BANGKOK, THAILAND

Today I decided to resume seeing some of the sights of Bangkok, and walked to Wat Pho, the city's oldest and largest temple, which is literally across the street from the magnificent Grand Palace. After visiting both, I have to say that Wat Pho is just about as spectacular as the Palace itself. It's a walled collection of temple buildings, courtyards, shrines and statues dating from the 16th Century, housing the country's largest collection of Buddha statues--hundreds, if not thousands, of larger-than-life golden Buddhas are everywhere, lined up side-by-side in glass cases around the complex. The temple also contains a myriad of other statues--people, horses, lions, pigs, you name it--as well as some impressive stupas, massive bell-shaped spires covered in colored ceramic tiles.

Wat Pho's main attraction, though, is the granddaddy of all the Buddhas: A 15-meter high, 46-meter long reclining statue covered in gold leaf, illustrating the Buddha's passage into nirvana. It's a behemoth! Even the soles of his feet are big enough to hold 108 mother-of-pearl scenes depicting the various laksana, or characteristics of a Buddha. In a word: Wow.

There's apparently a lot of restoration work going on at the temple, because there were all sorts of uniformed workers there with scaffolds and such. But I must have arrived during their lunch break, because dozens of them were sprawled out on the ground in various courtyards, fast asleep. I had to step over a couple of them--it really looked like some kind of weird Buddhist die-in protest!

Thai Pronunciation Tips:

• In the Thai language, "ph" is pronounced as a hard P, not F. So for example, "Wat Pho" is pronounced "Wat Po"; Koh Phangan is pronounced "Koh Pangan," etc.
• Thai names often have variant English spellings. Which is why you'll see "Ko San Road," "Kao San Road," or even "Khao Sarn Road."

BANGKOK, THAILAND

There's been a recent complication in our travel plans, as yesterday Chris received word that his mother is in the hospital after being diagnosed with cancer. As a result, he has wisely chosen to fly home to Boston to be with her for the next few weeks as the doctors determine the best course of treatment. Chris left Bangkok this afternoon, and should get to the states by Tuesday morning.

Hopefully in a few weeks we'll be resuming our journey through SE Asia, but right now things are a little up in the air about when Chris will be able to return. So in the meantime, my plan is to stay here in Thailand and maybe do a little traveling on my own. Obviously, this wasn't part of the original plan, so I haven't figured it all out yet, but I'm thinking of getting out of Bangkok in the next few days and heading to some of the beaches and islands of southern Thailand, if possible.

I'll keep everyone updated. Needless to say, my thoughts right now are with Chris, his mother, and family.

BANGKOK, THAILAND

I decided to take a break from travel planning and wander around the city on my own today. I started by walking down to the Mae Nam Chao Phraya, which is the river dividing Bangkok from the older city of Thonburi, and came to Santichaiprakarn Park, where a few locals were taking an aerobics class under the trees. Next to the park I stumbled upon some Bangkok history: The Phra Sumen fort, the best-preserved of two remaining 18th-Century forts along the river (originally there were 14). It's a big white hexagonal fortress with cannons still in place, built by King Rama I in 1783. You can't go inside, so I had to be content with taking a few pictures from the exterior.

I then caught a river ferry south to the City Central Pier, mainly to get a flavor of city life along the river. Strangely enough, the Chao Phraya reminds me a lot of the Thames, with lots of boat traffic and a combination of modern skyscrapers, broken-down houses, and the remnants of a once-booming shipping industry. Unlike the Thames, there are a number of colorful temples and mosques visible from the river, the most visually striking being Wat Arun, a Khmer-style temple named after the Indian god of dawn, covered in a mosaic of porcelain tiles.

I got off the boat at the City Pier just as a massive thunderstorm struck (it's definitely the rainy season here!), and opted to stay under cover. So I bought a ticket for a ride on the Skytrain, which Lonely Planet listed as a Bangkok "Don't Miss..." Which I don't really understand, since it's just a rapid transit system, not that different from MARTA. Anyway, I took it to Siam Station, where I wandered around Siam Paragon, an insanely upscale shopping mall complete with Ferrari dealership, IMAX theatre, multiplex, opera house, and even an Oceanarium in the basement. (Wha?) It was all a little too rich for my budget, so I didn't stay too long before taking the train and boat back to Khao San.

