Samporna

Dad and I flew to Tawau then took a van the 1 hour ride to Samporna. Our accomodation are VERY basic. (Eric, I think this beat Sam Tillits) It's the place associated with our dive company. Three double beds with just a bottom sheet and light blanket in a concrete room (painted red) and a bathroom. The bathroom is like the one at mom and dad's place (not as nice though). It's all tiled with a toliet and sink, then a shower head and drain. So the whole bathroom is the shower and everything gets wet when you turn on the water. The water heater in our bathroom is broken, as is the TV. There is no shade for the window and if we want to adjust the A/C we have to go to the front desk, borrow the remote, change the temp and take the remote back. We are on the ground floor and they showed a football match on the lobby TV really loud until midnight last night. I had in my earplugs and it still felt like I was sitting right there watching it. I'm just giving you the details- not complaining. :)

Today we dove at Sipidan Island. We first went to Mabul to drop off some people. Both islands are incredibly beautiful. I'll post pictures later, as this computer is really bad (also in the hotel- but it's free). The boat ride out there was as interesting as anything. Houses on stilts were lining the bay as we left Samporna, and then just sporadically out in the water. I have no idea how they would build them, or why. Seems like such a lonely life- raising you family in a house on the middle of the ocean. Although, if they are a like other families I've seen in Malaysia, cousins, in-laws, grandchildren will all be living there. So maybe it's too many people rather than not enough.

The diving was good, but not what I thought. There are supposed to be a ton of sharks (hammerheads, leapord sharks, etc.) We only saw one White-tipped Reef shark all day. But we saw a ton of turtles! Even sitting in the boat you could see the turtles surfacing everywhere. There were a ton of fish and the reef was cool.

Sipidan is shaped like a mushroom, so you dive down then a little under the island to dive the wall. I did face a fear and dive in a cave. We did not have flashlights so we didn't go in very far. I rented a camera and can pick up a CD of my photos tomorrow morning (posted below). We were driving to our final dive site (3 dives today), and I thought I saw a funny bird skimming the water. It turned out to be flying fish. They are cool, and fly a long ways before going back in the water. I also saw some birds, Frigate Birds mostly but I don't know which kind.

Oh- here's something interesting. On the first dive I heard a huge boom underwater. It startled me. There was another one a few minutes later. Back on the surface I learned it was fishermen using dynamite. I thought that only happened on cartoons. :)

We came back to a refreshingly cold shower and decided to walk around town before deciding where to eat dinner. I thought this was mostly a backpacker/diver town, but that just this little road we are on. It's right by the water and has a number of dive shops and cheap accommodations. But as soon as we left this street, it was like no other white people existed. We walked through the market and got this yummy fruit a couple from Denmark introduced us to today. I can't remember what it's called. It's about the size of a plumb, but you peal it kind of like an orange, the slices are white/clear, and it tastes a little like a pear but juicier. We paid less than a dollar for a whole sack of them. The kids around here are so cute. They all want to practice their English so everywhere we go kids are yelling "Hello".

We found a yummy little place to eat right on the water. We couldn't decide what to try so we just ordered a lot. I had a fresh honey-dew juice to drink and sipped it as we watched the most amazing sunset over the water and stilt-homes. As we were walking back we saw what looked like a shop down an alley. We walked down there and it was all the fisherman selling their catches from the day. It was cool- but I would have been scared there by myself. So another night in the noisey hotel. I think I'm too tired to care much tonight. Man, I need a good yoga class to stretch these achey muscles! Tomorrow morning we drive back to Tawau, then fly to Kota Kinabulu to meet mom and Janet.

Look at all those fish!!!

Shark

School of jack fish

Inside the cave

Whenever I hike I take a photo of the toe of my hiking boots overlooking the peak. I figured I try it with my fins.

