life in the slow(ish!) lane...!: May 2006

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Originally uploaded by jusboles.

managed to get one decent photo of on eof the turtles at sipidan island- they're so gorgeous!!
will try and put a link to the others on the right under 'links'...

marc chasing the turtles...

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Originally uploaded by jusboles.

practically everest!

...well half the height, but felt like it! nearly killed me, in such agony now- everything hurts!

mt kinabalu's the highest peak in se asia, at 4095m, so quite a lot higher up than i've climbed before! so it was a 2 day hike. the first day was just relentless steps- so knackering, then we got to our little hut for the night where you had to stay to acclimatise yourself to the altitude. was pretty much up in the clouds so we couldn't really see where we were until later on in the day when the clouds started clearing. then we could see down below, with patches of the city between the clouds far beneath us, and up above us- a scary sight- the peaks of the mountain. they looked fearsome from the ground but up close it looked a little bit daunting! anyway , we got an early night, but not that much sleep as its freezing up there, and we had no heating. luckily, there were a few beds free in our dorm, so we nicked all the blankets and piled them up!

next morning was a 3am start. pretty early, but it was get to the summit for sunrise. we cooked up some supernoodles (our staple diet for the few days we were there as everything was so expensive!) and baked beans- interesting breakfast, but it was warm, then we were off again. this was pretty tough as well. we actually got caught in a bit of a traffic jam, so a lot of the first part was pretty slow. tis was good actually, didnt get too knackered too early...then it was onto climbing by the ropes, and up over the granite slopes. daylight was starting to come and it was pretty amazing to see the outline of the peaks around you coming into shape. it was such hard work but we made it there. and it was so stunning. took my breath away a little bit, i have to say (though could've been the lack of oxygen in the air!). after all that we didnt spend that long up there- it was so cold!!!! but got a few pretty nice photos, so i 'll post them up. we were lucky to have clear weather- ofetn its all just clouds up there, and at least by 10 am it just completely disappears every day!

as we were going down we heard a shout, and these guys who had been behind us started running off towards the edge. someone had fallen and i thought for sure they would be dead, they;d just disappeared completely, and the surface just went off to a sheer drop there. the guides went running off and a few minutes later carried a guy up. he was ok, but lots of blood. so scary. we got down to where we'd stayed overnight, and a short while later they carried him in on a stretcher, with a collar on and a silver blanket. poor guy, his face was covered in blood and they thought he'd broken his leg. he looked such a mess, but hope it might have been better than it looked. they were going to get him down by helicopter, but then the clouds came in and he ended up getting stretchered down. not much fun for him or the guides i'd think...

so anyway, from the huts we started off down. and we seriously underestimated the pain of this...oh dear... it was absolute torutre. fo rabout the last 4k i didn tthink i could go on. my knees were in such pain, and i could hardly bend my legs...it was awful!!! i won;t go on about it too much, but i didnt enjoy it one bit!!

finally (after several times thinking there couldnt possibly be any more steps) we made it back to the park headquarters, and back to where we were staying. absolute joy!!!!

actually, it was a lovely place right at the bottom of the mountain with a big balcony looking out over the trees. anyway, didnt really care about that then- spent the rest of the day collapsed in bed thinking this was so much more fun than the expterme pain of treking up an ddown mountains!

marc was all excited cos apparently the ex-everton goalkeeper, neville southall, and alan kennedy who used to play for liverpool were staying at our place too! i wasnt that excited but i guess some people might be....

stranded...

so there couldn't be a wider contrast between the islands off the coast and the town on the mainland, semporna. its really grotty and dirty, and there's absolutely nothing to do here!

instead of taking the night bus last night we thought we'd get cleaned up and head off this morning. turns out the only bus out was at 7 this morning, so now we have to get the night bus anyway- doh! means we arrive to our next place at 3am. oh no.

we supposed to be off to climb mt kinabalu- half the height of everest. eeek! not sure how that'll go, but i'll letyou know. sounds a bit too much like hard work at the moment!

here's a picture

- you see what i mean?!

not just another pretty island

just had the most amazing couple of days on mabul island, off the east coast of sabah. we did a day's snorkeling trip to sipadan island- a national marine park. you aren;t actually allowed to stay on the island any more-they closed it for tourists a couple of years ago, so you just have to do a day trip. and wow, it was unbelievable. there's just so much there.

