27.06.07

Stat’s Boy

Posted in Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Travel, Vietnam at 3:47 pm by Andy

You’re sat in the office on a dull afternoon reading this immensely interesting blog and quietly wondering to yourself, how can he afford all this?

This round the world trip has been a long term plan of mine ever since uni when Jon and I said we would travel once we graduated. Well that didn’t happen due to money and the fact that I was enjoying Spain too much when Jon did set off. For this trip Espe and I had been saving for about a year, helped out by a pay rise (and an unexpected bonus a month before I quit my job), a tenant in the flat and a limited social life. The later was part self inflicted in an effort to save, part due to so many people leaving Madrid (120 European ex pats worked in my department when I got there, when I left this was down to single figures thanks to the joys of out sourcing).

The real reason I can afford to be away for so long is as because it is so cheap to travel in many parts of Asia. I was fortunate to have been born British, thus everywhere seems cheap by comparison. This also enabled me, although I’m not sure why, to command a decent wage in Madrid. To give you a rough idea of prices in Asia, the following are our average daily costs for the countries we’ve been to so far. We have had to be strict on ourselves, trying to eat like the locals at food stalls rather than restaurants and settling on the most basic accommodation. Also bear in mind that this is for two people sharing accommodation, so dividing the cost for one person would not be realistic.

These are just my rough calculations and not necessarily a true indication of travel in the respective countries. For example, in India the Rickshaw Run saw us spend more money than that required for regular day to day travel, while four days volunteer work helped keep the cost down in Laos. Diving, although cheap compared to other parts of the world, put us way over our daily budget. This, however, in Thailand was cancelled out by the ultra cheap (£2 per day) meditation course that we at Suan Mokkh. The Philippines has worked out way more expensive than planned. The place does not cater well for backpackers. Most tourists are there for two to three weeks but the real reason it was so expensive was because we did nothing but diving and the transport connections are neither easy or cheap. That is not to say, however, that it has not been worth every penny (another Philippines annoyance was the lack of international ATMs leaving me to be stung with credit card charges on several occasions). Also note that these costs do not include toys such as camera and diving equipment (why are all my hobbies so expensive?).

Flight tickets are cheaper than most people think. We bought as a Round the World alliance ticket which offers savings over individual flights. Check people like STA Travel and Travelbag to get and idea of costs. Generally speaking you can get multiple flights for the same price as a return to Oz. I was however very lucky with the cost receiving news in April of a gift from my mother / grandmother that effectively cleared the debt of the tickets. Jammy bugger, I know.

Equipment costs before we left did add up (think rucksack and suitable clothing), but I’d recommend to anyone starting in Bangkok or Saigon to leave home with hand luggage only. Everything else you need can be picked up out there at a fraction of the cost. Basically what I’m trying to say here is, with a bit of effort you too could indulge in such a trip.

My only income has been from Google Adsense, which although not a great deal, is bringing in about £30 a month for zero effort on my part.

Oh look, there is one now. Interesting hey? This is clearly not enough to keep me travelling indefinitely, but not to be sniffed at. That is three free dives a month!

We are soon to enter the southern hemisphere where prices will be much higher. We’ve not had to work yet and with a few budget ideas for Oz and NZ we may not have to. Time will tell.

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26.06.07

Malapascua Island

Posted in Diving, Philippines, Travel at 2:05 pm by Andy

Our long journey from Coron to Malapascua got worse after the two flights and 10 hour wait in the cramped ill equipped Manila domestic terminal. After an overnight stay in Cebu we boarded a bus bound for the closest port to Malapacua island to be told that we were lucky, we had a “very good driver, very fast”. Not two things that necessarily go together in my mind. The guy had a heavy right foot, full throttle or full braking was all he knew. Add to that the constant swerving in and out of traffic to overtake regardless of oncoming traffic. This was nothing compared to passing schools at above 70 mph on the wrong side of the road (the centre here was divided with big signs with “school slow” plastered all over them) air horn blasting with children running for their lives away from the road. After three hours of reckless and downright dangerous driving we’d had enough and got off early fearing for our lives. This was worse than that Indian journey.

A further two hours in a subsequent bus we saw ourselves fending off the usual tourist trap tricks thrown at us by all the boat crews to extort money from us (been on the road for six months now, not falling for that one mate). After some tough negotiating we saw ourselves on a pleasant Bangka ride across to Malapascua (interesting story behind the name, but I leave that for Espe to explain.

