Manila Again

We left Puerto Galera on Easter Monday morning along with many other people. The boat was rammed and double over its allowed capacity of 40 people. The boat took about 1 hour and 40 mins and was very uncomfortable. Once off the boat we got straight on the connecting bus to Manila that took about 2 hours and took us straight to the hotel we were going to stay at which is really nice.

We got showered and had a wonder round the mall and popped on the Internet. I wasn't feeling to good so I went back to have a lie down and ended up in bed for the rest of the evening watching National Geographic and Robot Wars lol.

Today we had a right mare. We had to get visa extensions as ours run out on 19th April and our flight to Malaysia isn't until 24th May. After finally finding an ATM which worked to get cash to pay for the extension we got a taxi to the Immigration office. It was total chaos inside and not even organised chaos. It was a biggish room with rows of plastic seats in the middle and all around the outside was booths. So we went to this counter to ask where we needed to go and got told window whatever, so went to that window and got told to go to another window. At that window we were told to go to another window to get a form. Got to that window and there was a que. Got the form, filled it in, asked which window we needed, got directed to another window, handed in the forms, they got signed and stamped. Then had to go to another window to pay, then from that window had to go to another window and were told we had to return 3 hours later to pick up our passports with the updated visas! and that wasn't the end of it.

The National Museum was close by so we walked there through the old Spanish Fort. There are only the Fort's original walls remaining and inside a couple of old buildings but the rest has been rebuilt. To begin with it looked quite nice with some lovely looking buildings but then as we walked in further we started walking through some slums which were a little unnerving as there we no other tourists around. We kept getting harassed by the rickshaw drivers and one followed us all the way down this street saying stuff to our backs. We finally made it out to find the museum is closed until tomorrow due to renovations! The choices then was go to a huge shopping mall or go to the Chinese cemetery which is supposed to be quite impressive. Chinese Cemetery it was. I flagged a taxi and we got in. It didn't seem very far away on the map, maybe 6 km and the roads to it seemed to be straight highways but we had been going for ages all along these back streets. I started to get a bit concerned as we obviously wasn't going the right way or so it seemed. We got the map out and tried to find the street names we were passing but couldn't see them. Eventually we found a street name which was near the Cemetery and 45mins after we left the Immigration office we arrived. The driver obviously took us the longest way round possible but we couldn't just get out and get another taxi as he took us through some very dodgy areas for example, some of the shops had big steel bars across the front where customers had to shop and pay through! that's not a good sign and i didn't see any other taxis. Anyway, we got there and we were in a strange place. It was obviously the cemetery but not what we expected. Apparently the Cemetery is for wealthy Chinese people who have tombs and Mausoleums built. The first few we saw were very impressive and enormous. We hadn't got far and some guy who looked like a security guard and had a hand gun tucked in to his trousers pulled up on his motorbike beside us. He asked us what we were doing, which I thought strange as this place was in the Lonely Planet so surely tourists come here!! We said we were just having a look round and he asked if we knew someone deceased there. Obviously we said no and he was kinda like "oh" and advised us to be careful and went to ride off. Before he did i asked why should we be careful. He then said that further on down the road was a few streets which were quite dangerous and it was possible we could be "hold up". Hmm!! on that note we turned straight back round and walked out of the cemetery. It really wasn't going well. We had a little bit of a walk to the main road so we could catch a taxi and that was scary. I really didn't fancied getting robbed at gun point! We got to the main road and managed to get in to a taxi and got it to take us back to the Immigration office. This time it took 15mins! We had a drink and something to eat and then it was time to get our passports back.

Immigration round 2! We got inside and it was manic. The room was absolutely chocka with people. We fought our way to the counter and asked which window we needed. Unfortunately many other people needed that window too and there was a massive que. but due to the sitting in the middle of the room it was impossible to que in a straight line and so ques for 3 windows were merged together in this huge mass off people. After half an hour of standing in what seemed immense heat they turned on the ceiling fans which relieved the heat a bit and then a seat became available so i sat down. It was really frustrating as there was no one at the window, the que was not moving at all. After about 40mins we heard someone say that the guy who signs the papers had gone missing and they were trying to locate him!! Finally someone turned up at the window and the que started to move. Unfortunately for some people there passports were still not ready and had to rejoin the back of the que after finally getting to the front. We were really hoping ours were ready. When Billy got to the counter we were lucky and ours were the very last 2 passports in the pile so we were able to get out of there and not rejoin the que! though this still took us 1hour 15mins.