the main attraction is the number of turtles that they have. its fantastic. they're just everywhere- really big, old ones as well. at first we were so excited to spot one or 2, then as the day wore on you began to see more and more, until you were surrounded by them and you could just see them swimming around every direction you looked. they're just beautiful..look like they're flying underwater. there was at least a couple of times that there were ones underneath me that i didnt even notice until i dived down and it swam off! as well as that we saw lots of sharks- mostly white tip reef sharks and also a leopard shark. very exciting! and the coral was beautiful- i dont know how much there really was there, it was hard to look at everything there was just so much going on everywhere you looked! totally amazing!!!! in between snorkeling we went onto the beach and had coffees and lunch stops interuptted by a very tame, very large monitor lizard. obviously used to being fed, it was a little bit scary!

the day ended all too soon, but then we went off to the island. it was pretty expensive to stay there, but they told us if we asked permission from the police they would maybe let us camp there. so this we did, and the policeman (who looked about 18!) said we could. we were able to use the facilities at the backpacker lodge for showers as well so it was pretty good. the lodge was such a nice spot, built over the water, with a little jetty, plus we'd met some really nice people at the jungle camp who we'd hooked up to do this trip with, so we hung out there during the evening. there was even a band with a drum kit made up of empty plastic barrels, and an empty oxygen diving cannister. it worked amazingly well! very chilled indeed.

the next day we were woken up early as it was about a hundred degrees in the tent and we had made some new friends - a couple of very lively dogs who bounded over as soon as the door was opened. we had a bit of a swim to cool down... the joy of camping on the beach- a morning bath only 10m away! then after some food, went snorkeling off another pier belonging to one of the the really fancy resorts there. these were gorgeous- all the rooms built on stilts over the water, and its such a beautiful colour of blue, with coral right underneath. stunning. anyway, we couldn't stay there but at least we could enjoy the water! so we spent a few hours doing that, then had coffee overlooking the water. was great to be able to just look down and watch the fish from there!

so we ended up not leaving that day as planned and spent another day in a similar manner! i mean, it was free to camp, and it was just way too nice to leave. the next night we sat on the pier again, listening to the band, chatting and drinking rum. lovely...

it was an amazing few days, so sad to leave there...definitely one of the highlights of our trip i think!!!

some orangutan pics

proboscis monkey

tiger leech!

orangutans in the mist!

from there, we got the bus west to sandakan. our b&b was quite grotty, but we were really there to go to the orangutang rehabilitation centre. it was so cool! they are semi wild ones- they've been released but still come back for food when they want. so they have a series of ropes which the orangutangs come out to the platform along. and they really milk it-they're such show offs! they come out one by one, hang in front of you, pull faces, pick their nose...so funny! most of them are pretty young, but there were a couple of older ones which were really big and hairy. they're gorgeous- really look like yetis! it was so amazing to see them.

we also did a couple of nights in 'uncle tan's' jungle camp. this was cool- you took a boat into the rainforest, and a short hike to a very basic group of huts with not many facilities! they take you on a few hikes and boat trips and you really do see stacks of animals. we even saw orangutangs in the wild! thats amazing cos they're an endangered secies and you only find them in borneo and sumatra. its quite a crazy sight to see a massive big hairy thing up at the top of a really thin tree- doesn't look natural at all!

another amazing animal we saw were the probocis monkey. now there's an odd creature- so ugly and actually quite surreal! you wouldn't think they'd exist either- big massive nose, hunchback, thin arms-just weird. but they can really jump, and i think they're great-so funny...

other things we saw were crocodiles, loads of hornbills, macaques, kingfishers, monitor lizards, the tiniest frogs (12mm!!), owls, and bearded pigs (yes, pigs with beards- so bizarre!)

the only thing was that it was just so muddy. we had to wear wellies the whole time-totally squelchy and kept getting stuck! we also did a night trek, which was much more fun than i expected- we saw so any little frogs, crazy spiders, and bugs, even a couple of scorpions!

while i'm on the subject, i didnt think anything could be worse than a leech. but yes, there is- tiger leeches! they'd told us that leeches weren't a problem- there was more chance to see orangutangs in the wild, but then , we actually saw 3 of those! so we were walking along and a girl spotting this worm speeding up my top- she didnt realise what it was but after our previous experiences i knew it was a leech and flicked it off right away. so lucky it hadnt bitten- apparently they like the upper body better so thats why we spotted it. ugh, they are so massive. i cant imagine what size that would grow to compared to the normal ones.horrible creatures! still dont really think i'm cut out for the jungle!

