TravelStream™ news feed for member maleorderbride on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/maleorderbride en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:38:58 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195269540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195269540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195269540/tpod.html Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:38:58 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

I am not even sure what to write in this one. The only thing we did on Gili was eat sleep on the beach or near our pool, drink a little and party at the various bars on the beach every day. I tell you this with no word of a lie, i am going back sometime in my life to Gili!

Gili is fabulous, quiet, chilled out and the people are what made this place great. The locals are super friendly and not at all pushy. I only got punched once. Long story, and it wasn't my fault...I swear. The problem is, the guy was obviously under the influence of something a little stronger than booze. Its not the first time i have dealt with people like that....sometimes you have to TAKE more than you want to. Also when your dealing with locals in a small place, it can get pretty hairy. Best thing to do is walk away...and thats what i did.

On the positive side, we met some great people on the island travelling and local. One of my favorite nights was when a bunch of us were at this little bar and there was a live band playing stuff like Bob Marley and some Indonesian music...wow unbelievable. And when the night was over, two of our friends who worked at OUR resort busted out the guitar and started playing. I was so drunk by that time i was singing along songs i didn't even know the words to. We played almost until the sun came up....i could barely walk back to my hotel.

The next morning or sa couple hours later we got up for two hours of boating on some of the roughest water i've been on. "The sea was angry that day I tell you" No for real it wasn't that bad, but when your a tad bit hung over it seemed like twenty foot waves instead of three feet.

All in all a unforgettable island, and the plan now will be to head to the island of Flores and then Komodo. Komodo is where there are the infamous Komodo Dragons...yeah these things have been know to take down humans. They feed on deer and buffalo....no kidding. Hopefully we'll be lucky and see some.

Cheers to all
C
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195040820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195040820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195040820/tpod.html Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:24:26 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Denpasar, Indonesia

G'Day,

Well here we are in Bali, what a place. I probably start every one of my entries with "what a place" but its true Bali is a blast!! sorry for the alliteration, but it needed to be said. This place is definetely meant for travellers and holidayers. Which is both good and bad, for one thing you can litterally get anything you want here, you don't even have to ask for it. You walk down any street and there are countless people offering you things from massages, taxi's, time shares, rip-off watches and sun glasses to girls, and drugs. Its insane, you go into a market and walk into a shop and the merchants are litterally bagging the goods for you before you've even had a chance to look at it twice. I have never seen pushy salespeople like here, Thailand was nothing. After a while you learn to tune them out and life is la dee da.

Now don't get me wrong, I happen to love this place, the beaches are beautiful, there are endless great restaurants, bars and shops to keep you fat and happy. The people are amazingly warm and friendly, everyone says G'day Mate (major Auzzie influence here) and they call you boss. "Hey Boss," "wanna buy a watch boss," or my favorite " you want porno tape, DVD boss." Hahaha that was funny, because he started by asking me for a taxi ride and then leaned over close and offered me porn. And to those of you who would have the audacity to think i would accept...come on, of course not.

Our resort is amazing, huge pool in the courtyard complete with humping elephant statues that squirt water. The room is sweet, we are paying for the family room which has three beds, one queen and two bunk beds. Guess who got the top bunk...i lost paper, rock, scissors, oh well. For the room we pay about 60 bucks canadian per night for a beautiful room. Its really quite impressive, I think it might beat out ole' Uncle Chang's accomodations with the cockroaches and concave beds i'll tell ya.

From here, we go to Gili....now i don't know much about it but Corey J was there last year and he loved it. He said it was a chilled out island with lots to do and you can surf and just chill out. Sounds good to me....you know with this hectic schedule we have and all(sarcasm is pretty thick there). However all the drinking we have been doing, my liver would thank me if i did slow down a bit. (Don't worry mom, water I'm drinking lots of water too)

I am getting a couple photos on here, with my new camera and all it just depends on how fast these computers are.

Cheers
C
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194780540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194780540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194780540/tpod.html Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:49:31 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia

Well here we are in Malasia, we arrived about 4 days ago in Kota Kinabalu spent the night and the next day caught a flight to Tawau. We then jumped in a van and headed for the little town of Semporna...the gateway to Sipadan. Everything went pretty smoothly here in Malasia, the food is great, amazingly everything seems cheaper here than the Philippines. We spent the night in KK at a hostel and it was about $5 canadian per night. Nice place but pretty basic. Anyway not too much of interest to speak of there.