Photos

Dad and I have a few hour layover in Kota Kinabulu on our way to Tawau.
It is beautiful right by the ocean. So many birds while we were landing at the airport. We have all our bags with us, but took a taxi into town. We will be online for a bit, then we will find somewhere for lunch hopefully by the ocean so we can check out the view and birds while we eat. I thought I'd post a few pictures while I have time. These are a little out of order, but I don't have time to get it organized. Some are from my camera and some from dad's.



Guy fishing in Kuching- he hasw 7 lines in the water.

Kuching means Cat in Malay

Feeding Lories at bird park in Singapore

Can you tell my pants are soaked and see the background is blurry from the pelting rain.

Mom and dad's house- duplex.

Vegetable market in Bintulu. there is a big meat market and fruit market next door

Jacqueline's mom dancing. I wanted to post the video of her dancing but I couldn't see which I was posting so the video is Jacqueline.

The church in Bintulu

Market outside of church. Dad says the meat in front are chicken butts!

Going to Jacqueline's house- she lived just up the street from this photo

Jacqueline's family- note the 110 year grandfather next to me.

Everyone sits on the floor- this is Jacqueline's family.

Jacqueline doing traditional Iban dance

Learning to dance

Part of traditional Iban dance costume. This is all hand beaded and really beautiful

Last photo before my battery died. :( Jacqueline's mother dressing me up in traditional clothing. Hand sewed with beads and sequins.

Stork at the bird park in Singapore- it was pouring rain at this point

Mom, dad and Janet by river in Kuching. Check out the lush jungle across the river

Videos of Jacqueline dancing and of Emily and Jackson at church. They giggled when I showed it to them.

Bintulu

Here I sit at mom & dad's. East Malaysia is just what you'd picture Borneo to be, lush and green. It's killing me not to get out in the jungle and do some birdwatching. We have seen quite a few birds just driving around town.

"Brother Wong" picked us up from the airport. He isn't a member of the church but is the taxi driver everyone from the church uses. It was funny; we loaded in his cab and he proceeded to tell dad everything that went on in the local branches since they left.

Mom and dad's house is nice. I have some photos to post. I'm not sure if I'll have time right now. We never seem to have much down time (except at airports where they haven't had web access). When I get home I will post photos and a slide show.


We had a nice morning. Just hung out at mom and dad's, finished up laundry, etc. Dad fixed us breakfast- just like home. It's fun being with mom and dad, just seems normal.

Church was at 1:00. We went early because dad had a meeting at noon. The church is just a converted store in a strip mall, but nice inside and airconditioned. Everyone came to shake our hand. Language was interesting. Everyone speaks Iban, some speak Malay, a few speak English, scriptures and manuals are in Indonesian and Hymn Books are English. We didn't understand any of church, except once speaker and the Sunday School teacher would throw in a English sentance or two every once in a while for our benefit. We thought that was nice. The kids ran wild in Sacrament Meeting. I admit I didn't help much. I thought I'd make a paper jumping frog for the cute girl behind me, Emily. All of sudden all these kids were crowding around my chair, handing me pieces of paper, and saying "frog, frog". I have a picture to post of Emily and her brother Jackson. He is nine and spoke English quite well. He would translate for her, but she could say "thank you" to me for the frog. They both giggled a lot.

After Sunday School we went with mom to Young Women. Only three showed up. None of the leaders ever come so mom goes so the girls just don't go home. She has them take turns preparing the lesson, however the girl who was supposed to teach today didn't come. We chatted with the girls a bit. They were really cute. One, Jarinee, spoke English very well and translated the conversation for us. Evelyn understood some of the English, but didn't like to speak. Amelia's family doesn't think she needs to go to school, so she only spoke Iban but could not read any of the scriptures. Amelia and Evelyn are cousins and joined the church 2 months ago. Evelyn is going to teach YW next week for the first time. They were really cute girls. About half way through YW the rain started pounding on the roof so hard that we couldn't hear each other, we had to move our chairs into a tight circle so we could talk. I wanted to run outside and look at it, but I guess it wasn't appropriated. The downpour lasted about 10 minutes. By the time we were out of church, the sun was shining again- but the air was very humid. It is much more humid here than anywhere else we have been.