borneo

we arrived in kota kinabulu in sabah, and it seemed nice. things which seemed different- a little bit cooler (quite a relief!), lot wetter, (it always seems to be raining in malaysia) and quite a lot quieter! no jeepneys, tricycles or anything like that. all normal cars- seemed a lot calmer!

spent the night there then headed off to the nearby islands of tunku abdul national park. we wanted to camp and the guy had told us that we needed to bring all our own provisions as there were no shops or anything. so imagine our surprise when we arrived to find that there were about 400 people already there, eating and drinking, there was a shop and restaurant and everything! anyway, it was really nice there, despite the crowds, and apart from the rain! we saw huge monitor lizards that came out when everyone had gone- they look like small crocs. we did get absolutely drenched though, especially on the second day so it was good to get back to the mainland to dry off. unfortnately i discovered that i'd left my brand new bikini there in the rush to get everything packed up in the rain, so we ended up having to go back the next day- didnt find my bikini (so annoying- took me so long to find a decent one, and now i have nothing to go swimming in-no such thing in malaysia, being muslim!), but we did also do another island which was really nice and much quieter so that was good.

from kk, we took the train down to tenom. its a beautiful journey, absolutely stunning hills, and jungle and it follows the river. the train actually broke a little bit on the way-the wheels on one carriage came off the rails partly (dont think they've got the best track (boom boom!) record on that line, and we ended up doing the last part of the journey on the flat open air carriage. it was really fun and quite a novelty but i have to admit i was glad to get there! tenom was a nice quiet little place up in the hills, not much to do. we headed off ther next day to tambunan, another litle town and found a nice campground to stay at. we were beside the river, with lovely views of the hills, and beside a man-made lake wih giant fish! was really nice. the first night we were there, we went over to get our dinner at a little cafe on the island on the lake. there were some malaysians and an english guy there, and they invited us to come and join them and try the rice wine which they make there. they all were so so friendly and they ended up bringing us to their house, where they had about 14 kegs of this rice wine, and we had such a fun evening. at one stage they had brought out pickled ginger and other local dishes for us. then they brought out one which basically was pickled rotten raw catfish (1month old). it was absolutely gross and it was actually all a big trick cos it was so disgusting. they thought it was hilarious...actually the older people do still eat it but think it is definitely an acquired taste-ugh!!! so that was a great night and we met some lovely people.

we spent another couple of days there. it was really pretty. then we moved on, back to kk. we stopped off on the way to see the world's largest flower- the rafflesia. we thought we were really lucky as there was one blooming in the park, but when we went in the guide told us we couldn't go now. the rain was about to start and there would be too many leeches! and sure enough, it started raining in the next few minutes and continued to pour down for the next few hours. we had to wait for a bus which wasnt full and it ended up taking us 2 hrs! finally we got away, a nice journey through the rainforest and mist.

how do you work a clock again?

oh yes, and oops... to balance out marc's 'getting us to the airport 2 days too early' stunt, the very next morning i rushed us both out of the hotel since we were really late checking out. we were both really tired and couldn;t understand why-we hadnt bee nout that late the night before!. until we saw a clock and realised it was only 9am instead of 1pm as my watch said. i dont know how but i must have changed it in my sleep or something. oh dear, didnt hear the end of that one for a while!!! still, better 5 hrs early than 48 i say!

how do you work a clock again?

oh yes, and oops... to balance out marc's 'getting us to the airport 2 days too early' stunt, the very next morning i rushed us both out of the hotel since we were really late checking out. we were both really tired and couldn;t understand why-we hadnt bee nout that late the night before!. until we saw a clock and realised it was only 9am instead of 1pm as my watch said. i dont know how but i must have changed it in my sleep or something. oh dear, didnt hear the end of that one for a while!!! still, better 5 hrs early than 48 i say!

manila!

so after getting out of angeles we decided the best thing to do was head back to manila for a few days....and it was great, so much fun. there's lots of great bars and street cafes where you can eat cheap and yummy bbq food and watch the world go by. was really surprised by how much was going on there. lots of people out enjoying themselves. there's a lot of poverty there tho, lots of street kids and begging. the most we've seen i think...

