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Published: November 28th 2005
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In my last entry, I mentioned that we were staying in the Cameron Highlands (Malaysia). I went to the highlands with my Dutch buddy Jeroen (who is doing the rest of the trip with me) and a friend we met in Langkawi named Sarah. In the highlands we saw a tea plantation, tea factory, strawberry farm, honey bee farm, rose garden, Chinese temple, butterfly farm, and some great scenery! The weather was quite cold (15C), and on the last couple days it was pissing rain. Since there wasn't much to do in the rain, we ended up sitting on our butts indulging in DVD's and home-made cake!
Our next stop was Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. When we arrived we were craving a little bit of exercise after our lazing around in the highlands, so the three of us found directions to the nearest gym. As we stepped in, I noticed a sign advertising 10 free days of trial membership. Thinking quickly we pretended that we had just moved to Kuala Lumpur and were interested in joining. It was quite trickly explaining why myself, Jeroen (Dutch), and Sarah (English) had all met in KL and decided to join a
Cameron Highlands
At the rose garden. gym before any of us had a job or an address! I'm not sure how solid our story was, but it earned us a trial session!
The gym was very posche! It was probably the nicest a gym could ever get. It had saunas, steam rooms, free juice bars, chrome trim, and even a complimentary DVD collection to take home.
Afterwards, we did a little shopping, and also checked out the second tallest building in the world (Petrona Twin Towers). It was shocking to see such a thing in South East Asia, as most of the cities are quite basic. Soon after we visited a tower where we had a fantastic view of Kuala Lumpur and the twin towers. Later that evening, we went out to a night club that was packed with people dancing to Indian music- with a little bit of house in between. The interior had giant fish tanks full of sharks, and for once we paid western prices for beer.
The next day we flew to Borneo, which was the location for the filming of the TV series "Survivor" (first season). We spent a couple days on beautiful beaches with some amazing snorkeling.
Frogs!
They look exactly like leafs The fish were every colour under the rainbow, and some were quite aggressive when we floated over their section of coral!
The next day, we took a bus/boat to the world famous scuba diving resort on the island of Sipadan. It is consistently rated as a top 10 diving location, and last year it was voted as the best in the world!! Sipadan is just a few Km's off the equator and was due for some great tropical weather. We were very excited! Sipadan has crystal clear turquoise water, and is surrounded by a huge coral reef. The reef extends out from the island by about 300 meters and then drops as a vertical cliff 600 meters in to the ocean!
After one dive I went back for seconds, and then thirds! The first 5 seconds underwater, I saw a shark, a giant sea turtle, and a trigger fish (attacks divers and often causes stitches). We swam along the side of the vertical cliff, and would look down to see pure darkness, but to our side brightly coloured coral and hundreds of very rare species of aquatic life: Green and Hawsbill Turtles, White Tip and Grey Reef Sharks,
Baracuda, Bumphead and Nepoleon Wrase, Blue Spotted Rays, Moray Eels, Frog Fish, Crocodile Fish, Nudibranches, Pipe Fish and so on......
I must have seen about 30 turtles - some relaxing in the coral, and some gliding through the water right beside us! As we went deeper, we watched sharks and also saw a manta ray with a 4 meter wing span! One of the divemasters with over 300 dives has never seen a manta ray in this area, but we saw a huge one on our first dive! On our last dive, we met a giant eel named "Elvis" which was 15 inches in diameter! Elvis had a home in a stack of coral where he would relax and show off his sharp white teeth.
The entire dive trip was fantastic. Between dives we would swim in the beautiful water and lay out in the sun. I feel like I have fallen in love with diving. The feeling of weightlessness and being able to twist, turn and flip with such ease is just amazing. I really hope to return to Sipadan again one day.
I need to get off of this computer now. The keyboard is infested with
ants. They are crawling all over the monitor, up my arms and in my shirt. I probaly squished about 10 while I was typing. I guess I have to take what I can get when it comes to computers out here! Spraying insect repellent on my keyboard/monitor does seem to help quite a bit though...
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