A week in the Malaysian Peninsula

I was quite sad to leave the Philippines. It's one of my favorite countries in SE Asia for sure. But I have never really been in the Malaysian Peninsula before unless a few days stop over in KL 8 years ago counts. And countless transit flights... So about time to change the fact.

From Cebu we flew to Singapore and took a bus to Johor Bahru, as the plan was to travel to Taman Negara national park by train. Should be a scenic ride... Right... Oil palm plantations aren't really scenic.

Anyways, all worked well, both border controls were efficient and we found our small hotel next to the JB central train station. And there are also all the small food stalls! What to eat! Can I eat in every booth?

Laksa!

Next morning we boarded the train around 6 am. The train took off as scheduled just to make a weird stop after maybe one hour. So there we were, in the middle of nowhere and the old japanese steel wagon is just not moving. Grrrh. After 2 hours it made a small movement. Backwards. Grrrh. And this went on and on the whole journey. We were supposed to be in Jerantut around noon so we could still make it to the national park in the same day. But not with a train which is hours&hours late. So one night in Jerantut (good food btw!) and in the morning we took a local bus to the park.

And what a nice park it is! Taman Negara is one of the world's oldest rainforest. It's amazing! So beautiful, silent & loud at the same time. We stayed in a cheap shit hole next to the river the first night and booked a trip to a cave for the next day. Meaning 2 h in a boat up the river, 6 hours trekking through the rainforest to a huge cave where we slept on the floor one night. Absolutely fantastic! We made a small bonfire to cook food and it served as the midsummer bonfire at the same time.

Much better than a tent!

Next day we walked maybe 3-4 hours back to the river, visited a local village on the way and booked ourselves into the same shit hole as before for one more night. Just couldn't be bothered to move anywhere as we were leaving the next day anyways to Perhentian Islands for some last dives before Tanja has to fly back home and I to Borneo.

Trying out a blow pipe. I'd starve.

So, Perhentians, Kecil and Besar... The paradise islands in the Peninsula.... ok, they are quite nice and this was a really bad time to visit them as it is now the high season but still, c'mon ridiculous rip off prices for the shitty bungalows and average food. But we planned to dive most of the time anyways and that should be quite nice.

We were a bit unlucky with the visibility as there were a lot of currents which made the water really unclear. At times you could see only 3-5 meters. Pfff. But on the first dive I found a bamboo shark, on the second I didn't see shit, on the 3^rd there were a few turtles.

Hide! 

Too big to hide.

The next day I had booked 2 dives of which the first one was to Sugar wreck which is one of the best dive spots in the Perhentians. Well... There was a huge fog probably coming from oil palm plantations in Sumatra so the visibility at the sea was really crap. Our boat man didn't find the wreck. Neither did the other dive shops. So change of plans and we went to another one, vietnamese wreck. 

Maybe 5 m from surface. The best visibility of the dive.

What a bullshit dive. Huge current, I thought my mask is gonna fly off on the way down. And next to the wreck the visibility was maybe half a meter. Luckily they had told us it's a wreck, otherwise I wouldn't even have known it. I mostly saw fins kicking to my face (we were 10 divers looking to one hole) and basically I just hanged around in the back waiting for the “dive” to be over. What a waste of time & money. Not often I've been so frustrated when coming back to the boat. The last dive of the day and at Perhentias was again a bit better, we found some cool stuff at Batu Nisan but still nothing really spectacular. So Perhentias, I've been there and don't have to go back. The beaches are quite nice & coctails affordable but there are many other places much better around Asia. Like Borneo, where I'm heading next. Yayyy!!! 

Last beers with Tanja. Have a nice flight back home!

Bye Philippines :(

White witchcraft in Siquijor? Not really. But still a reason as good as any to go there from Apo Island. We didn't have any other plans anyways. So another trip with a boat, a bus, a boat and a tricycle. Smooth.

Siquijor has formerly been famous for unorthodox healing practices but that's all in the past nowadays. But it's still a nice cozy island a bit out of the most touristy way. Though if you want you can stay at Karlssons Guesthouse or at Norwegian dream and have some schnitzel at Fischer's.

Tanja chose Irwin over me. 

And that made Irwin very happy.

We stayed three days mostly driving around the island with a scooter. The roads were quite good, except in the middle of the island where it was more mud than sand/concrete. I got stuck only once so no worries. The road around the island is about 70 km long, nice scenery, beautiful beaches and some nice small towns with good eateries. BBQ!!! We found chicken sticks almost as good as at Junior's place in Malapascua. But only almost.

