Ko Phang Ngan

We'd decided to bite the bullet and stay on Haad Rin, the beach which hosts the famous Full Moon parties. We'd checked the luny calendar and knew we were out of the danger zone. Each month, the thought of getting seriously wasted on a beach full of 10,000 other crusties appeals to many. We all know what happens when you ram a beach full of party people (Fat Boy Slim, Brighton beach 2003). Every year people drown, od and worst of all, poi all over the place. Normally I'd be right in there, but I have my elderly traveling companion to consider... I think he had been very happy with my choice of accommodation. He's a little more relaxed about money these days, which is excellent news for me. I'd managed to soften him up by preparing some "Northern Tapas," created using some English sausage, cheese and crisps, accompanied by a big bottle of Singha. Mostly I took control of the hammock as it made see-faring Andrew feel sick. We've even bought one for that time which exists in my head of when we'll own a house with a big garden containing conveniently-positioned trees. I checked his safety net before publishing this photo...

Our "luxury bungalow," on Kho Phang Ngan turned out to be somewhat of a Barbara Cartland nightmare. Cosseted on all sides by peach curtains, it provided us with an eerie warm glow at all times of the day and night. The electricity supply on the island is unpredictable and we endured many mini power cuts during our time there. Each time the A/C cut out and you had to reset it again on average 7 times a night. One windy night we spent watching Psycho, and got scared silly by the shadows shimmying from the night, through the peach and into our bedroom. The night after Psycho, it took me ages to drift off, then when I eventually did, I woke up at 4am to discover somebody trying to get in the patio door! Obviously I could tell from their shadow that it was just a pissed up girl and not a murderer, but it was still alarming (we've all seen "Monster"). Anyway, she sharpish realised she's got the wrong bungalow and wobbled on her way. Before long a bloke came onto the balcony and started crawling along the ground... things were starting to pick up on the eerie front.

After telling him to"get knotted" it wasn't long before it happened again - somebody shuffling round on the floor. That was it - he was obviously trying to steal my now rancid Birkenstocks and Andy's torrid brown "Gay Uncle," sandals (he's still persisting with them, Em), so I went out and retrieved our precious footwear. After a cursory scout round for planted explosives revealed nothing worrying - I even shook out the hammock to check it hadn't been used as an emergency bog. Relieved to find that no deposits had been made, we tried our best to get back to sleep. All in all, this proved quite tricky as no less than 7 people visited us that night! All trying their best to get in our house!! I reasoned that perhaps they were having a party and had told people the wrong number, but the last visitor was particularly worrying. He crept VERY quietly un the stairs and tried the door with expertise. That was enough, Andy was out of bed to defend our territory admirably wearing his threatening lemon shorts. He caught sight of a Thai bloke running away. "It's O.K. babe, I've scared him off - reckon it was a burgler this time." Oh great, then the alarm went off at 5:30 signaling the start of our Very Long Journey, and the continuation of what was a bizarre 24 hours.

Our journey to Phuket in order to fly back to Singapore for our connecting flight to Perth, took an annoying 14 hours. In my wisdom, I hadn't realised you cou fly from Ko Samui, which would have been much easier and a damn sight quicker. So we're endured taxi-ferry-tuc tuc-bus-tuc tuc-bus instead. Apparently it's not the destination, but the journey (is this what they mean?) In Southern Thailand, they're quite fond of herding you about all over the place. This involves you having to wear a colour-coded sticker which indicates your destination and being ushered in big groups (often by someone with a flag or umbrella - something I always vowed to never be part of - like a SAGA trip). All very annoying and with people behaving like children ie. wanting to go to the loo (I can empathise with that), wanting to buy water, putting their bag in the wrong place, not walking in line and being cheeky to the teacher etc. (LOOK at my eye-bags on that one!)

