Singapore

Where else in the world is there a pool in the Airport? Lots of places could do with learning a little about managing public services! Ok.. it could possibly be called a Benevolent Dictatorship, but sometimes, that's really not a bad thing I don't think.

 

Arriving in Singapore you notice what ruthless efficiency can delivery; an ice cold and clinical airport - that while it's being refurbished would put new buildings elsewhere in the world to shame. We moved through quickly, were greeted by the passport control with a little sweet to go and then headed off to find our baggage. Through the glass wall we were greeted by Oli and his mate- what a nice surprise!

We were staying with an ex colleague of Jen's so headed off by taxi to the otherside of the city, the Westside! Aiight. Condo's are pretty sweet and frankly, I haven't even been in a hotel which was as pleasant to stay in! The outdoor pool was over 50 meters and provided a very pleasant way of waking up – I did some exercise and swam a whole ten laps – oh the muscles ached the next day. A very big thank you to Sheridan, Elina and Nick for their very generous hospitality.

Another great thing about it was the getting my new card.. HSBC had cocked up getting my switch card to me in December before I left and initially hadn't wanted to get me a new one to SE Asia—2 hours of phone calls of which 45 mins were spent in Heathrow in January persuaded them to sent it out at their expense, although shockingly enough one of their agents actually said "why would you need a card in the back of beyond" what a prick. I hope they fired him. Getting to Singapore meant that I could get to a Branch and pick it up! So overall, well done HSBC but why make it so bloody difficult!?!

Moving around the city is easy, the tube has recyclable tickets with a dollar deposit for each ticket- one for Boris to adopt perhaps, the buses and taxis all worked seamlessly, and getting to the airport, a good 1 hour on the tube only cost £1.50!!! Methinks UK PLC could learn a little about investment and reinvestment of profits as the state owns a substantial amount of enterprise apparently – spending the profits on keeping the place working, clean and tidy - not Taxing its citizens who therefore have greater spending power! Perhaps with the cut price investments into the large UK banks, the Chancellor of the Exchequer might decide to do something similar in the UK when the banks start earning money again- or is that a crazy idea?

Coming to spending, it's a city of nothing but. Countless malls – some for technology some for clothes, food cheap and expensive lining the streets allows you to have what ever you want when ever. Jen and I headed to a brilliant Indian Street stall and had lots of "stuff" on a tray with rice for 5 Dollars… and were taken to lunch in a modern Chinese fusion hotpot place which specialized in Mushroom hotpot absolutely delicious. By far the best was the signature Chilli Crab which we ate at Jumbo's near Clarke Key. We also ate at Boomerangs on Robertson Quay with Jen's old office colleagues who were outstanding company for the evening and made us realize once more that we really weren't missing our old lives just yet.

A must in Singapore is the Singapore Sling in Raffles, pricy but very nicely mixed of course. It feels like you might well be mixing with some outrageously wealthy people, who did actually sit around puffing on large cigars and looking busy. From there it was a short hop to the Swisshotel and their New Asia bar on their top floor- 71^st. The lift up doesn't really give you an idea of how fast you are travelling until your ears pop- coming out you get a 360 view of the city state- it is a free just must see. You can of course indulge and buy a drink, we didn't for once. Oh, and if you feel like something a little more cultural, head to the Museum. It is superb and very interesting- allow some time for it though!

Leaving Singapore to a new adventure- bye bye Asia- I think travelling through has been brilliant and couldn't be much better with the ending of this leg of the trip with a great three days in Singapore! Hello Darwin- Gateway to the Oceania segment.

 

 

 

Sepilok Jungle Lodge, Borneo 11th – 13th March

After managing to prise ourselves away from Mabul, we arrived at the Jungle Lodge amidst the tropical rainforest. From our room, the noises of the jungle were immense, from singing cicadas, croaking frogs, monkeys and unidentifiable sounds, which you could spend hours thinking up some elusive creative of the night that it came from. We went straight to the Orangutan Sanctuary, which rehabilitates the apes at different levels preparing them to go back into the wild. This means that they are not in an enclosure as such, rather gather around feeding platforms for an easy dinner but are still free in the jungle. To get to the feeding platforms, you potter along the jungle boardwalks passing all kinds of butterflies, insects, frogs, etc. We went in the afternoon which meant that the place was practically empty and were very pleasantly surprised. Although I love apes with all their human characteristics, I did not have great expectations for somewhere I imagined to be very controlled and zoo-like. However, there was something very magical about watching the Orangutans come in to feed. A mother with her baby, the controlling father, and by far the most entertaining, a toddler who wowed us with his acrobatics and double jointed maneuvers, obviously seeking attention from his parents, and who got it on stealing a bunch of bananas from his father and running off! Just when I was about to say to Mark, there is no enclosure, a huge male walked straight past us on the boardwalk and leapt up to the feeding platform – brilliant! We decided to go on a little walk around the paths, although the tropical downpours we had been having made it a bit tricky. Then we saw one. In the tree staring at us, with what seemed to be a natural smile on its face. We got a bit closer and it did not seem scared, in fact it came down the tree and sat beside us, and on walking away, seemed to follow us around. It was so exciting and made me so happy! It also seemed to stay fairly placid when I started jumping around like a leprechaun because there was a smelly leech attached to my arm and the little sucker did not want to come off. Mark found all of this fairly amusing, as did I after the event. But not as amusing as when Mark got a leech on the palm of his hand (of all places!) later on that day and reacted in exactly the same way as me – it was hilarious!

