Nothing to declare

As I walk through the customs green lanes, I always imagine scenarios
where someone has slipped drugs into my bag or I have accidentally
bought something made of crocodile and sea turtle. Then I'd wonder
how I would deal with getting caught (I worried about this even before
Bridget Jones). Singapore has the death penalty for drug trafficking,
and my nerves are always on high alert through customs there.

We flew into Singapore from Thailand, and given the free wifi in their
fabulous airport, we poked around a bit in the terminal before going
to fetch our luggage. The carousal was almost empty by the time we got
there, and my bag was lying on the floor at the end while Aaron's
continued to circle.

Having other thoughts in my mind, I actually didn't think about this
or the worries of the green lane, and so of course this time I was
pulled over, before even starting through it. The customs officer
asked me if I had anything to declare (no) and then took my bag for x-
ray. Three officers were now involved, not that there was anybody else
around for them to inspect, and they asked what I had that was metal
and circular in the top of my bag. I could only think of my funnel and
they asked me to show them.

The crappy headlamp we bought (and didn't need) for viewing the Borneo
bat-dung caves was (as always) turned on, so that a red glow filtered
through the top of my bag. It must scare the baggage handlers a bit
when a bag suddenly has LED lights go on. I pulled out my little
electronics bag to turn it off, but the agents took the bag from me to
xray separately. As I fumbled around looking for my funnel, worrying
that they thought I was hiding a bomb, they were very interested in
the contents of that bag and started pulling out my battery charger,
iPhone USB charger, and various cables. They got more excited as they
neared the bottom and pulled out... my three bronze medals.

I breathed a sigh of relief. One asked "olympics?". I guess that they
thought they might be Olympic Medals and therefore valuable. They were
all smiling though when I said they were from the dragon boat world
championships and one asked "what country?" Then they congratulated
and apologized to Aaron (!) and we left.

So, the medals catch even the eyes of customs officers. :)

a pretty girl and her pancakes

One of the great things about Asia are the roadside vendors selling exotic fried/bbqed/burnt/boiled/raw foodstuffs. Most of which you wouldn't dare eat. However a safe bet are the crepe stands, which I imagine are a result of some French-Vietnam influence on the area. Here is Megan waiting in line for for a nutella and banana stuffed crepe (60 baht, or 2 CAD).

Phuket, thailand

Sorry for the length between blog posts. We've been on Thailand time,
where nothing ever gets done. In the photo is the light and sound
fountain show in the courtyard of Patong Beach's (on Phuket Island)
shiny new mall. The flower is being projected onto the misting water.

The fountain show reminded me of Vegas, and in many ways, Patong Beach
is like Las Vegas. There is a veneer of carefree vacationing painted
over a seedier party zone atmosphere.

We were ready to leave Asia and come home after our diving trip, but
our tickets are set for the 29th from Singapore to Hong Kong and the
5th from Hong Kong home. We tried changing the dates, but Cathay is
super busy and all booked up through mid sept. For some reason, there
are a bunch of Canadians in China right now who want to come home ;).

So, given that we blew our accommodation budget at the dive resort, we
thought of the cheap hotels in Thailand and right away made plans for
a week of beach sitting there. Our hotel was cheaper than expected
($20/night with ensuite, hot water, satelite tv, and a comfy bed)
since it is the low (monsoon) season in Phuket now. That was a nice
change from the high season we've seen everywhere else, but it did
rain almost everyday.

We were still able to get in some body surfing and sitting under an
umbrella on the beach reading trashy books. There was a couple minutes
of huddling under the umbrella trying not to get wet, and although
many people scampered away, we rode it out and were rewarded with a
second umbrella, which was good for addad sun protection when the rain
stopped.