Next stop HSBC bank. We needed to go to the HSBC as we read that we could draw out 20,000 Pesos instead of the usual 5000. We needed more as apparently there are not ATM's in Donsol where we are heading next. Once we got our cash we walked a short way to the travel agent to book our over night bus ticket to Legaspi where we will then have to catch another bus to Donsol. The walk there though was not nice. I'd kinda had enough of Manila for today and we got hassled so much. It's the only city that we have been to where we feel so unsafe. We walked past this one bank and there were so many armed security guards all with different types of heavy duty guns, from rifles to shotguns and M16 machine guns! Scary and this was a similar theme as we walked to the travel shop. We were also hassled by many homeless people and at one point were surrounded by homeless kids who would not leave us alone. I had no small change otherwise i would have given some money to them but i only had large denomination notes as just been to the cash point. I felt really bad walking around with this much money in my pocket and not giving anything but i couldn't and i wasn't about to try and get change for a note as i didn't want anyone to see me getting my purse out of my pocket. Eventually Billy had to shout NO to these kids to get them to leave us alone. Again a bit further on a homeless guy grabbed my hand to ask for money. Again i had to say no but i was really starting to freak out. I wasn't feeling safe at all. We got to the travel place and booked our tickets and walked back to the hotel which was quite close. I will be glad to leave here. I really don't like this city much.

Billy's Birthday

At the disco with a couple of vodka and redbulls :-)

The dance floor at the disco

Me with a glass of lovely red wine, I did manage not to spill any on my white outfit :-)

Billy enjoying a birthday beer with Sky

Me with the fire poi.

Billy blowing out his birthday candle

The meal.

What a nice place to be to spend your birthday. We woke up and the sun was shining, it was lovely and warm and the sea looked nice and calm. We went to the restaurant next to the dive shop for our usual mango shake and cup of tea before going to the dive shop to gear up. The first dive we did was really nice, very mellow and saw some beautiful stuff, unfortunately we had forgotten the camera, which was typical as I'd spotted a couple of amazing Nudibranch! After the dive we went and had breakfast at a place across the way where they do really good baguettes. Then sat in the dive shop before going on a 2nd dive. Again this was very nice and mellow. I had gone back up to the room in between dives to get the camera but unfortunately we didn't spot anything amazing though still saw some nice stuff. After the 2nd dive we chilled in the dive shop for a bit and then went back to room. For his birthday the dive shop were putting on a BBQ for Billy. I had arranged a cake which Billy was not aware of. So we headed back to the dive shop about 6:15 and got ourselves a drink. I brought a couple of bottles of red wine including one which was one of our favorite brands at home, I was quiet looking forward to cracking the bottle open I can tell you :-). The BBQ was great, Sky's wife made a gorgeous Filipino curry, rice, bbq'd aubergine, chicken satay and salad. Also for a starter we had "Sloppy Joe's" which apparently is an American dish (Sky is from Texas). It consists of a piece of bread, or in our case it was a bread roll cut in two and on top was a kind of bolognaise/chili and a slice of cheese. It was very nice indeed. After the bbq I brought the cake out to Billy much to his surprise and everyone sang happy birthday and he blew out his candle. The cake was really nice. The people at the bakery did such a good job, the cake was beautifully decorated and tasted divine. I got a vanilla and strawberry cake as I figured it was a safe flavour for everyone and I knew Billy liked this too.