Malapascua is another one of The Philippines beautiful desert Islands. Long white sand beaches, palm trees, coral reefs off the beach etc. Unfortunately we were greeted by a whole load of building rubble. The local government has introduced a new law banning all buildings within 20 metres of the high tide line on all the beaches. Apart from the temporary chaos I think this is a good thing as it will get rid of some ugly concrete monstrosities close to the water and prevent this island becoming like Sabang Beach. There are some exceptions though. There is a Danish run resort on one of the smaller beaches that has some nice wooden huts tidily tucked behind the treeline, but as the beach is smaller these fall into the 20 metre cut off and have to go. With no space to rebuild the huts further back this resort has to close. A real injustice as the rule has been created to generate more resorts like this one.

So why did we come to Malapascua? Diving of course. With almost guaranteed sightings of thresher sharks, who were we to resists? Such promise comes at a price though. This came in the form of a 4:30 am start. We spent 50 minutes searching around an open water shoal in the cold and relative darkness fighting a reasonable current. We were rewarded with little more than a fleeting glimpse of a graceful thresher shark, long tail and all, before it was scared off by some divers hovering at higher depths (the key at this site is stay down on the shoal so as not to spook the sharks). Big fish sighting as I well know are all about luck.

Later in the day we returned to the same dive site. The 20 metre deep shoal has has very deep water all around and very little of interest on the shoal bed. It is however what is known as a cleaning station where small cleaing wrasse fish clean whatever big things come along, be it sharks or divers (thats right, I had a cleaning wrasse nibbling at my wet suit).

For this dive we dropped down rested on the shole floor. No finning about in the current, just waiting. This was a really different experience for me from the dives I’ve done up to this point. With the visability not more than 6 metres and along with being really rather cold I became fully aware that I was absolutely clueless as to what was out there in the big dark blue open sea, then suddenly it appeared, a huge beast swimming slowly gracefully towards us. No not the elusive thresher but a large manta ray. Another incredible animal. So beautiful “flying” along infront of us with it’s huge wings. Fifteen seconds later it was out of view but those short 15 seconds made the whole two plus hour trip worthwhile. True grin factor. Without my camera I had more time to focus on the ray while it passed by leaving the faffing for someone else, in this case Richard…

… which brings me onto another highlight of our time on Malapascua. As far back as Tioman in Malaysia the places where we have been diving the other divers have not made particularly good company. This was an exception. First I got talking to a chap who shared my name and several of my interests and then later on Richard (who really reminded me of my uni course mate Graeme) who as an experienced diver and experienced traveller had loads to talk about and was full of tips. Best of all, for you guys at least, is that Richard was kind enough to give me his pictures to use here.

Our second day of diving was even better. We went out to Gata Island, a tiny limestone outcrop with an underwater cave running through the middle of it. With only four divers on board, not another boat in sight and accompanied only by a host of bird life, from the surface alone this promised to be a great dive. The coral around the island was incredible and although lacking in large schools
of fish there was plenty to see… scorpion fish, frog fish, lion fish, hermit crabs, anemone fish, shrimps, juvenile harlequin sweetlips (the patterns and fins are as elaborate as its name) sea horses and many of the usual reef fish. Best part for me was peering into a cave only to come face to face with three sharks less than a metre away. Later on we saw two more out in the open swimming about. Incredible.

Coming up to shallower depths we were accompanied throughout our safety stop by a banded sea snake. Not only my longest dive to date, but probably my best. I cannot remember ever being so comfortable under the water.

All three dives that day were excellent including the twilight dive watching very pretty mandarin fish plus the usual night dive stuff; crabs, shrimp, octopi, cuttle fish etc. With all three dives over an hour long we were understandably exhausted at the end of the day.

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25.06.07

Always bloody Manila

Posted in Philippines, Travel at 12:10 pm by Andy

Once again we found ourselves in a situation whereby we were uncertain on how to move onwards. Our plan was to move south to El Nido on Palawan for a few days and then go over land to Puerto Princessa followed by a ship over to Cebu. The problem we encountered was finding anyone who could give us reliable information about getting to El Nido. After loads of faffing about we came to the conclusion that to travel in the Philippines you need either lots of time or lots of money. There were ship / boat connections to various locations but due to their infrequent schedules none of these fitted with the date and our current location.

Thus, running short on time we decided to scrap the idea of going to Palawan and head straight to Cebu in order to reach Malapasua and Bohol. We contemplated a long, painful yet adventurous route which would have involved a cargo boat to Mindoro (8 hours), a Jeepny to Roxos (4 hours), a ferry to Caticlan (4 hours) and bus to Iloilo (6 hours) and a ferry to Cebu (12 hours) but given the unreliable information and potential problems of getting stranded anywhere on route we decided against it (Our dive leader told us a tale of how he was stranded in Mindoro for 5 days!). Accepting the inevitable, that we were once again going to have to return north to Manila just to go South again and with ferries fully booked we had no choice other than to take a flight.