Once we were in Semporna, the prority was we had to find a hotel for the night then a dive company....we got our hotel with no problems....the dive company on the other hand was a bit of a problem. Every dive company seemed to be full, booked solid for a month. The ONLY one left was a local company by the name of "Uncle Chang's Dive Lodge."

On a side note, Sipidan is a national park, the gov't kicked the dive companies off the island back in 2004. All the dive lodges had to relocate in Semporna or a closer island named Mabul. Sipadan is run by the military and has only military personnel living there all the time. Dive boats some and go all day but can't stay on the island.

Anyway Uncle Chang's sounded a little hairy but we thought oh well, the diving is why were here, and how bad can the place be. The one place in Semporna that we almost stayed at had rats in the rooms...yeah we decided against that one. So after talking to the people from Chang's we got two days of diving all our accomodation and food for a super cheap price. Sounds great! We slept one night in Semporna and got up fresh and ready to go.

We jumped in a boat the next morning Mabul bound...about 45 minutes later and a torrential downpoor we arrived soaked and hungry. As we arrived we saw a small island surrounded by shacks on sticks sitting in the water, this was Mabul. It was kinda cool though, we docked right at the lodge. To put it mildly, Uncle Chang's had character...but we didn't know that yet. Regardless, we were hungry, wet and ready for anything. After we got our key for the room we opened the door and found a lovely room about ten square feet, three concave beds and a small fan on the wall, thats about it. We were CHANG'D!!(inside joke) Unfortunately Corey J. can't sleep unless its AC or really cool in the room. It was now obvious, we had to get really drunk so then it wouldn't matter what the room was like. It worked.

We walked round the island in about five minutes and found that there were some really nice resorts about, but none with the character of ours. There is about five hundred people living on the island...mostly Filippino. The island is filthy....garbage everywhere, we couldn't believe the polution on the island and in the ocean surrounding the island. Its truly amazing for a place that is only going to get more busy being the number three best dive site in the world. Every boat we went in over the three days had to stop at some point because the props got tangled with trash. I couldn't believe it.

Fast Forward to the diving...I will say only this, the diving was like nothing i have seen before. Massive turtles, reef sharks and a plethora of sea life. I will leave it at that, because i can't begin to account for everything we saw. But one thing I will mention is kind of funny, the story is Mike (Big Fantasy) is somewhat of what some would call an "air pig." He's a big guy, with big lungs and he can basically drain his bottle in a matter of minutes. After about twelve minutes on our first dive, he was on our Dive masters secondary air regulator. For the lamen people...Mike was now breathing off our Dive Masters air bottle because his was empty. It was the funniest thing to see, they looked like two turtles connected during sex. The best part was every dive was like that, Mike runs out of air and Amang(Dive Master) mounts him hahaha!! It became just a commonality.

Sipadan is a gorgeous island, there is a huge reef surrounding the island and the drop off is farther down than i could see. We went to Thirty meters, and all i could see was black below. The reef is a limestone wall covered in plants and coral that completely surrounds the island....quite magnificent.

Uncle Chang's turned out to be a truly memorable place to stay...i always say you can have a blast anywhere, you just have to have the right people. It was true, our last night all the people that work there and all of the travellers got together for a jam session, the drums and guitars came out and not to mention the "illegal" Filippino rum made a lengthy appearance. We all got absolutely destroyed the night before our last beautiful day. There was about 15 guests including us and about twenty locals there, unbelievable time. Anyway If i were to reccomend a place to stay when diving in Sipadan, it would be there at Uncle Chang's Dive Lodge. I guarantee no other "fancy" dive resort had as much fun as we did. The next morning was somewhat of a different story however. I think Corey threw up in his regulator at some point during the first dive.

Anyway that is about the recap for the last few days, the next step is to head to Kuala Lumpur for a day then make our way to Bali. From there who knows, wherever we feel like going i guess. There are lots of islands in Indonesia, shouldn't be a problem.

Take care, and to everyone thank you for the comments and emails, its nice to know someone reads these things.

