Malapascua island

The best places are those that make you work to get there...Malapascua is definitely that kind of place. I'm not sure how or why Brent decided on this island (especially since the guide book only gives the island a page of notice) but it was amazing. The journey there though put us near our breaking point. We read the limited information on how to get to the island and it was going to go like this: 1.5hr ferry from Bohol to Cebu, 3-4hr bus to Maya port(that runs every half hour), then a 1hr banka (small boat) to malapascua island (that should run every 30 min, but only until 4, then you could be screwed. We figured with all that and leaving Bohol at 9:30, we still had some wiggle room to catch the last boat. My lord did we misjudge the Phillipines! The ferry was half hour late and took closer to 2 hrs. The buses run every hour (and of course we had just missed the most recent bus by 10min), and actually take more like 5-6hrs. Our bus was especially awful bc there was no air conditioning, we were crammed in like sardines for a lot of the journey and the radiator kept overheating, so we were stopping every 20min to pour water into it. So yeah, we didn't make it to Maya until 5:30, an hour and a half after the last boat. We were so bummed...until we saw a ton of locals waiting for a boat that was going to leave at six. Yay!! And we weren't completely annoyed when they charged the gringos over twice as much as the locals to get us to the island. Our journey hadn't quite ended there though bc we still didn't have any accommodations or diving set up for the next day. We were guided to thresher shark divers (5 star padi shop run by Brits). These people really have quite the operation out on the island but they were open so we were happy...until we started getting push back about our diving experience when we wanted to do the am thresher dive that went down to 28 meters. Neither of us keep a log book (which yes, we really should) but we've been certified since 1997, I'm sure we have done a dive or two. Brent even pulled the "two doctors on honeymoon" line...which he never says and it didn't get us very far. But we did compromise with the lady to have us do two dives, one of which would be a "check out" dive and then we could go down the following day to try to see some thresher sharks. Not perfect, but at least we were going diving! They then pointed us towards a hotel right on the water and we were set. Our first dive the next day was amazing. Great visibility and a lot of fish life! Highlights were the frog fish, some sort of eel, tons of lionfish, some sort of horse flute fish (I don't think that's really it's name), plus other cool prawns, crabs, etc. For our second dive we were searching for pygmie seahorses. We had some American people using nitrox, and driving the rest of us divers crazy! They had these huge cameras abs would get to something and take tons of pics and then when someone else would try to get a look, the nitroxers would push off the reef and ruin the whole thing. Urgh it frustrated me! Needless to say, no pygmy seahorses were seen :( Brent did spot a giant school of squid though, so that was good. We finished the night off with food abs drinks above the dive shop with our other diving buddy: Magnus from Sweden. He was great and joined in our group the following morning to look for threshers. The morning dive was about as deep as our second dive the day before and beside descending into a group of jellyfish (thankfully neither of us got stung) and a pretty tough current, really not a technical dive. After the morning dive we had the rest of the day to walk around the island and relax. Sadly though this was the end of our Malapascua trip and we had to repeat the journey back to Cebu, which is where we are now. We are flying to coron tomorrow for some more beach bumming and wreck diving! Hope everyone is doing well, see you all in just a few days. Love you.

Bohol, Phillipines

We had quite the adventure in Bohol! After our experience in Manila without a place to stay, Brent decided to book something in advance. Our plane landed on the narrowest airstrip either of us had ever seen and the airport was out of an old black and white film, so of course we weren't surprised when our mode of transportation to our hotel was in a motorized tricycle! We were a little worried about our chosen "resort" when the driver didn't know where it was or how to get there, and then became increasingly perplexed when the "five min drive" turned into 30 min. It was also disconcerting when we got there and our driver turned his nose up at the place and shook his head to tell us not to stay there. But we had already paid and although no one spoke a lick of English, we were going to make it work. Since we were literally in the sticks, our driver waited for us and took us back into the city. He actually became our key to discovering Bohol and he took us to the ferry where we realized we needed to buy our tickets to Cebu for the next day (early, NOT the day of like we had thought) and then showed us the way to the tarsier rehabilitation center and the chocolate hills. The tarsier is the worlds smallest primate and they are actually pretty old man cute...their eyes take up over half of their head and then the rest of them is wrinkles. The newborns are no bigger than your thumb! Super cute! After seeing them, we headed out towards the country to what is known as the chocolate hills. Obviously they aren't chocolate but there are just a group of these hills all in the countryside made of shells and limestone and shaped by rainwater. At dawn and dusk they look brown, but today for us they were a brilliant green! After all the sightseeing we found our way back to the resort and with no way to go anywhere else, we walked on their "beach" which was a tiny strip near mangroves (oh how well the Internet can lie!) and had dinner and a fee beers at our place. In the end, it really wasn't all that bad other than it's distance to anything else, but the next morning they fixed us an amazing breakfast and we were off to Cebu!

