Turtles, sharks, dogs & whores.

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Well I'm actually back in Kota Kinabalu but was in Sipadan yesterday. Will give a brief run down of the events of the last few days.

Wednesday night, after getting no sleep the night before thanks to United woot, 7-1!! And little the day before thanks to awful sunburn on my back and sides. I was pretty tired and thought I would be able to sleep on the night bus, wrong. It's a proper coach but the roads are awful and incredibly bumpy, you get thrown around like anything. Not being able to lie on my back or sides meant travelling on this bus was very painful. They enforce segregation of tourists here, as i was the only white person on the bus i was left at the back on my tod. Pretty cool as actually got some space.

9 Painful hours later I arrived in Semporna at 4am. Dump. Dirty, full of stray dogs. I wandered around since I had no idea what to do or where to go. A pack of strays decided I was invading their terriotory so started to circle me, I was inclined to run but figured they'd chase me for sure. So I stood them up, half taking my backpack off ready to crush one of the mutts with it. They didn't like the look of the bag wheeling monster so backed down. You have to be careful of these strays in Koh Phangan loads of people had bandages on where they had been biten. I then proceeded to the scuba place and tried to sleep on a bench outside.

Thursday
I paid for my diving as soon as the shop opened at about 8am. They gave me no information about anything which annoyed me as I wanted to see if I had time for a shower, shave and breakfast. My instructor arrived a little later and gave me a clearer picture, i.e. no. We set sail to a small island (will check my log book for name later), it was beautiful, your real stereotypical tropical paradise. It was pretty small and you can walk around it in about 10-15 mins. It came complete with 12 soldiers as every island does now thanks to the kidnapping of Sipidan a few years back. Seems an expense as apprently this island only gets visited once a week.

Anyway, had three dives and chilled on the island between them. The dives were pretty good but not as good as some of my dives in Koh Tao in my opinion. There were less fish, the visibility was amazing though 30-40m. Tom (instructor) said best he has seen for a long time and some of the best dives.

In the evening when to a buffet meal with my new diving & island buddys. Was good fun, met some cool people.


Friday
After going into my hotel and finding out they had not got my reservation and arguing with them for quite some time they gave me a room. After a too shorter nights sleep for my liking I made it to the dive shop for 8am. Still very tired. Not too much hanging about, we set sail to Sipaden. One of the most acclaimed dive sites in the world. With reason. Absolutly amazing dives. First one it was just Tom and I as we did my deep dive to 30m and the other rookies can't handle that meterage unlike super hero diver Rob. Was cool being that deep, loads of sharks about and giant turtles galore. Stunning. They're not scared at all and will swim right beside you or just around you. We also played a simple subtracting game as when you're that deep you suffer from Nitrogen Nacosiss and become a little slow(er).The second dive was just Tom and I again as I was doing my navigation dive. I wasn't great at it as where we did it we were surrounded by huge schools of large fish. When you have 100s of foot long and bigger fish swimming thru you it's hard to concentrate on the compass. The third dive we did as a group, Tom took his camera and took some pics which he will send on.

Got back in about 5 with 6 riggits left. Went to the towns two cash machines, didn't work. Fricking Barclays. I hate you. Argh, that reminds me, here there is a little boy begger who boils my blood. He is young and some people may consider him cute, he is cleaner than me, smells less, looks less tired wore different clothes each day I saw him. Yet he follows me about holding out his hand with a look that suggests he has a right to my money. Argh, I am not a violent person but I wanted to kick him. Did not particulrly like the people in this town, pretty much everyone would stare at me, the teenage boys were braver and said things in malay about me and pointed. Mostly I found all the locals pretty intimidating and very rude. I did not feel threatened most of the time but did not really feel welcomed away from the dive school and felt too much like an attraction. I am starting to grow a little tired of being marvelled at. Anyway after a couple of hours I found somewhere to pay on my card and get cash back. Cost me 10 riggits but it is worth it. They said 5% but made the common maths error when charging it from my 200 ordered. I should have corrected them but I have to make my degree pay for itself.

Saturday morning. After another horrible night bus expereince that dragged on forever and gave me zero sleep. I manage to arrive back in KK, got a shuttle bus and of course got lost. Managed to find the red light district looking for my hostel tho. Reminded me of the incident with the dogs as they left there patches spying the tourist. I thought I was going to have to use my bag as weapon again as they pursued me "honey, where you go", "I wanna go with you honey". Sleep deprived, 4am, lost. I did not need this. Luckily I was faster than them with their long heels and escaped. Finally stumbled apon something I recognised and made it back to the hostel. Vincent had been true to his word and left the code unchanged and allowed me to sleep. Ledg.

Well that's about it, I've had a couple of hours sleep, done a few things. Now just gonna chill and watch the footbal in a couple of hours. With a bit of luck the utd game will be on, but not sure as it is FA cup. What must've watford been thinking when they saw us trounce Roma?! C'mon Utd!

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Comments

[big george]

getting away to singy
when you leave careful they dont think you are one of the oranatangesas the cages are tougth so keep a look out for game wardens and pasport handy cause with your hight and long arms you cant be to careful go and enjoy singy keep writing the blogg