Tales from the Maldives

As promised, here is my account of my time in the Maldives. I feel it only to fair to warn you, if you are prone to envy, you may want to reconsider reading this, because it may well provoke some tinges of jealousy. But, for those of you brave enough to read on, hopefully you’ll get some sense of what this beautiful part of the world is like.

The airport in Male’ (the capital of the Maldives) is possibly the only one in the world where you walk out of the terminal and have to get straight onto a boat, which is the only way of getting anywhere as the airport is on its own island. We arrived around 1am, so we spent the night in a hotel in Male’ before being picked up the next morning to get on our boat. The boat we had was fantastic – big, spacious and with plenty of places to chill out and relax. There were 13 of us, as well as a crew of 7 people on the boat, plus 2 dive masters, and they were all great as well. The food was amazing – a lot of fresh fish, some of it caught on the boat. All up, the experience of living on the boat for a week was brilliant. The weather was perfect, the scenery was stunning, and the whole experience was very enjoyable. We really couldn’t have asked for better.

The Keyif - our home for the week.

I spent a lot of time relaxing here on the back of the boat.

Our crew getting into the party spirit.

There’s actually not that much to the Maldives itself. It is a serious of atolls which are made up of scattered reefs with only a few small islands in each atoll. Some of these islands have resorts on them and a few also have a small town on them, but most are uninhabited. They are quite picturesque, with white sand beaches surrounding dense green vegetation, all set within crystal-clear blue water. Seeing all this from a boat was definitely a better way to go than being restricted to one of the small island resorts, in my opinion.

As for the diving, it also lived up to expectation. We did 15 dives altogether and the visibility underwater was fantastic, ranging from 15 to over 40 metres. The variety and quantity of fish and marine life was incredible ... here are some of the highlights of what we saw:

• Dozens of reef sharks, some of them very large
• About 10 hammerhead sharks on one dive
• Manta rays, eagle rays and a large stingray
• Turtles
• Huge Napoleon wrasses
• Dolphins
• Heaps of different varieties of moray eels
• Giant lobsters
• Octopi
• Triggerfish, angelfish, surgeonfish, trumpetfish, pufferfish and lionfish by the hundreds
• Huge schools of tuna and snapper
• AND a whale shark!

For those of you who don’t know, the whale shark is a bit like the holy grail of diving because they are quite rare, and because they are so big (in fact, the biggest fish in the world) and so placid, everyone wants to spot one. They are not easy to find in the open water, but our trusty boat crew managed to find one in between our dives, so we all jumped in the water with our snorkels. Unfortunately, it swam away quite quickly and we didn’t get to see it. After getting back on the boat and looking round a bit more, we found another one (or possibly the same one), and this time we got in the water in time. I was quite lucky to get quite close and swim along with it for a while. It is a truly majestic creature, gliding along only about 5 or 6 metres below the surface. I was also lucky enough to have borrowed an underwater camera from someone at the time, and managed to dive down and snap the following photos:

I also got a few other underwater photos on our next dive, but none of them are fantastic unfortunately. I am still very much an amateur underwater photographer and the skills needed to take good underwater photos are quite different to normal photography. But, here are some of the better shots I got:

An Oriental Sweetlips

Clown Triggerfish

Powder Blue Surgeonfish

I will hopefully be able to post some of the better underwater photos from other people in the next few days. We spent one night having dinner on a small island, which was a lot of fun. The boat crew had gone to a lot of trouble to create some sand sculptures for us and then cook a sensational meal as well. It was a great night.

The whale shark sand sculpture the crew did for us.

The boat crew on the beach.

A blood-red moon that we saw a couple of times during the week.

The only negative side of the trip was that 2 of our group developed some symptoms of decompression illness and had to leave the boat to spend some time in recompression chambers on a couple of the islands. Fortunately in both cases the symptoms were not severe (although potentially serious enough that the doctors recommended time in the chamber) and in both cases we just happened to be near an island that had a recompression chamber. It was a timely reminder of how diving can actually be a dangerous activity if you’re not careful. On our last day I got to spend a bit of time in Male’ itself. Unfortunately, it’s not the most interesting city in the world, although we did get to see part of what looked like a Maldivian soap opera being filmed.

So, overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to do it.

Cheers!

Who's your daddy?

Every so often here in Bangkok I encounter a situation that is so bizarre by Australian standards that it’s difficult to take it seriously. So let be warn you that some details (and definitely some implications) of the following story are weird at best and disturbing at worst.