Clark (Manila) to real Manila

Well, back on the Itouch so we will see how it goes... Yesterday we took a budget plane to Manila. What we didn't realize was that their idea of Manila is to fly you into this skeezy town 2hrs outside of Manila. When we looked in the guide book, it recommended that unless we wanted to spend the night with a woman of ill repute, then we should get out of Clark as fast as possible (no, Brent had no hand in this...I made the flight booking all on my own). Anyway, we landed and started to search for a way out of Clark but the last bus was 20 min before we arrived and taxis wanted to charge us over $100. we almost decided to bite the bullet with the taxi when we overheard two aussies having the same discussion. We decided to join forces and with two more Brits on board, we were finally off to Manila. We got in around midnight, followed the Brits to their hostel since they were the only ones who had booked ahead of time and grabbed dinner and a beer with the Aussie couple (the Brits declined). The next morning we were surprised to discover a few things about Manila: 1) it's about on par with Indian cities as far as dirtiness goes 2) we no longer had firm stool We were a bit perplexed bc Brent had booked us a ferry trip over to Corrigidor, an island off Manila that was very influential during WWII to solve problem #1,but it was a 1.5hr ferry ride so we were worried about problem #2. luckily it worked itself out for both of us and we were able to enjoy learning about Corrigidor. The tour guide was very one sided about the Japanese occupation of the island and the Phillipines and it's hard to believe Japanese tourists still come to the island. However, in all 6000 Japanese and prob twice that many Americans and Filipinos died fighting for Corrigidor and the Phillipines during the war. Once we got back to mainland Manila we headed to Intramuros, the old walled city from the time of the Spanish occupation. It was very beautiful and well maintained. We then ended the night with dinner and drinks at the Manila Hotel, one of the oldest and fanciest hotels in Manila before heading back to our hostel for the night. We had another early morning the next day flying out to Bohol where we are while I write this...more to come, I must give my thumb a rest!

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Borneo

Hello! Sorry for the delay in posting! I had written something about 3 days ago while we were still in KK, but it was on my itouch and as soon as I tried posting it, the internet went out and deleted everything! So now you may just get highlights from the last few days. We arrived in KK on Sunday and my big plan of attack was to find a diving outfitter and set up two dives for the following day, then ask them for recommendations on where to stay. Lonely Planet only had one recommended dive place, so we had our taxi driver head there. When we got to the building, we were told that because it was Sunday, the office was closed. I felt completely defeated and unsure as to what to do next. Brent, being the more level headed of the bunch, went next door to the cafe and started filling up his plate with breakfast (which in Malaysia is noodles, dim sum, and more noodles) and iced coffee. It was perfect. We sat down and tried figuring out what to do with the predicament at hand, but these guide books here are quite worthless. So, we started walking toward the jetty, figuring we should be able to find other diving outfitters near the water. We were in luck because Brent spotted a PADI sign a mile away and the people were open! We were talked into diving in the marine park, just 15 minutes away on boat from KK for three dives since it would take an incredible amount of time to get anywhere further. The lady at the dive shop, a Chinese woman named Peggy, was a very sarcastic yet amazingly knowledgeable woman. Brent made the mistake of asking her when Muslims came to Malaysia, which launched her into an hour long history lesson...most of it quite entertaining (and I think true). She then pointed us in the direction of some cheaper hotel options and gave us instructions on which islands to visit for snorkeling that day. After a bit of time on the internet due to the hotels being fully booked, we finally found one, dropped off our luggage and headed back towards the jetty. We were able to secure a boat to one of the islands and with all our snorkeling gear in hand...we were ready to get lost on the beach somewhere....until we landed on the island and found this we had the same idea as the rest of Asia (literally). The island was jam-packed with Asian tourists and there was barely any room on land or water. The best part about it was watching the people in the water snorkeling with life jackets on (the water was maybe 5 feet deep max). We still decided to go for it, found a nice plot of sand and got in the water. The snorkeling was less than ideal, what fish would want to hang around with so many people? But we saw a few monitor lizards and had a really great noodle dish while out there. We stayed until nearly sunset and then took the last ferry back into town. Once in town we headed for the waterfront esplanade and shared a cocktail while watching the sun set. It was still a nice, albeit crowded day! We decided to head to bed somewhat early that night since we had an early morning of diving, but I was woken up at 3am to a very bright light shining on me and no A/C...the power had gone out. Brent of course slept through the entire thing and didn't wake up until we had to leave for diving due to being just a little too hot. I couldn't sleep a wink. We went back to the cafe we had discovered the day before for breakfast because it was so delicious, just to find out that they didn't have power either! The whole city was operating on candles and making it seem effortless. Once we got to the dive shop Peggy told us these power outages used to happen every day and there was no telling when it would go back on, we were lucky because it went back on just a few minutes later :) The diving was pretty average and the coral reef feels as though it gets a lot of visitors. We were lucky enough to see two turtles and some smaller fish that Brent and I had never seen before. We aren't sure on their names, but we saw: 2 puffer fish, blue box fish, bat fish, swimming sea palms (?), spotted sweet lips fish (?), lion fish, parrot fish, clown fish etc. etc. We also met a German bloke about our age and an older Aussie gentleman. We decided to catch a beer with them after the dive and heard some great stories from the Aussie gentleman about his hitchiking days in Australia and nearly getting put in prison while in Indonesia! Once done with the beer we headed back towards our original hotel to pick up our bags...we had decided to upgrade to a nicer hotel for our second night, and walked with the German guy back towards the hotel since he was staying at a hostel near this new place. Although not exactly in town like they claimed, it was still a nice place and we ended up just hanging out by their pool the next day before we had to head out to Clark (Manila) later that evening. More to come later this evening about our trip to Manila and all the joys of the city (kidding). We are now in Bohol and I'll update after we eat, Brent is breathing down my neck to finish up so we can have dinner :)

