July 2nd After we enjoyed our last breakfast on our veranda, we packed our goodies, hopped in our Jimny and set off for Lovina, a town on the north coast of Bali. On the way we picked up another tote bag to put our shopping in. We've accumulated a few things since our arrival here and need a spot more space. Driving on these roads isn't as scary as we had thought (we've survived the streets of Vietnam after all). You just have to know that people insist on overtaking on blind corners and hills, and drive with at least half their car in the opposite lane. When you drive with this in mind you'll be okay. After navigating through the traffic we finally left the city area and wound our way into the mountainous inner ... read more

June 27th Five months to the day after first crossing into the Northern Hemisphere on our trip, we were going to cross the equator again, back to the south. We got a bemo (tiny mini-bus) to the airport, 5km away. It was so tiny we struggled to get our backpacks in. After checking in for our multi-million Rupiah flight we had a long wait in the airport lounge. We saw one other white guy! Amazing! We finally left Tarakan, flew over the equator, had a brief stop-over in Balikpapan, then left Borneo for good. As we arrived in Surabaya, the capital of east Java, we had to set our watch, phone, laptop, video- and three digital cameras back one hour. One might say we have too many time-pieces... Once off the plane we checked with all ... read more

June 22nd Today we're heading to Tawau, a town two and a half hours west of Semporna. After breakfast we packed the last of our things and walked to the mini-bus station. These buses only leave when full so we were prepared to wait a while. We didn't sit for more than 5mins before we left, even though there was only three other passengers on board. We drove around the block and picked up another three people. Then we stopped again near the mini-bus station and sat in the boiling vehicle for 10mins while we waited for more people to join our little gang. The bus filled slowly but surely and before we were totally boiled we left again, this time with a full load of passengers. We were excited to be moving on again. The ... read more

June 18th Today's dive sites were at the reefs surrounding Bohayan, an island about an hour east of Semporna. Rumour has it that there is about 25 Pygmy Seahorses hiding amongst more than 200 sea-fans. We hoped we could find at least one. The first dive was at Pygmy Point and it was a drift dive next to a wall of coral. We saw Scorpionfish, Clown and Titan Triggerfish, Bluespotted Stingray, different Nudies, all against a gorgeous backdrop of lush sea plants and corals. The site did suffer from a severe absence of Pygmy Seahorses. These little guys are about 1cm high and look just like the sea-fans they call home. There's not much chance of spotting one without spending a lot of time staring at various fans. The second dive site was called Green Marker. ... read more

June 13th We had the day off but were woken early by the singing, wait... no... howling of someone thinking he/she (we couldn't even guess the sex of the vocalist) is Pavarotti or someone. After breakfast, feeling very lethargic, we caught up with the ton of correspondence we got while on Mabul. Thanks for all the pics and news from home! It was fun to catch up with all you guys. We were delighted to hear from Reefers Diving in Koh Pha-Ngan. They had stumbled upon our blog and really liked some of our pics. They also used a picture of us diving for their new brochure. We're almost famous! The heat and lack of a breeze quickly had us exhausted and we had a nap before lunch. When Talita finally managed to drag Ferdi out ... read more