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Day 1: Bunaken

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 […]

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Two days of diving

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 […]

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Boating to Bunaken

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 […]

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Morning in Manado

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 […]

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Flying to Sulawesi

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 […]

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Nightstop or Not

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 […]

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Revenge of the Pharoah meets Linda Blair

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 […]

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Like Canberra, Washington DC or Islamabad

Visiting Putra Jaya Today we visited the city of Putrajaya, conceived as the administrative centre for the government.  It is packed with many buildings housing various government departments, mostly in very stylish Islamic and modern style. The city is reachable by rail from both KL Sentral and the airport where were putting up. Having worked […]

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Shop till we drop

We ate a curry breakfast at the low-cost terminal of the airport (near our hotel) before heading to the city (KL Sentral) on the bus.  Shopping is great in KL; good choice at reasonable prices.  It is a legal requirement to display prices unlike in Thailand or Singapore where the opening price will differ depending […]

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The Big Smoke & Obituaries

Above:  Do you think this newspaper has had a few Obituary pranks? We left Semporna for KL this evening via Tawau airport.  It is sad this marks the end of our adventure and the reality of work awaits. We’ll miss Semporna somewhat but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.  We like: the fact that it […]

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