Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is awesome so far. The city has so much more life and energy than Singapore that the two cities can't even be compared. Not that Singapore was bad, it was just...tame.*

I'm staying in Kowloon, the area across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island. I met up with some colleagues from law school for dinner and saw them again for lunch today before they took off for Taipei. This evening I'm meeting up with a friend from Peace Corps who is working here in the financial sector.

I did some sight seeing this morning. I checked out a Taoist temple north of Kowloon and then visited a songbird market where I hope to have picked up some avian flu. After lunch, I took the ferry to Hong Kong island and visited a really awesome temple filled with incense coils giving off acrid smoke. I also strolled through some street markets selling freshly minted antiques.

My first impressions of Hong Kong are pretty positive. The city reminds me of a gigantic Chinatown in New York with Houston summer humidity. Enough people here speak English that I'm able to get around and get what I want (with some pointing) without any trouble. Tomorrow I head to Macau for a night. I'm curious to see how the Portuguese is and if people really speak it there or if Cantonese dominates.


*Singapore is the host of the 2006 IMF/World Bank annual meetings in October so expect to see more coverage soon. There was a story in some paper this morning about the IMF and World Bank criticizing Singapore's policy prohibiting demonstrations of more than 5 people. Singapore says that it must maintain law and order and that the policy will remain. I guess the IMF and World Bank want more protestors.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Singapore Airport

The past two days in Singapore were fine. The ethnic neighborhoods were interesting but also felt a little bit too planned. I visited Chinatown yesterday and Little India and the Arab Quarter today. I also stayed in Little India, too, and have been binging on Indian food for the past two days. I ate a lot of Indian food in Malaysia as well.

I also visited the financial district, the botanic gardens, and the shopping district of Orchard Road. Shopping was disappointing. I was looking for either cool stuff or bargains but found neither amongst the global brand designer stores that fill the shopping malls lining a few kilometers of road. The best thing I found was an Orange Julius stand. I thought they all closed; the one in Lubbock did about 20 years ago.

I'm now abusing the limited free internet access at the Singapore airport while I await my flight for Hong Kong.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Tawau & Singapore

I'm going through some diving withdrawal. The past week under the sea was great, and yesterday I had to give it all up to spend an evening in a hotel in Tawau for a flight this morning.

Tawau rhymes with "bow-wow;" after walking around for an hour or so yesterday, I can also say that it rhymes with "bithole." The seafood was pretty good but not all that. The restaurant had a nice surreal vibe, with waitresses wearing the Muslim head shawl, Malaysia flags flapping all over the place in preparation for national day, Filipino beggar children, and some music channel blasting the latest Beyonce and Jay-Z video. After dinner I watched a terrible movie on HBO ("Manticore") and terribly repetitive CNN.

I left Tawau 2+ hours before my flight because the new airport is far from the city center in the middle of a palm oil plantation. With the 30 minute journey, Tawau has become one of the newest members of the taxi driver employment association.

Anyway, my flight from Tawau to Johor Bahru was fine and I arrived in peninsular Malaysia around 1:30. I took two buses to the border with Singapore and was in my hotel room by 4:30. I walked around the Bugis Street area and the colonial district this afternoon and headed down to the river. Singapore seems very clean, efficient, friendly, British, and also boring and sanitized. Tomorrow I will go in search of beggar children trying to get me to pet their donkey in the ethnic neighborhoods of Little India (where I'm staying), the Arab quarter, and Chinatown.

So Singapore got a little exciting for a minute. Some guy walked into the internet cafe and the owner started to scream at him in Hindi. I think he was banished.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Landlubber

Saturday is my last day of diving. After two dives on Sipadan, I'll head back to the rig to pack up my things. I'll wait out the remainder of my 24 hour surface interval in the exciting town of Tawau before my flight on Sunday. Apparently the only thing to do in Tawau is eat excellent sea food, so I will probably have a few dinners and then turn in.

Borneo has been good - two thumbs up. I could have planned the trip a little better and it would have helped had there not been 5 days of shitty weather, but in the end I did what I really wanted to do: hike in Mulu and dive in Sipadan. There are a few more nature-y things I would have liked to have done, like look for orangutans and pygmy elephants in the wild and climb Mt. Kinabalu, but those will have to wait until Borneo II if I ever get around to it.

