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2009 Day 1: Sibuan

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 […]

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Gateway to the best diving

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 … […]

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Cheap Diesel & BUM Equipment

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 […]

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Tuning in to KK

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 […]

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Driving directions from a blind man

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 […]

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Home with family

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.  

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How to pee

I was pleased to see the back of Aden and its humidity … give me the cool dry highland … I love Sana’a at 7000 ft. On the road from Aden back to Sana’a it was interesting to see how men should pee in Yemen. Well, I had known this before but had somehow forgotten. The […]

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Exploring Aden

On paper (or in a guidebook) Aden may seem to have quite a few attractions but there’s not much to see apart from the Aden Tanks. Of course, there’s beer (which isn’t quite me) and the beach. Text continues after this gallery.     For some reason we chose the difficult way to go swimming […]

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Little Britain

Above: We bought three seats at the back (3rd row) for the both of us. So there were only nine people including the driver in the Peugeot estate. We took a shared taxi down to Aden in the afternoon … the port city was part of the British empire and has a very different feel […]

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Strawberries from Chernobyl

We were worn out from our travels and spent a bit of time resting in bed in Taizz.  We wandered around the market for the rest of time.  Most noticeably were the fluoro-pink drinks that were being sold.  I think they are strawberry shakes made from strawberries grown in Chernobyl!  

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