Excellent trip until...

We had a very-very goodtime in Perhentian. The company was good, the room was ok, the food was yummy, the divemasters professional and also quite yummy if you were in a skirt, and best of all, the diving was excellent.

Visibility on the most part, was not too bad, but the life under Perhentian waters is wonderful! Loads and loads of anemone, and the fish seemed even friendlier than Sipadan! Managed to capture quite a few fish shots, something I had not managed to do succesfully before. My opinion is Perhentian offers some of the BEST diving in the East Coast. It is arguable, that Redang is better, but overall, I believe its better in Perhentian as the island tends to attract a more international crowd. We were practically the only Malaysians at the resort, not that we felt out of place mind you.. I only noticed it one dinner, when we were the only locals in the whole dining area.

The only thing that marred our stay was the Ferry service. On the way to the island, 60 people and all their luggage were crammed into a boat made for 40 passengers. The supposedly 1hour travel time became 1.5 hours due to the extra weight the boat was made to carry. There were not enough life jackets to go round and some people had to sit on the floor! To add insult to injury, the bloody ferry did not pick us up at the end of the trip!!

We waited for our ferry at 4pm, and by 4.30 we were getting a little anxious. 4.45 came and our resort manager received a call to say that we were left behind because the boat was overloaded. Surprise surprise. These people actually sell tickets.. I don't know why they even bother.

Left stranded, the resort said that they would send us back to the mainland with one of their dive boats. I think to myself.. we have been in these boats for 4 days now.. they seemed ok. Wrong. The boat ride back to the mainland was harrowing and not to mention wet! Needless to say we were quite pissed off, being put into such a predicament. Fortunately we made it to the mainland, and finally home to KL, allbeit a lot later than anticipated as the AirAsia flight was also delayed by an hour.

So it was a rather eventful trip to say the least. But would I return? YES.

The Beach Awaits

We are off to Perhentian to kick off our dive season tomorrow morning. Yay! Truth is, I am totally clueless about this trip, as my beloved has made all the reservations and is the main organisor. So I shall just tag along and see what is in store. You all have a great weekend now..

My baby turns 7

Benjamin is 7. A big boy now and he very recently welcomed a brand new brother! James. I hope they are all doing well in SA and that they are all adjusting well to being a new older brother, being a mother for the second time after 7 years, and being a brand new father! Congratulations to Asha and Martin and Benjamin.

6 degrees @ work

Was at my house yesterday, when one of my new neighbours popped in to say hello. She was quite impressed with what she saw, and enquired about who designed the plans. I had serious doubts if she new Kevin at all, but as it turned out, she did! It did not stop there.

We went over to her place to check out her lovely garden, when we discovered we had a ton of mutual friends. Maybe more, if we had more time to discover the links.

I found out that she was working with a NGO, a Women's Rights Activist and she is also in the Arts scene. Being in the art scene myself, I discovered that she was with the Five Arts group. Sunetra Fernando, a mutual friend and her "Rhythm in Bronze" Gamelan group, who recently concluded another successful concert, this time with the MPO, just had their post concert, wrap party in her house.

Complementing about her garden, she mentioned Seksan and his lovely wife/partner Carolyn and how they were going to come over one of these days to make suggestions to improve her already lovely garden. What an amazing coincidence. Seksan had also offered to come over to my place when it was closer to completion to help with our landscaping as well.

Cool eh?

New Pictures of Renovations Posted

Chui asked me to upload the latest pictures. Comparing this new set to what I posted a couple of weeks ago, I must say we have made quite a bit of progress. So go.. see for your self. pictures