While at Sepilok, we also went to the Crocodile farm in Sandakan, which was entertaining in a bizarre way. It looked like a few corrugated shacks which had been nailed together in a mishap manner and then a load of crocodiles thrown in for good measure. It had signs like 'this is Taka, the crocodile who is 60 years old and has eaten four people which is why he is here now' in a pen which would be very easy for a 800kg croc like him to jump out of. The 'show time spectacle' was surreal – 3 men bowing then getting in the croc pen, cheesy music playing on the loudspeaker then one of them picking up a baby ish croc and dancing around with it on his head, the croc's mouth deliberately opened into a big cheesy grin and the man dancing like you pray your parents will never dance at your wedding. The shop contained some stuffed crocodiles, who were…wait for it…playing baseball, pulling a tuk tuk, wearing sunglasses – worth the 5 RM we paid just for the ironic comedy of the whole thing. We later visited the Probiscos Monkey Sanctuary, which was miles down a track in a palm oil plantation. It was in essence a lodge with a veranda where you could drink tea and watch the monkeys, so not as fun as the Orangutans where you could walk in the forest. It was also double the price to get in, so not quite such good value. They are funny creatures through – translated in Malay as the Dutch Monkey, due to its big bulbous red nose and fat belly – am sure Bart will be thrilled when I inform him of this. The other highlight was the Hornbill bird, which was floating around the lodge and looked like a big Toucan – absolutely beautiful! Mark and I took local buses and got totally drenched twice in tropical downpours, which was highly entertaining. Two more things I want to say:- 1) the Jungle Lodge provides breakfast and makes its own jam – banana and pineapple – it is heavenly. 2) This morning when we left, Mark found a rather large spider under his rucksack which looked positively evil. Thankful I did not know about it last night. JG

Mabul continued

Mark and I ended up spending 5 nights on Mabul Island, which was absolutely fantastic. We met loads of interesting people who we challenged to cards, Jenga and chess. The 'Penthouse Suite' continued to be a great place to stay, feeling like you are sleeping outdoors and with a view to die for. It was interesting to go for a night dive. Everything looks very different and in a way it's even more peaceful with vision being really restricted to your torchlight. The plankton looks beautiful under the moonlight and there are lots of new crustaceans that come out to play by night. Huge brittle starfish eerily crawl into rock crevices and are the size of octopi, turtles rest on the coral beds and look up sleepily under the torchlight, large eels are actively snaking around hunting for food and baby squid playing in the currents. It also makes you feel slightly like an extra in a James Bond movie jumping into the sea in pitch darkness wearing your weight belt and wetsuit. Just need the diver's knife clenched between the teeth…

On our last day, Mark and I walked around the island and snuck into the posh floating bungalow's reef. It was the most beautiful day – cloudless sky, warm breeze and the sea an unbelievable turquoise where the silky soft sand banks interspersed with the reef. The visibility was unreal and as with the rest of Mabul, even just snorkeling you can see some much aquatic life. I had a comedy moment when I felt something tugging at my fins – on turning around I saw a Titan Trigger fish with teeth bared trying to defend its territory. I quickly swim away on my back facing it so I could kick it every time it went for my legs and the little bastard chased me for about 20m and until I reached Mark, who was laughing. Then it went for Mark – haha! It's territory must have covered a huge distance as we had to swim another 5-10m before it left us alone – very funny. Also, we were waiting for the dive boat to come back so we could all have lunch together and we wondering why it was so late (we could see them about 400m out). We found out when they got back and guessed due to the huge smiles on their faces that they had been snorkeling with two Whale Sharks. Lucky buggers. JG