My friend Lee recently told me that he needed to speak with me privately. I assumed he had some deep personal issue with which he was struggling and wanted to seek my professional counsel on the matter. However, he in fact told me that he had been approached by the security guard in our apartment building, who told him about a situation he was hoping Lee could assist with. The situation is that a local Thai woman who lives in our street has been married for 4 years and has been having sex with her husband all this time (Lee assures me there were some graphic hand gestures to emphasise this point), but so far there is no baby. It would appear that she lays all the blame for this lack of offspring on her husband, so she asked our security guard if there might be any English men in our building who would be interested in a little casual sex with her in order to get her pregnant. The plan would then be that she moves up to the country to have the baby and that would be that – no problem.

The security guard obviously took this matter very seriously and had taken the time to carefully assess each of the males in our building (8 in total). Three were ruled out because they weren’t white (including Lee, who is of Taiwanese background – I secretly think he was rather disappointed about this) and another one because he already has a girlfriend. Two others were eliminated because they had been seen bringing women back to their apartments; on the surface this would seem an illogical reason to deem them unsuitable for such a purpose, but the security guard insisted that the correct candidate must be a “good man”. This only left one other teacher (who happens to be 60) and me. So the security guard had asked Lee to approach the two of us with this enticing offer.

Needless to say I was flattered beyond words. In the ensuing days I started getting a bit of pressure from the security guard to take up the woman’s offer. Whenever I saw him he assured me that he could phone her there and then and she could come down straight away – no problem. While I can only assume that somewhere in this world there might be men who would jump at such an opportunity, I am certainly not one of them. As a result, I was initially in a bit of a dilemma because I knew that saying a blunt no to someone can be interpreted as quite rude in Thai culture, and the last thing I wanted to do was insult someone over such an important matter. So despite the security guard trying to convince me with compliments about my high IQ (clearly a sought-after pre-requisite for sperm donors in Bangna), I have politely declined his request. The only price I’ve had to pay for my negative response was a few days of the security guard insinuating that I must have some difficulties keeping my end up, so to speak.

So after such an existentially stressful experience, I figure I have earned a short holiday. I may have mentioned to some of you in passing that I had arranged a diving trip to the Maldives. Well, I am happy to report that I leave for this on Saturday. I really do feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity. By any standard, this is going to be a pretty special trip – a week living on a chartered yacht with 12 other staff from school, sailing around the Maldives and diving at will with manta rays, sharks and if we’re really lucky, whale sharks. Rest assured I will write all about it upon my return. Cheers.

The only time my parents will be associated with kick-boxing

It is amazing how quickly one can adapt to a new environment, without even realising it. My parents have been to visit me the last week and a bit and their comments about the traffic, the dodgy taxi drivers, the spiciness of the food, the number of kids out and about in the street at all hours of the day and night, and the difficulty in making yourself understood have reminded me of how much I just accept that all these things are part of Bangkok life and they don’t really bother me anymore. In so many ways, Bangkok is so different to Sydney, yet I’m increasingly feeling quite comfortable here. I’m still really only scratching the surface of what this huge and diverse city has to offer, but I’m still enjoying both the challenge and the fun of living here.

It’s been good to catch up with my parents while they are here. The first weekend of their visit we took the bus to Kanchanaburi, which is a few hours west of Bangkok. The old part of Kanchanaburi down beside the river is very nice and relaxed, although quite touristy: the street we stayed on seemed to consist of only guest houses, bars, massage places and travel agents. We stayed in a nice guest house right on the River Kwai. The area is famous for its role in WW2 when a lot of English and Australian (among others) POW’s were forced to build a railway for the Japanese from Thailand to Burma, and tragically over 100,000 people (mostly Asian “workers” - in reality they were more like slaves) died in the process. We visited some of the war-related sites, including the cemetery, a couple of museums and Hellfire Pass. We also did some of the cheesier tourist things like an elephant ride and bamboo rafting. After this my parents went to Cambodia for a few days to see Angkor Wat and then returned for the weekend. We went to the huge weekend market in the north of Bangkok last Saturday and then they headed down the coast on Sunday. They get back to Bangkok tomorrow and then fly back to Australia on Thursday.

Mum, Dad and I on our very adventurous elephant trek.

Mum and Dad steering their bamboo raft down a jungle river.

Konyu Cutting, also known as Hellfire Pass.

The Death Railway - with a lot of tourists hanging out the window to get the obligatory photo.

The Bridge over the River Kwai.

