese treatment of POWs was harrowing, and we were quite moved by it all. The memorial itself was in a well cared for park located on the site of the old camp.
That evening Lisa and I, after having trouble booking our trip to Mulu from Sabah decided to take a coach to KK, overnight it in the airport and then travel to Miri (the connecting town for Mulu) the next day to see if we could book from there. Sleeping in the airport was a little uncomfortable to say the least, but the airport closes for the night so it was quiet at least, unlike KL airport a week later.
We managed to book a 5 day 4 night trip from Miri to Mulu for a very decent price, and from our stay there it appears that many people have problems booking the park accommodation due to the incompetence of staff. In fact there is plenty of accommodation not far outside the park, which is perfectly adequate for most people, and if you want to do the Pinnacles or visit camp 5 then there are plenty of people who can help you.
I may have been fortunate, because the guy who organised all the guiding in the park, and one of the most experienced guides there both knew my old Professor at Bristol, Pete Smart, from his time at the park, and so I think my namedropping helped me to sort our Camp 5 accommodation.
Mulu was better than I imagined. The jungle was beautiful, the caves were awesome and the pinnacles were on a greater scale than I had imagined. We also met some really amazing people, including Richard, an experienced guide, friend of Pete Smart, important member of a Longhouse and a man with some very good ideas. We also met two guys who were keen to help the local community, and are also involved in ecofriendly water, aircon and sanitation systems.
An experience I will never forget is the enormous rainstorm that hit us going up the river, soaking us through (luckily I had brought a drybag). We had to trek through heavy rain and mud, I got 6 leeches on me (3 which bit me), and the forest was beautiful. I will definitely go back, 5 days was not enough, I could have spent that amount of time at Camp 5 alone in the middle of nature, and we didnt even start on the adventure caving options.
After a day in Miri with our two new friends (including a beautiful sunset, seeing the local billionaires chinese fortress house, and experiencing a city wide blackout) we had to spend a very restless and uncomfortable night in KL domestic airport. Now we are staying in Siem Reap and saw Angkor Wat this evening, the next couple of days will be packed full of the other temples.
Cambodia
2008-09-10
Bit of a while since my last post because since I've been back in the UK it has been non-stop sorting my life out!
I experienced my first bit of corruption in Cambodia 10 minutes after getting off the plane. We had to pay twenty dollars for the tourist visa and had to provide a photo for them to have. I only had a photocopy of my passport photo, which should have been fine for whatever purpose they needed it for, since they take an electronic photo of you anyway, but he tried to fine me I think 100 ringit firstly, and then when I said I no longer had ringit he wanted me to pay him 5 dollars. You can tell as soon as they start changing the price that it isnt an official fine, so I just stared at him blankly until he told me to move onto the next counter. I've found that whether on purpose or not the blank stare works a treat when travelling!
We stayed in the Shadow of Angkor guesthouse where we had a double bed each and free internet access, and bizarrely it had a restaurant selling great european food, I had some great hummus and pitta! Lots of people seem to hire bikes to go round all the temples, but having just been trekking for a few days, and Lisa with a twisted ankle we hired a tuk tuk for the 3 days we were there.
We saw A LOT of temples. I had expected them to feel more spiritual but there were so many tourists around that it was difficult to appreciate them for their religious significance. The ones I enjoyed the most were the ones we saw earliest in the morning when no-one else was around. There were also some that had been left in ruins with enormous trees growing out of the stone, it was an impressive example of nature versus structure.
In terms of their architecture it is an interesting comparison between that going on in Europe at a similar time. I think the European cathedrals have much more impressive structures, perhaps as a result of advanced engineering skills, but there was no denying how beautiful the carvings were on the temples.
On our last day we were taking photos of the South Gate to Angkor Thom and Lisa was bitten by a monkey who didn't like the look of her, so we also got to experience a Cambodian hospital! Getting bitten on holiday is highly unrecommended due to the amount of rabies jabs you need after!
Bangkok Airways is the only airline to fly between Siem Reap and Bangkok, and their flights would have cost a lot so we decided to travel by coach instead. Apparantly they bribe the Cambodian government to not improve the road between Siem Reap and the border to make people travel by plane, so during the rainy season the roads are in really poor condition. Unfortunately we were there in rainy season, and it had rained heavily during our stay, so our journey to the border was particularly uncomfortable.
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