I HAVE DELETED A PARAGRAPH HERE AT CHRIS' REQUEST.

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Excerpt from a conversation with our taxi driver today:

Driver: "Where you from?"
Chris: "The United States."
Driver: "Oh.... You work for U.S. government?"
Me: "No."
Driver: "Um... You like Bush?"
Chris and Me: "No!"
Driver: "It seem to me.. like he is an idiot."
Me: "Yes, exactly."
Driver: "Where in U.S. you from?"
Chris: "Atlanta, Georgia."
Driver: "Oh yes, Atlanta."
Me: "You know where that is?"
Driver: "Yes. My brother live in North Carolina. Hendersonville!"

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Chris and I still haven't had a chance to see much of Bangkok, as we've been trying to get a lot of trip planning done while we're still in the big city. In order to save money, it looks like we'll be shifting our itinerary around a bit so that we spend less time in more expensive countries, and more time in cheaper ones. This is easier said than done, though, as it involves calculating plane fares, weather and average temperatures, tour costs, and the expense of changing some of the tickets we've already bought, as well as talking to travel agents and airlines and obtaining entry visas for a number of countries! It's a real headache, and we still have a long way to go before we figure it all out.

We did manage to take some time off this morning to visit Bangkok's Grand Palace, a 200,000-square-meter complex built in 1782 to house the royal residence and throne halls, government offices, and the famous Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The buildings within the walled complex are all incredibly ornate and detailed with colorful materials including gold, tile, stone, ceramics, and precious gems. There are statues everywhere of elephants and mythical beings, and there's even a miniature replica of Cambodia's Angkor Wat! The most famous statue, though, is the Emerald Buddha (which is in fact made of jade, not emerald). It sits atop a gilded throne in the ordination hall of the royal monastery, where it's visited by thousands of pilgrims each year paying their respects to the teachings of Buddha. We also visited the palace armory (hmm, would the Buddha approve?) and a museum featuring royal regalia, medals and coins.

Travel Tip #7: To be respectful, you're supposed to wear clothing that covers your elbows and knees when entering the Grand Palace and other temple sites. I did so today, but as the only long-sleeve shirt I have is a sweatshirt, I ended up nearly dying of heat stroke. In reality, they will let you in wearing a T-shirt, which I would highly recommend!

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Books I've read in the past week (hey, there's not much to do in the islands):

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown: I know, I must be the last person on Earth to have read this! I'd managed to avoid it for so long, but I finally figured I might as well see what all the fuss was about before watching the movie, which I've heard isn't that great. I have to say the book was entertaining, although of course now I'm curious about how many of the shocking "facts" in the book were just made up for the story.

Celtika by Robert Holdstock: Holdstock is one of my favorite fantasy authors, and this is part one of his latest trilogy, which unfortunately means it just sort of ends without a satisfying conclusion. It's not a bad book, although not quite up to his masterpiece Mythago Wood. Holdstock is an expert on combining myths and legends from different cultures and time periods in a really poetic way--this book actually mixes Arthurian legend with the story of Jason and the argonauts, which would be completely ridiculous in the hands of anyone else, but he actually makes it work pretty well.

The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke: Clarke may be the best science fiction writer of all time (with the possible exception of Jules Verne). I found this at a book exchange in the Perhentians, and although it's an early work, it holds up pretty well. It's interesting to see how he accurately describes virtual-reality computer games back in 1956.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: Had to throw in a classic. I thought this might be somewhat appropriate for an extended trip, although the setting is a little different from what I'm encountering in my travels! The style is brilliant--it's rambling and schizophrenic at times, but somehow it all holds together. Kerouac's travels with his buddies (who are all absolutely batshit crazy) remind me of road trips with some of my friends--should I be worried?

