Bits and Pieces of Life…

… like this little seahorse to a slightly bigger frogfish.

Location: Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi
Date/Time: 1st Sept 2009, 15:30

This orange brownish juvenile frogfish, measuring less than 5cm in length, has been eyeballing the pity little seahorse for quite some time. It probably ponders whether to go for something prettier for a quick snack – it is teatime now anyway – or just take the black seahorse for a quick chow since it is easy – the seahorse didn’t intend to move out from the frogfish’s stare at all. My dive buddy Bill and myself swam around these 2 little creatures for a while but nothing happened. They kept staring at each other, like stone statues, not moving a muscle, and only few centimeters apart.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the frogfish opens its huge mouth and had the whole of the seahorse’s head and some of its body swallowed. It is kinda bizarre to witness such a killing, though I’d prefer real horse meat over seahorse’s meat anyday.

For the next 3 minutes or so, the below pose maintained:

Frogfish tries to swallow a seahorse

But then, probably feeling remorse to kill a seahorse, or maybe the seahorse is just too hard to swallow, the frogfish releases it out from his mouth, and slowly retreated. The seahorse is alive – for now.

erm.. the frogfish didn't really like the horse meat...

Sand Castle @ Boracay Long Beach

Finally uploaded some photos from my recent short trip to Boracay, the Philippines:

http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Boracay_May2009/

More trip details to follow.

Bali Dive Map:

7th Apr – Arriving Denpasar airport ~7pm. Too late for Tanah Lot. Eat etc. Drive to Gilimanuk (110km, ~3hours). Stay @ Gilimanuk. The car better be prepared there!

8th Apr – Dive Secret Bay at Gilimanuk. Departs afternoon, heading to Labuhan Lalang (jetty to Manjangan). It is quite near Gilimanuk from the map, maybe 45mins or so. Stay.

9th Apr – Dive Menjangan. This should be one of the highlights of the trip. Top dive sites are:

• the Anker Wreck (40+ meters),

• Eel Garden

• Pos II.

Depends on how it goes, maybe stay extra night here, or heads to Tulamben after the dives. The road is straight forward, moving across the north of Bali, maybe 2-3 hours. Stay at Tulamben.

10th Apr – Dive Tulamben + Amed. Maybe not enought time for Amed.

• Liberty Wreack
• Drop Off
• Batu Kelebit

Heads back to Kuta afternoon. Stay at Kuta. If time allows, go straight to Uluwatu before dask.

11th ~ 12th Apr: standard thingy. Short trip to Ubud? Pantai Kuta, Uluwatu or Tanah Lot, souvenir.

Romance

Date: Late Dec 2008

Location: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Bangkok

My third time visiting Bangkok’s famous floating market. Was walking alone having lost both of my travel buddies in this busy place. The hoards of wooden boats were causing a really bad traffic jam on the canal.

I was just going to capture a few more boat photos at the sidewalk while a pair of Caucasian couple strolled in front of me and slowed down. Holding hands, he turned around, whispered to her, and touched his nose to her face, like forever. Right here at the busy floating market.

Love is in the air.

Leading To Angkor Wat

Date: 24th Feb, 2005, 7:45am

Location: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Finally! After 3 weeks’ tiring travel linking us from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, to Huai Xuey, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Pakse, Veun Kham, Phnom Penh, we reached the climax of the trip – at Angkor Wat.

This is my favorite photo of the Angkor trip. Not one of those must-have-sunrise-over-Angkor Wat photos – I have those too, but to me, the photo above has something special that I can’t describe. At least it is not one of those.

We made it, finally. Save the best for last.

Dusk at Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir.

Date: Oct 2005

Location: From the boat house, the view of Dal Lake at Srinagar.

The sun has just set. Late autumn evening is getting colder by the minute. Dal Lake is as calm as it can be, but can’t say the same to Srinagar, the Summer Capital of Kashmir – the disputed state that has multiple blasts that killed and injured many, before and after my visit. Srinagar is so beautiful at this time, it must be amazing during the Spring time when the flowers blossom. I wish I would have chance to revisit the place again, in Spring. I hope.

