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Hello to the world’s best diving

Picture above courtesy of Tony Li. Arriving in Kuala Lumpur for our Transit We were advised to go to the Transfer Desk to find out about our connections. But I had retrieved our booking online and knew that we were on the 0650 to Tawau (a day later than booked). The queue at the Transfer […]

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Nightstop and recovery flight

Following our emergency landing at Brisbane, immigration was fairly orderly and I received the luggage around 0040, just over an hour after landing.  Considering we landed at an airport which the airline didn’t operate into (and didn’t have their own or contracted staff), things went quite smoothly. Ground staff directed us to wait at Coffee Club […]

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Emergency landing

We arrive into Gold Coast about 10 minutes behind schedule. The transit was uneventful and thankfully my duty free gin from Auckland made it through security without being confiscated (met all the requirements of tamper-proof transparent bag with receipt inside). A new crew welcomed us aboard.  The purser started his announcement but then realised he […]

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By the sea

Today, friends Tim and Elena invited me to join them for a drive to their beach property near Lundu.  They had at one stage thought of building there but for now, there is no building there.  It was a lovely outing to get away from the hustle and bustle of Kuching.  

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Riding the North Borneo Railway

I had always wanted to ride on the North Borneo Railway (the only rail service in Borneo) but when I last checked, it was not operating. The tracks were supposedly being refurbished and I expected the service would die a quiet death but surprisingly it was back in operation. I had thought of taking Uber […]

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Back to Borneo

I woke before the alarm at 0530 and hopped to check-out. I told the frontdesk to hold off entering my departure into her system so I could continue to use the wifi to order a Uber cab. Unfortunately there was already a small surge pricing at 0600; it would be more expensive than an honest taxi […]

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Back to Manila & parting thoughts

Above:  My decorated tricycle to the airport. Back to Manila With my flight at 1415 and an 1100 checkout, I took it easy in my room.  My congestion was getting worse but it wasn’t bad bad.  I had a light breakfast of muesli and took my last saltwater (probably brackish rather than pure saltwater) shower […]

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Another lazy day

I had set the day aside free for lazing around, doing an excursion I hadn’t thought of or in case the previous days had been wet.  But with my flu growing I decided to do nothing.  In any case, the only excursion remaining around here were: an Island Hopping trip including dolphin watching (from boat), […]

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Balicasag Island

If you’re staying at Panglao Island near Alona Beach, you will have countless dive operators to choose from that can take you to Balicasag Island for diving.  I did two dives at Balicasag with Go Scuba at Alona. Their office is just on the right as you walk down to Alona Beach from the main road. […]

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Two easy dives

Above:  Dinner by the sea. It was good that I had picked today to go diving (read about it here).  I started getting a sore throat yesterday and today it was starting to burn while a little bit of mucous was starting to trickle down my throat.  No sinus congestion, blocked nose or ears yet. […]

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