Cheers
C

Sorry i have tonnes of pictures....unfortunately this computer can't download them....sorry!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195013940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195013940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1195013940/tpod.html Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:20:37 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Denpasar, Indonesia

Great place, lots of fun so far here
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194927480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194927480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194927480/tpod.html Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:19:10 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

NIce airport
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194668160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194668160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194668160/tpod.html Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:17:55 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Tawau, Malaysia

Nice place, not much to say
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194525360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194525360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194525360/tpod.html Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:38:02 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Nice place, cheap everything
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194171660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194171660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194171660/tpod.html Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:55:24 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Coron, Philippines

Mabuhay again,

So a recap is in order, We left Cebu City for Peurto Princessa. Upon our arrival in PP we decided to go north for a little village named El Nido. We jumped into a 4x4 toyota with a driver named William bound for El Nido. A side note is we couldn't fly to El Nido from PP because they only have two flights a week, and one was earlier that day and the other was in three days....no good. So we drive, its supposed to take 6 hours on a good dry day, now keep in mind the distance is only 50 or so kilometres. Yeah bad road your thinking...that doesn't begin to explain it. Not only that, the rainy wet season is late this year...were in it full force So here is the story:

We left at noon from Puerto Princessa, William our trusted professional driver assured us the trip was 6 hours. Perfect, we thought nothing of the fact we NEEDED a 4x4 to get there, no big deal, a few pot holes and some mud right? For most of the trip, the road was good, William would speed up to 120kmh on the straights and hit the brakes for every corner down to about 50. His horn was the focal point of his driving ability. He beeps it every time you pass people or other vehicles on the road. Constantly on the horn, thats normal for Asia anyway, but Willy really likes his horn. Pedestrians absolutely do not have the right of way here either, we would zing past people and children going a hundred when they are only a few feet away.

Anyway, the trip pretty much went like that the whole way, there was periods of paved roads then gravel or dirt than mud. The best part was when the road got washed out by rain, so we had to take a detour into the nearest river....yes i said river. You know your not in Kansas anymore when you use the river as a road. Yeah, i'm sure if we were back home, Environment Canada would be loving that. Amazingly the river didn't get too deep, we were only up to the doors or so.

So we went down the "river road" for a half kilometre or so before William realized we missed the real road, so we turned around and Willy gunned it up this mud filled road. Now to paint a picture in your mind, this mud road had ruts deeper than the wheels of our truck....needless to say we got high centered and clearly we were now going nowhere. Completely stuck. Willy cursed for a while as he tried to navigate out of there, but as those of us know that have been stuck before....we were f%&*ed!

Willy got out into the several feet deep mud and went for help. Mike, Corey and I sat there in disbelief. Disbelief then became laughter, a multitude of pictures soon folowed. We tried to help push to only get a new mud suit. We were covered in mud, in our hair face clothes everywhere....though Silva managed to stay surprisingly clean i might add.

Willy came back with some new friends, a large truck came to our rescue. The gentlemen tried several different(questionable) methods of retrieval to no avail. The chain that we had been carrying actually blew apart when it was used to pull. But these creative philippinos tied the chain together in a granny knot and then tried again....it worked. I didn't see of course, i was quite a ways away in fear of chain shrapnel.

The trip went on and William got us to El Nido safe and sound only an hour or so behind schedule. However not bad considering a frenchmen told us the next day his trip took 14 hrs because his 4x4 actually flipped over. Apparently it was the trip from hell. Ours was just entertaining as hell! overall that was definately the way to go, it was double the price of flying, but we saw tonnes of the countryside and saw how the villagers live outside of the larger centers.

So El Nido is a cool place, very chill and an absolute beauty! This place reminds me of Krabi in Thailand with the georgeous islands everywhere and the beautiful beaches and ocean. I can see El Nido changing for the worse in the next ten years of so with the development and such. The locals probably getting pushed back from their beaches to make room for bigger "nicer" resorts. It is an amazing place and some of the islands we visited were so beautiful, its hard to explain them. hidden beaches and lagoons and snorkelling to die for. Actually i would have to say the snorkelling was better than the dives we did. We saw turtles and lots of various fish.

Anyway off the topic its been hilarious, Silva has many a nickname over here, he has gone from the bizzare "Van Helsing" to Vin Diesel, to Big Boy and our new favorite "Big Fantasy." Yeah some kid as we were walking by said "hey Big Fantasy" as he held his hands in such a manner as to say wow you have really big boobs! hahahaha Jubes and couldn't stop laughing!!

The other funny thing is every person we have met are seemingly scared of Mike....every time he tries to say hello to someone the people look away or are intimidated or something. He gets no response from anyone. We like to say when one of us gets that "we got Silva'd."

Anyway we are in Coron now, supposed to be beautiful wreck diving here. An entire Japanese fleet of war ships were sunk back in WWII scattered in the area. There are daily dives to lots of them. We are booked for two tomorrow, should be amazing, we actually get to go inside them. the depth of one of the ships is about 30 metres(100ft)

Anyway enough yapping, sorry no pictures....camera officially bit it, i cannot take anymore photos for the trip. Sucks big time, but Corey and Mike still have theirs. thanks to Paul, you are probably right....sand and sea water would take its toll.