After we were suitably stuffed and had a couple of glasses of red down us I did my fire poi. I hadn't wanted to wait much longer as I was starting to feel a little tipsy and I hadn't done fire poi for over 2 years and was feeling a tad nervous. I had brought a bottle of kerosene earlier in the day which would do me for a few goes which was a good job as I was a little rusty on the 1st go. No one really noticed though but I did have a huge audience. I did the poi on the beach outside the dive shop and to the right is a bar and the left a restaurant plus loads of people appeared on the beach. I decided not to notice and carried on what I was doing which after the first go i was ok. My heart was going like the clappers though lol :-) I did the poi a couple of more times to use up the kerosene and then relaxed to get drunk. We stayed for a few more drinks and then me and Billy headed to the new disco which had only opened the day before. The usual "discos" in Sabang are just go go bars, there is no dance floor but this was an actual disco. It was really good fun too. It was very funny to watch the local Filipino guys strutting their stuff like they owned the place and the music wasn't too bad. The guy who was serving our drinks was called Raymond, which we thought a bit unusual for a Filipino. He was such a nice guy though, he was only 17 and quite sweet. Whenever we needed a drink we would shout "RAYMOND" lol :-) As it was a disco it was quite expensive to drink so I found the cheap option which was vodka and red bull! We must have had about 4 each and was pretty steaming by the end of the night. We staggered back to the room and it was a right mission getting up the hill. At one point i fell over into the hedge at the side of the steps. It was quite funny as because it was slopped i fell downwards and my shoes got left on the path whilst i lay half in the hedge half on the grass. Billy was ahead of me and he shouted down to see if i was ok, I shouted back up to him that I had fallen over and he shouted back he had too lol! luckily we had no grass stains on our white clothes phew!

Needless to say the next day we didn't dive and spent the day recovering from a stonking hangover!! It was worth it though. Billy did seem to have a very good birthday.

Diving

Billy after his first birthday dive

The Singaporean couple we were diving with who were lovely

The boat man

Amil our dive guide looked very chilled

The Dive Shop

Diving Sabang

A Frog Fish

A Scorpion Fish, you really don't wanna touch that!

A Pipe Fish. From the same family as sea horses

One of the wrecks in Sabang bay

A White Tip Reef Shark sleeping in a cave at Sharks Cave

A beautiful Nudibranch

Nudibranch

The diving in Puerto Galera is really good. It was rare that we had less than 15m of visibility and there was so much colour under the water. Many variety's of soft coral and feather stars, every rock or bolder was covered in colour. There was many different fish and nudibranch which i love. There are nudibranch here we have never seen before and i generally spent most of the dive search the ground and rocks for new specimens. All the dive sites were extremely local too. Sometimes we would get on the boat to gear up immediately and then drop in after about 1 minute. The longest boat journey was about 5 minutes!! The best dive we did was called Sabang Wrecks. Three boats had been sunken purposely for diving. 2 were wooden boats so quite deteriorated and 1 was a steel ship. We did the dive twice and on the 2nd dive we had amazing visibility. As soon as we dropped in to the water we could see the boat underneath us and from the sea bottom we could see the other wreck too. One the steel ship there lives a Frog Fish. Billy had not seen one before and this particular one was a big one too, though very ugly. Unfortunately Billy's ear started to play up again so for a precaution we stopped diving to give his ear a rest before heading to Coron to dive the WWII wrecks.

We also managed to add another tick to the list. We saw a Sea Horse! It was a pigmy sea horse though which was absolutely tiny, and it was exactly the same colour as the soft coral it was living on. Our dive guide must have the most amazing eye sight to be able to find such a small thing.

Whale shark

Manta ray - Ticked

Dolphins (whilst diving)

Hammerhead shark

Octopus - Ticked

Sea horse - Ticked

Sea dragon

Mandarin fish

Bora Bora (Sun fish)