While my parents were in Cambodia, I finally got around to seeing a Muay Thai (Thai kick-boxing) match. It was quite an experience. We had to pay 1000 baht for the privilege of being in the standing section up the back. We could have paid twice that much for ringside seats with the tourists, but now that I and my colleagues are Bangkok locals, we decided to hang up the back with the rest of the locals. However, we still had to pay tourist prices (the local ticket windows were only written in Thai, so we don’t know how much they pay to get in, but I did see one Thai guy hand over 100 baht and get change – some serious discrimination we felt). The other thing that made us westerners stand out was that we couldn’t participate in the constant gambling that was going on all around us. The amazing variety of hand signals that were used to bet on various aspects of the fights were completely beyond our comprehension. It was fairly crowded and with all the activity and buzz going on around us, the atmosphere was quite good.

There is a very elaborate ritual that the fighters go through inside the ring before the match starts.

But once that's over, there's no holding back.
These guys were doing "old-school" Muay Thai with no gloves.

A knee to the head is fair play in Muay Thai...

...as is a kick to the head.
This is the more modern style, with gloves and coloured shorts.

And afterwards, there's hugs all round.

So they have been the highlights from my last few weeks. Work continues to be busy and challenging, but that's fairly boring to write about, so I won't. Cheers!

True confessions from a love motel

While I admit that I have sold out a bit on my socialist ideals by having a mortgage and indulging in more than my fair share of international travel, I do like to think I still have some instinct for social justice. So, in case any of you are concerned that living my high life of massages, eating out and beach escapes here in Bangkok has turned me into a completely selfish and uncaring sod, allow me to dispel your fears. Last weekend I gave up my normal opportunity to relax, hang out in swanky bars and restaurants and enjoy a massage. Instead, I chose to practice a bit of altruism and share some good will with some of the poorer people in rural Thailand.

The school sponsors a large number of children and young people in a group of villages in north-east Thailand, which is generally considered to be the least advantaged part of the country. So, most of the classes in the secondary school, as well as a bunch of individual staff members, each financially sponsor a child in order to help them pay for their education. Each year, a group from the school go up to visit the area to take up a load of donated clothes and toys for one of the local villages. So, I volunteered to go along this year. Apart from the 6-hour bus ride each way, it was a really interesting experience. The whole program is organised by a local writer named Pira who lives in Napo (the main village in that area), who grew up there and knows the area quite well. This part of Thailand is certainly very different to Bangkok and the people live quite simple lives (although I must say, compared with what I saw on Palawan in the Philippines a few weeks ago, these people have it relatively good – not to say they aren’t struggling and are very deserving of assistance though).

We arrived on Saturday afternoon at which point we had to sort through the one and a half mini-buses full of donations we had taken up with us. There were 11 of us altogether (7 students and 4 staff). After a tasty dinner at a local “restaurant”, which was a very local affair consisting of some plastic tables and chairs under a bamboo shelter and no menu (in fact Pira had to supply many of the ingredients for them to cook with), we returned to our accommodation for the night. Now, Napo is not exactly on the Thai tourist trail, so they don’t actually have any hotels that target tourists, so the only option for us was to stay in the local “love motel”. It was in a fairly isolated spot about 3 kms outside the village and featured a full range of amenities, including a full-wall mirror next to the bed, the option of red “mood lighting” in the room (very alluring), complimentary breath mints and condoms with your towel, a tarpaulin to hang across the car space so your car won't be recognised, and the option of having the room for 3 hours (180 baht) or overnight (350 baht). Needless to say, the students in particular were amused by this. I did feel a little bit guilty because we actually took up all 6 rooms in the hotel, meaning that the several cars that turned up during the evening looking for a bit of “privacy”, had to be turned away. I felt slightly better when I was told that there is one other such hotel on the other side of town they could go to.

The next day we went to one of the very small villages not too far from Napo. A lot of the village had already gathered in the temple grounds in preparation for our arrival. We had a lot of stuff to hand out and it started out quite orderly, with everyone sitting in 2 lines and we all walked along handing out items as appropriate.

However, it didn’t take too long before things started to get a little bit less orderly. In the end we just had a crowd of people around us and we just had to hand things out the best we could. By and large, everyone was very polite and appreciative, and it was really nice to see the gratitude in their faces.

After we finished handing everything out we drove around to several other nearby villages to visit some of the students that the school sponsors, to see how they are doing and give them a small gift each. This was also very nice and it was interesting seeing the variety of living conditions in which these people lived. Pira told us some of their stories as well, some of which were very sad. There were several orphans who had to rely on extended family to raise them, and there was one boy who as a baby was left outside Pira’s front door in a box. He is now about 8 and has been raised by Pira’s sister-in-law. All in all, it was a very worthwhile experience and a sober contrast to the very wealthy environment where I work in school.