In the day, the beach is the focal point if the town, but at night,
there are scores of bars and nightclubs that open. We were pretty
creeped out by the number of fat old white guys walking around with
young Thai "girlfriends" and the "massage parlours" with women outside
who didn't look strong enough to give a Thai massage. There were some
places where the women did look like they could give massages all day,
so you could tell the difference. The pharmacies offered a prominent
shelf with an array of condoms and pregnancy tests.

We didn't try any of the bars and we were happy that the low season
kept it relatively quiet where we were at the end of the strip. I can
imagine I would have been in heaven here when I was 19, but although
we did some excellent eating and relaxing, I would likely try a
different beach if I were to go back to Thailand again.

French toast

Beware, french toast on a menu in Malaysia may not be what you expect.
This is what Megan got at our favourite kopitiam, Oldtown. It's a deep
fried peanut butter sandwhich.

Mabul

The final island for diving around here is the one we are staying on, Mabul Island. This island includes a small community of locals, 4 dive resorts (5 if you count the SeaVentures oil derrick-like budget resort that sits in the water just off of the island), and a police station. It sounds big, but almost all of the resorts sit on stilts over the surrounding water. It takes about three minutes to walk to the other side of the island on its short side and probably 7 minutes across the other way (I'm not sure if it is possible to go that way though, having not set foot outside of our resort).



The Mabul Water Bungalows, the upmarket sister resort to ours, to which we have full access, has built an artificial reef right off of their jetty and other dive sites dot the surrounding reef. We were diving here for the 'A turtle tried to kiss me' post.


We were assigned to dive boat Smart 4 and had a great divemaster, Patrick, who was sadly taken from us after the first day to work with some Chinese tourists since he spoke both Cantonese and Mandarin. His replacement seemed to see his job as just that and took no interest in showing us the cool fish or even in looking around while he was diving. He just stared off into the blue until it was time for the safety stop. Our dive group was diverse, from Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain, and France, with one guy with lots of experience who had dove Sipadan for years, and a few at the same level as us. There was also a pair of buddies with the same amount of dives as us but who we were concerned for since they didn't plan their dives, wore no dive computers, and just assumed that they were okay as long as they stayed above at least one person in the group (but not always the same person). They were also often more than 10m away from each other and at different depths. The resort was the most lax about dive plans that we have seen so far, and just gave a max depth and max time during the briefing (which was too long to stay at that depth, so you really did have to do multilevel planning, follow the divemaster, or have a dive computer).



The locals go out to harvest during low tide. These cute little guys had just killed a fish when we went by on our way back in.

Photos from Penang

For those that can't wait until we get back, I uploaded a bunch of photos from the Sunday at the 500m championships:

http://picasaweb.google.com/aholtzma/CCWCPenangMalaysiaRoll3Partial

Kapalai Island

The second island we dive at is Kapalai Island, a few kilometers east of Sipadan. It can barely be termed an island anymore. It used to have palm trees on it, but erosion has made it just a sandbar, and only at low tide. A dive resort has bravely built a whole resort of luxury bungalows on stilts above it though, giving it a better claim to 'island' status. You can just about make out each of the individual bungalows in this photo of the 'island', taken from Mabul.

The waters there feature some small wrecks, some big grouper fish, and lots of little critters. I had a crap dive (tired, with headache) while we were there on our first diving day, so I'm unreasonably biased against diving there again.

Sipadan

We have been diving on 3 islands off the east coast of Sabah, and thought we would introduce you to them.



The first island, seen above on the horizon, is Sipadan, the main diving attraction. The island, barely rising a few meters above the sea, is actually the tip of a huge mountain, and just a few meters offshore, it drops off in a vertical wall 600m in depth (we only dive the top 25m). It is the only oceanic island in Malaysia. Turtles nest here (we've seen tons), while huge schools of fish, including giant humphead parrotfish, jackfish, trevally, barracuda, and other exotic species, swim here. The island lives up to its hype, as we saw all of those things there, and were even getting blasé about seeing turtles. Aaron was closely examining the wall today, looking for small seacritters in the nooks and crannies, when suddenly he was looking into the mouth of a giant green turtle, more then 1m in diameter. They are well camouflaged against the tan and sandy wall (they aren't actually green). I was laughing (as hard as I could given the regulator in my mouth) when I saw him jump back (as fast as he could given that he's floating at 15m and doesn't want to touch the sea life on the wall).