BANGKOK, THAILAND

We arrived in Bangkok last night, so I guess by now the world is my oyster. Or so the song goes, right?

Anyway, our original plan was to visit some of the beaches and islands in southern Thailand first, but Chris sort of lost interest in that after hearing from some other travelers that Ko Phangan wasn't nearly as nice as the Perhentians. And apparently it's the rainy season on the west coast, which might not be the ideal time to visit the beaches there. I'm a little disappointed, since these are some of the main tourist destinations in Thailand, although after a week on an island, I guess I could deal with a little city life.

Actually, so far all I've seen of the city is Khao San Road, where our hostel is. The street is a messy stew of restaurants, bars, street vendors, travel agencies, shops with fake merchandise, and huge crowds of grubby Western backpackers. It's a decidedly shabby crowd with a sort of third-world Spring Break atmosphere; Khao San is kind of like Bangkok's answer to Bourbon Street. Only I suppose on Bourbon Street, you're not likely to pass a vendor cart selling deep-fried water beetles, grubs and crickets.

MALAYSIA RECAP

Favorite Things About Malaysia:

• Diving at Sipadan.
• Elephants! And other assorted jungle creatures.
• Iced lemon tea.

Least Favorite Thing About Malaysia:

• Chicken bones. Is it really so hard to remove them before you cut the chicken up?

Biggest Surprise:

• 7-11s on every corner. There are more 7-11s in Malaysia than in the entire United States. (Okay, I just made that up. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's true; they're everywhere!)

PULAU PERHENTIAN KECIL, MALAYSIA

Yesterday Chris, Kimball, Gemma and I (and some Swedish woman) took an all-day snorkeling trip on a small boat, stopping at five locations around the two islands, with a break for lunch at the fishing village here on Perhentian Kecil. Lunch was quite entertaining due to one of the village goats, a young kid that went from table to table begging for scraps. Watching Gemma feed him strands of spaghetti was priceless. Another diner fed him a napkin, which was a bit cruel, although he happily ate it.

The snorkeling was pretty good, too: More turtles and sharks, sharks and turtles, that sort of thing. Chris and Gemma spent a lot of time today avoiding titan triggerfish, since they've both seen them get extremely territorial and try to bite divers (they get really large, and have big sharp teeth). There are a lot of them around here, but today they were all minding their own business, and we all avoided an unpleasant encounter. Funny how the sharks aren't frightening, but the triggers are!

Today: More snorkeling with Gemma and Kim, this time at D'Lagoon, just north of Long Beach. Even though it's pretty close to where we're staying, we hired a water taxi to get there, rather than hike for 90 minutes through the thick mosquito-y jungle. From there, we walked across to the west side of the island, to a place called Turtle Beach, but alas, no turtles! But I did see some big squid, one of which appeared to be laying eggs, which was a first.

Later we all had dinner at Panorama's restaurant, which turned out to be a little challenging, since we're all almost broke! We've been on the island over a week, and there are no ATMs here, so everyone is down to their last few ringgits. So we kept ordering cheap appetizers, then figuring out how much we had left--it was pretty funny. I guess it's good that we're leaving for the mainland tomorrow. Besides, I am all snorkeled out.

PULAU PERHENTIAN KECIL, MALAYSIA

Football Fever has struck the Perhentian Islands, and I'm sure the rest of Malaysia and the world as well (except for the U.S., of course).

By "football," of course I mean soccer, as the 2006 FIFA World Cup has begun, and will continue for the next month. All 64 games of it, live from Germany. So instead of the usual nightly big-screen movie, all of the restaurants here are showing back-to-back World Cup matches instead. Which from my standpoint makes things a little more boring, since I'd rather see Wedding Crashers, but whatever.

It's amazing to see how big a deal this is to everyone here--not just the Malaysians, but all the Brits, Swedes, Chinese, etc. who are visiting the island. All the international team fervor really makes it like the Olympics; very crazy. After all this hubbub, I actually started getting into it a little myself, but the only U.S. game this week was at 3 am local time, which I decided not to stay up for. Plus our team kind of sucks.

