A huge thank you to Antony who emailed me to tell me he’d found the American Ice Cream Parlor and Hamburger Restaurant we’d eaten at on the way from Siem Reap to Phnomn Penh (detailed on this post). It’s in a town called Kompong Thom, around the corner from the Arunras Hotel in the town [...]

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…or subject to a little change. Due to the current political climate in Thailand (i.e. they have another ****hole in charge and they’re trying to kick him out like they did with that moron Thaksin), two airports are closed and the rail network is shut down. It’s very possible that other airports will also follow [...]

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A day full of travel and few events, but one thing to note: I filled in my dive log book earlier and I’ve passed the “24 hours of my life underwater with a tank strapped to my back” mark. Cool. I had a bit of a lie in and appopriated a Lonely Planet SE Asia [...]

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Up early again to get to the dive shop for the Sipadan trip. I thought I’d be diving with John and Mel, but it turned out they were doing Sipadan the next day and were off to Mantabuan instead. Sipidan is strictly regulated when it comes to diver numbers – no more than 120 per [...]

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This was the final day of my EFR and Rescue Diver course, and the second involving hands-on training and exercises. My instructor today was Ice, a local guy who speaks English, Malay and Cantonese. Along with us was Elsa, a girl from Hong Kong who was to play my victim/patient for all the hard work. [...]

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More water today than yesterday. Courtesy of my earplugs, my phone had been beeping for ten minutes before I happened to look at it and realised it was 07:10. Whoops. Well, nobody threw anything at me to wake me up. I dressed quickly and walked to the Chinese place I’d had lunch the day before. [...]

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Yesterday, as I said, I sorted out moving town – finally. I packed up and shifted just after 18:00 with Vincent kindly giving me a lift the short distance to the City Bus stop – the one that takes you to the long-distance terminal outside of town. Good job, as the City Bus left 6 [...]

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This time tomorrow I’ll be in Semporna and on an EFR (Emergency First Response) course. I finally caught Vincent early enough in the day to get it all booked up. I just need to ensure I have a seat on the overnight bus and somewhere to stagger into at 4:30am when I arrive. Not a [...]

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After spending a day doing pretty much naff all yesterday, I decided to do a little walking. My targets were the Sabah Museum and the nearby mosque. They’re near enough each other, but a bit of a hike from the hostel. On the way I passed the clock tower, which also used to act as [...]

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A lovely young couple here woke up this morning to find that someone had rifled their bag and taken a mobile phone… and approximately 500 Euro in mixed currency. The bag had been left in a communal area at the hostel here by accident. A small mercy is that flight tickets and passports weren’t stolen. [...]

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