For about £60 we were both flown in a small 50 seater that afforded us wonderful views over many islands and reefs and left us in Manila domestic airport from where I write this (don’t be fooled by the dates though… it will probably be a while before I publish it). In a few hours time we will be on our second plane destined for Cebu, this one much better value at £35 for the pair of us, and that is even cheaper than the ferry, not to mention quicker (21 hours quicker in fact).

It is much less romantic than the island hopping in boats and ships that I had hoped for and the constant trips via Manila are making my map page really ugly, but without heaps of time, reliable information and good planning the sea going is just not an option.

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24.06.07

Coron

Posted in Diving, Philippines, Travel at 11:42 am by Andy

I’m standing on the back of a Bangka (Filipino style outrigger boat), San Miguel in hand, watching the sun reflect off the beautiful clear blue water. We are passing by the limestone cliffs of Coron Island to my right with the bizarre rolling Windows wallpaper type hills of Busuanga Island to my left. I wonder how two such topographically different islands lie side by side.

After visiting as many “tropical paradise” islands as we have over the last three months they do start to lose their impact but standing back enjoying every sip of my San Miguel, the beauty of my surroundings really hits home. It is hard to imagine a fleet of several hundred US fighter bomber planes flying over this very bay and sinking eight or more Japanese naval ships, yet that is what happened 63 years ago. And that is the very reason we are here.

I’ve just come up diving two of these wrecks. The huge lumps of metal lying on the seabed make for a heaven of marine life and a great dive. On both ships we penetrated the hull (no sniggering please) and explored the inners. Much of the cargo is still visible including in one bay a large bull dozer, caterpillar tracks still intact. Two exhilarating dives although quite erie when thinking of the history.

Along with the wrecks at Coron, we also did two very different dives (sorry if this is becoming a dive blog, I seem to be doing very little else at the moment but then that is the main reason why we included the Philippines in our trip). The first of those was diving to 14 metres before entering a narrow tunnel and then surfacing in a huge cave. The crystal clear water (30 metres vis) was breathtaking as was the limestone stalagmites (or is that stalactites? I never remember which is which) in the cave. The other dive was in a semi fresh water / salt water lake. Along with a very different set of underwater life and yet more incredible visibility the interesting points here were the temperature that rose the deeper we went (up to 36 degrees below 20 metres) and the intricate erosion formed patterns in the limestone cliffs.

Turning round to get myself another San Miguel, I see my beautiful girlfriend sunning herself on deck. Like I said, life is pretty good.

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23.06.07

Getting about

Posted in Philippines, Travel at 7:01 am by Andy

Our planning of where we go and when is somewhere between long term and last minute. Usually I have a fair idea of the places I’d like to go to before we get there. This is reinforced with a good reading of the Rough Guide shortly before entering the country combined with tips and recommendations we’ve picked up on the way. The Philippines was different. The routine of reading up about the country in advance was thrown by the fact we were still reading about Singapore and were too busy shopping to brush up on Philippines knowledge. That combined with my complete geographical ignorance of the Philippines and its 7107 islands along with having met very few travellers who’d been there left me pretty clueless.

We drew up a rough list of places that we liked the sound of on our fist night in Manila (while enjoying the delights of some authentic Spanish Tapas at Casa Armas), selected our first destination of Puerto Galera and then pencilled in the rest with the subsequent destination of Cebu.

We left Puerto Galera dreading the thought of returning to Manila to get down to Cebu. Manila was completely the wrong direction, yet every one we had spoken to on the matter informed us that was the only way to go. The tourist information centres only offer very basic info and the shipping companies websites are not at all user friendly (Only of use if you know exactly where you want to go. They have no maps and no connection information). Halfway back to Manila we found out that we could have made it down to Cebu using two ferries and two island crossings for less than half the price of our planned route. Very Annoying.

In the end we made our way to the port in Manila to find out who goes where and when. We knew that Super Ferries had a boat leaving for Cebu the following morning so we went to check what Negros Navigation had to offer. We were rushed into the desk and told that the boat for Coron was leaving in 45 minutes. Coron, also on our list was our intended last destination. Twenty minutes later we were boarded on the Negros Navigation Coron bound ship getting comfortable in our “Sorrento Suite” (the most luxurious on board, one of only two with forward facing windows, located just below the captains bridge) getting ready for the twelve hour cruise. These last minute decisions make travelling all the more interesting, and besides, I’d do almost anything to avoid another night in Manila.

