Author archive
15 October 2009
We had two days of diving with Living Colours in Bunaken. Today we had two dives at Aluang Banua and Lekuan II. The dive sites were all beautiful walls with plenty of variety in the marine life. Most importantly the divemasters were very professional … they gave good pre-dive briefings and always emphasised that this […]
15 October 2009
Above: Church and village on Bunaken island. It was bright when I opened my eyes. I looked at my phone-clock and it said 0611. But twenty minutes after, my alarm hadn’t sounded. Upon checking, I had misread the clock and it was in fact only 0511. As Manado and Bunaken is in the eastern end […]
14 October 2009
Above: Boats arrive through a clearing in the mangrove. After our errands in the city of Manado, it was time for us to go to Bunaken for a two night stay and two days of diving. We had hoped for a slightly longer stay but it wasn’t meant to be due to yesterday’s morning flight […]
14 October 2009
Above: Chinese temple in Manado. We were due to be picked up at 2pm for our boat ride to Bunaken. That left time for a leisurely breakfast and a walk around town … there’s only really a Chinese temple to visit and that wasn’t quite worthwhile as it wasn’t as impressive as the ones in […]
13 October 2009
Killing time Today we fly to Manado in the north-eastern arm of Sulawesi. We had to checkout at 1000 as it was the required time for Tune Hotel. It wasn’t too much trouble to fill in the time till the 1550 departure: A leisurely breakfast at the patio of the hotel. Walked over to the […]
12 October 2009
When I booked my tickets 7 months ago, the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Manado was an early morning one. And that would require us to fly from Kuching to Kuala Lumpur today (a day in advance) and overnight there beforehand. But a schedule change a few weeks after we made the booking shifted tomorrow’s […]
8 October 2009
It is 3am. Kim is rather sick from both ends … it is like Revenge of the Pharoah meets Linda Blair from Exorcist, the movie. We went to the doctor just to satisfy ourselves that the dehydration isn’t too severe that it would affect his kidneys (which were recently impacted by another event). We don’t […]
7 October 2009
Today we have an early start departing at 0650 flying Perth – Kuala Lumpur, self-connecting to hometown Kuching with a layover of 3h50 which gives us a little bit of buffer in case of delay. That would see us arriving into Kuching at 1805. The fare from Perth to Kuala Lumpur was AUD65 return plus […]
6 October 2009
With the 5 hour time difference between Auckland and Perth I was out of the hostel at 7am and caught up with a friend Carla for a juice at 8:15! With a bit of wandering around to follow, I checked out of the hostel by the required time of 10am and spent most of the […]
5 October 2009
As a solo traveller in Perth, I had to relive my youth at the backpackers, specifically one called 1201 East. It was too expensive for me to stay in a hotel, being just one person. It was good to know that I can still feel at home in shared accommodation with shared facilities. It will […]