Puerto Galera

Our room. there is an arrow pointing to it, its up on the hill side

View from the room

After an 2 hour bus ride from Manila to Basuanga we caught a ferry over to Sabang Beach in Puerto Galera which took about an hour. Sabang beach itself is certainly no Koh Rok but we are not here for the beach so it didnt matter to much. There is a lot of sea weed on the beach and the smell reminded me of the beaches in the UK which I quiet like. Luckily for us getting off the boat with our heavy bags was easy as two guys came on and carried them for us. I was quite happy for them to do this, i'd much rather pay someone to carry my bag than do it myself. We told the guys that we wanted to go to South Sea Divers as I had spoken with the owner the night before and he said he would be able to find us accomodation. However when we got there the place he usually goes to could only give us a room for one night as it was the start of Holy Week (Easter, its a Christian country). This sounded a bit of hassle as the room was a right trek away and we wanted to get settled somewhere and not have to move a day later. Billy went off to see if he could find anything better and about 10mins later he came back and said he had found a really nice room up on the hill side with an amazing view of the bay and that the room was ours for as long as we wanted it and someone would come and fetch our bags and take them to the room, bonus! Funnily enough it was the same guys who came to take our bags whom had helped us off the boat. I bet they were happy to find out they had to go to the other end of the beach with our bags!

The room we got was really nice and most importantly it had a hot shower! though the walk up to the room was a killer. It is properly up a hill and you have to walk up so many steps, but its good exercise.

It's quite a strange place Sabang, like I said before you dont come here for the beach, not only is there a lot of sea weed on it but it is tiny too, the shore is very close to the resorts. There seems to be a mixture of tourists. There are many dive resorts so obviously many divers, then there are people here on package holidays which is strange as its not a place I'd have picked to spend my 2 weeks vacation and then there are the single males here for the Flipino girls. Apparently with Manila, Puerto Galera is one of the country's prositution hotspots. That does make it sound like a grim place but its not that bad though there are quiet a few old, fat western men with a young Filipino girl on their arm, eewww!!

I cant say we can really get a true reflexion on what the Philippines is like in this town as it is a holiday town. There are many bars, restaurants and souvenir shops but its still a nice place to be. It is very convenient as everything that we may need is to hand.

Hello Philipines and Manila

A Jeepney

The street our hotel was on.

We got up at 3:30 am to get to the airport for 5 and catch our flight to the Philippines at 7:20. We flew Air Asia which was a really good flight considering it was a budget airline. The plane was comfortable enough, we had leather seats! It was much better than Easy Jet. It took about 3 1/2 hours to get to Manila though unfortunately Air Asia doesn't fly to the International Airport in Manila but to the airport at Clark Airbase (its an old US airbase now Domestic and International Airport) which was 80 odd KM from Manila. When we arrived we had a bit of trouble getting some cash as the cash machine wouldn't let us have any money. We had some British pounds on us so changed some at the exchange counter. We then got on a bus to get to Manila which took about 2 hours and we got to watch Under Siege on the way lol :-).

Once in Manila we got a taxi to the hotel. The people seemed really friendly, a guy came over and helped us get a taxi and agreed a price for us. When we got to the hotel the taxi driver did try to double the fair but we paid the agreed price in the end. The Philippines seems quite strange on first impression. It was nothing like we had seen in the other South East Asian countries we had been too. Nothing seemed familiar. The Philippines had previously been under Spanish and American occupation and you can really tell. We have not been to South America but this is what we would expect it to be like and other people we have spoken to who have been agreed. One guy said "put a sombrero on the Filipinos heads and you wouldn't know the difference!" All the road signs, street names, shop names, menus, newspapers, radio etc etc are in English. It is very strange. It seems they speak in Tagalog (Filipino) and read in English. Obviously they speak very good English with an American twang. They are super friendly and always say good morning ma'am, sir or hello ma'am, sir whenever you walk by. On the morning we were leaving Manila I popped in to the 7 11 for a drink and the whole shop erupted in to a chorus of Good Morning Ma'am. It was really funny, everyone started to laugh as they all seemed to have said it at the same time, it certainly made the early morning much happier. They also have a strange mode of public transport. They call them Jeepneys. When the Americans left they left behind many jeeps and these were adapted for use as public transport, now they still use the same design but really customise them. Some are really elaborate with many decorations and ornaments and are quite terrifying when you cross a road and have 2 or 3 jeepneys heading for you. You really wouldn't want to be hit by one, they are like tanks!!