PULAU PERHENTIAN KECIL, MALAYSIA

Life here in the islands has been pretty agreeable; for the past few days it's pretty much been all diving, snorkeling, eating, sleeping, and reading, which ain't a bad way to spend a week!

The best diving was on Tuesday, when Chris and I, along with about eight other divers, did an all-day excursion to Pulau Redang, about 20 kilometers away. The reefs at Redang are a lot more pristine than the ones here in the Perhentians, with some massive staghorn coral forests, large sponges, and clusters of big anemones.

As I've traveled to different regions, it's interesting to see how the variety and concentration of sea life varies. In contrast to Sipadan, for example, the diversity of species in these islands is a lot lower, but certain species are in much greater abundance. Here there are incredible numbers of anemones and clownfish, for example, but you'll only see two or three kinds of angel fish (as opposed to the dozens of species I saw in Sipadan). The underwater landscape is very different here, too: Most of the coastline of these islands consists of massive boulders which spill down to the sea floor, creating some cool swim-through arches and caves, and providing hard surfaces for coral and giant clams to grow on.

Anyway, we dived at three locations at Redang, the most interesting being a place called Terumbu Kili. This was partly because I saw three decent-sized blacktip reef sharks there, but mainly because we had to abort the dive after a strong current caught us all by surprise and whipped us up, down, and all around like a washing machine! It was a good thing that nobody panicked, because it was a little hairy for awhile, but we all managed to keep our wits and ascend to the surface together (after a three-minute safety stop). After getting picked up by the dive boat, we then continued the dive in the shallows near the island, where there weren't any currents!

We had another little bad luck incident today when our dive boat's engine conked out en route to a dive site, and we had to be "rescued" by more boats--thank god for cell phones! No big deal; we just transferred to another boat and continued on to Temple of the Sea, a cone-shaped rock pinnacle covered in coral and anemones that's probably the most striking dive site in the Perhentians. There were a lot of fish there, and I got to see at least six bamboo sharks hiding under rock ledges, which was very cool.

And last Sunday we dived at a location known as Three Reefs on the east side of Perhentian Besar, which frankly was a little disappointing due to bad visibility, although there were three swim-throughs, which are always kind of fun.

Today is also Chris' birthday, so I bought him dinner and gave him the book Land Below the Wind by American writer Agnes Newton Keith, a somewhat famous account of her life in northern Borneo during the 1930s. (Okay, I had never heard of it before going to Borneo, but it's pretty well-known there.)

People met today:

• On our trip to Redang, we met a super-nice young British couple, Kimball and Gemma, who we've been hanging out with some since then. They're traveling the world for seven months, to many of the same destinations as us. As a matter of fact, they started their trip on the same day we did--January 15th--and were in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia around the same time as us, doing a lot of the same things! We've probably seen each other over the past few months; I suppose it was only a matter of time before we officially met....

PULAU PERHENTIAN KECIL, MALAYSIA

Chris and I hadn't worked out all the details of how we would get to the Perhentian Islands today, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I had anticipated: After taking an early morning flight from KL to Kota Bharu, we were waiting at baggage claim when we met a really nice French guy named Matthew, who as it turns out was going to the Perhentians for the weekend with his girlfriend. They had already arranged for a taxi to Kuala Besut (where the boats to the islands leave from, about an hour away), and a boat to the Perhentians, so Chris and I just shared the ride with them and took the same boat, which worked out great for everyone! They got off at the "big island," Perhentian Besar, while we were dropped off at Long Beach, on the "small island" just across from it, Perhentian Kecil. I had expected to be traveling for most of the day, but less than three hours after leaving KL, we found ourselves on a tropical island, on a beautiful crescent of white sand, surrounded by aquamarine water. Nice.