O.K. so it's 6am and we're at stage one of the herding procedure. We get bundled into a minibus by a fat Thai guy who just grunted at us. We weave our way through the streets of KPN, dodging dogs and trolleyed Westerners. Then the bloke pulls up in the midst of a particularly wasted bunch of Italians who can't decide whether they want a taxi or not. They were in a reet state and I didn't much fancy being puked on, but he continued touting for business. Hang on mate, we've paid our fare, for the combined ticket from here to Phuket, just take us to the ferry! Anyway, he got really angry really quickly - all this business about SE Asians not wanting to loose face by loosing their temper is total bull - tuc tuc drivers always seem to be having a go at us! He was demanding 50 Baht each if we wanted to go straight to the ferry. We just laughed at him along with a couple of Ozzies who were with us, which angered the beast in him even more. Proceeding to drive like a TOTAL nutter through the winding cliff roads, he banged the music (shit Asian pop) up to full volume and put his foot down. Killing a chicken on the way, the only reason we didn't do more damage is because nobody else was on the road at that time of the am. We asked him to slow down but all we got was an increase in music volume and more of a rant. Relieved to have survived another journey, we legged it to a kindly sandwich lady (we didn't pay him). The lady made a roaring trade from making sanwiches filled with fresh air (more commonly known as 'bread') but at least she was friendly.

Rest of journey uneventful, and we arrived in Phuket with an hour to spare before the Newcastle game. Our stuff parked in a scary hotel which smells of the unlikely combination of turnips and talc, we went for a bit to eat. Three times a day, for the last 7 months, Andy has studied the menu intently, before eventually settling upon a Sprite or a "normal coffee" as he puts it. This is day time beverages obviously, at night it's always the local beer - never any different. Clearly sick of my taunting of him about this point, I eye him with amusement as he orders a "Singha beer with Fertilized Sweet Lemon." "What?" which is pretty much what the waitress said too, except it came out more like "You really want that one, yes?" I knew it was going to be good. Imagine when, quite some time later, after much whizzing and whirring (and stifled giggling) from the kitchen it is produced, in all its glory. It not only resembled one of those "cocktails" you made as a kid by mixing orange juice with milk, but it tasted worse, like sick.

It was never supposed to be an easy day, more of a challenge, but ordering dinner was even more troublesome. Deciding upon the "Phuket sausage," Andy (quite reasonably) asked for it to come with sticky rice balls. So ensued a big drama with waitress and other diners who were helping to translate. "You want 2 dishes?" Well, kind of - yes, I suppose so. Turns out that Phuket sausage is actually rice rolled into a sausage. Despite all the fuss, I was glad we hadn't been dealt up a Phuket special with a ball on either side. The mood would only have been even darker, when the new Newcastle striker fell over with a poorly leg.

All in all, I have mixed feelings about Thailand. Had we come here as a first destination, we might have felt differently as it sort of 'introduces' you to SE Asia. But what we've seen (and we appreciate our experience has been limited) of the islands, it's all a bit Costa del Sol and the people are a bit miserable - no wonder really - some travelers are so rude!! We'd have liked to have gone to the Similan Islands and generally seen some of the Andaman coast such as Krabi and Phi Phi, but it's monsoon season here at the moment, so best avoided. We have turned into total beach snobs, which doesn't help. The food is stunning and we enjoyed Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but unless you're armed and have had your rabies vaccinations, avoid the hells of Ayuthaya! Sunrise beach was nice on KPN, but rather busy and we can unfortunately report the appearance of two Friends bars (a la Vang Vieng) and what seemed to be Pig Dog's not-quite-so-massive younger sister.

So we're off to see the wizard in a few days... I think the timing is right. I just need to export some chilli to feed my ever-spiraling habit (it just has to bring on a sheen), and we'll be on our way.