Sipadan also has some scarier history for divers and is the main reason that the Canadian government advises travelers not to visit Eastern Sabah. In 2000, a group of divers were kidnapped by Phillipino guerillas, and held until large ransoms were paid. This makes Sipadan likely the best protected island around, as the Malaysian military have set up a base and lookout post on the island, control access to it, and conduct anti-piracy maneouvres in the surrounding waters. Significant income is earned from the tourists, and the Malaysian government wants to keep it that way. This picture is of the jetty / lookout station on Sipadan.


Just a couple years ago, the island was declared a protected marine park and visitors were banned from staying overnight on the island. The military has settled into the rooms of the resort that was there and keep the beach volleyball court in good shape.

Below is a Google Maps chart of the Mabul Island where we've been staying (on the east end of the island). Sipadan is to the Southwest.


View Larger Map

A turtle tried to kiss me

All of the readers who are divers will recognize this scene, the post-dive log filling and what-was-that-fish session. We just got back from two afternoon dives off of Mabul island. We were supposed to dive Sipadan, which is the main attraction, but we couldn't because the max number of divers (120) had been reached. The alternate dive sites were pretty good with huge (1000s) schools of jack fish, and some very friendly turtles. While we were looking at three large green turtles resting on the reef wall, another came up right beside us, only inches away. Turning to see this big critter right in our face was quite a shock! Then he did, as turtles do, calmly paddled away. Sipadan tomorrow, 5h30.

Paradise

Definitly worth blowing the budget for. We're all checked in and we're
heading out for a quick kayak around the island.

Aerial view

We just flew from Sandakan down to Tawau (still the east coast of
Malaysian Borneo, but we are now just about at the Indonesia border),
on our way to a dive resort on Mabul Island. This shot shows what we
saw practically the entire flight ...plantation after plantation of
palm oil trees.

We are blowing our accommodation budget on a semi-luxurious package
resort instead of our original plan of cheap hotel on the mainland in
Semporna and boat trips to the islands. We still couldn't bring
ourselves to pay for the waterbungalows that sit on stilts on top of
the water, but we'll be staying in a chalet on the island and will be
getting fed, 3 boat dives per day, and unlimited diving on the resort
jetty.

Dayus tripus

Borneo is not the untamed jungle wilderness that I expected. Instead, oil palm plantations stretch to the horizon. Some parts of the banks of the Kinabatangan River have been protected as wildlife sanctuaries and are homes to many species of tourists, who descend on the river at dusk, forming small packs of less than 10, with protubing cameras clicking from the relative safety of 40hp powerboats.

We were of the dayus tripus species, although most are of the overnightus variety, who seek shelter at night in nearby jungle lodges, complete with running water and power.

I'm glad we spent what seemed an exorbitant amount (8 times what we will pay for our hotel tonight) to do the tour. We saw snakes coiled around tree branches, probiscus and long tailed macaque monkeys chattering in the trees and throwing nuts at us, birds swooping over the water, and lizards relaxing on the sunny mudbank, but most importantly we saw a bit of untamed Borneo before it is lost. However, I'm glad we are not staying overnight there as the bugs started to come out at sunset and I'm looking forward to getting back to our wonderfully comfy room at the @ease boutique hotel to watch olympic highlights on the LCD TV and send this post over the free wifi.

Right now though, our excellent driver cum guide-in-training, Rain, is playing chicken with oncoming traffic on the dirt highway we are on and I'm happy to concentrate on typing this blog post instead of on watching the road.