I am off to the concrete jungles of Singapore and Hong Kong for the week that remains of my vacation.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Daily exertions

The diving remains great. So great that I decided to extend for two days through Saturday. I figure I'd rather dive at a known, awesome site than try to cram in another site in Sabah for my last two days in Borneo. This means no orangutans, but as a trusted advisor said, "you can ride the bus and see orangutans at the Dallas Zoo."

I've seen lots of stuff. On this morning's two dives the notable items were two green sea turtles mating, a leopard shark, a school of batfish, a HUGE school of jack, and some funny looking giant fish called bump fish (they have big bumps on their heads). I'm still hoping for a hammerhead shark; maybe tomorrow.

Here are some shots from the past two days:

The fancier resorts at Mabul Island


Dive boat leaving the rig off of Mabul Island

Heading to a dive site off Sipadan Island

On Sipadan Island for a surface interval and snacks

Note the two distinct shades of blue in the fourth photo; that is where the drop-off is.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Under the Sea

I spent three hours underwater today and two and half yesterday. I am slowly growing gills, as it should be. The diving here in Mabul/Sipadan is really good. The visibility is a bit reduced because of last week’s storms, but the storms didn’t reduce the fantastic amount and diversity of sea life I’ve seen. We’re still a bit limited in the dive sites we can visit because of currents, but everything seems to be calming down so hopefully more areas will be safe to dive.

Mabul, where the oil rig platform-come-resort is stationed, is known as a “muck dive” because there is always a lot of sediment in the water and the visibility is never great. But all that sediment means bajillions of little filter feeders, reef fish, and other critters. I’ve seen several species of sponges, nudibranchs, Christmas tree worms, soft coral, and anemones, plus many types of angel fish, clown fish, pygmy sea horses, damsel fish, gobies, you name it. It is a little weird to see some of the species I used to have in my aquarium as a teenager.

Sipadan is a limestone pillar and not part of the submerged mountain range that makes up the other islands in the park. There is a wall that drops to several hundred meters, and because Sipadan is exposed to the open ocean there is an even greater diversity of marine life present. On my second dive this morning, I saw seven green turtles and a school of barracuda. I also saw three species of shark – grey reef, white tip, and nurse. And more sponges and nudibranchs and coral and soft coral and other fish and even four mermaids.

Enough of the biology lesson. I’m pretty happy with the rig. It is well equipped (even has internet), and the staff is professional, friendly, and laid back. The food is plentiful and very tasty. There is also a karaoke room, but I decline to participate. From the sun deck I can see the other (nicer, more expensive) resorts on Mabul Island itself, but I’m glad to be here b/c I’m saving some cash and there is just something cool about being on a reconverted oil platform. Plus, who needs a beach?

The other divers are in general pretty good. This morning I was with a group about my skill level (advanced open water with 50+ dives). Yesterday I was with three Japanese who have about 2,000 dives between them. They were very friendly and excellent divers. To perpetuate stereotypes about tourists of particular nationalities, each of them had a very expensive underwater digital camera and snapped away throughout the dives. It was kind of annoying, actually, b/c I was trying to commune with nature while they were shoving the macro lens in the pygmy sea horses’ faces.

Currently on board there is a film company based in Cape Town who was hired to do a promotional video for Seaventures. I’m in some of the shots, such as the lunch shot, the signing the dive log book shot, the lift going down to the boat shot, and the recently completed karaoke room bar shot. The staff easily bribed me with a beer to participate b/c they needed “more Europeans” in the frame. Their words, not mine. Look for me in a feature film in the near future.

Tomorrow, more diving.

Photos

I've uploaded some photos in previous posts of my trip to date.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Dive-a-rama

I'm ready. I figure that I've paid my dues with the crappy weather resulting from some typhoon that made land fall somewhere in China. I know that thousands of people have been displaced and that flooding in India has killed a couple of hundred blah blah blah - but I'm on vacation, damn it. These frequent storms have been interfering with my daily activities. Today was the first day that it only rained a little bit.

I'm currently in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the state of Sabah. There isn't a whole lot to do here. Today I took a daytrip out to some islands off the coast. The islands were pretty, but there was a lot of trash on the beach. This was a bit aggravating b/c I paid 10 ringget to enter and you think the park authorities would use some of the money to hire someone to pick up the trash. But I suppose that pockets must be lined.