Currently Reading: Dead Air by Iain Banks

Koh Tao

We are now on the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand, lazing on the beach and getting scared by sharks. We arrived here after spending a couple of nights in a luxory hotel in Bangkok, although I think it must have been 4* as opposed to 5* due to the lack of a kettle and free coffee! Even so, it was nice to have a proper bath and I made sure i had two a day while we were there as who knows when the next one will be? We had a lovely nights lack of sleep on the overnight bus down the coast which got us to the ferry for 5am, only to find out we had to wait until 7am for the boat to leave, reminded us of how crap we used to feel after night shifts :(
Koh Tao is a tiny little island in a chain of three which include Koh Phangan, famous for the full moon parties and Koh Samui, famous for being a massive shitfight! Koh Tao is famous itself, for its scuba diving, but after my Sipidan dives, i'm restricting myself to just a couple, so that I can spend some quality time with the Samster. We found ourselves a little hotel pretty quickly in a quiet part of the island and although the staff are amongst the most miserable we've met, the room is nice. We've been hiring a little moped most days and been scooting about the place, apart from the main drag, its fairly quiet, everyone's off diving i suppose. We've been doing lots of lazing by the beach, drinking banana shakes and doing a bit of snorkling. The snorkling isn't particularly good here, we've been to about 3 places and theres lots of dead or boring coral with mainly annoying brown fish that try and have a go at you if you swim too near their patch. The only fish of interest we've seen was a really nice cowfish that was swimming right next to the beach and a decent sized (4-5ft) black tip reef shark that circled us while we were out about 100 meters from the beach, we decided to head back to the beach soon afterwards :)
That is as exciting as our time in Southern Thailand has got so far, just alot of reading and slagging off traveller types who we take a dislike to, there are a great many of them too.
I left Sam to laze on the beach the other day and went and did a couple of dives. You're probably all bored ridged by my tales of diving so I won't bang on too much, but it's such an incredible thing to do, I get sooooo excited every time I dive and basically want everyone I know to learn so they can experience it too. I'm not a massive fan of snorkling, which is probably a bit weird considering my love of the undersea world, but I just feel a bit vunerable floating around on the surface and scary thoughts go through my mind about sharks and all sorts. Put me in scuba gear and send me down 20 meters and its a completely different story, I feel part of the environment and when I see sharks or sea-snakes or or other potentially dangerous critters I want to get closer to them if anything, its like being part of a David Atenborough documentory. Its simply one of the best things i've ever done with my life and anyone that hasn't had a chance to try scuba should make it their mission in life to try it at least once, oh and don't think that snorkling's the same, with scuba you see wildlife you never or would very rarely see snorkling.
I have just banged on alot I know, but to continue to a bit more, the dives I did the other day were nice, but the first one was an underwater shitfight. Unbelievable! When we got to the dive site there were at least 7-8 big boats about and under the water there were sooooo many divers, more than fish it seemed, really annoying, that's not how diving should be experienced, but i've never had a shitfight dive before and hopefuly will avoid them in the future. What made that dive though, were two 5-6 ft grey reef sharks that swam around and around, just 2-3 meters below me, beautiful sharks, you could see their little beady eyes looking at you :) I was amazed they stuck around as long as they did with all the divers about.
Yesterday we jumped on a boat and headed over to Koh Phangan, not for the party you understand, there's not a full moon till about the 8th Sept anyway and we'll be in Oz by then. I sent Sam off to get us a nice cheap hotel and true to form she returned with a booking for a nice expensive one, but its great, really plush with a/c, cable tv and a balcony with a hammock. Its also got a fridge and we managed to find a stall selling chedder cheese and 'English' sausage, mmmmmmm. A few days lazing a bit more on the beach is in front of us before flying to Singapore on the 29th. Nice :)

Currently Reading: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell





Listening to: Interpol - Antics (Listen to Slow Hands)

August Newsletter...

It seems that in our 7th month (to the day) absence, you've all been very busy. Far from pining for us, staring at our photos with misty eyes and counting down the days until our homecoming, everyone has been getting on with their lives. Following the wonderful news of my still in-utero neice or nephew and then Em & Andrew's engagement, there have been many more good tidings to report.


In chronological order now...Congratulations to Bison & Suzanne on the arrival of Ibby and a sister for Erin - gorgeous photo of them both! Little prezzie to follow soon. Second important birth of the year was the procurement of Lily Agnes!! A gorgeous little girl for James & Denise and a sister for Frank. Well done all of you. If that wasn't enough reproducing for one year, we hear Ben and Nicky are cooking one up too!





Then, as if things could get any more exciting, Andy's sister Rachel, was proposed to by the lovely Joe during their recent holiday in Rome. The date is set for August '07 and they're having it in a greenhouse somewhere in Sheffield. Can't wait guys!! Also huge and massive congratulations to Josh and Paula who've gone and got themselves married in our absence (selfish), but even though we were gutted we couldn't be there we were still pleased as punch that they did it anyway! And THEN, I receive news that my good friends Heids & Lins are to make their wedding vows official in a December ceremony in Brighton.

It's all go back in the U.K.

Valley of the Dolls.