So everyone take care and talk soon.

C
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194408480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194408480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194408480/tpod.html Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:37:39 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Manila, Philippines

Palawan was beautiful, have to say that El Nido was the most beautiful, but Coron's wreck diving was spectacular. All in all a deffinate must for anyone travelling to the Philippines.

So here we are back in Manila, wow what a place! No not really, Manila is not really my kind of place, smoggy, busy and everywhere you go to eat or drink you get hassled by the local children or junk peddlers. Just like The Lonely Planet says, the taxi drivers are employees of Satan in the ninth circle of hell, they are bloodsuckers. The kids on the street won't leave you alone, they crowd you when your walking and ask for money. Its not their fault of course, its their families who have them out there doing it. Its really quite sad, but the problem is is that you see it everywhere and after a while its a bit bothersome. We never give them money for two reasons. 1st is that the money is most likely not going where it needs to go, and 2nd is that we would be contributing to the problem. The more they succeed, the more they are going to exploit these kids.

Anyway on a side note I learned a valuable lesson yesterday, we arrived in our hotel yesterday to find a new appliance in our bathroom, a bidet. Apparently when using a bidet...their is a temperature setting....hot AND cold, yeah...i more or less scalded the ole ring. not pleasant to say the least. So for future reference....check that you don't have JUST the hot water turned on in a place that uses an electric heater to heat the water. That is the only advice i have....i don't usually use these appliances, but i thought it would be a nice change. Not so much.

So today we are off to the Malaysian side of Borneo, the diving around the Sipidan area is supposed to be one of the top few spots in the world at the moment. We have talked to some people that recently went and they all said the same thing....fantastic! So off we go, we were originally going straight to Indonesia (Bali), but the flights were quite expensive. Once we are there, the flights to Bali shouldn't be too bad.

Other than that, Corey and "Big Fantasy" are great, Mike continues to intimidate the locals and Corey continues to attract all the ladyboys.

Talk soon.
C
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194258600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194258600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/maleorderbride/phillindo-2007/1194258600/tpod.html Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:06:27 -0500 After blowing my summer working too much, myself and a couple buds are off to the Phillipines and Indonesia for a trip of Diving, surfing and what ever else comes our way.

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Coron, Palawan, Philippines

Well heres the skinny....We hooked up with this diving resort called SeaDive, which happens to be in a great location. The resort sits atop pillings right over the bay, the only problem is there is a huge karaoke bar about 1 hundred metres away. THE ABSOLUTE WORST SINGING I have ever heard comes from that place, not to mention the worst music along with it. It can be heard from our hotel room, restaurant, and bar until 10:00 at night. The Philippinos love their Videoke. Its all good though, it sort off adds a bit of amusement to any situation. Its great when your talking and there is a lull in the conversation and all you hear is a Philippino belting out lyrics to a Creed song.

Anyway, Corey and I went to do a few wreck dives today. Silva decided not to do one when he found out that we actually go in the ships. A rather thin American girl was telling us that she dove a wreck the day prior and that she found it tight to navigate through some of the openings. That was it Mike decided it wasn't for him. As some of you know Mikey is not a small lad.

Anyway the dives were quite frankly unforgettable! The first one was a war ship that had been bombed by American planes and torpedoed by submarines. The ship was intact, and laying on its side however was littered with large holes. The bottom of the ship sat at about 32 metres(more than 100 feet). To give you an idea of the size of the ship...it would have been 100metres or so in length. It seemed huge, but it was small compared to the other one we dove today. We went through the different rooms and compartments of them both....very cool. I hit my head a few times on some of the openings....its tough to figure out distances under water.

We also saw a large turtle not an arms length away and tonnes of fish. I have to say it was one of the best dives i have done in my life thus far.

Anyway, the plan from here on in is unclear...we are having some trouble getting flights to Indonesia. They just aren't seeming to line up as we had hoped...nevertheless we will make due and there are no wasted days even if you are not where you want to be. We may have to spend more time than we wanted in the bigger centers ie. Manila and Jakarta. oh well, we have been talking about going and renting caddies and going golfing at one of the Manila golf courses....should be fun considering none of us are golfers.

So there it is, this dirty little town doesn't have much other than diving to do, but I have been able to update this pod more often. Hopefully we can get out of here tomorrow, i was hoping to stay one more day to dive, but its not working out that way. Either way, there is always a better destination down the road.
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