After church, mom taught a piano lesson so dad, Janet and I walked around the shops where the church is located. Most were closed but every afternoon/evening all the local people set up food stands along the shops (in the parking lot) and down the streets. It was very interesting. A guy with live and dead chickens as well as eggs had his truck set up with a scale to sell the chickens.

We drove right to some members house (the are in another branch- just the daughter and mother are members). They had offered to show us some traditional Iban dancing. We sat on their floor and had a drink and communicated a little. Only the daughter spoke English, but after a while more relatives showed up and a few spoke English. The grandfather is 110 years old! He was alive back when the Iban were headhunters. He has old tatoos on his arms. I'm sure his life story is incredible!

Jacqueline and her mother danced for us. I have a video to post. Then they wanted to teach me how. So after they finished I danced with them. I tried to show them a little tap dancing, and thought the floor was going to give way. (The house is on stilts and the wood is not very sturdy- one of the other couples here fell through someone's porch) We had a lot of fun with this family. The mother went and got some traditional clothing and they dressed me up. Unfortuneately, both mine and Janet's camera ran out of film and dad forgot his. I guess this was something that was just to be in our memory! I did get a shot of the whole family and some dancing. They all came out on their porch and waved to us as we drove away. I so wish I could post a picture. They were such nice people!!!

Tonight we had dinner at the Luthey's, the Roberts also joined us. Nice to meet my parents friends.

More Photos from Angkar Wat with Staggs

I will add more to this. I just have to go to bed now. Hopefully I will have some time tomorrow morning.


I love this photo of big hearted Suzanne! Everywhere in Angkar Wat kids would come up to you selling things or begging. They were cute and really smart. They knew English. One kid selling postcards came up to me, I said, "I don't have any money." He said, "I don't understand No money, I just understand, yes, thank you". Then we both laughed. One kid asked me where I was from then proceded to rattle off all these facts about the United States. Suzanne bought some post cards and gave one little boy some money, consquently kids flocked around her. She chatted with them and they stuck with her the whole time.

This temple they say was carved by women because it is much more detailed than the other temples. I couldn't understand the guide very well, I kept thinking he was saying it was built by "Romans", after a few minutes I realized he was saying "woman" not "roman".

Bottem level of temple (hell) and pool for cleansing before going up to next level

Door to Heaven (3rd level of temple)

Dinner in Siem Reap with Staggs and the Enslens

Sitting at the Airport- AGAIN

The past couple of days haven't gone as planned. We left Singapore and had a two hour layover in Kuala Lumpur. The flight was delayed twice and we ended up spending 5 hours in the airport. This is the same airport Janet and I spent 6 hours in going to Singapore. Asia Air has it's own terminal which is really small so there is hardly anywhere to sit and not much choice by way of food. We were bummed because today was our only day to see Kuching where we had to spend the night to get another flight to Bintulu today.



We finally made it to Kuching about 9:30 p.m. Our hotel was right by the river and we had a nice walk along the riverside looking at local arts and crafts sold along the way. Kuching is much bigger than I thought. I think I just pictured everything being very remote and rural. Kuching is a nice, quite modern city. I really like it. Very clean and friendly.



We woke up this morning with Air Asia calling saying our flight to Bintulu was delayed from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. This is a huge bummer because today was our day to see Bintulu. Mom and dad have a seminary class that meets at their house on Saturday's so we could meet everyone from their old branch that attends that class. We did get to spend some time seeing Kuching though. We walked around for a while, looked in some local shops, and when we got really hot, went to a movie. We figured we would get to Bintulu in time to go shopping for Sunday dinner and see a little of Bintulu.