Following a bus journey from Semporna to Kota Kinabalu, we treated ourselves to the only decent thing going in KK - a meal at Little Italy. Funny how you eventually start craving the bland after t.d.s. chilli. This was a welcome relief after a luke-warm dollop we'd been served up at a roadside cafe, which resulted in stomach cramps and a frequently tuneful bottom for Andrew. As if we are resticted by a tight daily agenda, my travelling companion was, as always, keen to be "getting on." In a bid to reach some Thai islands before our departure to Antipodean lands, a high-pressure flight from KK back to Bangkok had to be endured. Firstly, airport security measures seemed a little lacadisical, which had Andy twitching and on a mission to determine the baggage x-ray policy from someone official.

Secondly, we were kept waiting in the departure lounge for an hour, while we listened to the storm kicking up outside. When we were finally allowed to board, we had to sit on a silent plane, shrouded by lightning whilst being buffeted around the landing strip by the forceful wind. The only audible noise above the gale was Andrew trying to eat his hands, while we waited for permission to fly. Poor Andy was in a terrible state and there was a definitely lack of any booze to ease our transition through the stormy skies. Next time I will do as my mother does and have a couple of minitures in my bag. Except, according to the news of the last few days, this kind of emergency measure is going to be prohibited from now on. What is the world coming to? After a pained silence, the captain finally spoke and the seatbelt signs were switched off. A couple of hours worth of switching them on and off, the turbulence was behind us as we landed peacefully back in The City of Angels, which by comparison, seemed like the safest place on earth.

It was nice to be back in Bangkok and we straight headed for our original haunt - Soi Rambutri, to find the place much quieter than our previous visit. Much less intimidating second-time round, we had a very tasty yellow curry and a bottle of Singha (how we've missed you both), which led to a surprise run-in with an old friend of Andy's. Julian has been away travelling for 3 years and was in the process of getting hammered. We talked for ages about Brighton and before we knew it it was nearly 4 am. Considering our usual bed-time of 9 or 10 pm, we really felt wild.

Still on my Bland-Mission, I've been craving a baked potato since the terrible disappointment of Vang Vien. If you recall, I received eight small potatoes cut in half and topped with tuna and tomato sauce. I couldn't have been more dismayed. Anyway, we did what some might construe as a Terrible Thing. We went to the English Caf!! Festooning the menu of "Oh My Cod!!" were the culinary masterpieces such as scotch egg salad, quiche Lorraine, liver and bacon, full English brekkies, cod 'n' chips and mushy peas! I only wish we had planned our time better, for on a Sunday, they show the Eastenders omnibus! Would you believe it?! When my baked spud with cheese and homemade coleslaw arrived, I was over the moon. Andy's bacon buttie didn't quite hit the spot, but he was still spasming from his recent botulism ingestion. Did I mention that they have HP sauce?!

The next day we went in search of a modern art gallery which no longer exists. This also meant we had to suffer the misfortune that is the Khao San Road. Two months on and it remains as dreadful as ever. This infamous place exists as a seething mass of neon-strip of Western bars, hellish guesthouses, food vendors selling festering-all-day Pad Thai and banana pancakes, fishermans trousers and what has collectively become known as "wicker shit." The encompases all sorts of henous souvenirs for 10p a go. More disturbingly, "Girls-World" type dolls display fake dredlocks and braids. Basically it stinks, there are rats and roaches scurrying about the bins come nightfall, when the travellers are out in force, huddled round buckets of booze and Red Bull. More worrying are the number of traveller -types who frequent this street and utilise all of its services. Sharing similarities with our home town, Bangkok houses its fair share of people who seem to have lost their way in the world, but continue to desperately search for direction in a bottle of Chang or a spot of Yaa Baa. "Crazy Drug" is a Thai version of amphetamine which makes you go long-term mental. The police are frequent visitors to the Khao San, always peering over wasted travellers and poking them with sticks.

Time to escape to the oasis which is The Paragon! Costing around 10,ooo,ooo Baht to construct, it's a great place to shop and stare in amazement at Nana couples. These are the ever-fascinating phenomena comprised of the aged Western bloke who has dyed his last remaining strands of hair to achieve gorgeousness. Usually in the 50-70 age bracket, accompanying him round the expensive shops is the beautiful Thai girl some 30 or 40 years his junior. The cinema treated us to a bizarre but enjoyable "Lady of the Water," and a bite of sushi was enhanced by being seated at the bar next to a brilliant Nana couple. I haven't been brave enough to get a decent photo yet, but I'll keep trying!!