Tunkul Abdul Rahman National Park near KK, sans trash

Tomorrow I am off to Sipadan. It better be all that it promises to be. I'm staying on a reconfigured oil rig and hope to dive at least 4 times a day. If my body explodes from too much nitrogen, so be it. That is the price I must pay.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Brunei & Labuan

I opted to travel by land and sea to Labuan instead of taking a flight from Miri. I'm tired of airports, which are the same everywhere, and this way I was able to see more of Malaysia and spend a few hours in the tiny country of Brunei.

I left Miri on the 7 AM bus and was in Brunei by 9. Brunei is very developed and seems to have a high standard of living thanks to its vast oil wealth, which unlike in most oil-producing countries, the government (which in this case is the Sultan) shares at least some of it with his subjects. I passed through the land-based oil producing region; at times seemed like I was in the Kingdom of Shell Oil. I changed buses a few times and arrived in the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan a little before noon. On the way into the capital there were two police motorcycles clearing the way for a yellow Lambourghini with the royal seal on the door panels. Someone was out for a spin. Speaking of the sultan, it was his birthday recently. The country was plastered with banners in celebration of his big day.

There isn't a whole lot to do in Bandar. I walked around and checked out the enormous mosque and the water village, which is a bunch of floating shacks except the shacks have plumbing and satelite TV. The people were very friendly; two gave unsolicited help to make sure that I wasn't lost. I think my backpack and absence of a Landcruiser with the Shell insignia threw them off.

The mosque in Bandar
I took the 3:30 ferry to Labuan, which is a duty-free island that is part of Malaysia. The town has a good vibe, in part because it serves as a tourist destination with cheap electronics for people from other parts of Malaysia and alcohol for non-muslims escaping Brunei. The first "hotel" I looked at was totally skanky so I decided to upgrade to one that costs $20/night. At first I was thrilled to have TV in the room but was a later disillusioned to learn that there are only 4 channels, the HBO sometimes switches off, and the programming on one channel last night consisted of people singing Muslim prayers.

Today was pretty relaxed. I had hoped to dive some of the WWII wrecks off the coast, but the one dive shop here wasn't going out since the weather has been bad. Instead I visited a few WWII sites on land. I saw the beach where Gen. MacArthur and the Allied troops landed, a war cemetery, and some Peace Park built by the Japanese that had a big stone that read, "Peace Is Best." It is.

I'm spending about a half day too long here, but at least the food here is really good. I gorged on stingray last night, and I am going back to the same restaurant this evening.
Labuan street food
Tomorrow morning I am taking a ferry to Kota Kinabalu. I'm kind of excited to see what the extra 4 ringget for the first class ticket will get me. Maybe a coffee?

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Gunung Mulu National Park

I'm back in Miri after a 3 day visit to Gunung Mulu National Park in Mulu. I arrived around 10 AM on Saturday.


Miri Airport

At the park headquarters I was able to sign on with a group going to the Pinnacles the next day. In the afternoon, I visited two caves close to the headquarter's entrance - Deer Cave and Lang's Cave. The walk to the cave was along an easy plank pathway but passed through some nice forest. I saw a pygmy squirrel and some really interesting intsects. Both the caves were really cool, and the entrance to Deer Cave is supposedly the highest in the world. At dusk a bajillion bats streamed out of the caves.


Deer Cave

Our Pinnacles group of 7 (3 Americans, 1 Spaniard, 1 Indian, and 2 Malaysians) left the park headquarters around 9 AM on Sunday. We travelled up river and saw two more caves (Wind and Clearwater) along the way. After the caves, we continued upriver to the trailhead. The river was low so we all had to get out of the boat and push many times. We then hiked 8 km along a flat path through the rainforest to Camp 5, the base for the trek to the Pinnacles.

Monday was the big day. We left Camp 5 around 7 AM and started the slow ascent up the mini-mountain. The path was well marked, but it was mostly up hill and involved a lot of scrambling over tree roots and sharp rocks. After 2 km, the path involved more ladders and metal planks to cover the final 0.4 km. The 2.4 km took us almost 4 hours. The Pinnacles were pretty amazing. I'd post some pictures, but I can't download from my camera to this computer. So therefore I direct you to the magic of google.com. Anyway, after an hour or so of relaxing and lunch some clouds started to roll in and it began to rain. The trek down sucked, and my legs were exhausted. Thankfully the rain stopped after about an hour.