Going through security at the airport we found out they further delayed our flight until 9:00! So frustrating! Here's the funny thing. We had a late lunch today at a chicken place in town, when we got to the airport KFC is about the only place to eat so we just had drinks and quesadillas. To make up for delaying the flight, Asia Air gave us free meal tickets to... KFC! We're just going to give the away. No more chicken today!



Hopefully, we will make it to Bintulu without further delays. I've been feeling a little sick today. I'm taking a ton of Airborne. I really don't want to be sick and miss diving next week.

Singapore

Here we are the end of the day in Singapore (almost midnight). We have had a fun day with mom and dad. I thought I'd have some down time today to post some pictures and an update. I want to put a post with all of the pictures with the Staggs. I'll have to do that later.

Today was supposed to be a bird watching day. Unfortuneatly, it's been raining all day. Sometimes quite heavy downpour. We opted for just walking around the bird park. Which wasn't really what I was wanting, but turned out to be ok. Just dad and I went and we got soaked, but we saw some great birds- hornbills, toucans and lots of unique birds from New Guinea.

We came back and met mom and Janet for some shopping and dinner. We shopped at Little India then walked around the mall. My shopping must now be complete as I bought a bunch of skirts.

Tomorrow we fly to East Malaysia- another travel day. We spend the night somewhere in East Malaysia before heading to Bintulu the morning of the next day. I'll probably get time to post from mom and dad's house on Saturday.

Siem Reap/Angkor Wat

What a great day today!! I wish I had time to post some photos. (ok I do- I sent everyone back to the hotel so I could take a little time to post) First, let me tell the Christiansens that Janet rode and elephant!!!! Yep, we have pictures to prove it. Hopefully, I'll be able to add some photos tomorrow. We have a 7 hour layover at the KL airport so maybe I can find a connection to get some photos loaded.

Angkor Wat was incredible. Hard to believe our eyes were actually seeing those things. Mostly I just need to show you photos. The photo at the top is of the largest temple there. We first stopped at the South Gate of Angkor Thom. Our guide was quite verbose and I was anxious to have him stop talking and just start exploring. He liked to tell us every detail of the ruins. The second stop is where we rode the elephants. We took them all around the temple, then got off and explored inside.

Next was ... I'm blanking on names and don't have time to look it up, but it's where they filmed the second Tomb Raider movie. Huge trees and roots were growing through the ruins. It was impressive. There was a lot of walking and stairs. Janet was a trooper and went to most of it. We drove 30 minutes to a temple farther out. It was so interesting seeing the countryside. Lots of homes on stilts. The people live under the homes in the dry season because it's too hot to be inside. We also saw a lot of water buffalo and dried up rice fields. Everything is very brown. Our guide said in November/ December it's much better- not as hot and very green.

When we went to the large temple of Angkor Wat, Janet and Suzanne sat in the shade where they could see the main temple (Suzanne had shoes on that hurt her feet) while Wilf and I went with the guide inside. It was at least 100 degrees today. We were constantly dripping with sweat. The temple was huge and amazing. They were doing some restoration work so we couldn't get to the top level (heaven). So sad to come so far and not make it to heaven! But what we saw really was incredible.

The final temple just Wilf and I braved. It was like scaling a wall. A bunch of steps about a foot high and between 2"-6"wide. We climbed to the top with every other tourist in the place to watch the sunset, which wasn't so great as there was so much pollution the sun set into the haze quite a while before it hit the horizon. The pollution here is not exhaust like other cities; all the people cook outside so it's just tons of smoke. I can't believe they can cook outside in all this heat!

There were a lot of tourists at the temples. I was really surprised. I was hoping to have the place to ourselves, but I guess that was pretty unrealistic. Oh, someone asked about the skinny Buddhas- our guide said that the fat Buddha you see in China is a different Buddha. They do not follow the same one. I guess there is more than one Buddha. Who knew? I'll have to do some research when I get home.

We are looking forward to seeing mom and dad tomorrow night