We're now on the island of Ko Chang, in the Gulf of Thailand. We're staying on Lonely Beach, which isn't quite as lonely as I'd like it to be. The weather is grey and intermittantly rainy, which makes popping to the beach a bit tiresome. Great moment yesterday though - there I was, reading my book in the shade (this time an Indonesian prison tale - brilliant), when I saw this thing appear out of the corner of my eye. I didn't know what the hell it was initially, as it was beyond the dimensions of anything black and hairy I've seen before. Turned out to be the FATTEST DOG IN THE WORLD. Not only that but it was mangey and flea-ridden, but it was too fat to scratch itself properly. It also must have been extremely hot and it had dreadful trouble walking on the beach, its pendulous teats trailing in the sand. What a situation to be in! For a time, she made the perfect beach-companion (I've always wanted a fat friend to sunbathe with), but I didn't feel entirely comfortable with her in such close proximity to my lovely new towel. Our partnership heralded much attention and people seemed to assume she belonged to me!!

It's a nice little spot with an adequate beach, though you can't really swim because there's a strong undercurrent. At least for the time being, Andy has stopped talking about living Under the Sea. Our hotel is cool and cheap with a DVD player in situ!! Finally, we get to watch Andy's birthday DVDs, namely the Toolbox Murders, random Japanese horror and some confusing Matt Dillon-in-Cambodia saga. What was I thinking? Well, we have seen virtually every film going, so it gets tricky. We'll stick around a few days to see if the weather improves. There are some nice little places to hang out in, like the Chilli Garden (now fully recovered from Bland Mission) who do proper Chai and all sorts. It attracts its fair-share of bongo-playing 18-year olds with bits of bone in their ears, but they seems easy enough to swerve at present. If only they would stop that nonsense of swinging those balls-in-long-socks around their heads. If anybody knows the name of this ridiculous festival passtime, I'd love to hear it. Double prize if you know the POINT of all that infinite twirling. Four days here is enough, we're going on another mission to find our paradise. Bloody crusties, they ruin everything...

See the Monkey Swim...