Kuching

Hello! Sorry for the delay in posts. Brent and I haven't had the best Internet access. We arrived in Kuching which is in the state of Sarawak on Borneo island. They call the natives here the head hunters...and it has been an amazing few days. We decided to splurge and stay at a resort rather than a hostel and headed out to the beautiful beach resort of damai. It was a ways away from the city center so we didn't arrive until the late afternoon. We decided to take a quick nap before finding dinner...but slept until 8pm! We obviously hadn't had the best quality sleep in the previous couple of days. The next day we got up early and headed out on a jungle trek (more on this later) and then went out to this amazing orangutan conservation center. They call it a semi wild conservation area bc there are no enclosures so the orangatans can come and go as they please but the park rangers leave fruit and some yams out in parts of the conservation so that the jungle (which is suffering deforestation) can support these orangatans in months of the year where there is less fruit production. We were incredibly lucky and got to see the alpha male Richie up close and personal. We learned he is about 30 yrs old and weighs approx 70-80 kilos. He had this beautiful and very long orange red coat. He was able to smash coconuts open against the tree trunks with one arm as though it was swatting a fly. Once he left the area about 7 other orangatans came down out of the jungle to eat. It appears the rest of the orangatans stay out of his way and if I were them I would too bc he was about twice as big as the rest of them. Later that night we hung out at our resorts infinity pool high up on the hillside and just took in the views. Then we had an amazing malay dinner in the reorts scenic hillside restaurant overlooking the south china sea. We had it all to ourselves aside from the waitress, hostess, chef and resident bat that did fly bys every minute or two. We had our first cocktails of the trip, a headhunter (bc when in Rome...) and a singapore sling. Food and drinks were dilicious and the total bill was less than 20$ after tax and tip. Today we traveled out to Bako national park. It was a hour in a minibus followed by a 30 minute banka (small boat) ride thru the mangroves, onto the ocean, and into the park. We met up with a guide whose name we couldn't pronounce but that went by Issa. He warned us that we might not see all the animals and monkeys as they could be quite elusive. Again we lucked out. We saw all 3 types including the probocious (long nose) monkeys. These are apparently the hardest to find as they are fewer in number, stay mainly in the tops of trees, and become very silent when they hear humans approach. Amazingly, they seemed to find us on our trek thru the jungle. All of a sudden it just sounded like trees were coming down and it appeared to be coming toward us. The sounds were the big 40-60 kilo monkeys jumping from tree to tree. As they got close they made noises like snorting pigs out of their long noses. We also saw the silver tail monkeys and the macaques (called naughty monkeys here as they often steal people's belongings). Aside from the monkeys we saw a huge wild boar with 4 piglets, a monitor lizard, catfish, 2 pit vipers (which our guide warned us can kill a human in 2 hours after a bite- glad we didn't know that yesterday when we trekked thru the jungle by ourselves!!) 2 green tree snakes, one of which was huge and I almost stepped on. I jumped about 3 feet bc from where I spotted it right next to my leg I thought it was a pit viper (same bright green color) coiled up and ready to strike. The guide laughed and said it was just a treesnake. When I asked if it was poisonous he said "yes, but not like pit viper". We also saw flying lemur taking a snooze in a tree. We did not see any of the crocodiles that the many signs said to watch out for. We also did not see jumping spiders, scorpions, or the giant python which was ok by us. Upon leaving the park we came back to Kuching to stay in a hostel and are going to be flying to Kota Kinabalu at 6 am tomorrow. In other very exciting news we found out today that our offer for a beautiful house in pleasant hill has been accepted and we are in contract!!! Thank you very much family for all the hard work in making this happen while we've been away!!! Brent and Ash