Mostly we hang out in Larena, a small town where were loads of eateries & beer stalls in the port area. Nice & cheap! We also considered diving but ended up biking & eating instead. As after three days we did another boat, bus, boat, tricycle and bus -trip to Moalboal which is one of the most famous dive spots in the Cebu island.

This time we decided to dive with a 100 % local shop, which had the best prices, nice office girl, and the oldest gear. Argh. I had to change to the 2^nd stage on the first dive as the 1^st stage was leaking so much. Also the bcd's weren't from this century. But they still kind of worked and the dive masters were really good. Also on drinking... We (me & the crew, Tanja luckily behaved) had maybe a bit too much rum on Saturday evening. 

On Sunday I did one dive, felt absolutely shitty and canceled the 2^nd one. Never again! And such a shame, as Moalboal really offers excellent diving. There's a huge school of sardines around Pescador Island and the reef in front of Moalboal is full of the most beautiful corals, small caves, turtles, frog fishes etc. A shame we only had a few days there as on today it was already time to leave the Philippines :'(

Tanja entering a cave.

Sardines, anyone?

Skeleton shrimp!

Happy Pia.

There's many countries in Asia who should take an example of the Philippines. They don't dump the rubbish in the waters or down the slopes, the traffic is not crazy, you can actually use toilets in the boats without suffocating, the people are really friendly but never harassing you. Basically anywhere you go to you can manage with english and not once we were fooled with money or overcharged. I just love it there!

All in all, we had fantastic time, met some cool locals, had excellent food and are for sure coming back! Next time Palawan! But now to Malaysia and Taman Negara!

Apooooo

During traveling in Asia I had heard a lot of good stuff about Apo Island in Negros Oriental, especially from other divers. So that was the next destination after Bohol. We took a ferry from Tagbilaran to Dumaquete, then a bus for maybe half an hour to the south and then again a small boat to Apo. Mario's homestay & dive shop came highly recommended and I really understand why. Great staff, excellent prices, the best room so far for little money and omg the grilled fish!!!

The island is quite small, it's easy to walk around and there's a nice small village with a few shops. It's for sure not a party island. And I hope it stays that way. Though we did try to find a party and ended up drinking baby beer in front of a shop with some ladies & dogs. Why not. So Apo was all about diving, once again. A typhoon a few years ago had destroyed some of the corals but the diving is still world class. Really good drift dives, beautiful wall and lots of macro. And snakes... pfff.

Anyways, I'm lazy once again and rather let the photos speak.

From Apo we took a boat, bus and boat to Siquijor island. Been there done that already but more about the mad biking later. It's beer o'clock in Philippines (Moalboal) again.

Sharks & tarsiers

MANGOOOO!!!

We stayed a few more days in Malapascua and were basically diving all the time. And having some beers in the evening, occasionally also some happy hour coctails. Tanja did the refresher dive and became a good buddy for almost all the rest of the dives. The dives at Gato Island were absolutely fantastic: beautiful corals, lots of small stuff and white tip reef sharks sleeping in caves!!! In the first one were 2 quite big ones and we found a baby shark in another small cave. Sleeping beauties!

Tanja looking mad. Or actually she looks like Meri.

Shitty pic, didn't wanna flash & wake them up...

Spanish dancer! Fantastic!!!

Sea horse playing dead :)

I also went to look for hammerheads 4 am in the morning in another sunken island (Kimud Shoal). The island was just a small sandy area and from there we disappeared to deep blue and waited, waited, waited. And there they were, 2 hammerheads cruising under us in maybe 50 meters. We dropped to 42 m and watched them hunting for quite a while. Amazing creatures!

And I just had to go back to see the thresher sharks at Monad Shoal once more. This time I decided to leave the camera behind and just to enjoy watching them. Shit. I'll never do that mistake again! I was the only one diving with air (others were on nitrox) so it was just me & Gibb, the dive master. We found ourselves a bit more remote place and waited for maybe a second before spotting the first ones. And this time they came soooo close! It felt like touching/hugging distance. 3 big ones were circling in front of us for a long time, sometimes coming directly towards me. What a video it would have made :( Nevertheless, I'll for sure never forget that dive. Breathtaking moments. No wonder a lot of divers are going back to Malapascua again and again. I will too.

We really liked Malapascua. White Sands was a good place to stay at. And big thanks to Junior, our chef in the village. We tried the food at the main beach a few times, thought it was tasteless and too expensive and started to eat only at Junior's place in the local village. Great lunch, fantastic BBQ in the evenings and nice chats with the chef and some other locals. I'm gonna dream of that chicken and sword fish. Eat and have some beers there if you go to Malapascua! It's also much more fun to watch the local kids dancing to bad disco music than other tourists in the beach bars.