Our next mission was to find accomodation, which we weren't able to arrange before we left. There are about a dozen combination restaurants/bars/dive shops/bungalows strung out along Long Beach, but many of them were full because of the local school holidays. After asking around for a bit, we finally found a place to stay at Panorama Chalets (for "chalet" read: shack). After checking in, we then walked to Spice Divers, recommended by one of the dive shop guys on Gili Trawangan, about doing some diving while we're here. Of course we somehow found ourselves signed up to do a dive trip with them tomorrow morning....

Since we still had a good bit of the afternoon left, Chris and I did some snorkeling off the south end of the beach, a rocky point with a some patches of coral growing on the boulders. The visibility wasn't that great, and there weren't too many fish, but I did see a barracuda, a big porcupine fish, and a blacktip reef shark.

People met today:

• Matthew from France, who's been working in Kuala Lumpur for three months (he recently signed a two-year contract with his company). He and his girlfriend have been getting out of the city whenever they can and taking weekend trips to various places in Asia.
• Ben, who's not actually a person, but Long Beach's "pet" sea eagle. Apparently he can't fly, so he just hops around on the sand and perches on tables and chairs at one of the seaside restaurants. He looks pretty healthy, so I guess people feed him, although I haven't actually seen that. Anyway, every day he's on the beach all day and all night, all alone, looking dignified but perhaps a little lonely. Poor guy.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

Last night I decided to walk around the city, and found myself drawn like a moth to the brightly-lit Petronas Towers, ultra-modern twin skyscrapers that define KL's skyline, and which until a couple of years ago were the tallest buildings in the world. (They're also prominently featured in the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies). They're only about a twenty-five minute walk from the hostel, and they are really impressive up close. The interior was closed for the night, so unfortunately I couldn't go up to the top, or even up to the walkway that connects the two towers, but I took a bunch of photos from the street-level plaza in front of them. I have to say that as giant buildings go, the architecture is strikingly elegant; very Art Deco, with a hint of Muslim influence in the twin spires.

Today after having lunch at the mall a block from our hostel (they have a really good pan-Asian food court), Pete from the hostel was nice enough to drop Chris, Selena and I off at Kuala Lumpur's zoo for a couple of hours. It's not listed in our guidebooks as one of KL's must-see attractions, so I wasn't expecting great things, and... well, it's a good thing, because it wasn't really that enthralling.

Well, it's not that bad, and it's fairly large as zoos go, it's just a little old and in need of a makeover. And some of the exhibits were closed today (including the aquarium, darn it). Selena had wanted to see the bears, but was disappointed, because their cages were empty--it looked like they had all gone on vacation.

Still, it was good to see the animals that were there, which included some familiar faces from our time in the Bornean jungle: bearded pigs, silver leaf monkeys, civets, hornbills, and macaques. Actually, the macaques weren't in cages; they were roaming free, just swinging through the trees, and probably stealing food from all the caged animals! Hopefully they have enough sense to stay out of the tiger enclosure....

There was a slight bit of drama later on when 1) Pete was a half-hour late picking us up, and 2) on the way home we had a blowout! Pete's spare tire was damaged as well, but he decided to change it out anyway. Chris, Selena and I then took the monorail home, so he wouldn't have to carry our extra weight on a bad tire. It was a good chance for us to check out KL's monorail system, though, which is pretty nice.

People met today:

• Amer, a friendly guy of Indian heritage living in KL, who I had a good conversation with at the bar across from our hostel, and who later bought me an apple pie at McDonald's. Thanks, Amer!

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

Not much to report in the past few days; I think the most exciting thing for me was going to the movies a couple of days ago in Kota Kinabalu and seeing X-Men 3 (subtitled in Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia). I actually thought it was pretty good, although they keep killing off or neutering all the characters! I can't even imagine what the next sequel will be like, if they make one. But at least Colossus made it through this one unscathed--maybe he'll be the star of the next movie. Yes, I'd definitely see that one. :-)

Anyway, last night we flew from KK to KL, and took a long taxi ride to our downtown hostel, a slightly dodgy little place above a little restaurant right across from Planet Hollywood, and in the shadow of titanic hotels like the Marriott and the Regent. We didn't make it in until about 1am, and I immediately crashed.