I share a dream with Homer Simpson and that is to live below the sea. Failing that, I love to scuba dive and I've just dived in possibly the best site in the world, Sipadan island. Leaving Sam home alone on the island to get some sun and do some snorkeling I rode out on the dive boat to the first dive site, Barracuda Point. Everyone I'd met who'd been here had said how amazing the diving was and so I was very excited, but also not wanting to build it up too much in my own mind, just in case. Two minutes after leaving the beach we arrived at the site and looking out at the sea, I could already count several turtles at the surface and then saw some kind of massive fish splashing about, this was gonna be good. After back-rolling off the boat into the water, I quickly had a look at what awaited me below the waves and was instantly gob-smacked by the ridiculous amount of fish that were swimming about. I and the other divers were floating above the most beautiful coral reef I'd ever seen and just in front of me the reef suddenly plunged into the deep blue of the open water, down a wall that went down for possibly hundreds of meters. Never having done a 'wall' dive before I was a teeny bit nervous, I'd been told to keep a close eye on my depth gauge to make sure I didn't get too deep. As an 'Open Water Padi' license holder I'm only supposed to go to about 18-30 meters, with further training you can go to 30-40 meters, any deeper than that and you really need specialist kit. At 30 meters some people can get Nitrogen Narcosis which is basically like being drunk, not ideal under the sea. With all that in mind we started descending down the wall into the blue until we reached about 20 meters. There was a fair bit of current that day, so I didn't need to swim at all and was gently swept along with the wall on my right and the open ocean on the left. The visibility was incredible, 30 to 50 meters at least, I could see coral from the surface well down past where I was with fish of all sizes and colours swimming around, thousands of the blighters. I would keep half an eye out into the blue in case anything big swam past and it did! Every now and then you would hear a sharp metallic tapping which would be the Dive Master pointing out something interesting. Swimming past down below us was the biggest shark I'd seen, a Grey Reef shark, at least 3 meters long, it definitely made me a little nervous, but it just swam along minding its own business and was wicked to see! Not long after that and another sudden tapping sound, out in the blue was a Dog Tooth Tuna, which initially I thought was another giant shark, you couldn't believe the size of it, 2-2.5 meters long, mental! As I drifted along the wall, I would regularly see turtles, I lost count very quickly, I must have seen a hundred or more on the seven dives I did at Sipadan, so many that I would give most of them a cursory glance, before Sipadan to see one turtle would make my dive. Also I would see White Tip Reef sharks swimming along, beautiful, gentle sharks about 4-5 foot long. I would see several of these every dive and quite often you would come across them resting on the sand in amongst the coral on top of the wall. I was able to get to within a couple of meters of them when they were on the sand and lie down in front of them until they swam off. Its the stuff of dreams for me, lying about with sharks! Fantastic stuff!
Having floated along the wall for about 20-30 minutes, we swam up and over the wall onto what can only be described as an underwater valley of sand and coral. Floating down the valley with the current there was again a tapping sound and looking up from whatever had taken my interest was one of the most incredible sights these young eyes have ever seen. A giant school of Barracuda swimming over the top of the valley just in front of me, where they proceeded to stop and form themselves up into a huge tornado of fish! Hundreds, if not thousands of them were spinning round in a lazy circle, I grabbed hold of a rock to stop myself from floating past them with the current and just watched them. A completely awe inspiring moment! These silvery beauts were anywhere from 2-5 foot long, on a subsequent dive I managed to get myself right in the middle of them and floated watching them swim either side of me, again another dumbstruck moment.
Every dive I did at Sipadan was a fishy assault on the senses and the stuff of dreams. I managed to pack in 12 dives in 4 days :) not all at Sipadan itself, there were some other great sites, one in particular is the island of Mabul. Its famous for its 'muck' diving which apparently means looking for little creatures, like tiny sea slugs ( called Nudibranch's ), shrimps and that kind of thing. I spent a good couple of dives there peering into cracks in the coral and around rocks and finding loads of cool stuff. The best thing though was this Octopus that we came across. Not particularly small, but we spent a good 10 minutes watching it. A little fish was having a go at the Octopus, cause it was probably near its eggs or something and you could see the Octopus changing colours from almost complete white to a dark maroon colour. I managed to do a little film of it on the camera I was renting, if only I'd thought to do some films of the sharks and barracuda!
The icing on the already mighty cake of Sipadan for me though was seeing a school of Bumphead Parrot fish. On one of my final dives there we came again to the underwater valley and the barracuda, but this time along with the barracuda was a school of Bumpheads grazing on the coral. They are huge fish with big beaks that they use to crunch up the coral and there were at least 70 or more of them. I sat down on the sand about 15 meters down and watched them as they swam slowly around me, listening to their crunching sounds. Some of these fish are say 4-5 foot long by 4 foot high, giants. No pics I'm afraid, didn't have the camera with me that day, but have a look at the links, its hard to get any scale from the pics and mpegs on how big they are, but these fish are one of my favorites and being so close to so many of them was an over-whelming experience.

Sipadan slideshow

That was Sipadan and also that was the end of our adventures in Borneo. We had so many amazing experiences here in Borneo and we'll definitely be back here one day. Its well up there with Japan as a favorite place in terms of the amount of things to do and see. For anyone wanting to see wildlife its an incredible place to go, there can't be many better places on earth! I personally would put my Sipadan dives easily at the top of all my favorite things I've done since coming away, it was that good! Better than the Gibbon experience :)

Two blogs for the price of one? That's right, Return of the Monkey has a new update from the ever gorgeous Samantha! I've also added a Maps section which you'll find below the Links on the right hand side :)

Next up: Thailand ( part 2 )

Sea Gypsies, Sipidan & Load of B*******

Unable to combat the mentalness within me and just dive, I'm in the world-class diving resort of Pulau Sipidan with my matching pink snorkel and mask and a pair of hired fins. I know it's not quite the same, but for now at least, it's going to have to do. We arrived in Semporna, the nearest mainland to the island and discovered fairly quickly that there is very little to do here. There's no beach, which is a real bummer - the only way I can discover this underwater paradise, is to join the dive boat each day. Andy had three days of Sipidan dives booked, so the first couple of days here, we visited two of the neighbouring islands of Mantabuan and Sibuan. Beautiful and tiny, these paradisical islands are inhabited by sea gypsies. Living in shacks built from palm trees, they roam from island to island. We managed to amuse the children who pestered me all day for my bracelets/ rings/ dress / peanuts by taking photos and films of them and playing them back. My return gift was a Sand-Sammy sculpted there and then, resplendant with big boobs and massive ears.