Malaysian Days

Leaving Thailand was somewhat a relief. The country is beautiful and its fun, however, it has been very much a case of Same Same but different through SE Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand) to the Malay border. Beautiful countries with lavishly decorated cultural artifacts and religious icons, night markets, day markets, street vendors and general madness all seem to have been intoxicated by the lure of the fast buck generated by the tourist trade.Malaysia from the border onwards is a breath of fresh air. The mix of religion and ethnicity is perhaps the most elaborate and the dynamics on a first glance make Malaysia a really vibrant place. We took a bus from Thailand into Penang- there was the initial negotiation with a Thai tout which resulted in us walking out and around the corner to a much friendlier agency who quoted us 70 Bhat less per ticket immediately… and the bus was lovely! Our bus from Ko Lanta had been ok but really screwed up our travel plans as it was 2 hours late- meaning we missed the train. Stroke of luck really.

Arriving in Penang we got dropped in the backpacker area and had a look at some hostel type places. It seemed like they might be breeding fleas and bed bugs so we decided to have a little more of a look around. Twenty RM more per night and we were in fairly luxurious surroundings, TV, AC and on the main food road! So off we went for some Indian! What a great introduction…. The food was superb, having eaten so many Thai Curry's and Noodles throughout, the Malay food- Indian no less, put the rest to shame. The heady mix of spices and flavours gave me what I had been really looking forward for a while- great cheap food!

Penang itself is a funny town; a mix of old colonial houses and new mega apartment blocks. We didn't really have the chance to look at the whole island, but did manage to walk up the coast road- heading North from the centre to find some restaurants which served up great steamed fish, fried prawns in coconut and garlic and more. Overlooking the sea of course. If you go.. highly recommended they are.

With great infrastructure we thought it would be best to hire a car to Ipoh and the Cameron Highlands, however, the price of car we wanted was of course gone so we had to take a bus once more. With twenty minutes to go before the last bus of day it we managed to catch possibly the slowest taxi driver in the world to take us there but he did and we got onto a very plush bus (three seats per row). Arriving in Ipoh was amusing, we had no idea where we were and were ravenous. The first thing we did was sit down and have a bite to eat – ordered Satay from a bike boy and took it easy. We then got our bearings and went hostel/hotel hunting.

The next day we hired a car and Jen drove up to Cameron Highlands; to strawberry fields and more. It rained. A lot. We ate fresh strawberries, wandered through the rainforest, and were generally not impressed by the development of the towns- huge apartment blocks and hotels going up two a penny it seems with no thought for environmental consequences what so ever. Side effects are smelly rivers and costa del rain architecture. We stayed in shared room which was in a Nissen Hut type building and overlooked the hills – was lovely. The walk through the rainforest was breathtaking and relatively strenuous, only so as some of us are perhaps a little less fit than we used to be J

Heading back from the Highlands we met Lam Poh Wah who is a legend in our family. It was really nice to be shown around Ipoh on a late night drive and shown my house from when I was three.. somewhat smaller than I recall though! Moving onwards we took another bus on the next day down to KL which I really liked. I will have to return and explore further:-) Jen and I wandered over to the Petronas Towers and looked around the extensive shopping centre before heading to the tourist ticket office to go up the tower. The ticket office where you make bookings informed us that the tickets were all gone but we could have some for the next day- sadly not an option. The manager then suggested we wait a while and so we did. Eventually, not too much later we were given some tickets to go on the last lift up, brilliant! The view was great, is an impressive building- courtesy of Petronas of course it's all free.

Onward ho then to Borneo!