Manila was a strange one though. I don't think it helped that we had to be up so early to catch our flight we were walking round feeling like we had just been on the DNA Mixer a couple of times. The Lonely Planet describes Manila as "Delhi/Jakarta on street level and New York from the 3rd storey up". How true that seemed as well. On the way in there were many slums that I had only really seen in Cambodia before. Also some of the streets in Manila where we were staying were very narrow with lots of money exchange shops which Billy said did very much remind him of India. The amount of times we were hassled about changing money! Also in every shop and hotel there was an armed guard which made it slightly unnerving. They were obviously there for a reason. The lonely Planet had also said that at night Manila was "sketchy at best". So we decided to have a quick wander, get some food and then go back to the hotel. We wanted the Internet and we were told there was a place in the department store up the road. We found it and had a look for some places to stay in Puerto Galera as we were going to head out there the next day and wanted an idea of places to go and check out. After we finished we went back out on the street and Billy had said he would like Pizza Hut for tea. We saw a guy with a take away box and asked him where Pizza Hut was. He pointed back in the direction of the department store but to another door way. We walked up and went inside and found ourselves in this huge shopping mall, with designer shops and restaurants. It was bizarre. Where did this place come from!! It was likes we walked through a door in to another dimension. Anyway we found Pizza Hut and they were certainly redeemed from our last experience. We had excellent customer service, we were even told how many minutes our pizzas would be and they were really good too. After we had a quick wander around the mall but couldn't be bothered to walk too much and then headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep before getting up at 7 to get the bus and boat to Puerto Galera.

Last night in KL and with Peter and Debs :-(

After a hard days thrill ride adventure we decided to eat locally for tea. There was a great little street vendor just round the corner from the hotel where me and Billy had eaten a few nights before and I went to for breakfast each day. They have tables on the pavement and a food stand with many kinds of Chinese dishes, where you just help yourself to whatever you want for about 80p. It's such good food too and its hard not to over fill your plate, we were stuffed. After we had finished eating we decided to walk through the shopping mall on the way to the hotel. Inside we saw a department store and decided to go in, boy what a bad mistake. We were quite tired from our hectic day and we hadn't planned on walking about long but we got lost in the department store and couldn't find our way out. It was like being in a horror movie, 4 travelers, trapped in a department store from hell! there's no escape ahhhhhhhh!!!!! After a while Debbie recognised where we came in from and we found our way out. We quickly got out of the shopping mall and back on to the street. We then said our goodbyes which was really sad. It has been great travelling with Pete and Debs. We will certainly miss their company. We were flying to Manila in the Philippines the next day (at 7:20 am) and they were carrying on travelling through Malaysia, back in to Thailand and Cambodia and Laos. Happy travels guys. :-)

The Indoor Theme Park at Times Square Shopping Plaza

The DNA mixer
Inside the theme park

The roller coaster

The next day we thought we would have some action packed theme park adventure. In Times Square plaza they have the biggest indoor theme park in Malaysia apparently! The plaza itself is enormous, there are 10 floors full of shops and the theme park uses about a quarter of floors 5-10! It cost about a fiver to go in and once paid you can go on the rides as many times as you like. There were lots of kids rides but some "thrill" rides to and for a fiver we thought it was worth a go. First we went on the roller coaster which was actually really good. As soon as it left the platform it went in to a cork screw. There was lots of upside down moments and it went really high. Next we checked out the bumper cars which were so much fun, we were howling the whole way round and then decided to go on a ride called the DNA Mixer. It looked harmless enough, it reminded us of the flying carpet ride you get at fun fairs. Boy were we wrong, it was the worst ride we have ever been on. It started off rocking backwards and forwards and then the next thing it was spinning us really fast forwards. It stopped, rocked again and then span like crazy backwards. At first it was funny but it kinda went on for ages and we really wished it would stop . We felt so sick when we got off. Me and Debs had gotten headaches and we all felt we needed to sit down. There was a ride next door which looked easy going. Just a cart that went round and round. We thought we'd have a go on that to settle our stomachs. Unfortunately it went really really fast and made the person on the outside get squashed by the person in the inside. Fortunately for me and Debs we were sat on the inside of our carts so Pete and Billy got squashed! Just what they needed, though we all still felt just as sick after this ride. Time for the kiddies rides. We went on the pretend steam train, some jeep things and had a sit down and felt much better. We went on another couple of "thrill" rides but they were fine we didn't feel ill after them and then had another go on the bumper cars and roller coaster before leaving. We had a wonder around the shopping mall and then I left everyone whilst i had my hair cut at Tony and Guy! That certainly settled my stomach. Cant beat new hair lol :-)