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17.06.07

Puerto Galera

Posted in Diving, Philippines, Travel at 12:51 pm by Andy

After enduring a five hour bus journey from Manila to Batangas in the Independance Day “Bank holiday weekend” traffic (the driving standards here are second only to India’s, and that is not a good thing) we found ourselves on a “Banca” outrigger boat crossing over to the Island of Mindoro. Spotting dolphins on the crossing well and truly made up for the hellish bus journey.

My first impressions of Sabang beach in Puerto Galera were not good. Concrete right up to the shore, loads of seaweed, expensive accommodation crammed into every available space, go go bars and a much older clientele than that to which I’ve come accustomed on this trip. Very much reminiscent of Pataya. In fact, in four days, I only saw three other backpackers.

Underwater, thankfully, was an altogether different world. Sabang provided the best diving so far of this trip. Loads of macro life, very healthy coral, small wrecks and sharks were all on offer. Going inside and exploring the wrecks was incredible and something that I find hard to put into words (in truth I’m too lazy to do so). Another highlight was a three metre tunnel swim through that was less than a metre in diameter. I saw our Dive Master swim up to a large rock, and then disappear into it. Naturally I followed.

Espe felt the time had come for here to do her advanced course. She didn’t make the same mistake I did and completed the course once she had gained sufficient experience and as a result took a lot more away from the course than I did. I did my Advanced immediately after the Open Water yet I was still learning the basics for myself. We spent some time searching for a Spanish speaking instructor and after a lot of “none round here mate” we found the charismatic American, Sky, one of the first divers in the area, who as it turned out, lived 16 of the first 17 years of his live in Madrid. Somewhere he has fond memories of. We were more than happy to help him reminisce.

Given the laid back nature of Sky and South Sea Divers I was able to accompany Espe on all of her course dives, thus getting a good refresher. For the first dive we did a drift dive whereby you get in the water and follow the current. Very little effort was required and it was great fun racing along at about 6 knots over the endless beautiful coral. Along with Wreck and Deep dives we did a Underwater Photography dive with Dave, a Canadian who works at South Sea Divers and gets incredible results with a basic Casio compact camera. Take a look at Dave’s photos on Flickr.

This was my first opportunity to try out my new toys; my strobe and red filter. As I was learning to use them, none of the pictures turned out great (best of the bunch below) but there is potential there. In fact, Espe took many better pictures using Dave’s own camera.

One dive later I was still learning how to use the flash when my Sony T1 took its last ever picture and having left the damn red filter on (which is designed for non flash photography) it wasn’t even a good one.

No, the camera wasn’t scared to death by the prospect at looking at a shark less than two metres away, somehow my underwater casing leaked. A small amount of water seeped into the housing, possibly due to the damage sustained in Thailand. At 28 metres this was the deepest I’d taken the camera and possibly the greater pressure caused the leak. These few drops of water were enough to kill the camera. So now without a camera for the underwater case my new strobe and red filter seem like a big waste of money. Gutted.

Despite feeling pretty shitty about it, I was cheered up no end by friends who responded to a bulk email I sent out to celebrate six months on the road. Thanks people.

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13.06.07

Singapore

Posted in Singapore, Travel at 4:08 am by Andy

High rise Singapore came as a big contrast to everywhere we’ve been to so far. The place is so clean, so modern, so efficient and very multicultural. In fact it felt like Europe, albeit cleaner. Part of the reason for this are the strict rules enforced all over the state. Fines exist for eating or drinking on the metro, jaywalking and, get this, chewing gum. The result is the cleanest city in the world. A pleasant place to spend some time although I think I would go crazy day in day out waiting so long at traffic lights to cross an empty roads.

The downside of staying in this cosmopolitan city state is finding cheap accommodation. We’d received a recommendation to stay at the New 7th Story Hotel but the supposedly cheap rooms came to £20 a night (our entire daily budget). I set off searching for others and was shown a tiny windowless AC room with barely enough room to walk around the bed for £16. Passable for one night but not for four. I kept on searching in the stifling heat while Espe waited with the bags. After several more disappointments I was ready to accept a tiny room with window for £11 when I found a small guesthouse hidden away on Bencoolen street. For £9 a night we had a huge room (twice the size of all the others I’d seen with sofa, fridge, desk and large bed. An ideal base for our four days here. Although more expensive than we were used to (especially considering all rooms are with shared bathroom), with the fridge and later acquired toaster we were able to save on breakfast, dinner and drinks. The was one of the first rooms we’ve been able to get really comfortable in and call a home…

For the first night we hit the bars and restaurants in the downtown business area. Seeing all the expats about left me reminiscing about life in Madrid and visits to Krakow (shame we missed Stephen who was living here until about 1 week before we arrived). After an average dinner, expensive yet tasty beer we went to Harry’s Quayside Bar for an evening of live latin jazz. Nice.

