Looking after Children

Locals
Feeding time
Count the carp

Floating market - but only a replica

The weekend came around and Saturday was a trip to Safari World. I had a bit of a moral dilema with this one as I do not agree with the exploitation of animals and when you start dressing up orangutans in clothes it is just plain wrong. Skipping this dilema and apologising for paying money for the profiteering of this exploit Irene did enjoy herself and hopefully learned a little bit about animals, and maybe the park is doing some good - I will have to check in on this.

Children in Thailand have quite a lot of freedom for running around, wondering off and doing their own thing without the ever constant gaze of their parents - or at least Irene seems to. She will be with you one minute and off doing her own merry little thing the next. Which is all well and good when you are in areas that you know and when her mum is there to be the controlling influence, or at least to take the responsibility. However, leave me in charge and it is cause for a few more grey hairs when she goes wondering off in the middle of the Safari Park, not to be seen for the next 30 minutes, and she has to be called over the park's intercom to be found. Needless to say, Irene was quite happy checking out all the parrots in the bird area and was not at all perplexed that she was on her own. I on the other hand was worried sick and will probably not be on babysitting duty ever again :-)

Lazy

Take the skytrain to avoid the horrendous traffic
A stadium of beer cans - not sure if they are full!

Irene has gone back to school so apart from a couple of afternoons where I have been busy looking through school books, playing on cbeebies website and generally being a seven year old I have had some time to myself and to explore Bangkok. My exploring has taken me..................erm, well, nowhere in particular. I have been enjoying the 'freedom' of not travelling, not moving from one destination to the next and the delights of sleeping, reading, having a fridge, lazing by the pool and the odd trip to the gym. Such a hard life but someone has to do it. I have broken up my laziness with a few wonders around Bangkok, taking in the many, many many, shopping malls, markets, outlets, street stalls etc etc etc. If there is one thing you can do in Bangkok it is shop. Not that I have been buying. Things are not as cheap here as they were in Malaysia and in the Philippines, although I think there is greater variety in Bangkok, and you can get a bargain. The problem with clothes is that a lot of the cheaper places and market stalls where you can pick up some good things you cannot try things on, and I am not exactly the same shape as a Thai so I have abstained. It is also rainy season here so although you can start the day with glorious sunshine odds are at some point during the day it is going to rain, and it is going to rain hard. The good thing about the rain is that it makes the temperatures a little cooler and when it does rain it is not cold, but you just get soaked to the bone. With the rain also comes some amazing thunder storms and it is rather exciting to sit, inside in the dry, and watch the lightening across the Bangkok skyline and duck as the thunder crashes so loud above you that you think the sky is about to fall in.

Food

The happy family

Out to dinner - this is squid

BBQ or fried - your choice

Are they just leaves?

It is lovely to be able to wake up and open the fridge and have a selection of cereal for breakfast and nice fresh cold milk, but I cannot survive on cereal alone and no trip to Thailand is complete with sampling the tasty food. The vast majority of restaurants in Bangkok, even in the outer areas, have menus in English as well as in Thai so it is quite easy to order something that you want, though it is always quite exciting just pointing out something and taking pot luck. [Note to self: if you have a choice between something green and something red go for the red - although it seems to go against logic green chillies are often hotter than red.] It is also fun walking around the markets and seeing everything that is available and there is always something to eat or something cooking everywhere you turn. Having a Thai, Rung, my sister in law, to guide you makes it all the more enjoyable and informative - it also helps to get you samples of things before you buy - or not in the case of some rather hot dishes.

Seven

Fantasy land at Dreamworld

Snow white's house

Irene and me at the park

Out on the pedalo

Introduction to aquatic life

Oh to be seven years old again!

My first week in Bangkok has past with a blur, the first time in ten months that I will be based in one place for a month or more and I have been running around like a headless chicken. Okay, not quite running as it is far too hot for that kind of activity but it hasn't been like a week on the beach sunning myself and relaxing :-) I have had to find somewhere to stay as my brother has just moved and not only would there be no room for me at his place but everything he owns is in boxes and piled in every space available. I have found myself a lovely studio, equipped with a little kitchenette so I get to buy milk and eat cereal for breakfast - I really cannot get used to fried egg and rice - and have lovely cold drinks whenever I like - though that does mean I have to go shopping and buy them! There is also a gym and a swimming pool and it is very close to a skytrain station so getting about Bangkok is a doddle.