Speaking of which, my work is going well. The first week back this term was very quiet for me – students just settling back in I guess – and then this week I was extremely busy. But fortunately, it’s now the weekend! I’m going out with some friends tonight then tomorrow I’m helping out with a cricket match at school. This is the first proper match of the year so I will be interested to see how the team goes. Out again tomorrow night, then I think a bit of relaxing on Sunday.

The other thing I’ll quickly mention is that I had to go to the hospital last week (which is significant, as this was the first time in my life I have had to go to hospital). I was playing soccer with some of the other staff when I managed to rather severely pull a muscle in my left calf. I hobbled home, not thinking much of it, but after laying down for half an hour, suddenly discovered I couldn’t walk. With the help of my good friend Owen, I managed to get to hospital, where the very helpful doctor asked me what happened, prodded at my calf a bit (while I was trying not to scream too much) and then very reassuringly informed me that he thinks I have muscle damage. After this startling revelation he even more confidently informed me that I didn’t have any broken bones. My relief was overwhelming. And then in true Thai medical style, I got given 5 different medications and told to rest. I was barely able to walk the next day, but it did improved a bit after that. Unfortunately it’s still quite painful at times and my foot is now a very pleasant shade of purple and yellow, but at least I can get around without too much trouble.

So that’s about all my news for now. Apologies if you read the title of this post and are now disappointed. Have a great weekend. Cheers.

Pinoy adventures

Happy New Year and all the best for 2008! I hope you all had a fun Christmas and new year. I had a really enjoyable time in the Philippines, so here is a bit of a rundown on some of the highlights.

This was my second visit to the Philippines, and somehow I had forgotten how dull Manila is. There’s really not a lot to see or do there, unless you really love big shopping centres, smelly waterways and people begging on the street. There are some good places to hang out at night, but during the day it’s really not a very interesting place. It has all the bad things about Bangkok (serious pollution, crowded streets, crazy traffic and a horrid disparity between the filthy rich and the filthy poor), but without the good things about Bangkok (interesting culture, a generally positive outlook on life and amazing food). The one thing that did make my 3 days in Manila worthwhile was some of the very interesting and friendly locals that I met. Most people in Manila can speak English and many of them are quite happy to talk to tourists, and since I was travelling solo, I was generally quite happy to chat with them (with a few notable exceptions, such as the homeless guy who wanted to sell me a packet of Viagra – he wouldn’t take no for an answer and didn’t seem to accept the fact that even if I was interested in purchasing some medication, I wasn’t going to buy an already opened packet off some guy in the street). So apart from getting to know a few locals, I was quite happy to get on a plane and escape Manila.

I spent the rest of my time there in the province of Palawan, which is a series of islands south-west of Manila. I flew into the main town (calling it a city would be stretching things a bit) Puerto Princesa, where I did a couple of days trips – one to an underground river which was quite interesting and another out to some islands in Honda Bay to do some swimming and snorkelling.

This is the main church in Puerto Princesa and nicely embodies two of the biggest Philippine passions: Catholicism and basketball.

A giant Christmas tree in Puerto Princesa.

Entrance to the underground river in Sabang.

Part of the underground river.

Exit to the underground river.

A local hanging around near the underground river.

Another friendly local.

One of the beaches on an island in Honda Bay.

From there I took a local bus up the coast to a place called Taytay. It turned out to be a typical third-world bus journey. I was the only non-Filipino on the bus. There were dramas buying a ticket because I was given vastly different information by different people. The bus was at least 40 years old and was jam-packed (both inside and on the roof) with boxes, huge bags of rice, live chickens and too many people. The bus left about an hour late. About 2 hours into the journey the bus broke down in a tiny little village that consisted of about 14 wooden huts. We then had to wait 3 hours for another bus and then another half hour while the mountains of luggage were transferred from the old bus to the new bus.

One of the things that struck me as we drove along (and as we were waiting in the village for a new bus) was how simple the locals’ lifestyle is over there. Most of Palawan island doesn’t have electricity or running water. The locals live in accommodation and live in ways that are literally generations behind Manila, let alone Australia. Farming is all done by hand and animal – there is no technology to speak of anywhere in that area. Outside of Puerto Princesa, everywhere else I stayed in Palawan Island only had electricity for a few hours at night (when it worked – blackouts were very common). It was both humbling and refreshing to visit a place like this. As a result of course, there were not many other tourists around; in fact I didn’t speak with any other tourists between Puerto Princesa and El Nido.