Going batshit crazy

We just visited the Gomantong Caves near Sandakan, Borneo. Having seen the Discovery Channel special about them some time ago and having read Andy's blog entry about them, I thought that I had already pretty well experienced them. But I wasn't really prepared for the grand cathedral majesty of the cave, the stink of the guano, and the horror of the slippery boardwalk covered in guano and teeming with cockroaches. I concentrated very hard on not needing the similarily covered rickety handrail, let alone not falling off the boardwalk and onto the pile of bugs and crap underneath. As we crept up the slipperiest parts and saw the birds and bats above us, we realized that we could suffer the same fate as the walkway, and jumped (still carefully) when drops of water fell onto our heads.

Locals gather the nests of birds that live in the cave and make between $1000 and $2000 per kg (birds' nest soup is a Chinese delicacy). They are only permitted this harvesting during 4 months of the year, and we were lucky to see them in action. In the distance in the left of the photo, you can see their lights, ladders and ropes. They climb up and down like sailors comfortable on the rigging of a schooner, even though any misstep would likely kill them.

Stepping back into the light of day, we wiped our encrusted soles on the grass (our shoes will never be the same to us again), and hopped into the van off to our river nature cruise. We are nearing the river now.

This must be why bus rides are so cheap in KL

Just when I was thinking that KL was more developed than I expected,
we went for a walk near little India.

In KL

We bussed to KL (Kuala Lumpur) from the Cameron Highlands, and we are
continually amazed at how cheap getting around is. It was RM30 ($10)
each for the 4 hour ride. It probably helps that fuel is subsidized
here.

Our favourite place so far in KL is KLCC, a shiny new mall next to the
Petronas Towers, with a large park (complete with rubberized running
trail which we want to use, but would have to get up early before the
sun gets too hot) and great food courts. The mall is dwarfed in the
picture by the towers, but it is 6 floors tall.

We expected KL to be similar to Bangkok, but it is actually more like
a cross between New York (without sidewalks) and Singapore.

Cameron highlands tour

While in the Cameron Highlands, we took a tour, which left from our
guesthouse 1/2 hour earlier than expected, so we came straight off the
mountain hike and onto the minibus. Our fellow passengers (a family
from Holland, a couple from Denmark, and a couple from the middle
east) didn't seem to notice our bedraggled state, or at least
pretended not to. The working language was English and we forever
marvel at how good all the international travellers are at speaking
it, when we are generally limited to being able to count on their
language. Our tour guide ennunciated almost too clearly and
deliberately whenever he was calling attention to a site, so that his
diction seemed exagerated - "thiss (pause) iss (pause) Brinng Chiang,
Brinn Chiang" , but I imagine that works well with tour groups like
ours from all over. In one afternoon, we saw the Rose Centre, the
Butterfly Garden (and creepy insect emporium), the Boh Tea Plantation
and Factory tour, the honey farm, and the strawberry farm (with
excellent strawberry milkshakes). The photo is Aaron enjoying a cup of
Cameronian Gold tea in the Boh Tea'ria, a modern tea house jutting out
over the tea-tree covered hill at the tea factory.

Some fresh air

Today we alleviated some of the guilt from our suddenly sedentary lifestyle by hiking up one of the nearby peaks. The trail system here is fairly hodge-podge, with missing or incorrect signs, and trails that seemingly end in some farmers cabbage patch. We took what is known 'Trail 9' up to Gunung Beremban, which at 1850m was a 400m climb from where we started in Tanah Rata. You can see Megan below, negotiating one of the more literal parts of the climb.







It seems every cloud in Malaysia takes a break here in the highlands, and we went deeper and deeper into a fog as we ascended. Unfortunately the peak wasn't high enough to break through the clouds, so at the summit we were treated to - more dense white fog. Well it was worth it to get some exercise anyways.