Our original plan was to catch a bus to Kuala Besut today, then take the ferry to the Perhentian Islands. But all the buses were booked for days, so we instead reserved a flight there on Saturday--only about 50 bucks each, which wasn't much more than the bus, anyway.

In the meantime, we have a couple of days to kill in KL. I spent most of this afternoon walking around the city and bought a few books at Borders. Later on, the guy that runs the hostel, a personable chap named Pete, took Chris, myself, and a nice Irish lass named Selena who's staying at our hostel to a good local restaurant near his home. He then drove us by the Batu Caves, an impressive Hindu temple/cave complex on the side of a limestone mountain, with 272 numbered steps leading up to it. Outside is a HUGE golden statue of Lord Murugan (who he?), which was only completed in January of this year. When we got close to the statue, we saw that there were a bunch of macaques climbing all over its base! (What is it with monkeys and temples, anyway?) I would have liked to climb the steps to see the caves themselves, but we didn't really have the time. (Maybe tomorrow....)

KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

Our last day of diving at Sipadan, and of course the weather finally starts to clear up! I shouldn't complain, though, because it really was great to finally see the sun. It really makes things look much brighter above and below the surface, and apparently it also makes all the sea turtles come out of hiding! We saw a huge number of them today, both hawksbill turtles and green turtles, which made Chris happy, since he loves to take pictures of them.

At Sipadan, first we dived at "South Point," where I finally got to see a leopard shark. Very cool, although I didn't get to see it for long, as it immediately passed right by us and swam off into the blue. We also saw lots of reef sharks, some of which were resting on the bottom, which was interesting to see. Mando also pointed out some pink and white leaf scorpionfish, and at the end of the dive, we came across a huge school of hundreds of jacks endlessly circling a big coral head, with some reef sharks and absolutely massive giant trevally mixed in. A real fish stew...

Our last dive was back at the Seaventures "house reef," where Mando had promised to show me some ribbon eels. Sure enough, there was a blue one and a black one under the rig, sticking out of holes in the coral. One more trip to see the pygmy seahorse again, then it was back upstairs to get our stuff, say goodbye, and head back to Semporna.

We had planned to stay there overnight before heading back to Kota Kinabalu, but we had heard that the overnight bus was more comfortable, and somehow the idea of leaving Semporna early appealed to us, so that's what we did. The bus left at 7:30pm, and we arrived in KK at around 5:30am. It would have been fine, but the A/C on the bus was so cold that we almost froze to death! And all I had on were shorts and a T-shirt--Chris at least had a towel he could use as a makeshift blanket. But seriously, you could have stored ice cream in that thing.

SEAVENTURES OIL RIG, OFF MABUL ISLAND, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

Things were not looking good for diving this morning, as the skies were dark, the seas were getting choppy, and it was absolutely pouring buckets of rain when we got up. Damn! Nonetheless, after breakfast the rain let up a little, so we geared up, took the elevator down to the dive boat, and rode the waves to Sipadan, about a half-hour away. Ian and James came along, too, as James has his last two dives today before getting his cave diving certification. There's an extensive underwater cave system at Sipidan, apparently filled with the bones of dead sea turtles who couldn't find their way out! Not something I think I'd like to explore....

Sipadan is actually a really tiny island (see?), but it's unique in that it's an oceanic island (meaning, not attached to the continental shelf) that rises almost vertically over 600 meters from the sea floor. Actually, the whole structure is mushroom-shaped, wider at the top than at the base, which is very unusual.

And the scenery underwater really is world-class, even with horrible weather above. We dived first at "Barracuda Point," where of course there were a lot of barracuda, along with whitetip and grey reef sharks, schools of batfish, and other big pelagics. We also saw garden eels swaying above the sand, an octopus hiding in a hole, and a pair of really amazing harlequin ghost pipefish. These were different from the robust ghost pipefish we saw at Komodo, a lot more ornate and beautiful, although apparently just as rare. Luckily, they tend to stay in the same spot day after day, so Mando knew exactly where to find them.