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Ferrero Garden

I was going to get some chocolates as souvenir in the Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport’s duty-free shop while waiting for the flight back home to Kuala Lumpur, and noticed that that there is a different kind of Ferrero chocolates. I’ve seen only one type of Ferrero chocolate in Malaysia – pardon my ignorance – which is the Ferrero Rocher.

The prestige Strawberry flavor

There, sitting on the shelf, is this Ferrero Garden chocolates in a clear plastic box. Total 18 pieces of chocolates inside, all individually wrapped just like the Rocher. There are 5 different flavors, namely Almond, Pistachio, Strawberry, Hazelnut and Coconut, differentiated by the wrapper color as well as the logo on the wrapper itself. Interestingly the Strawberry flavor has only 2 pieces in all the boxes that I see in the duty-free shop, while other flavors all having 4 pieces each.

I bought a box of the Ferrero Garden, costs me 320 Baht, and it ended up as a souvenir. I did try a piece of the Coconut flavor – it is sweet, white-milky and there is an almond inside. Unlike the Rocher, the Garden’s coating did not have the little chopped nuts, which to me is a plus.

Go check out the duty-free shops when you are in one of the airports around the world, and try it yourself!

Beach Volleyball is the daily routine on Lipe's Pattaya Beach at dawn

I first heard about Koh Lipe, or Lipe Island, in southern Thailand in Andaman Sea, was during Dive Expo in PWTC, Kuala Lumpur. Got some brochures about Lipe from one of the booths, read it up but didn’t really have any plan to go visit. And then I heard about it from a diver friend who herself hasn’t been there. And then I read an article introducing Koh Lipe in one of the dive magazines. Checked out some Lipe websites and I am sold, and managed to get Bill and JS onboard with me.

We went there 20 Dec 2007 (yea I know, it was over a year ago, but so what?) – it was super peak season during year end so if you happen to plan going Oct/Nov/Dec you better book the resort first. We’ve seen backpackers walking to and fro at the main Lipe beach (called Pattaya Beach) trying to get a place to stay but to no avail.

Getting There

The most convenient way for Malaysians (or from Malaysia) to get to Lipe is thru Langkawi Island. We used boat transfer from Langkawi direct to Lipe which costs RM228/person for a roundtrip, using Telaga Harbour’s service. There are other boats departing from other harbours at Kuah so you need to ask around (heard that those would be cheaper). Telaga Harbour’s catamaran takes about 10-12 persons and the trip takes just over 1 hour. Telaga Harbour is just beside the Petronas at the northern side of Langkawi island, and not that far from the Langkawi airport. There is a simple custom facility up at the 1st floor of the Telaga Harbour building for cleerance purpose, and on Thailand side, a little hut situated at the Lipe main beach served as the custom checkpoint. Do call and confirm the boat schedule in Telaga Harbour.

There are other ways of getting into Koh Lipe if you are from Thailand side. Check out the Useful Links at the bottom of this page.

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Overall I spent about RM1050 for the trip, including everything and airfare (more on the airfare later). This is considered cheap if compared to some of my other trips.

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Leaving from Malioboro Street, Yogja, we took city bus (Rp2k) to arrive at the city bus terminal. It was a long journey from Malioboro to the city bus terminal – it took us 45mins, and a few ‘free bus entertainment’ (if you know what I mean!). The city bus was cramped and crowded but I managed to reserve an extra seat for my backpack. An old lady starts to chat to me a little bit, and she was heading to bus terminal too to catch a bus back to Surabaya…

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Just want to post the link of photos from my Sapa trip early May 2007. Sapa is a small town in northern Vietnam, ~8hrs train ride from Hanoi. The attraction here is the ethnic minority groups (H’mong, Dzao, Red H’mong, Flower H’mong etc) and the trekkings to the villages.

Photos are here:

http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Sapa/

Will update this again once I am back from Redang Island trip (11pm tonight!)