After the aquarium

Pete outside KLCC

After we had been in the aquarium we went and warmed up again outside and then went to the food court to eat, then went to the cinema which was also in KLCC. We decided to see "300" as we had heard good reviews about it, well actually some Malaysian guy had ranted at us in Hat Yai as the cinemas there were only showing it in Thai with no English subtitles, he was gutted as he had watched the trailer for it online in the morning and said it looked fab. lol :-)

It was a very good film though. I definitely recommend it.

KLCC Aquarium

In the walk through tunnel.

In the rain forest section. A tree inside the fish tank.

A short walk through the car park and there was an aquarium. It was only about a fiver so we decided to go in. It was really impressive, it was an enormous complex. As we walked in there was a touch area where they had baby nurse sharks, lobsters and some crazy alien crab which we all had a feel of. It was amazing how rough the sharks skin was, it looks really smooth but its not. Then there was a section about the rainforest's that had fresh water fish and some reptiles. They had lots of different types of snake which was gorgeous and thats where we were able to discover what type of snake Fred was. There was also a lizard section with many gecko's which they were feeding and some frogs :-( I nearly passed out when i saw the giant toad. It was horrible. They also had a reef section with all our favorite fish in and a couple of sand tiger sharks which were huge. The walk through tunnel was amazing it went on for ages and we really got to see the fish up close and the sharks teeth!!

Me and Billy by the reef aquarium.

KLCC Gardens

There are some really nice gardens outside the towers which make as a nice rest spot and also somewhere to warm up as it is freezing inside. We decided to go an Italian ice cream and chill out for a while. It was very nice.

KLCC (Kuala Lumpur Twin Towers)

Cheezy holiday pic :-)

We left the Perhentian and got a bus to Kuala Lumpur (KL). Pete and Deb decided to get the jungle train down so we were going to meet up with them there. When they arrived we decided to go and see the twin towers. Me and Billy had been before but were happy to go again as they are so magnificent to see. Also there is a huge shopping plaza underneath them which is well worth a walk round.

Last night on Perhentian

As the weather had turned bad we decided to only stay a week. The diving wasn't great as the storms had shifted a lot of sediment so viz was pretty rubbish. As we are flying home from KL we decided we will go back to the Perhentian before flying home. This will also be in the peak season when the diving is at its best so it made sense.
We had been spending our wet days in the restaurant watching awful movies, playing scrabble and playing cards. The picture here is of is at a table in the restaurant.

The Jungle Trek

On one of the sunny days me, Pete and Deb decided to go on the shorter jungle trek trail which would take us to the beach on the other side of the island. Me and Deb were suitably dressed in a bikini top and Deb had shorts on and me a short sarong. I think if Ray Mears had seen us he would have had a fit! Definitely not Jungle Trek gear but it was really hot and our clothes would have just been wet after 2 seconds. Though there were a lot of mosquitoes about and I'm surprised we wasn't eaten alive. The trek itself was fun. We had to climb to the top of this big hill. luckily the tree routes acted as steps which made it easier though there were lots of branches and boulders to climb over. After our steep climb we descended down the other side and to the beach. it took about 20-30 minutes and was well worth it. We didn't see anything exciting but was nice to walk through the jungle. The other side was different to our beach. There was a government building and some jetty's with many fishing boats mored up. We also walked past some places which seemed to have once been a busy resort but now shut down. We stopped for a drink and then decided to get a taxi boat back to our beach as the sun was getting low and we really didn't want to get eaten by mozzies.