We spent our surface interval on the island itself, which as I said before you can't stay on anymore, although the abandoned resort buildings are still there. We just hung out on the beach for a half-hour or so, along with lots of divers from other dive outfits. The rain was still coming down, and it actually got a bit chilly, although we had coffee and Milo to keep us warm.

Our second dive was at "Mid Reef," again at Sipadan, and here we saw more barracuda, some green turtles, and an absolutely massive giant clam. The scenery here was again really spectacular, with lots of soft and hard corals.

It was then back to the rig for lunch, and then our third and final dive of the day. This one was at nearby Kapalai, which is not really an island so much as a cluster of stilt houses on a sandbar. (For people familiar with Miami: It's like Stiltsville, only bigger.) Here we dived at a location called "Gurnard Ground," where Mando pointed out a couple of cool-looking crab-eye gobies and a porcelain crab hiding in an anemone. I also saw three different species of pipefish, and a large stonefish, which is the most venomous fish in the world. Don't piss one off--it can kill you! Also, I think it was here that I snapped a picture of two nudibranchs mating--I didn't realize it, but apparently this is a pretty rare thing to capture on film, as Ian was gobsmacked when he saw the picture later this evening!

SEAVENTURES OIL RIG, OFF MABUL ISLAND, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

That's right, you heard me: For the next three days, we're staying on an oil rig! Actually, it's an oil rig that's been converted into a dive resort. Pretty cool, huh? Oh yeah, that's the reason we made the journey to lovely Semporna yesterday: It's the nearest port to Sipadan Island, which Jacques Cousteau once referred to as "an untouched piece of art," and which has been ranked as one of the top ten dive locations in the world. There are no resorts on Sipadan anymore (the government kicked them all off--long story), so this is about as close as we can stay. The rig is just offshore from the island of Mabul, which itself is only a 25-minute boat ride away from Sipadan, and features some amazing diving, too.

What's even crazier about staying here is that Chris and I will be their only guests for the next three days! There were 19 others when we got here, but it was their last day, so now, apart from the staff, we have an entire oil rig to ourselves, complete with game room, sun deck (formerly the helicopter pad), and karaoke bar! How weird is that? And it's actually quite a comfortable place: The rooms are air-conditioned, the food is great, and there are hot showers and free internet. This place really seems like the Hilton after four days in the jungle at Uncle Tan's!

After arriving this morning via boat, we had a "welcome" briefing and then met the Seaventures dive team: Ian and James, both from the UK, and Mando, from the Philippines. Ian is about my age, and was formerly in the British army, while James is only 21, and currently working on his cave diving certification. Mando, who's dived at Sipadan for nine years and seems to be constantly in a good mood, will be Chris' and my dive master for all our dives. So it looks like we'll be in good hands.

Our first dive today was really a "check" dive to see how our diving skills were. So Chris, Mando and I were lowered by a lift platform (very convenient!) right into the ocean to dive at Seaventures' "house reef" directly below the rig. There's a good amount of metal, tires, and other junk down there, which the fish like to skulk around, so we saw quite a bit. For the first time, I got to see some crododile fish (a whole mess of them, actually), a cockatoo waspfish, and a tiny pink pygmy seahorse perfectly camouflaged in a pink sea fan. I also saw a cuttlefish, some colorful nudibranchs, and the usual lionfish, moray eels, stingray, scorpionfish, and butterfly fish. Chris was using his new digital camera and housing that he bought in Singapore, and got some good shots.

Our second dive of the day was a five-minute boat ride away, just offshore from Mabul, at an artificial reef made from wooden beams joined together in large scaffold-like structures. The site is called "froggy lair" as apparently it's the home to several frogfish, but we didn't see any this time--rats! But we did see plenty of grouper and snapper, a school of shrimpfish (which swim standing on their heads), a giant moray, a great barracuda, and a really huge pharoah cuttlefish (it must have been well over two feet long), which let me get within inches of it to take its picture.

