A bit of an update..... Wedding in Vegas/Philippines

Alongside the diving of the last two years or so, I also got married. After being proposed to in Mongolia, described in an earlier blog, it didn't take us long to decide where to get married. The Philippines was an easy choice. And staging it at Atmosphere was also obvious. After many months of planning, we had it all sorted. To make things easier for me, I hired a wedding planner recommended by one of my friends..... Not something I ever thought I would but money very well spent. With a week until the big day, 25th May 2011, an unfortunate event occurred. Unexpectedly, especially after having planned it so thoroughly, we were told we were not allowed to get married in Dauin. Now there are many marriages happening in the Philippines all the time, but because neither of us were resident and we had decided to do it in some sleepy backwater village, the relevant authorities didn't know what to do so did the only thing they know how and said no. Even though we had spent a long time talking to them prior to a week before the wedding, they had a sudden change of heart. So we did what we knew best, flew to Las Vegas for 22 hours total and did the deed at the Graceland Chapel. It was an epic adventure and one we will enjoy telling our grand kids. Yes, Elvis was there, and yes we happily gambled the rest of the time away.

Vegas baby yeah

Within three days of our return, family and friends were arriving for our "wedding". It was a brilliant week of fun and friends, and one of the best of my life. And now I have a beautiful husband whom I love dearly. Yippee!

Celebrating!

A bit of an update - Diving

My last post was quite a long time ago. Ultimately I reached what I thought was my final destination, the Philippines. I realise now, it was just the beginning. A lot has happened. Let's go back.

The Province of Negros Oriental is where I ended up at the end of 2010, smack bang in the middle of the Philippines. Knowing I wanted to train as a Diving Instructor, I chose this area because my boyfriend's (at the time) cousin and his wife built a beautiful resort, www.atmosphereresorts.com . His wife is a PADI Course Director - meaning for those of you who may not know, she can teach you to become a Diving Instructor. And that's what she did to me.

Yes, the cost of getting to this stage is high and some suggest PADI training, www.padi.com , in the early stages of diver qualifications misses out certain essential skills and other things. In my small opinion, whatever you think about PADI, the Instructor Development Course (IDC) and subsequent 2-day examination (IE) is the most grounding training experience you can undertake, aside maybe from training to be astronaut. Ok, a little exaggeration there but really. In this, PADI has done it right. It takes people from all walks of life, brings them together, breaks them down individually, builds them back up and spews out highly competent diving professionals (apart from a few rogues here and there). Lawyers, doctors, bankers, gardeners, students, artists, young, old, rich, poor, happy, sad - nowhere else can you meet such a mix of people who think they're ready, think they've experienced it all and know how to do it better. However much training you've had in whatever area of work, the IDC resets the wires, teaches you how to think and for some, well for most, breaks you. I have achieved quite a lot academically but nothing I have done prior to or subsequently compares to the moment when my examiner shook my hand and said, "Yes, you've done it - welcome to the club", leaving me weeping like a baby.  Yes, I spent 5 years of my life gaining a PhD and yes, I cried when I was awarded it, but that was just 5 years of misery spilling out in one go. This emotion was much, much more exciting. The course taught me so much, especially about myself, and gave me a skill and experience set that I will no doubt use for the rest of my life.

There is something about the IDC that brings you very close to your classmates. Once it's all over, the friends that you have made will be yours forever because what you've shared together leaves you with an intangible link. Only they can know how this experience can change you, forever. Every Instructor I've met has that same look in their eye. I'm not a fan of clubs but I am part of one nonetheless.

I was very lucky to be given the opportunity to work at Atmosphere as an Instructor, which I did full time for nearly 2 years and worked up to the level of being a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer and for a brief time, Dive Centre Manager. Working in a resort as an Instructor is a hard job, both physically and mentally. Very few days off, and very little time to yourself. However, the people you meet, the experiences you have both in and out of the water I don't think you can get anywhere else. I love, seriously love, the team of Filipinos I worked with during this time. They made every day fun. Even on the hardest of days when you're so tired you can hardly speak. They made me smile and giggle, and they are why I love the Philippines.

Teaching people to dive is a fantastic and fulfilling experience, and I remember nearly every student I've ever had. Taking someone under the water for the first time who never thought they could do it is a special thing. It's not all rosey though...... heat exhaustion, vomit in the face, working 8 weeks straight, no Christmas Day and diving with an upset stomach to name a few but mostly it's awesome. The coast I worked along is very famous for macro diving, and it is AMAZING. If you ever want tips about dive sites along the Dauin coast, and even round the Philippines, I can certainly recommend a few incredible spots. I think later on I will write something about where to dive in the Philippines, as there is just so much special stuff to see here!