Waiting for a new bus.

We eventually arrived in Taytay after about 10 hours in total (the trip was only supposed to take 5 hours). I was exhausted and covered with dust (thanks to the dirt roads and windowless bus) but managed to find somewhere reasonable to stay for the night. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see much of Taytay, as I arrived very late in the day and the next morning I had to take another bus to El Nido at the north end of Palawan island. Again, I was the only foreigner on the bus, the bus was even more run-down that the previous day’s relic and we left 2 hours late because they had to repair the bus first. Even after the repairs, the bus didn’t start and after a crowd of locals had tried pushing the bus down the street so the driver could clutch-start it (he tried about 12 times without success), we ended up having to get towed by another bus to get the engine started.

Fortunately, the trip to El Nido was quite short (less than 2 hours) and was well worth the hassle to get there. I had decided to splash out and stay in a beach resort for a few days over Christmas. I must say that despite the expense, it was pretty much worth it. I had a huge cottage to myself, right on the beach and a big verandah complete with hammock that looked out across the crystal-clear water of Bacuit Bay to a string of magnificent limestone islands. It was such a fantastic spot and I spent many hours relaxing on that verandah – reading, listening to music, watching the sunset and just enjoying the serenity. It really is one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. Hopefully the photos can give a taste of what it was like.

The outside of my cottage at the resort.

And the inside.

This was the view from my hammock.

While I was there I did a couple of days just exploring some of the islands by boat (this was included in the price of the resort) and did some of the best snorkelling I have ever done. Nearly all the islands there are uninhabited, but they all contain picture-perfect deserted beaches surrounded by dramatic limestone cliffs. On Christmas Day I spent the day diving, which was very nice. Because tourism is still a very new industry there, the coral was all completely unspoilt and there was a lot of marine life to look at.

One of the lagoons in Bacuit Bay.

One of the many limestone islands in Bacuit Bay.

An evening view from my resort verandah.

After my few days of living the high-life in the resort I had to spend one night in El Nido town. The only place I could find was a run-down bamboo shack about the size of a prison cell (but it cost less than $10 for the night). It was a huge contrast to where I’d been the previous few nights, but that didn’t really bother me – I like to think I’m fairly adaptable. In the afternoon I did a fairly challenging climb up a cliff behind the town that offered some fairly spectacular views over the town and part of the bay.

Looking down over El Nido Bay - if I'm looking a bit exhausted there's a good reason for that.

The next day I was on a fairly crowded boat heading further north to Busuanga Island (a rather uneventful 8 hour cruise). I stayed in the town of Coron for 6 days, which was quite small but a little bit more advanced than Palawan Island – they had electricity 24 hours a day (most of the time). During the day I spent most of my time diving. Part of the Japanese navy was based there at the end of the WW2 when the US bombed them, leaving a bunch of wrecks at the bottom of the sea. Conveniently, most of the wrecks are still mostly intact and make for some great wreck diving as a result. I quite enjoy wreck diving and these are quite good ones. I stayed at a dive resort (really, a cheap hotel for divers) so it was quite a social scene as all the divers would hang out in the restaurant and bar at night.

On New Year’s Eve I had a few drinks in the bar with a group of guys that I had met diving, then we headed into town later in the night. Pretty much the whole town (it seemed) were in the main square, letting off fireworks and going a bit crazy. They had a proper fireworks show at midnight, which was surprisingly impressive. It was a really nice atmosphere there and the locals were really enjoying themselves. It was obvious that this was a big night for them.

A view of Coron town.

Part of Coron's local market.

An overview of Coron.

From Coron I flew back to Manila in a tiny 19-seater plane. The airport on Busuanga Island is the most basic I have ever been in – just a small concrete building with no walls and only half the runway is actually paved – the other half is gravel. I only had a day back in Manila and to be honest that was more than enough. Overall though my time in the Philippines was thoroughly enjoyable – I got to do plenty of relaxing, met some really nice people, saw some stunningly beautiful places and had a couple of adventures.

The airport on Busuanga Island.

Flying over the coast of Busuanga Island.

Being in that part of the Philippines made me even more acutely of how lucky I am to have these opportunities to see so much of the world. But, as long as these opportunities exist, I intend to make the most of them. So now I’m back in Bangkok and back to work, but I'll finish this post here. Cheers!