My office at Malapascua. Stealing wireless from the neighbours.

But time to move on and stay out of water for a few days. We left early in the morning after the last shark dive and went to Bohol via Cebu. The plan was to visit the chocolate hills and to see some tarsiers. We stayed at Nuts Huts near Loboc. Hmmm... Maybe a small mistake. The place is quite nice, some huts near a river but it's a bit pain in the ass to get there and if you don't plan actually to stay there it's waste of effort and also money. It's not the cheapest place. You have to walk a muddy small road from the main road for about 1 km and then take a lot of steps to the river. We really liked Loboc so it's a shame we didn't stay directly in the town. It has a lovely small town/village vibe, good bbq & nice people. There's nothing really to do or see there, we just enjoyed sitting somewhere watching life go by.

Lovely Loboc

In the tarsier sanctuary we found 3 funny eyed creatures sleeping in the trees. It's a recommendable place to visit as they don't feed or capture the animals but provide them a secure place to live. They can also leave the whole area if they feel disturbed. Afterwards we took a bus to the chocolate hills and walked around a bit.

After 2 nights in Bohol it was time to move on, towards Apo Island. High expectations! More about that later. 

(Actually we already left Apo but I feel lazy and can't be bothered to write another update. Now it's beer o'clock anyways)

One more thresher shark please

Back to Asia! About time to board Lufthansa's A380 again and fly to Singapore. After “boarding completed” announcement the running competition began towards the back of the plane where a few empty rows were waiting for the fastest ones. I probably was a sprinter in the last life and secured a 3 seat row just for myself. What a luxury on a 12 hour flight! One movie with dinner, 8 hours lying down and pretending to sleep, one movie with breakfast and it was already time to land. Why can't it always be like this?

Lufthansa had also messed up my food pre-order and as there was no regular veggie option they brought me the food from first class. Not business class but FIRST CLASS. Wow. I would have gladly paid for that set of asparagus. I'm not vegetarian but meat doesn't fly well.

Rain = beer o'clock!

I had a 8 hour stop over in Singapore and met Tanja in chinatown. After some hawker center food action we headed back to Changi and took another night flight to Cebu, Philippines. Landed at 4 am and towards bus station -> 4,5 hours in a local bus to Maya. We had a ridiculous double seat designed for mini people, the one sitting on the aisle was dropping to the floor all the time. We tried our best but no sleeping in the bus :(

The plan was to draw out money in Maya and to go to Malapascua for some immediate hammock action. New plan was to jump back to a bus and to drive 1 hour to the nearest city with an ATM. Then back to Maya with a jeepney which took 2 hours. Blaah. And it's low season so we had to wait almost an hour for other people to satisfy the boat driver and to make him to move the pangka to Malapascua island. That was a long day!

We had pre-booked accommodation, a lovely bungalow by the beach. It has 2 floors, one for each, luxury! And an own bathroom! With tiles! Sometimes it does make sense to travel together with somebody, if I would have been here just by myself this place would have been out of my budget. But 9 e each it's more than ok! The place is called White Sand, highly recommended! It's also located out of the party zone in a peaceful corner next to the local village but still very near to the main (tourist) beach where the dive shops are.

After arrival it was time to go dive shop shopping: comparing prices and checking the vibes. The dive shop has to have a nice vibe. The shop with the best vibe didn't wanna take me to Monad Shoal (THE thresher shark spot) on my first dive so we chose Thresher Shark Divers instead. Okay, I do understand that they want to check how people dive before they take them to some really difficult&deep dives, but this spot is only slightly advanced. Some small current, otherwise a really easy & enjoyable spot.

The sightings of thresher sharks on Monad Shoal are more than common, they are seen on 95 % of all dives. We were 5 divers divided into 2 groups. The other group saw one shark, we maybe 10. Lucky!!! And wow, they are amazing! I've never seen smiling sharks before! I hope the sharks also saw my smile!

Taking photos was almost impossible, the visibility was quite good but not good enough for no flash underwater photography especially as the sharks weren't posing for me. And we were in 30 m so not much daylight there. Sometimes it makes sense to forget the camera and to enjoy the moment.

The better one of the 2 photos I took...

There's many other fantastic dive spots around the island, f.ex. a sea snake sanctuary. That's gonna be the place to test how it feels to panic while diving. And at Gato Island is a cave where white tip sharks sleep!!! Yayyy! So that's the plan for the next days. Tanja is doing a refresher dive today so I hope she'll join me for the snake & shark action. She might have to hold my hand and put the regulator back to my mouth if I react the same way when I see a snake in the forest: scream & run.

Angry lion fish & some nudibranch.