the city is much nicer than i expected too. there are some quite down and out areas, but there's a really nice old quarter and a couple of pretty parks, plus MASSIVE malls! very much appreciated with how hot it is outside!

adventures in angeles

so puerta galera was fun, and not quite as we expected, but a nice way to finish off the philippines. trying to leave however, turned out to be a bit of a problem....when we went to try and get one of the 50 million boats on the beach they were all full, until that night. normally this would've been ok, but we had to get to angeles that night, as we were to fly out the next morning. so were starting to really worry, when we managed to find one which had space in it. the guy told us it was leaving at 10.45 (it was now 11.20??) but we had time to run up and get our stuff. so of course this was from the far end of the beach, we had to run back, pack up, and navigate ourselves and our stuff through the hoards again., when we got there the guy told us we had to go somehwere else, where we d just come from, then the boat wasnt there yet anyway. way too hot for all that carry on.

so we waited and waited for about 1 1/2 hrs, no-one telling us anything but that it would be here soon and marc was just going off to get a mango when he came running back cos the boat we were supposed to be on was leaving!!! we made it tho, then to manila, then the bus to dau. then we had a bit of confusion as to where the places to stay where (we had to go back and forth on a few different jeepneys!), and by the time we got to angeles it was pretty much night-time.

we hadnt been sure of the flight time, as marc er, hadnt been able to find the exact details, and after lots of searching on the internet we tried one more time to find it in his notebooks. within about 30 sec he'd found the details. yes, the flight was at 11.40 am, in 2 DAYS TIME!!!!! oooh, he was in big trouble i tell ya! especially since angeles was the seediest, dodgiest place ever and really not somewhere to hang around for 3 days.

so we managed to get a room which wasnt rented out on an hourly basis, and marc went off to get some cash out. turns out the entire town was off-line and all the cash machines were down. not too much of a problem that night, but the next day it was. we must have tried about 30 machines, we couldn't change travellers cheques either, as it was bank holiday and all the banks were closed! argh- were we destined ot eb stuckin angeles after all....we sopent hours doing this, and finally we realsied we could visa some food from pizza hut! so we did that, and rejuvenated, nmarc went off and spen tthe last our cash on a jeepney to the next town, and yes!!! cash! we made our escape from angeles!

mayhem!!

we took the ferry from boracay back to panay, then another ferry over to mindoro. we had planned to head off right away up to puerto galera, but we noticed a promising looking place from the boat, just on the water, and as it was already 5pm we decided to stay there for the night. and what a choice little random stop it was. a nice big white house with a large open balcony, and rocking chairs where you could just sit and watch the ships go in and out...much nicer than the place where we thought we'd have to spend the night on up north.

the next morning we took a minibus (so squashed!) and then a jeepney (so dusty!) up the winding roads to puerta galara. we knew this was also a bit of a tourist spot but quite quiet, so we got a bit of a shock to arrive on the beach to see about 500 people or so, loads of music playing and everyone generally going a bit mad! it was pretty good actually...we haven't seen anything like this in the philippines and we thought we'd found the new ibiza!

turned out to be a bank holiday weekend, so it was more crowded than normal, but still! how coul dthere be that many?! then we couldn't get a room anywhere... in the end our trusty tent came to the rescue and we got a lovely spot beside the beach- a much better spot than we could've possibly got even if there had been rooms i think. the night out turned out to be a little disappointing cos even tho there were lots of bars and they'd been playing fairly decent stuff during the day, it seemed at night they all just started playing that horrible bump'n'grind type stuff. rubbish! and it wans't that mad, just very loud- too many interfering sound systems!

we also discovered that there no banks in pg, and we hadn't enough cash to pay for anything. so the next day marc went off around 9am to the nearest town 1 1/2 hrs away...so i went for a walk to the next beach which was actually gorgeous-big green hills sweeping right down to the sea- and empty!, which made arrving back round at our beach a bit of a nightmare. just bright signs, hotels and thousands of people, and boats! spent the rest of the day trying desperately to find shade. there didnt appear to be any at all on the beach, and there was a large function at our place, so the tent thing wasn;t so good anymore. nowhere to go, nowhere to sit, nowhere to hide! no good at all!! decided i didnt much like puerta galera after all. marc finally arrived back at 4pm- was getting very worried, and very sunburned by this time. finally we got to go and eat, and everything was ok again!