The only other inhabitants of the islands, are the military. This is in response to the kidnappings which occurred on Sipidan a few years ago. They are also there to protect against the bother which is going on in the Phillipines at the moment, and to deter any dynamite fishermen. They also keep a register of who visits the islands each day and verify that all the divers have permits for Sipidan. Andy finds their presence reasurring, but I find it a bit intimidating. Especially so when he's off diving and I'm being hassled for a bikini photo. I don't think so! Succinctly, I told them as much, despite their being armed with massive guns. How hard am I? They soon left me alone for a spot of sunbathing and Su Doku. Phew!

We pitched ourselves at Scuba Junkies - a reputable dive company who also provide very cheap accommodation. The name of the place conjured up images of "Xtreme Sport" men with bleached hair, shark-tooth necklaces and tribal tats. This preconception was largely accurrate, but in addition to this, they are actually all very sound. I only hoped they would be safe and sensible too. Soon, all would be revealed...and I mean ALL.

The day finally came for us to go to Sipidan and Andrew could barely contain himself. There were a few black clouds on the horizan, and the sea seemed a bit choppy, but we were in good spirits. Like the Owl and the Pussycat, we set sail. After about an hour, we stopped off at Mabul island, having had to endure the tirade coming from a very loud English bloke, reagling his extreme travel stories so far. He was literally shouting at the top of his stupid voice - it was only when he began to feel sea sick that he shut up. I think we were all starting to feel a bit nauseous as the waves had really picked up since leaving Mabul. We were getting soaked as the waves were coming over the sides of our not insubstantial boat. We opted to stand at the front and hold on for dear life, but the boat was being thrashed about all over the place. It was when a massive wave came over the windscreen of the boat that we all fell silent, but the dive master didn't look too concerned and thus we were reassurred.

Further exacerbating my sense of gastric unease, an unfortunate sighting of not one, but two specimens I hadn't expected to be viewing that day. Boys, if you're going to wear shorts with no knickers underneath, PLEASE ensure there is an attached safety net. Absence of said netting treated me to an unrivaled view of hairless testicle belonging to the Dive Master. Really trying my upmost to look elsewhere, I had the tremendous misfortune to happen upon an (this time netted) appendage belonging to a ginger Swiss bloke. I thought it was a small octopus in a bag at first - imagine the shock? That's him there - Andy's dive buddy for the day. How unfortunate. The mad lady at the back was my fellow snorkeller for the day - oh joy, and the beautiful couple are an example of what everybody else looks like at Scuba Junkies. Eventually we reached the diving Mecca of Sipidan. I was more than relieved.

Waving goodbye to Andy, I ventured away from the boats and began snorkelling from the beach, at a safe distance from the mad lady. There wasn't much to see initially, just sand and sea grass, but there was an astonishing array of Starfish. Very beautiful, but I lost count at 30. After a couple of minutes, I spotted a couple of nasty-looking Titan Triggerfish (that toothy-looking feller opposite) from our Perhentian experiences, we knew how aggressive these blighters could be, so I felt a bit scared. They have a massive overbite which makes them not just nasty on the ouside, but on the inside too as they are very territorial, especially the females around egg-laying time. I think I already told you that they attack people unprovoked. I really didn't fancy being attacked whilst on my own, but made myself continue. I soon saw what I thought was a massive fat man swimming about in the gloom. Brilliant - I wasn't alone afterall!

Closer inspection would lead me to discover this was actually the biggest turtle I had seen in my life! He was enormous, with a flipper-span greater than my own and big fat legs and tail (quite unlike my own). He must have been a very old, Green Turtle - how amazed was I? I went along with him for a while (though, despite his grace, it was quite frightening to see something so BIG) and before my synapses could figure it out, I was swimming with a family of five!! Amazing, but I felt a bit overwealmed - especially as I was on my own. So I turned round and started back to shore to comprehend what I'd seen. Then I saw a flash of silver ahead of me in the gloom. I could barely look him in the eye as I quickly changed course, for I knew I'd happened upon a Giant Baracuda!