Money is so evident here. The badly modified Protons of Malaysia have been swapped for tastily Jap’ style modded Imprezas and Lancer Evos with a splattering of Porches, a Lotus Exige and an absolutely gorgeous orange Lamborghini Gallardo that I saw on a couple of occasions (in actual fact, as is often the case with such beasts, I heard it well before I saw it).

There are shopping centres are everywhere in Singapore. I’ve never seen so many, so large complexes. Whatever you want to buy you can find it here, and probably a lot cheaper than elsewhere. To give you an example, with the savings I would have made had I bought my Canon EOS 30D here instead of in London I could have bought a laptop!

So, we went shopping (”When in Rome…”). Not just aimless shopping however, we knew full well what we wanted. After four days spent wandering between the different malls and researching online, Espe is know the proud owner of a digital camera, a small Acer laptop (blog posts should become more frequent now…) and I own a red filter for my underwater camera case and a strobe.

Strobe is the tech term for a large flash gun used for underwater photography. Generally speaking, underwater the a camera’s built in flash is inadequate as it is not powerful enough to illuminate anything more than macro shots and generates back scatter (particles illuminated that are between the lens and subject). When buying my strobe price, weight and size were all a big factor. With the guidance of Dave Read and digitaldiver.net I settled on the Sunpack Gflash. A small lightweight simple entry range strobe. This will do for starters and if I pursue this further I can use it as a slave strobe in the future. Smaller and lighter than the others I looked at, best of all it was less than half the price. Time will tell how well it works.

The only negative about our time in Singapore is that we didn’t get to see any of the sights. I guess they will just have to wait until next time.

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06.06.07

Tioman

Posted in Diving, Malaysia, Travel at 1:48 pm by Andy

I explained previously how Sharks are the coolest animals on the planet, but I have to say, cuttlefish come close. I was fortunate enough to spend ten minutes or so studying one while snorkeling off the beach in front of our chalet, but even more amazing were the two large ones I saw while diving. The way they just “hover” about with their funky fins that ripple all around their body and the mass of tentacles doing their thing at the front is, in my eyes at least, impressive. Even more so is their ability to change colour to suit the surroundings. The ones we saw did just this, including “rippling” different colours down their body to mimic the sunlight rippling on the sea bed. Like I said, cool.

After four days on Malaysia’s Tioman Island, once reported to be one of the top ten Islands in the world, I was actually a bit disappointed. Perhaps due to all the hype or due to a bad choice of location, but it just didn’t seem all that impressive. We would have stayed over in Juara as recommended by Jose, but getting there was just to awkward and expensive. In the end we stayed on Air Batang Beach, just as well, as Salang beach was fully booked out by the hordes who had come up from Singapore for their “May Bank Holiday Weekend”.

Still, not wanting to sound all negative, I had a good time. This started off by meeting an Anglo - Spanish couple, Eli and Martin, on the boat over. Naturally with several things in common we all got on well, with Espe and Eli chatting away in Castellano while Martin and I conversed in English. Another nice couple also doing around the world trip but in the other direction from us. Martin is unfortunately spoiled, having done most of his dive training in the Galapagos Islands, nothing here can even begin to compare. Check out their blog at www.getjealous.com/eliandmartin. (Blimey, just happened across another Anglo - Spaniard travel blog on GetJealous http://www.getjealous.com/kathandmiguel). We also met Christin on the boat, and later on another German who’s name escapes me. Along with various beach conversations, we went out for a pleasant and sociable dinner, swapping stories and tips, on their last night on the island. That brings me onto the subject of food. Twice we went for the seafood / fish BBQ at ABC resort which was simply superb, both in quantity and quality.

For the four days on the island we did little more than play with the kids at Mokhtar’s Place (our resort), relax, read (I started and finished Stephen Fry’s “The Hippopotamus” along with finishing my “short introduction to buddhism book). One one day however, we got three dives in with B&J Divers. The first had strong current and bad vis, the last was also low vis, but while exploring five wrecks this just added to the erie adventure feel. The best dive however was the second, Whale Shark aside, this was the best dive of the trip so far. Excellent vis, incredible coral (including “potato” coral that I’d never seen before), the afore mentioned cuttlefish, a half eaten shark, various funky nudibranches and challenging swim throughs (swimming through caves and under boulders) all made for a great dive.

Excuse the blueness of the images. Underwater photography is not easy. I’ll hope to rectify the quality of my pics with some new toys that I’m looking at in Singapore. Watch this space.

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