Singapore

Day 3, Wednesday March 25: After getting to our hostel in Singapore and showering/changing our clothes (we had been in the same clothes since leaving the US) we set out to explore Singapore. We were staying on the border of the Muslim and Indian disctrict, so found some amazing food for brunch. I of course had butter chicken with garlic naan...bringing me back to my days in India, and Brent had the traditional Malaysian breakfast. This included rice, a full fish (we think it was the same type of fish that cleaned our feet the day before, so we were kind of sad) and some chili sauce...plus a bowl of coconut soup to help with the spice. Both were amazing, but I liked mine better :) We then jumped on the MRT (or mass rapid transit underground system) and headed out to the Botanical Gardens. We were planning on only spending an hour or so there, but the Gardens were massive covering 52 hectres and there was so much to see! We wandered around in the Healing Gardens and then went into the world renowned Orchid Gardens (I guess Singapore is known for their orchids...and they are amazing!). We spent quite a few hours there and then headed down to the Esplanade where we saw the true "glory" of Singapore...in the shape of three massive hotels with a ship on the top of them. We dined at another hawker stall with this as our view and then headed out of the city a ways for a Night Safari. Although slightly kichy and not a "real" safari, the enclosures were pretty natural looking and we got to see the animals very close up...we saw a ton of deer, lions, tigers, anteaters, civets, flying squirrels, bats, etc. etc. It was actually pretty fun, although we were both catching ourselves falling asleep while sitting by the end of the train ride! We headed back to our hostel and couldn't even stop to have some hookah along the way befor showering again (it is SO muggy here, we were still dripping from sweat even at 11pm) and face planted into bed. The wonderful thing about hostel sleeping is you never really know what you are going to get. In our case it was in the form of a child screaming around midnight (in the room next door) and then a father banging on his door to have his daughter let him in the room around 2 am. Also, because we were near the mosque, we also got serenaded to at dawn...it was still probably our best night sleep of the trip so far! Today we are off to Kuching, on the Malaysia island of Borneo. I'm supposed to have this part of the trip planned...but I don't, so we will see where we end up! Hopefully I'll get pictures uploaded in the next few days. Love you all!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Day 2: Tues March 24, 2012 Brent and I arrived in Kuala Lumpur around 1:30 in the afternoon. We were pretty lucky to have slept for a bit on the flight over and were ready to tackle the day. First, we decided to head to the train station to print out our train tickets to Singapore and stash our bags for the afternoon. Once all that was cleared we headed out on a self guided walking tour of the famous Chinatown. As what happens with most self guided tours in an unfamiliar city, we got lost. We ended up seeing most of the sights on the tour, but not in the exact order. We walked through their open market (full of American junk, seriously) and then headed over to an old Cricket field, Merdeka Square, which is also the location of Malaysia's independence from British rule. We also walked past quite a few mosques and temples and the city reminded me of a mix between Hydrabad in India and Bangkok in Thailand. KL is an incredible melting pot of cultures and religions...and yet surprisingly there were very few other "white" people (we are on the off season though). We ended up getting stuck in a thunderstorm though and got soaked through...Brent said it was our shower for the day. Whatever it was, it made us decide against seeing the Petronas Tower (which is actually what KL is famous for, but who cares about two huge man made towers anyway) and head back to Chinatown for some local hawker stall food. On our way we stumbled across a "fish spa" with "fish doctors" and became intrigued. The local custom is to have a mini spa pedicure with hundreds of tiny fish munching at your dead skin. Well the price was right so we decided to do as the locals do and get our feet wet...literally. It was a hilarious experience and while at first it tickled, after a few minutes you really got used to the experience. It made me wonder if my Dad could transform his koi pond into one of these fish spas...no more need for fish food, just plop your feet in the water and let the fish do the rest :) Maybe not...I think they were some special kind of fish...but it would still be fun. After the fish spa we found some amazing spicy sam mee noodles and washed it down with an ice cold beer. At this point it was getting later in the evening, it was still raining with thunder and lightening and Brent and I were exhausted. We decided to head back to the trani station and wait for our train to Singapore to arrive. Brent could barely keep his eyes open once we got to the station though and I have a good compilation of Brent sleeping (first standing up, then sitting up, then slouched over his bag). Once we got to our sleeper train Brent belly flopped onto the lower bunk and that was the last I heard from him until our arrival in Singapore :) It took us about 2 hrs to get to our hostel in Singapore but we have safely arrived, showered and are ready to explore the city. We are looking forward to a real bed tonight and maybe some quality sleeping in action tomorrow...although there is a lot to see in Singapore so we better get on our way! More to come. Love you all!