Cameron highlands

> We've taken off to the Cameron Highlands to cool ourselves off for a
> couple days. The colonial British first made the highlands into a
> tourism destination where they could escape the heat and it is now a
> weekend escape spot for foreigners and Malaysians alike. The
> highlands are also Malaysia's temperate vegetable and flower source
> and Malaysian tourists go there for the "exotic" roses and
> strawberries.
>
> We're staying at what we think was converted from a monestary or
> fancy rectory, called Fathers guesthouse. The room is stark, with
> the ensuite shower and toilet literally in the room, created by
> screening off a corner of the room, but the room opens up through
> French doors onto a nice garden. In the photo, Aaron enjoys some
> local tea with breakfast on the guesthouse veranda.
>

Women from tip to tail (or why you don't race with a replacement steersperson)

Women's boats at the international level must have all women crew members. Some teams figured this didn't apply to the steersperson, and they had a difficult choice to make when they arrived in Penang. Their options were to (a) not race in competition or (b) find a replacement woman steersperson. Here is a clip of an unfortunate team that took option (b). Try not to be mesmerized by China's insanely mechanical stroke movement and watch the far lanes around the 0:30 mark.

500m final video

Here is the video, courtesy of Marc Charlebois.

Vacation starts

To symbolize the start of our travels, we have moved hotels for our
last night in Penang. Here is Aaron in the new room, putting in
another day of work.

Actually, it was less about symbolism and more about saving about $10/
night ($216rm vs $240rm) while moving up another notch in hotel
facilities and service. The room and pool here at the City Bayview are
slightly bigger than at the Dorsett, the Internet connection is 1/2
the price ($20rm/24hr vs $50rm/day), and the service seems a little
more posh. On the downside, we no longer have a grocery store next
door and our favourite food court, New World Plaza, is much further
away. We'll just have to do some exploring in our new neighbourhood.

Mr Chelsea

Just a quick note to mention that if you haven't been keeping up with Mr Chelsea's adventures, you might also like to check out Mr Chelsea's blog. The posts are a day or two late, but there was some good mystery going on that has been resolved (resolution still to be posted). Mr
Chelsea is the team frog (was Ivana's car frog until leila found him and decided he should be the team mascot). I made the blog site for him, and hopefully Ivana will continue to post to it now that she's off to Bali.

Out on the town

Well only if you consider dinner at a basketball stadium near the airport as 'on the town'. Here are the women dressed for something a little more upscale.

Good bye race site

And just like that, the world championships are over. The paddlers
party is tonight, and then the team will disperse tomorrow AM. I've
been on the edge (and at times over the edge) of tears since after the
last race, knowing that these were the last races of this amazing
team, as it is now. There may be other incarnations of Cascades in the
future, but it won't be the same.

Hat trick

On the last day, and in their last race, Jaymor Cascades finished strong with another bronze medal for Canada. In the end there were
really only three boats out there, with the fourth place boat a
distant four seconds back. Congratulations to China and Montreal for
completing their medal collections with the gold and silver placings.
The final was hard fought between Montreal and Cacades, with our team
making up a lot of ground in the final 100 metres. It was not enough
though, with Montreal coming across the line in 2:08.31, 0.92 seconds
up on our women. Video of the final to come...

On-site atmosphere

The feeling onsite, when you neglect the oppressive heat, is really supportive and positive. The Canadian teams are all along the same row, and when one goes off to race, the other teams clap and cheer them off. This even happens by teams that are in the same category (like us and the Montreal women and 3R).

The podium area features cheesy speeches from local dignitaries, and yesterday they blew confetti for the launch of a dragon boat "coffee table book". A press photographer took pictures of a group of us "reading" the coffee table book, but I didn't see the picture in the paper we get in the morning.

The race announcer is an Aussie who sounds like he used to call horse races. It's nice though, cause he makes it pretty exciting and manages to get a lot of words in.