The Wildlife Door

Malcolm
Monkeys in the trees outside the room

Fred

The room we stayed in had a front and and back door. The back door led on to a small porch and beyond that was a small paved area and then the jungle. Perhentian Besar where we stayed does not have any town or village. There are resorts along the coast line but the rest of the island is still untouched jungle. On the first day we got settled in the room and went to have a look out the back. To our amazement there was a snake right outside the door on a big plant that came over on to our porch. It was so nice. It was bright green and practically the same colour as the plant, I named it Fred. We later found out it was an Oriental Whip Snake which are quite common and not venomous. Not that we minded anyway as it was quiet placid. It stayed there until the next afternoon by which time i think it got annoyed by us constantly going out to gorp at it.
The next day I saw a monitor lizard it wasnt a big one but it was still really nice. It seemed to live just out the back as we often saw it. Pete named it Malcolm. Well they have to have names :-)
On the last day I awoke and decided to look out of the wildlife door to see if there was anything exciting and there was. There was a family of monkeys in the trees right by us. I had not seen these particular type before. They were back all over except on their face where their facial features where outlined in white. There was a mother monkey who had a baby and that was bright orange. They were really cute and stayed in the trees all day and we could even hear them that night.

This is one of the best things about Malaysia. The abundance of wildlife.

Perhentian Smiles

We managed to make it to the Perhentian in one day and got there about 3-4ish. It was much cooler on the island than on the main land. It was 38 degrees on the main land and we had to sit in a taxi with no air con for nearly two hours to get to the boat port. So we were pleased it wasn't so hot. As ever the islands were beautiful, a bit like Koh Rok only with resorts and more busier. The bay where we stayed is very shallow and there is coral right up to the shore practically, which is great for snorkeling but not for swimming. The place where we stay is called Flora Bay and this is where we learnt to dive and spent just over a month last time we were in Malaysia. It was great to see everyone again. Juju who is now the wife of Azman who runs the dive shop was so pleased to see us. She is very pregnant and was only on the Perhentian for another week before going to KL to have her baby so we were lucky we got there when we did.

We had planned to stay for two weeks but unfortunately the weather turned bad after about 3 days being there. It was good for the island as even though the rainy season had just finished it hadn't rained for 3 months!! This then made the diving not so good. It wasn't spectacular anyway as it was the beginning of the season and the sediment in the water had not yet settled from the rough seas of the rainy season. We did have a couple of really nice dives though. One in particular we saw a turtle, a honey comb moray eel which we have never seen before and an enormous hump head parrot fish. It was the biggest one i have ever seen, it had to be over a metre! The day the rain came we still went for a dive as we figured we were going to get wet anyway. Unfortunately the boat ride was pretty hairy. They use small speed boats and the swells were really big making it a very choppy ride to the dive site. I'm not keen on choppy boat rides so wasn't enjoying it much. After about 20mins the boat driver and dive master decided there was no point carrying on to this particular dive site and we turned around and went to another one which we had not been to before. It wasn't great as the viz was about 3-5m and not many fish about. The way back to shore was pretty miserable again and i was freezing. Hence we decided to stop diving there at that point. We had done 5 and are going to go back there at the end of July before going home which will be during peak season and when the diving is the best.

We spent the next couple of days in the restaurant watching movies, playing scrabble and cards before leaving exactly a week later to head to Kuala Lumpur (KL).

Reverse Parking a Dinosaur :-)

On the last day when we were all able to have a walk around Hat Yai we stumbled across a child's play area in one of the shopping malls. Just outside was this ride along dinosaur. There was no one about so Pete decided to have a go. It was the most funniest things I have ever seen. The dinosaur shuffled along the tiled floor playing this happy music. Pete was able to go in any direction and even reverse, there was no restriction to where it could go, he could have ridden it all round the mall. In reverse mode the music would stop and it would start to make beeping noises as if he was reversing a lorry. I'm not kidding we were howling, I had tears rolling down my face, i looked like i was crying, it was that funny. We got Pete to reverse park the dinosaur next to this other ride which he did, by which time we were all in hysterics. We have recorded it on a mobile phone video so we can show you when we get back. You wont be disappointed. I reckon we should put it on You Tube. So from now on Pete's quest is to reverse park as many reptiles as possible though unfortunately there haven't been any big enough yet. :-)

Culinary Experience 2

Above a vendor selling sticky rice with Mango. Definitely one of our favorite Thai dishes.