Kinabalu, KK and Kota Belud - nearly there!

In my last update I was on my way to somewhere, having had a few delicious Bloody Marys the night before. I was sad to leave Sandakan, even though it was a bit of a hole, because the hotel was so comfortable. Pure and simple. So getting on the bus to Kindasang, I was already in a bad mood. Made worse by Celine Dion on loop on the bus' dvd player. Anything but her. What is about Asia that they love shit music? It's so annoying.

So I got off the bus at Kinabalu National Park. It was cold, for the first time in what felt like ages, I put on my fleece. Very beautiful place. Serene maybe. Two pictures, left one when I arrived, right one about 2 minutes later. Weird place. Things change very rapidly here.









Thought about climbing the mountain - got up early enough to but realised I didn't want to have another amazing experience on my own. So I decided to leave it for another time, when Simon can drag me up it kicking and screaming.

However this is Mount Kinabalu in the morning. So left Kinabalu after walking around some lovely treks in the national park. A real gem.









So headed back to KK, and for some serious dossing. Thing about Sabah is that everything is expensive, and not easy to just hang out in. I had a week left and didn't really know what I wanted to do. I hung around for a few days, got my haircut (look like a scarecrow now), went to see HP7 (actually quite good) and ate lots. Then decided to head up north to Kota Belud and a very remote beach called Manana Borneo. Very nice but very isolated..... but I did meet Tommy. Please meet Tommy..... beautiful Tommy. He made the beach for me.

 Anyway, getting away for the dog porn (you know what I mean), I'm back in KK going out for some Karaoke, and heading off to Manila tomorrow. Finally.Will be in Manila for a few days with Simon's cousin and his wife and kids and then down to Dumaguete. Very looking forward to it all now, need to settle for a bit. Toodle Pip for now.xx

Kota Kinabalu, Semporna archipelago, Kinabangtan river and Sandakan

Hello. Last time we spoke I was in Mulu (Sarawak State), or at least had been to Mulu and was in KK (Sabah State). KK was an interesting place, a bit edgy but I liked it. Not sure I liked the old men taking photos of me on the beach but hey when you look this good.... yeah right.

Siamil island - macro heaven

Flew then down to Tawau (over the largest palm oil plantation I have ever seen, so very very sad) and on to Semporna for one night before heading out to the "number one dive spot in Asia" - the Semporna archipelago -  Mabul, Sipadan and Siamil. Semporna is a bit of scabby hole, even though lots of westerners have to stop off there to overnight for Mabul walking around feels like you're the only white female they have ever seen. A bit odd really. Got a boat out to Mabul island the next day and began diving. 4 days and 15 dives later it was my time to leave. Not sure what I made about it. As with all diving, it depends where and when you dive and each one is different to the last and the next. One day it can be awesome and the next pants. Well, there is no doubt the macro diving at Mabul and Siamil is really cracking - pygmy seahorses, pipe fish, orangutan crabs, ghost shrimp, snake eels, morays, leaf scorpion fish, stone fish, devil scorpion fish, flying gurnards, nudi brancs, frog fish, juvenile bat fish, juvenile harlequin sweetlips, flouders, eagle rays, blue spotted rays, mandarin fish, sea snakes and the list goes on. I need to get an underwater housing for my camera to show you how awesome it is. Sipadan (the number one spot) is an immense site with walls going down a mile. It attracts huge numbers of hawksbill turtles, green turtles, white tip and grey reef sharks, baracuda, rays - all the big stuff, but I wasn't overwhelmed with its awesomeness. Don't get me wrong, it was good but I've had just as good dives in the Philippines. Plus, and this is a big downer, the rubbish in this part of the sea is unbelievable. Plastic is everywhere, and this has a major effect on the wildlife - I saw a dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging out of it's mouth. So all the conservation efforts across the world for these turtles makes little difference when people (including us) are throwing plastic in to the sea. It's just so sad. It's a good reason to not take that plastic people!

Probiscus Monkey - little willy!

Kinbatangan

Long tailed Macaque

So feeling quite sad I left Semporna, having got very drunk the night before with some randoms I had met and sang some lovely karaoke in the seediest bar yet including Careless Whisper by Wham, and headed on the bus north to the Kinbatangan River. In this part of Borneo it's almost impossible to travel and see things  independently, so I had booked a 3day/2 night tour at a lodge near a place called Bilit on the river itself. Had to get up at 5:30 each day to do a river cruise and then trek all day, cruise again and then trek at night. All very tiring might I add but saw some amazing stuff, including wild orangutans which can't be beat (no photos though!). I think Mr Probiscus was my favourite though... he came down right to the river to feed and sat watching us for ages. Lovely. Although a close second was MicroFrog - only 10mm long! and then maybe the sleeping Kingfishers, or the Hornbills... too many to choose from! Unfortunately, as with the diving, seeing all these animals is tinged a bit with sadness. The palm oil plantations in this part of Borneo are so extensive (like hundreds and hundreds of miles) the poor animals have no where to go. It is shocking quite how bad it is here and I can't see it getting any better even though I wish it could.