You may think I'm exaggerating, but he was easily of equal dimensions as the one in the link. And what was he upto in such shallow water?? There was very little for him to eat...except me!! He watched me as I legged it back to the beach. Macrolife on the dive boat aside, everything else here was so MASSIVE!!! Could I please have some smaller, less terrifying fish and some nice coral instead? I began to wonder what on earth Andy was experiencing in the depths of the Celebes Sea. After a short breather, I went to seek the company of other people. Not that I wanted to talk to anyone, I just didn't want to be eaten alive by a sea-monster and nobody know about it. Andy would return from his dive to find a half-finished Su Doku and a collection of hermit crabs listening to Orbital on the MP3 player.

Sipidan is a limestone pinnacle extending some 600 metres from the sea bed. When you see an aerial photo of the island, you can see the coral reef surrounding it and then the differentiation from light-blue into dark-blue. The dark-blue was the bit that scared me, but I'd already come face-to-face with the biggest baracuda alive, I had to continue. I couldn't quite believe what my eyes were seeing. After a minute of swimming, I reached the coral. It was alive and teeming with fish of the upmost vibrancy and numbers I've ever encountered. Further venturing brought me to "The Wall" - that terrifying drop-off into the Deep Blue. It felt so surreal to be floating over the edge, looking down into blackness. Visibility was amazing, but the depth made me unable to view anywhere near the sea bed. The most amazing creatures were swimming up the wall or emerging from either side of me. So perfect in appearance, they look like they've been carefully painted with gouache.

Yellow Puffer Fish, Angel Fish, four different species of Pipe Fish, a very cool Crocodile Fish, Unicorn fish, a very beautiful Clown Trigger and a humungous Grouper all came dancing into view. You could hear the Parrot Fish pecking at the pristine coral and see turtles sleeping on the coral ledges down the wall. It was astounding, I culdn't even begin to imagine what was lurking in the inky depths hundreds of metres below me, or further out to sea.

Sitting on a shelf of the wall was a marvellous Giant Puffer Fish. I was able to catch a glimpse of him as he swung in and out of his resting place with the tide. Eventually, he emerged to give me a full view. Quite unlike the fugu we'd seen in Japanese restaurants, this feller was huge. Throughout the next few days, I was to see a collection of very cool things. An enormous Cuttle Fish came into view - it was so big, I didn't think it could possibly be a Cuttlefish, but being the nerds we are, we like to do our fish i.d. at the end of each day. It seems that everything is a giant version out here...what the hell must the sharks be like?

I then decided that the next step would be to snorkel from the dive boat which was to be visiting Turtle Patch that afternoon. So I jumped out with the divers and began to follow their path, but it wasn't long before all I could discern was their steady stream of bubbles - they's descended beyond sight. So then it was me, alone, in open water. No need to panic, the boat could see me couldn't he? So I did a cursory swim about, seeing more than 20 Green Turtles in all. It was amazing, and I was relatively happy swimming over the coral, but the boat was pitched somewhere in the deep and I was too scared to swim across the open water on my own, especially with the relatively strong current! So I started waving at the boatman, attempting to banish all thoughts of that film from my mind. After a few attempts, he still hadn't seen me but luckily, another boat managed to signal to him and he came to pick me up. Now I don't know if it was just me being a scardey-cat, or if this was actually a very frightening thing to do.

Busying myself with the amazing sight of two Green Turtles mating on the surface of the water, I tried not think about it. They went at it for ages, the male clearly having a better time of it than the girl turtle. Every now and then she'd try to come up for air and he's just bat her head back down with his flipper. More disturbingly, there was a third turtle who seemed to be watching the whole scenario - turtle porn in the making! I believe this is quite a rare sight, so I felt like a documentary-maker and took lots of rubbish photos, whilst vowing to never snorkel in the open sea again. Meanwhile, young Andrew was having an altogether different kind of experience...

Underwater photos by Andy using rented Sony Cybershot 5.2MP camera with underwater housing.