Author archive
13 May 2009
Kim and I didn’t want to get going today. After witnessing the best yesterday, it was hard to get motivated. Today we were bound for Kapalai and Mabul Islands. We didn’t know much about these sites. We soon realised on our first dive at Sunken City (Kapalai) that the cloudy skies didn’t illuminate the water […]
12 May 2009
We boated out to Sipadan Island around 0800. It was sunny and calm as we took the journey to the Sipadan area, about an hour away. Text continues after this gallery. The Dive Master surprised me when he said that we were at Barracuda Point … where I had specially come to, but […]
11 May 2009
Today was the first of three days diving we had booked online with Sipadan Scuba. We left Semporna about 0830 towards Sibuan Island on a narrow locally-built speedboard … it started off somewhat as a race between us and this 10 year old girl who was in sole charge of a motorised sampan carrying her […]
10 May 2009
Travelling to Semporna, the diving Gateway We took a short flight from KK to Tawau this morning and were transferred by van to Semporna (which means perfect or complete) in Malay. It poured down for part of the way on the road … things have changed since I started taking an interest in travelling … […]
9 May 2009
When we visited in 2001 we visited the neighbouring islands, the foothills and villages. Kota Kinabalu seems to have it all. It is a city by the sea next to South-East Asia’s tallest mountain. So this time, we treated this visit more of a stopover. So it was the usual food and mall stuff. As […]
8 May 2009
Interstate travel woes We switched allegiances from “World’s Best Cabin Crew” (Malaysia Airlines) to “World’s Best Low Cost Airline” (Air Asia) when we flew from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu (which everyone calls “KK” …. err … nearly everyone … the exception was the now defunct Australian Airlines which called it “Sabah”. That’s like calling Melbourne […]
4 May 2009
I rang my blind masseur Mr Stewart to arrange an appointment. He advised that he had moved and gave me an inspecific address (as people do here). Even with the aid of Google Maps, the place was nowhere to be found. Phoning for directions didn’t help … Me: I’m at the technical college; is it […]
2 May 2009
I have a week with family in my hometown Kuching. There’s nothing much to report but the eating seems to be the thing to do. We also took a look around the city and noticed some new buildings in addition to the familiar.
1 May 2009
Leaving Auckland A trip to Sipadan has been long on the cards but prompted by expiring frequent flyer miles on Malaysia Airlines’ programme “Enrich”. In these days of fuel surcharges, the programme turned out very disappointingly compared to, say, Emirates’ very generous programme called “Skywards”. We needed 60,000 points from Auckland to Kuching, open-jaw to […]
12 April 2009
We got our boarding passes for the 1130 flight back to Auckland on standby with no hassles. When one is travelling standby, just getting a seat is good. Doesn’t matter front/back, aisle/window. Just a seat! The flight time is considerably shorter flying towards the east at only 4h15, and we landed at 1815.