We are entranced by the Iranian women, who paddle in cool max hijabs and all in white from head to toe. They are staying in our hotel, and yesterday Aaron was riding in the elevators with two of them, when one turned to him, leaned in, and said 'you are beautiful'. Fiona was in the elevator with him, so he couldn't keep the incident under wraps and we are all calling him beautiful.

500m semi

The semi felt so much better than the heats this morning. It was hard, but the water didn't feel as heavy. To top it off, we were far enough ahead by the finish of the race to get the first spot without blowing ourselves out before the final. So, Julie called us down. In a semi final. At the world championships.

Not that we can't improve. Our start wasn't great and another boat took us on it.

We've been told to rest both physically and mentally until we have our pre-race meeting.

Update: oopps, I mistakenly titled this post 200m instead of 500m. Fixed now.

Chillin' between races

We've paid $35rm ($13cad) each to spend the 5 hours between the heats
and the semis at the Park Royal Beach Resort. Getting out of the heat
is our aim, and relaxing is the game.

The heat is breaking a bit though thanks to a passing thunderstorm, so
we're not allowed in the pool right now. The race schedule is likely
to get behind anyway because of the storm.

There is definitely some good relaxation to be had here.

500m heat

We have won our first heat by a boat length, and are sitting behind
Montreal by 1s. The Chinese team has also won their heat, but we left
the site before hearing their time.

The race was in really dead water and was exhausting. Every stroke
after the start felt like paddling in molasses. Our start was good,
but not as good as yesterday, so we can improve.

Sent from my iPhone

Coach is sore

8:40am - on the bus to the site - Of the whole team, the one with the
most stiffness is Julie. She blames our first stroke on the 200m start
yesterday for giving her whiplash. Ms. Lok, our liaison officer, has
turned out to be quite a masseuse. I think julie may be grimacing
rather than smiling here.

More hardware

After a difficult day yesterday, the team pulled it together for another trip to the podium, a third place finish in the 200m event. China again took the gold, with our friends from Montreal bringing home the silver for Canada. Sunday, the last day of competition, will be a long one, with both heats and finals for the 500m distance.

200m final

12:15pm - The post race debrief - We remembered how to enjoy a race,
"there was kick off the back, acceleration in the water, we did
everything we had to do" (julie's words)

Random team quotes;
"It felt beautiful"

"It felt like we were racing ourselves, like the rest of the course
was quiet."

We've never won a medal in 200m, but think we finished in bronze
place, and from my perspective (after the race), Montreal were behind
us, so it must have been close. We're waiting for the official results
to be posted.

200m results

4:20pm, after first heat - We did what we needed to, but it wasn't
pretty and we'll need to get it together next race. We won our heat,
so we are through to the semi-final, but we are sitting I'm 4th,
behind Montreal, China, and Australia, in that order.

The course is very choppy, our start was not the rocket we had
yesterday (and yet we were trying to keep it slow yesterday), and our
rate slowed I'm the middle. I found that my seat was more slippery
than previously, and I was thrown around due to the chop and lack of
in-boat rhythm.

7:00pm - 200m take 2, semi finals done. Same same but different. Again
we won our heat, so we are through to the finals tomorrow. Again, our
race wasn't the one we were looking to do. Our first few strokes were
better, but we lost connection with the water a bit after that.

We're now in 5th place in terms of time, with 3R having pulled ahead
of us. I'm hoping that our placement is partly due to a drop in the
wind at our back during the race, but I'm not sure that coach Julie
would concur. We're regrouping tomorrow AM.

Sent from my iPhone

Our paparazzi

We did some group photos and of course we all wanted a photo taken
with each of our cameras. Kudos to our paparazzi / the "A" team for
their patience and help.

Medals received

The organizers just came around with medals from yesterday's race and
a very nice pewter trophy.

We also got some team photos.

Pre-200m

Our supporters (here, Katherine and Thomas Markhauser) are out in force.

The races are delayed by 1hr right now, so we're glad that we pushed
our bus to the race site as late as we were allowed.