Sorted with accommodation I make the most of Irene being off school until next week and we get busy doing things that 7 year olds like to do - we go to the park, we play on the swings, we feed the fish, we go out on a peddalo (oh my these are hard and sweaty work!), we use my swimming pool and splash about until our fingers are wrinkly and I am cold - I am in Bangkok and I get cold! We then spend a day at a theme park and get to see giants and 4d adventure shows - not for long as 7 year olds can get quite scared. We feed cows and goats and get to see snow whites house and sleeping beauty, we go on rides - I am glad Irene is only 7 as I cannot do fair ground rides that go round and round - and we even get to have a snow ball fight in an indoor snow room. I enjoy playing and hanging out with my niece and I sleep very well in the evenings.

Bangkok

Irene my niece

The bad news is - I am at my final flight destination before my flight back to the UK, but the good news is - I have over 2 months before that flight home, I will still need to visit another country before I return home as I am only allowed to stay in Thailand for 30 days as a tourist and I have met up with my brother, sister in law and my beautiful niece. I plan to spend as much time as I can with my niece while I am here so I am not sure what I will have to update to my blog other than trips to the park, visiting snow white's house and generally playing the child etc. But do log in every now and again as I am sure I can do some local or touristy things while she is at school.

The perfect souvenir

I have found the perfect souvenir from my travels. It is functional, eco friendly and it will not shrink in the wash. I have bought re-usable shopping bags from Borneo and Hong Kong. Every time I visit my local supermarket when I am back at home I can take my shopping home in my bags from across the world, which will remind me of my travels as long as help in saving the planet from plastic bags. The hunt is now on to find one from Thailand.

Macau

Las Vegas on the edge of China

Casinos everywhere

The old....

....and the new???

Balconies to sing from

Forts to defend

Ruins

Chinese street

Plazas

Turbojet

Where Portugal meets Las Vegas on the edge of China! A day trip from Hong Kong the turbojet ferry whisks you across the sea in just over an hour to reach Macau. Like Hong Kong, Macau is part of China but is deemed a separate territory and hence no visa is required to enter, though you do have to travel with your passport and I did get another exit, entry and re-entry stamp to show for my journey. They also use their own currency, however, thankfully everywhere takes the Hong Kong dollar as well. The Portuguese developed the area and have left their mark with European buildings and plazas and the official language here is still Portuguese, along with Chinese. The buildings and ruins aside you still know that you are not in Europe, the side streets are busy selling weird and wonderful things, and little eateries dot every other shop, all very Chinese. To attract the modern day tourist, or just the modern day gambler, there are masses of casinos here and they seemed to be doing a roaring trade. The games I saw being played were very different from anything I had seen before, no black jack or roulette, and the gambling areas were very smokey so I did not hang around for long. Macau is also home to the biggest casino in the world, the Venetian, and although I had watched a National Geographic programme on how it was built and really wanted to see it, it is located on a different island and I was too tired by the time I had seen the rest of Macau so I will have to leave that for another visit!!!

Interlude

I am back in Hong Kong for a few days before I fly to Bangkok.

I have just had a picnic in the park with crusty fresh bread, baked without any sugar, borsin cheese, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and fresh pineapple for dessert. How heavenly.

I also no longer appear to be a back packer. With a sarong, towel and a few t-shirts and then a wet suit, fins and booties purchased in the Philippines, a few souvenirs purchased in Borneo and just a little bit of retail therapy here in Hong Kong, I have gone from having one very reasonably packed 12kg back pack to a very heavy, thoroughly stuffed back pack plus a suitcase, which had to be bought to accomodate the excess. I hope my brother doesn't mind storing my junk in Bangkok!

Tough to get used to

My adventures in Borneo have come to an end. What a lovely green and diverse island, with such flora and fauna, above and below the ocean. Brunei is a bit of an oddity sat in the middle of northern Malaysian Borneo, but there is a distinct cultural difference here and the mosques were certainly the grandest I saw in Borneo. Sarawak is a far more laid back and casual place than Sabah and the people seemed just a touch more friendly. Sabah is fast becoming a destination for the rich - Malaysians and foreigners. A lot of the things to do are by arranged tour only and with this prices can sky rocket. There are still many cheap places to sleep and eat but it can be quite difficult to self travel to some of the more popular areas.

Some things that it would take me a long time to get used to, both here and in the Philippines are:
The humidity - I would say the heat as well but it is not much hotter here than in the Caribbean, though the difference being I was more often than not sat in an air conditioned office in the Caribbean. The humidity is bad, or at least the constant covering of sweet is just yukky!

Spitting - this just makes me cringe. Car drivers will wind down their window and gob on the street and people walking along will clear their throat and then spit it out on the road - just horrible.

Smoking - as mentioned before, there is far more evidence of smoking in public here than in the UK, though Borneo wasn't quite as bad as the Philippines - at least smoking is prohibited on public transport.

Cuts of meat - chicken always seemed to be the safe choice when chosing a dish but I hate to have to pick through my food and when you ask for chicken is is more often than not on the bone and it could be any part or combination of parts of the chicken.