ooh paradise!

after we finally managed to leavle iloilo, we headed to boracay....ahhh!!! so gorgeous. we almost weren't going to go cos loads of people had told us it was really spoilt with so many tourists and stuff. so we expected a place with loads of built up hotels, and brash tourists, but it wasn'tlike that at all.

the beach was a 5k long stretch of white sand, like really white! the sea was so blue, and there were tourists but nowhere near as many as we expected, plus the hotels were all really secluded, quiet and not like phuket one bit! only problem was that everything was pretty much way out of our price range. so much luxury- would've been nice but... anyway, we managed to find one place which actually was just closing down, and being taken over by new management so we got a room for really cheap, plus we had a balcony and were only about 10m from the sea. so we really struck lucky there. then when we decided to stay a 3rd night the guy ended up giving it to us for free, because no-one else was staying, and he was just wanting to get on with doing his renovations?! sadly, i dont think it'll be possible to get a room for that price if we go back!

so i really loved it there- nice place to stay, beautiful surroundings, yummy food, and the bars were really tasteful and mellow- sitting watching gorgeous sunsets with nice chilled house music in the background; cafe del mar, with massive bamboo chairs on the beach, another place with nice acoustic bands and cool gnarly chairs, and 'hey jude' which was the late night party place on the beach and also with surprisingly good music. the only gutting thing was that kaskade had played there only 10 days before....argh, cannot believe that!!! how good would that have been....oh well, you cant have everything ; )

hard me??? definitely not! yes, malasia is good with the running water thing but its a bit rainy tho! are you in the bahamas yet ? hmm, i m sure if you are you wont be reading this!! hope you having fun!

we was robbed

after guimaras, we headed over to iloilo again to try and catch the bus onwards up north. we were sitting on a jeepney on the way to the bus station, which was quite crowded and the next thing marc noticed his bag was open and thewallet gone. and all of a sudden i realised that the guy who had been sitting next to him had been acting really strangely with a bag holding it up and over marcs bag leaning back and forth. think we were actually done by the most obvious pickpocket in the world and just so annoying cos of that. as becky likes to say 'hindsight makes prophets of us all...!'

terrible...but luckily i had an emergency credit card in my bag so we weren't in too much of a dire situation. still we had only 16 pesos between us but managed to get back to a mall to do all the things you need to do, and then to the police station. the first one wasnt in the right jurisdiction, so we had to go to another one. the cells were just inside the door and there were about 30 people inside, all shouting 'hey joe, where you going?' (i m not sure where this phrase is from or what it means, but literally everyone shouts it at you in the philippines....), which was a bit scary, then we had to give a statement which was so ridiculous. done a notepad type program on the computer, by one of the policemen and took so long, with loads of spelling mistakes -wish i had a copy!...all in all a bit of a nightmare day, but i guess it could've been a lot worse!!!!

recuperating in style!

hello again

my blog is doing crazy things and i ve spent hours over the last week trying and failing to put up photos properly. anyway, so i ll try and write a bit instead!

we left dumaguete, and headed up to silay. was quite nice, some old ancestral homes there, but not too exciting. plus marc was starting to get sick and it was about a million degrees in the room, so got no sleep and decided to leave the next day. was only a short trip to iloilo (pronounced ilo-ilo!) but marc was feeling really bad so we got a room with air-con, and basically stayed there. i was also coming down with a cold and felt pretty rotten too. it wasn't the bext place so we wanted to move on the next day. originally had planned on a national park, but marc was quite bad with whatever virus it was that he had, and we didnt want a big long bus journey either. so we decided to hop over to guimaras, a little island only 20min and 10 pence away by boat!

After a lot of confusion over getting where we wanted (i'm sure we would've managed it much better if lots of people hadn't been trying to help us and telling us different things!) we arrived at Valle Verde resort. And what a place to arrive when you're ill- definitely like a health resort or something. was built in a hill with a mineral pool at the bottom which was a beautiful colour of blue. We also got to stay in a treehouse which was so cool. Guimaras is known for its mangos- they are supposed to be the sweetest in the Philippines and judging from the shakes....they are. So delicious!
here's a photo of the pool...