 

 Today (25th November) I left Kinabatangan and got a bus to Sandakan, a city on the east coast of Borneo. It got flattened during WWII by the Japanese and was the site of the Sandakan Death Marches where at over 2000 British and Australian troops died in a horrendous march from Sandakan to Ranau. Very sad and quite brutal really. Only here for half a day really, I didn't have time to get to the site of the POW camp but maybe that's a good thing. I did go for a walk though and happened across this place - how civil darling! Apart from that, this place is quite quiet, a bit seedy but I actually quite like it. I'm staying in a hotel! would you believe it!? for ten of your English pounds, it has an amazing bathroom. The littlest things.

Not sure where I am headed next in Sabah but so far it's been up and down purely because it is so apparent that humans are impacting on the wildlife here so much, it's almost hopeless. It's not just the Malaysians either, we all eat palm oil and use plastic, I just wish there was an alternative.

It's taken me three hours to write this and I have had to endure the most miserable music ever.... urgh, get me out of here!



 

Mulu National Park - Caves and Bats

On 12th November I arrived in Mulu after a quick flight from Kuching on the beast below. Very exciting flight, and a hairy landing in the middle of nowhere! Now you may not have heard of Mulu but think BBC documentary, David Attenborough lying in a massive pile of bat shit, and lots of bats, snakes snatching bats from the air and so on.

The park is set up quite well and they have amazingly knowledgeable guides, who know everything about the park. The caves are so impressive, it's beyond words and the wildlife is immense and over whelming. Look it up on wikipedia, it explains a lot. I learnt quite a lot but won't bore you but the reason they are so big is because of the composition of the limestone and the extremely abundant rainfall that occurs in Mulu. A combination which leads to some of the biggest caves in the world and stalagmites and -tites that would impress any geologist :) Don't look up though, I managed to get a drip of water in the eye (from 150 metres above) - it's so acid i thought my eye was going to melt. I'm sure I've lost a layer of my cornea or something equally as bad.



First night after visiting the Deer Cave which is unbelievable, you sit and wait for the bats to come out (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't). I got very lucky. They come out in batches of about, oh half a million, so as to confuse the massive eagles that sit and wait for them to leave. Along with the eagles, there are also the snakes hanging in the entrance to the cave ready to eat them. So no wonder they are frightened.

 I visited all the caves in the park that I could, and have so many photos. Anyway, all a bit boring but if you are ever in Borneo it should be on the top of your list.

Along with the walking caves, I thought it would cool to go adventure caving, with a vague feeling that something happened to me in a cave somewhere else in the world that I didn't like but couldn't remember so brushed it under the mat. All very cool, lots of sweaty climbing, mud, water, more mud, bats, swiftlets (do you know they use high frequency sonar to traverse through the caves - very clever little birdies), blind crabs, crickets and even some of those bat eating snakes (Racer Snakes - hence the name of the cave is "Racer"). And oh yes, spiders. Now I remember. Not quite as big as Thailand though, so that was nice.

When I wasn't caving with the living dead, I was lounging, and watching the insects. Some really beautiful ones (incredible butterflies), I am a bit of a convert. Went on a night walk and saw some awesome frogs, stick insects (more like branch insects) and a spider that used a leaf as camouflage, ugly but cool. Worryingly, something ate my banana, that was in my closed bag..... little devil.

Attempted to leave Mulu on 15th November but flight got cancelled because of rain.....hmm. This turned out to be quite disastrous because even though they put me in a "luxury" resort that night, I spent the entire next day travelling on 3, get it, 3 flights to Kota Kinabalu. I originally booked 1 flight direct to KK. How did 1 turn to 3? It was the most illogical experience I have come across in quite a while. To top it off, the plane was the same plane for the entire journey, they wouldn't let me check my large bag into the hold, and at each stop I had to get off with my bag, go through immigration and get back on the plane. RETARDED. Suffice to say I lost the rag on the third flight when the stewardess told me I couldn't have my big bag on the plane! On the plus side I got a free lift from the airport to my hostel by some guy who had come all the way from Mulu with me (his name was Gladstone - why is it asians always choose such interesting western names?). So now I'm in KK until the 18th. Had some wonderful food tonight (Philippino BBQ no less) and can't wait to get to bed already.

