Travel Blog Posts
April 18th 2008
After a few days travelling we ended up in Gili air island, close to Lombok, Indonesia. Here we settled for a couple of nights, and sampled some of the fine cuisine. We heard of a liveaboard boat that heads east from Lombok, for 3 nights, catching some nice sights along on the way, but most importantly Komodo and Rinca islands, home to the legendary Komodo Dragon. A local travel agent showed us a brochure for the boat which featured a "Ficture of the boat" and a ficture of the "daragoon". We were hoping to get a couple of days diving in North Sulawesi before the end of the trip, which seemed a bit ambitious given the length of this boat trip. The travel agent told us we could fly back from LabuanBajo (the boats final destination) ... read more
April 15th 2008
Semporna is a smelly dirty town on the east coast of Borneo with absolutely nothing to offer. In fact many embassies advise against traveling to the region, probably because it's so smelly. So why did we come?.. We came on the recommendation of an expat yank we met in the Philippines who told us of an island 40mins east of here that has some very good diving. As he had been living, traveling and diving Asia for some years we took his word for it and came. We spent a few days diving/snorkeling the aforementioned island, Sipidan and some other islands closeby, and the marine life was indeed great. We saw loads of cool marine life including: Green sea turtles, White tip sharks, grey reef sharks, and sea snakes. The tourist kidnapping of 2001, was a ... read more
March 29th 2008
Another Filipino city didn't appeal to us, so upon arrival at Cebu we headed straight to the pier and caught the Supercat to Ormoc. Security on the Supercat was Supertight, with the checks you'd expect at an airport (Passport, Metal detector, bag scan, body frisk) followed by sniffer dog inspection, palm swabbing and photograph. The absence of retina scan and finger printing made the whole thing seem a bit lapse. A few more security checkpoints later and we were on the Ferry. After we realised all the paranoia was due to a bomb attack on a similar ferry in 2004. After an overnight stay in Ormoc we went to the bus station to enquire about buses north to Sorsogon. There was one leaving at noon, that would, according to the driver take 9hrs to reach Sorsogon. ... read more
March 26th 2008
Palawan is a sparsely inhabited island in the SW Philippines. It's waters and much of the island are protected so it's home to some unique wildlife. This is why we came. We flew into the capital, Peurto Princesa, and after getting some local advice we boarded a bus north to a town called Roxas (pronounced Rohas). The road was paved and the journey was surprisingly pleasant except for the fish soup pouring down on top of us from the roof cargo when the bus took a sharp bend. Upon arrival at Roxas we got on a boat for an island called Reef island (aka Coco Loco Island) to rest and refresh for a few days. Coco-Loco was a small resort on this 17 acre island, 45mins from the mainland, that took 10mins to circumnavigate on foot. ... read more
March 15th 2008
Manila welcomed us with a 20 min wait on the tarmac followed by an immigration hall full of people. Even Filipinos have to fill in an arrival card here. Trust nobody.. where have I heard that before. We joined the queue with ~80 people in front of us. The airport felt like it hadn't been cleaned since the 70s, making me glad I had checked us into the Four Seasons Manila. Eventually we got through immigration, collected our bags and were on our way to our hotel, through the Manila slums. There was something about the outside of the four seasons that didn't seem right. It was only when we inspected the dirty box room, after lifting up the windows blinds to see our view (and fire exit) was boarded up, that we realised we made ... read more
March 7th 2008
I must admit, any preconceptions I had of military personnel been dumb idiots were wrong. Our in flight entertainment for the 12 hour flight from London to Hong Kong was a proud member of her majesties armed forces.Our new soldier friend entertained us with interesting stories such as how rivalary between different sections of the army can often lead to fistups. The example he gave was when he met a member of the RAF in a local pub. Each slagged off the others section and ended up in full blown brawl with broken bottles etc. Reminded me of primary school fights over weather Man Utd or Liverpool were the better term. Made perfect sense..., the best way to resolve things is through violence. He proudly showed us his book "Shoot to kill" written by a member ... read more
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