Squat toilets - most places had a choice of squat or western toilets, though some places, mainly bus stops, only had the squat option. We just were not brought up to do it like this. Where are you supposed to put your bag, and it is even worse when you have a rucksack as well!

All the beautiful and extremely thin women. Okay, so at 5ft4 and xxxlbs, I'm not exactly a giant but hey I've been eating the same diet as them for the last 12 weeks or so and I'm still not a stick. At least here, unlike in Ecuador, the men are rather good looking too :-)

Turtles

How could I forget to mention the masses of turtles that were at Sipidan? They were mainly big green turtles and in the afternoon dives there would be at least 15 in sight at any one time. They would be sleeping on the reef, resting in nooks and crannies, swimming into each other, going up for air, diving down into the depths and generally just 'raining' down on us at every turn. Cool!

Sipidan

Crystal clear water

Me and my dive buddies

Sipidan Water Village

Roughing it!

Surface interval

I have been spoilt for the rest of my travels! This is a dive destination that has been near the top of my list for quite a while, and to make it extra special I was treating myself to a stay in a rather fancy resort, a resort built on stilts over the water. Everything was just perfect. Beautifully calm seas, blue skies, amazing visibility and clarity underwater, great sightings, a lovely bunch of dive buddies, a fabulous room and great food. The sun shone on every dive and the light just sparkled off the reef and the mass of life that was living on it. I have seen massive schools of jack fish, barracuda, bumphead parrot fish and spade fish, I have seen many white tip and grey reef sharks and I have seen cuttle fish, pygmy sea horses, ghost pipe fish, long nose pipe fish, leaf fish, ribbon eels, moray eels, scorpion fish, big and small, stone fish, crocodile fish, shrimps and crabs, big and small and much more besides. On one dive I watched as a white tip reef shark hunted and devoured an octopus. The shark had is head in a hole and was thrashing about frantically with sand going everywhere. After a little while it gave up and out of the hole emerged the octopus, rather shaken and minus a tentacle. The octopus started to creep over the reef and then started to free swim over the reef, the shark came back and in one gulp the octopus was inside the sharks mouth. Ink from the octopus was everywhere and the shark continued to circle around with just the end of the octopus's tentacle sticking out of its mouth. Not something you see everyday! Awesome!

A birds eye view

Mount Kinabalu from the plane

Back to KK, long enough to get a hair cut, and then onto Tawau on the eastern side of Sabah and the gateway to the islands of Sipidan, Mabul and Kapalai, for more diving. The flight takes you over Sabah, and after a fabulous view of the top of mount Kinabalu above the cloud the view turns into a rather sadder sight. There was far more evidence of the logging industry flying over Sabah than I had seen in Sarawak. Huge areas of rainforest had been cleared and all that was left to see was networks and veins of logging tracks. Just when I thought the destruction wasn't as bad as I had first thought, as I was starting to see more areas of green I realised that the green I was seeing was a little to regimented and a little too uniformly green. What I had taken for rainforest was enormous plantations of palm trees, palm trees being grown for palm oil. Rainforest destruction is most definitely a reality.

Layang Layang

Layang Layang

Time to dive

Surface interval

Weight restrictions

Been diving! Been spoilt rotten with lovely accommodation and all inclusive food - oh to eat milk and cereal for breakfast to eat fruit and fresh veggies every day. The schedule was a tough one - eat, dive, rest, dive, eat, rest, dive, rest, eat, rest, sleep and then a bit more of the same the next day. Layang Layang is an island one hours prop plane flight north west ,ish, from Kota Kinabalu. It has been fought over for a number of years, due to the prospect of oil supplies, and ended up in the possession of Malaysia who now have a navy base firmly planted on the island, along with a dive resort and a few thousands birds and that is pretty much it. As the flight was on a prop plane, on check in, not only did my bags need to be weighed but I also had to stand on the check in scales - I'm happy to report that my weight is quite satisfactory, thank you! The diving was good and the focus hear is on hammerhead shark sightings. The morning dives were often out to a point where you dive in the blue hoping to see a hammerhead, or if you are lucky a school of them. I saw the odd one swim by but they were quite deep and then I got to see a school of 15 (ish) - always an awesome sight. The reefs were healthy with plenty of life but unfortunately it was nesting season of the infamous trigger fish, thankfully only in specific areas of the reef. The trigger fish guards it's nest with ferocity, and not only it's nest but an area above it's nest in an ever expanding cone shape. If you happen to swim into its area it will attack with a very viscous bite - and it is not a small fish. The only thing you can do is avoid the area and if you happen to swim into it you need to get out pretty damn quickly - and not upwards as this remains in the 'zone' and the trigger fish will continue to harass you. I am pleased to report no injury.