It wouldn't be my blog without some last mention of Thai food :-) I was obviously very sad to be leaving Thailand and its amazing food. I like Malaysia and Malay food but it is just not the same. In Hat Yai there was a great variety of food to choose from. From fast food like Pizza Hut and McDonald's to restaurants such as Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Muslim and then the street vendors selling food such as chicken satay, grilled giant prawns, noodle soup, sticky rice with durian or mango and all kinds of fruit. I also found one vendor selling crab stick satay which i thought I'd have a try of. unfortunately the lady put the satay stick in some hot oil and deep fried it for a couple of minutes! I was quiet disappointed, I was happy just to have it cold, fried crab stick was a bit rubbish. It didn't taste quiet the same hot and it just soaked up the oil so was just like an hot oil satay stick which tasted a little fishy. The chili sauce I got with it was good though lol :-)

Pizza Hut

Sad faces at Pizza Hut.

On the last day we all managed to go out together. We spent the day walking round some air con shopping malls and through the streets looking at some of the old buildings. In the evening we decided to go to Pizza Hut for tea, we got there a little late but that was OK as it was quiet. We sat down and waited a while to be served. They had a salad bar so Me, Billy and Pete were going to have salad for starter and Debs went for onion rings. For our main obviously we were going to have pizza but it took a long time to order. They didn't have many of the bases that we wanted and the guy kept getting very confused with our order, which wasn't his fault entirely, he spoke English but just didn't seem to get what we wanted. After about 5mins we got our food and drinks ordered. The drinks came and they were gorgeous. We had fruit smoothies that were lush. We went to get our salad from the salad bad but it was very disappointing. There was not much left and it all looked like it had been there all day. I still had some as I figured it is still some veg intake but Billy and Pete passed. We got our pizzas and unfortunately they brought the wrong one out for Billy and he had to send it back and his proper pizza took so long that we had got ours and had practically finished them. We were starting to think that they had forgotten and was about to pay and leave to go somewhere else to get Billy some food when it arrived. So whilst we had finished eating Billy had just started and Deb had started to feel a bit ill. She said that the onion rings were pretty horrid and thought it was that. When we left we were walking to the bar and Deb felt really sick. Her and Pete legged it to the Post with us following where Deb was really sick. We stayed for a drink whilst Debs was in the loo and then left. Unfortunately it wasn't just the onion rings, Debs had caught the bug too. We were traveling to Malaysia the next day and Pete and Debs visa expired then so they had to leave. Poor Deb then had to travel all day feeling ill, including standing in ques waiting to get stamped in and out of Thailand and Malaysia in 38 degree heat. Bless :-(

Post Laser Disc

The band at The Post
In the evenings we went to an expat bar called Post Laser Disc which me and Billy had found last time we was in Thailand. Every night they have a live (Thai) band who play western covers. Unfortunately there only seemed one night (out of 3) that we all managed to go together and then that was not for long. The first night Pete was ill so just Me, Billy and Debs went. The 2nd night Billy was ill as well as he had caught the bug so him and Pete stayed in the hotel and the third night we all went very briefly as Deb came down ill as we were out (more on that later though). You can't say I don't share with my friends, oops!
The bar was really good though. It was owned by an English guy so there was lots of English memorabilia about the place and football on the TVs. They also did really good food, Thai and Western, which included things like pie and chips and pasta and had a good drinks menu. Me and Deb went for a glass of red wine the first night but they served it chilled (why!) so didn't bother after that and went on to the cocktail list instead :-)

The band were quite amusing. They played and sung very well though sometimes the struggled to pronounce their R's and L's and occasionally some words just seemed to be missed completely. One cover Debs often sings goes "I want to blake flee" "I want to blake flee" lol bless them. One cover we particularly enjoyed was Bohemian Rhapsody which they did two of the nights we went. It was classic, it was one of the reasons we kept going back, it was so good.

In the hotel

We were very privileged to be staying in the hotel which had built the first lift in Hat Yai in 1964. :-)