Borneo - Mabul 5th - 11th March

Borneo 5th – 17th March
On arriving at Tawau airport, we got a taxi to Semporna, which is the base for diving in Sipidan. The town itself is an old fishing village, but is pretty soulless and smells. The others had already prebooked a package for diving, so found somewhere to stay. Mark and I wanted to find a cheaper diving option and also wanted to stay on Mabul, a little tropical island about an hour from Semporna and near the dive sites. Most places were too expensive or fully booked and all the boats to the island had left that morning. However, Scuba Junkies said they could give us one night in a bungalow and there was a local longboat going out that afternoon. Perfect. One Longboat, 3 Malay fishermen, 1 tree, 10 boxes of eggs, 5 crates of bananas, a mattress, some dubious looking bottles and Mark & I squeezed in the middle. The boat trip took about an hour and was beautiful, going past luscious coconut mangroves, green hills and out into the open sea past some deserted islands, some with just a sandbank and a few palms – the type of cartoon style tropical island where someone would ask you what you would take if you could have one thing with you..! The water was crystal clear and full of shoals of flying fish coming up to feed. On the horizon we could see a torrential downpour over Mabul, with very threatening skies and stormy sea. We were not particularly worried as we had been told that the long boat is fine in the sea as long as there are not any storms. Then it came in. Horizontal rain, bigger waves which covered us in foam every time and screaming wind. Once we had made peace with the fact we were going to get wet, i.e. after one wave, it was so much fun, and I have a whole new respect for Longboats.
We pulled into a little jetty and were met by Paul, a really friendly Scottish guy, who explained the ropes. Six huts had been built, and another 6 in the process of going up. A huge covered wooden veranda was where we would eat our 3 meals a day. Our room was gorgeous – double doors that opened onto a big veranda overlooking the sea, huge bathroom and everything smelling of fresh wood. The first thing we had to do was go and jump in the gorgeous sea, so we took our masks and snorkels all of the 50m down to the jetty and jumped in. Wow. Right on our doorstep at 5pm in the evening, we saw huge schools of fish, so big that you could not see where it ended, every kind of colourful reef fish imaginable, and lovely coral. The visibility was amazing and we were starting to feel very smug that we had chosen Mabul over Semporna.
The island is tiny, probably about 1-2 sq miles. You can walk around the edge in about ½ hour, and pass two fishing villages, where all the houses are on stilts. There are a couple of gorgeous tiny beaches, with reefs and dive sites just off the edge – people travel for an hour from Semporna to get here each day for diving. It really feels like a much undiscovered island with little tourism and the people who are here wanting to keep it that way.
The Scuba Junkies huts, which were only opened on 1st March, so 5 days before we arrived, have an amazing group of people running the place. There are about 10 dive masters/instructors who live on site and are so friendly. Nights are spent playing chess, Jenga, cards, chatting, drinking beer, someone playing the guitar, etc. The guests are all very interesting and everyone just seems very happy to be here. The laid back atmosphere reminds me slightly of the commune in the film ‘The Beach’ – cheesy I know but it really is like that.
On the first day, we booked 3 dives, which were all in very different sites. The speedboat that took us there seriously impressed Mark with its engine size – brum brum! The first site was over a sunken wreck, small fishing boats which had all sorts of goodies to see – giant moray eels, giant puffer fish, garden eels, which were so cute they would stick their little heads out of the seabed, have a good look around and then go back down. The second dive was on a great reef, which went down a cliff to the sea bed. Although hard to say as there was just so much to see, the highlight was probably the turtles we saw both swimming and just being lazy sleeping in the coral. Dive 3 was actually just off our beach, and was a sand dive. Immediately we saw a banded sea snake, spotted sting rays, a school of squid, ghost pipe drain fish, and lots of shrimp cleaning a turtle that was at least 1.5m across and over 100 years old.
Because the island was full, and we were desperate to stay on for longer (we found out that Mt. Kinabalu accommodation is fully booked so cannot climb the mountain) we jokingly suggested that maybe we could put a mattress on the veranda/to be bar area which was half built upstairs. To our delight, they agreed meaning we could stay on for a while. Aside from the roof, the bed is totally in the open and was very comfy last night – we doused ourselves in insect repellant and burned some coils, so no bites. It looks so funny, as it’s a huge area, probably enough room to hold about 100 people and we just have a little mattress in the corner. The view is outstanding too – ultimate in basic living but it means we get to stay on in this chilled out paradise for a bit longer. This morning we jumped in the sea straight away and saw an octopus and a Titan Trigger fish patrolling its territory. I have written far too much already, hopefully have succeeded in summarizing how amazing it is here, and am off to enjoy it. JG

Koh Tao/Koh Lanta

Loved Koh Tao - very peaceful harmonious island with the right balance between having enough amenities and still being in its natural state. Diving was really fun - our instructor was called Will, a Frenchman who had a great sense of humour and very positive teaching style. Unfortunately on the 2nd dive, my ears felt very painful, so I went to the doctor who said he could see the bone sticking out of the ear and a lot of blood, which explained why I could not hear much. It would also explain the blood I was coughing up all afternoon! Nice. So, was signed off the final dive, which was so disappointing as I loved it and had to sit on the beach on the last day. On the plus side, I did get to finish the diving in Koh Lanta, where the fish were spectacular and the coral seemed really alive & vibrant. Mark & I had fun in Koh Lanta. We had a very basic bamboo bungalow right on the beach and spent most of the time swimming in the sea (which was like warm bath water), cruising around on scooters and reading in hammocks - absolutely brilliant. I also made friends with the big toad who lived in our wetroom & took on different positions whenever I had a shower...JG