The Pinnacles

Back at camp, I jumped in the river to cool off and clean up. We left Camp 5 this morning around 7, and once again it rained for about half of our trek and for part of the boat ride, which involved slightly less of jumping into the river and pushing through the shallow parts. I had lunch and took a flight to Miri, where I am now. Laundry is at the top of my list of things to do, followed by dinner and beer. Tomorrow I will leave Sarawak, pass through the sultanate of Brunei, and hopefully make it to Labuan by mid-afternoon.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Lambir Hills NP

I went to Lambir Hills National Park today. After a bit of jickiness on the bus route, I was dropped off at the entrance around 11 AM. The only problem was that it was pouring. So I sat, read a book, had lunch, and stared until the rain let up enough for me to declare that it had stopped and was therefore safe to go hiking in the forest.

Since I didn't leave the park headquarters until 1, I didn't have as much time as I would have liked. But the trip was still worth it. I hiked up a big hill called Bukit Pantu and had some amazing views of the rainforest canopy and clearing wisps of clouds. While walking around the little pagoda/look out at the top, I walked right smack into a giant cobweb. I like spiders, but walking into their webs always gives me the heebiejeebies. Then I realized that the web crackled, just like the webs of the black widows at the Lazy K. All I could think of was the opening scene in Arachnophobia and started swatting my entire body madly. Nothing. Later on I saw a big-ass shiny black spider with a super thin waist and red markings on the underside of the abdomen climbing up what remained of its web. I decided to leave it alone and head back down the trail. I stopped off at the Pantu waterfall for a quick dip in what were hopefully schistosomiasis-free waters. When checking out of the headquarters, I showed the staff a picture of the spider and they confirmed that it was indeed poisonous.

Pantu Waterfall

I head to Gunung Mulu National Park tomorrow and may not be able to update for 5 days or so.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

just a tad bit jet lagged

Sleep deprived is probably the more appropriate term. I've taken lots of little naps on the 22 hours of flight time that it took me to get here (note that I excluded layovers), but no good night's sleep. Until this evening, I hope. My last nap on the Johor Bahru - Miri flight was rudely interrupted by two toddlers in the rows in front of me playing an extended game of screech and hide. I thought Asian children were supposed to be well-behaved. I wanted to stuff them into an overhead at the back of the plane.

Today was a day of transit. I arrived in Singapore around 12:30 AM and quickly succumbed to a moderate case of cheapbastarditis. I didn't want to pay the equivalent of US$90 for a taxi ride and hotel room for what would have been 7 hours of sleep. So, in the spirit of Puerto Rico '89, I spent the night in the airport but didn't sleep for want of extremely uncomfortable hard plastic chairs. I read, made mental notes for Borneo, observed people, and watched the airport wake up.

My impressions of Singapore so far are limited to the night in the airport and the trip into the city this morning so I could catch a bus into Malaysia. Singapore seems wealthy and well organized. I had a tasty breakfast of rice noodle soup garnished with various animal and shellfish parts. Breakfast in food stalls and transport are fairly cheap, but little else is. I noticed some steep fines that reflect the soft authoritarianism of the country. Eat on the subway? S$500 (about US$370). Smoke on the subway? S$1000. Import illegal drugs into the country? Death. Apparently chewing gum is illegal too, so I'm lucky I escaped with my life since I have about 4 packs of Orbit in my luggage. If caught, the authorities might think I arrived with intent to distribute. And as almost anyone can tell you, especially someone who just finished taking the bar, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Malaysia has more of the feel I've been after. For one, you can chew gum. While things work okay and certainly better than in some other locales, the sister city of Johor Bahru lacks the luster of its uppity sibling Singapore across the Johore Strait. For example, there wasn't a neat stack of immigration forms before you entered the country. In fact, there were few forms at all; I think I got the last one. The buses continuing on into JB didn't pull up to the depot like they did in Singapore.* I missed wherever they pick up the passengers and ended up walking for about 10 - 15 minutes to the bus depot where you catch the bus to the airport.**

I arrived in Miri around 4 and did little. I took a much-needed shower and then walked around town a bit and had dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to Lambir Hills National Park. But for now, I am going to bed.


*To get to Johor Bahru, in theory you buy one ticket and ride any bus from the same company for the various parts of your journey through the two countries' immigration and customs and then on to your final destination.

**I could admit some fault on my part for being oblivious to the obvious, but instead I will blame an entire country.