The easiest way to get to from the Kuala Lumpur Airport to Kuala Lumpur Sentral (downtown) is via the train. When we reach KL Sentral we buy our ticket for the train the next day to Butterworth, Malaysia. *Aside* Every time I hear Butterworth I snicker a little because all I can think of is syrup. But this Butterworth has nothing to do with syrup. Our hotel is just minutes away from KL Sentral Station for easy access tomorrow morning. We wander down the street for some excellent noodle soup. *Aside* There are so many kinds of noodles to choose from in Malaysia: egg noodles, cellophane noodles, soba, udon, flat noodles, vermicelli, the list goes on and on. It’s fabulous. You could have the
We made reservations at Borneo Divers Resort on Mabul, Borneo, Malaysia. Sipadan, another island in this cluster, is reputed to have the best diving in Malaysia. *Aside* There is no lodging or resort on Sipadan. It is a preserved marine park with a permit program limiting the number of divers allowed each day. The only way to dive on Sipadan is to stay at a resort who participates in the permit program. No “resort” is cheap but everything is included: our room, the transfers to and from the airport, the boat to and from Mabul Island, our food and the diving. So: we can squeeze it into the budget. The transfer from the airport is smooth as silk with the Borneo Divers’ representative waitin
*Semantics Lesson* Definition of Forest: a large tract of land covered with trees and underbrush. Definition of Jungle: a wild land overgrown with dense vegetation, often nearly impenetrable, especially tropical vegetation or a tropical rain forest. Technically every jungle is a forest but not every forest is a jungle. Apparently if the trees don’t lose their leaves it could be a jungle. The trees in the jungle usually have tall trunks with vegetation only near the top of the tree blocking most of the sunlight from the jungle floor. It may also be swampy and wet. As we ride the Jungle Line Train, I started to wonder what makes a jungle a jungle. We noticed that if you disregarded the palm
Subtitle: Living the Good Life on Penhentian Island, Malaysia September 7, 2016 We left Cebu, Philippines by plane on September 7, reaching Singapore at 6:55PM. It was our intention to stay in Singapore a few days, but there was only a small window of opportunity for a reservation on Perhentian Island, Malaysia. Penhentian is rumored to be some of the best diving in Malaysia. The three-day Islamic E’id al Adha, which is observed throughout Muslim Malaysia, AND the long weekend celebrating Malaysian Independence Day had packed the hotels. What this meant was we needed to leave Singapore the next morning to fly to Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) at 6:40 AM. *Aside* Translation: we had
There’s No Place Like Home The plan is I will go home for ten days. I board an Asiana Airplane in Cebu, Mactan Airport at midnight on September 3rd bound for Incheon, South Korea (the airport about an hour away from Seoul). I arrive in Incheon at 6:00AM on the 4th (they are an hour earlier than Cebu). Then I wait fourteen hours until 8:20PM for my connecting flight to Chicago, Illinois USA. I will arrive in Chicago at 7:20PM - still on the 4th and hit Columbus, Ohio at about midnight. Four hours to Seoul, plus fourteen hours layover, plus thirteen hours Incheon to Chicago, plus two hours in Chicago, plus 1 hour to Columbus equals (if I did the math correctly) thirty-four hours of travel, “al
*Aside Title* What do you do when home is calling? While we were still in Moalboal we made plans for the next stop: Malapascua. Moalboal is on the east coast of Cebu Island, Philippines. Malapascua is a small island way up off the northern tip of Cebu Island. The easiest way to reach Malapascua is via a four-hour Ceres bus ride from Cebu City to Maya Bagay port then a 20 to 30 minute ferry ride to reach the island. As we made our plans for Malapascua we watched a You-Tube video account of how you get on the ferry, which led to a conversation about our luggage. We have too much luggage. We decide to pare down our baggage for Malapascua to a medium bag with dive equipment and one big bag in
