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20 July 2013
Tipu Sultan’s Palace The day started off drizzly and remained so until late afternoon. Not the best for the sightseeing which I had planned. I took a tuktuk to the Tipu Sultan’s Palace, modest building from the 1700s which look more like a pavilion with a mezzanine floor. On the outside, it hardly had any […]
19 July 2013
Even though my departure today to Bangalore today isn’t till 1520, I left the hotel at 1000. With the monorail/bus, it does take about 1h45 to get to the airport. I’d get there more than 3h prior to the flight which gives me time for free lunch in the lounge 🙂 Check-in should have been […]
18 July 2013
My midday flight had been “preponed” to 1040 which meant that I left the apartment with my parents at 0815. Traffic was surprisingly easy. With an earlier-than-scheduled departure and good tailwind, the flight to KL landed around 20 minutes early. The Italian pilot made his PA onboard in Malay as well as English; it was […]
10 July 2013
I woke up feeling sad to leave Indonesia again. I hope to be back but I’ve heard great things about other Indonesian dive destinations like Raja Ampat and Nusa Lembongan. So much to do and so little time! I grabbed a breakfast of biscuits and canned iced coffee from Alfamart across the road before heading […]
9 July 2013
It was very difficult to say goodbye to the Gilis. While it wasn’t the real rough-and-tumble Indonesia that I also love, I love the Gilis for the diving, eating and laid-back atmosphere. I checked out about 1000 and got to the boat ticket office to find that I had just missed the last seat, so […]
8 July 2013
Above: Beautiful Gili Meno. This is the day off that I had earned. Actually, the whole time here was meant to be for chilling but I ended up doing my Advanced dive certification instead! Absolutely no regrets as I enjoyed all the dives. “My” island of Gili Trawangan is the most touristy of the three […]
7 July 2013
Wreck Dive It was back to the Bounty Wreck for this dive; the same place as where I had done my night dive. In daylight, I could appreciate the good coral growth. The marine life included mantis shrimp, trumpet fish, orange spine unicorn fish, Andaman sweet lips, rabbit fish and again Moorish idols. The skill […]
6 July 2013
Deep Dive This was undertaken at a site called Deep Turbo. The maximum depth we went down to was 25m. I had to do this for the certification but it was actually nothing new. Many dive masters take divers with Open Water certification up to this depth when they’re not supposed to. The coral was […]
5 July 2013
Change of Plan Having travelled from Timor Leste through to West Timor, and been roughing it, I just wanted to relax and do a little diving. I enquired about doing a couple of days diving with a few dive centres. Aquaddiction, they suggested that I do an SSI Advanced certification. At first I wasn’t keen […]
5 July 2013
Biking around I rented a bike after breakfast and cycled around the island. It took an hour including having to wheel it where the roads disappeared into sandy stretches, and carrying where the roads had been washed away by the sea (in the north). Activity and business is largely concentrated on the east coast; within […]