This evening Chris and I had dinner on the huge sun deck, and were joined by Ian, James, Mando, and some of the other staff, who had bought some Tanguay (cheap Filipino rum) to share. Mando, who Ian refers to as the "human jukebox," then brought out his guitar and entertained us by singing dozens of songs--mostly '80s cheese rock (Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, and the like), with a few Malay and Filipino pop songs thrown in. It was a lot of fun, especially after several rum and cokes....

SEMPORNA, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

On our last morning in the jungle, we awoke to discover that the water level of the river had risen substantially during the night--it must have rained upstream, although it hadn't here. In any case, the camp was still dry, but the oxbow lake near the camp was, well, a lot nearer than it was the day before! So much so that the campers taking the early morning river safari were able to return from the river through flooded areas to the lake and get out right beside the camp. Very convenient!

We left the camp the same way, which was pretty interesting, because we had to navigate some really narrow jungle creeks under tall trees and hanging vines to make it out to the main river. It was a beautiful journey, though--just like the Jungle Cruise at Disney World!

Oh, I forgot: Right before we left, I took a short walk along the path to the river, and saw a snake swimming in the swamp! Surprisingly, snakes are rarely seen here (one guide told me the average was about once a month), although they do have some nasty ones around like spitting cobras and king cobras,. Yikes. I think this one was probably a harmless one like a mangrove snake, although I didn't get close enough to see for sure.

After being taken upriver and dropped off at the boat dock at Batu Puteh, Chris and I hiked up to the main road and caught a passing minibus to Lahad Datu, about an hour away. There we crammed into another van that took us southeast to Semporna--there ended up being 15 of us squeezed in there (with our bags),which made things more than a little crowded!

A couple of hours later, we arrived in the coastal town of Semporna, which had been described to me earlier by another traveler as a "shithole." Which is, in fact, a rather charitable description, if you've ever seen the place! Luckily, we had booked accomodation at the Dragon Inn, which is a large wooden hotel complex away from the main part of the town, set on stilts out in the harbor. You can actually see the water through the cracks in the floorboards, which is kind of exotic (if you ignore all the garbage floating by). There's also an adjacent seafood restaurant, also on stilts, with pens of live fish, lobsters, and crabs underneath. A nice idea in theory, although the harbor is dirty enough to make the idea of "fresh" fish pulled from the water more than a little distasteful to me. But since I don't eat seafood, that wasn't an issue--their sizzling chicken was excellent, at any rate. :-)

LOWER KINABATANGAN RIVER, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

The usual stay at Uncle Tan's camp is three days and two nights, but Chris and I decided to stay on for another day and night to see what else we could see. This proved to be a good idea, as today one of our guides brought us into the jungle to see a young male orangutan perched in a tree right above the path to the boat dock! (We had actually seen this same orangutan from a distance when we first arrived at camp, but he was so far away that we really didn't get a good look.) This time it was really great to get so close to a completely wild one in its natural habitat (as opposed to the semi-wild ones at the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre). It just sat in the tree watching us for awhile, then climbed to another, where it started ripping branches off to make a nest--they do this at least once a day, apparently.

Another cool new creature I saw today in the trees was a giant squirrel--which has a king-sized voice that goes along with its giant size. Man, that thing was loud! And compared to the pygmy squirrel I saw yesterday, this one was indeed a behemoth.

Other animals we spotted today on an afternoon boat safari: blue-eared and stork-billed kingfishers, proboscis, red leaf and silver leaf monkeys, and of course more macaques. It was also a hornbill-fest: We saw oriental pied hornbills, wrinkled hornbills, and a whole tree filled with about 20 giant rhinoceros hornbills. Really impressive birds, all.

At night, while all the new campers did another boat safari, I chose to do another jungle trek. And as it turns out, I was the only one who chose that option, so it ended up being just me and my guide Leo, trudging for an hour through the swampy jungle. Nothing really new tonight, just more tarantulas, tree frogs, and whip scorpions. (But it was fun.)