JB to Kuching, the Gingers, Gunung Santubong and Bako National Park

Well so I set off from Tioman on 6th November and headed by numerous modes of transport to Johor Bahru, where I was due to catch my plane to Borneo. It was very tiring, setting of at 6am and not arriving in Kuching until midnight! However, I saved so much money and then, this is KEY, i helped an old lady of the plane and she got her son to give me free lift all the way to my hostel in the town centre. How nice was that.... yes yes, part of me thought it was trick but the woman was very religious, so I assumed admitting I was an atheist was my worst crime. The hostel is great - Singgahsana Lodge, would recommend it to everyone.

Woohoo though, it seems like a stop well worth making on my way. Food is great and I had such a great day on my first day. Saw this and thought of Katie.....











Then I headed over to Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre - where they look after the wild men of Borneo. They are nutured back to health and then released into the safe national park. They come by for feedings twice a day and you're allowed to stand silently from afar and watch. You're lucky if any come at all in this season as there is so much fruit in the trees but I was lucky by God..... a brilliant day.

On my second day I had heard rumours of a great mountain trek quite close to Kuching called Gunung Santubong (910m), only 3.4km with a few ropes and ladders to help you on your way, so I decided I would give it a go. The guide suggested it was 5 hours each way, of course I scoffed at that convinced I could do it in less - it's not even the size on Snowdon, bah! 10am I set off as that was the earliest bus to the national park, and I knew I had to be back there by 5pm as that was the time of the last bus. Very excited to get my legs working again, I set off with vigour. 5 minutes later I was gasping... joke. No after about 2 hour of ups and downs, and thinking I was being hunted by something - turns out it was those damn monkeys crashing around (Silver leaf monkeys no less), very very cute when I did manage to spot one in the undergrowth - I made it to the final checkpoint (5 hours my arse). Points to note, not only had I not considered that some of the trek would be stupidly steep, but I had also underestimated the effect of the humidity (only 80%) on my ability to climb. Feck me. After this, things got a insanely sweaty, hairy and absolutely exhausting - good job I had brought 3 litres of water with me but even that wasn't enough. It was the three bananas and couple of biscuits that really held me together, oh yes! It was just so steep with continuing climbing on ladders and ropes, over roots, and rocks, hanging on to roots for grip - a bit like Tarzan. So after all that I didn't even make it to the top. Having been trained thoroughly to watch the clock, I had a time limit and knew going down would take much longer than it should do, so after a total of 4 hours I had to turn back even though I was probably only  half an hour from the summit. ARSE. Good job I did though, as I arrived just in time for the bus, with only seconds to spare, and a storm arrived which from the bottom looked pretty hairy on the summit. So in the evening I ate my weight in beef satay and rice, went to bed at 8pm and work up the next day feeling like an elephant had sat on me all night.

it got dark all of a sudden!

On my third day I lay on my bed and didn't move (purely as a precaution to over doing myself of course, nothing to do with the severe muscular pain coursing through my body) apart from going to post office, park office and bank, oh and for some Laksa. For light entertainment that evening I went on wildlife tour in the wetlands close to Kuching - but a storm came in and meant it got cancelled so I went home, having done nothing all day. Good.








On the fourth and fifth day and onwards I headed over to Bako National Park (still unable to walk really). The only way to get to the park is by boat and as such is very dependent on the tides (they change by like 5m so many people get stranded and have to walk with mud up to this knees).






Had heard rotten things about the park accommodation and it was awful but bearable especially with so much wildlife in the near vicinity. This was a place to go hiking through primary rain forest, truly very beautiful but I was so fecked off by the roots by the end of the two days, I almost wept every time I went out. The wildlife was amazing though and if you just stopped and looked in the bushes you would always see something! Probiscus monkeys (do you know they are aroused 100% of the time, and you can see it as well, although I didn't capture it in this photo!), hermit crabs, trillions of ants (my question: do ants sleep?), pitcher plants, frogs, monitor lizards, flying foxes the list goes on - i won't bore you with thousands of pictures.

for Katie

Long tailed macaque monkeys also live in this national park - these are the ones I have seen so many times in cages in the UK. Thinking I would love to see them in the wild, they are the cheekiest little bastards you never wish to come across. Truly I felt like a frightened pensioner trapped in my home by a gang of youths hanging around on the streets. I was too scared to take out my camera in front of them in case they nicked it (so no photos)..... they would sit in the middle of the path (the majority are young and about 50 cm high when sat down) and not move, stare you down (like they do) and as you walked around them they would run at you legs in a mock chase and then run off laughing when you turned and stomped at them. I mean really.

So that was that, swan in the sea and then realised there had been warnings about salt water crocs (oops), and then headed off back to Kuching and on to Mulu National Park up in the middle of Borneo for the caves and the bats! Bring it on David Attenborough!