Well, I left you at Suvarnabhumi Airport, fortunately hitting “Publish” just before the free wi-fi connection dropped. It was a long flight, but I made it. Things to note when making a long-haul journey. In fact, primarily… make sure you have enough stuff to do. I’d left my spare novel in my hold baggage so [...]

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Here’s a hint for you if you’re at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport – like Colombo in Sri Lanka there is no free wi-fi across the board. But sit in the right spot… I’m waiting at gate G2 for my flight to Helsinki and I can just pick up a signal from the Quantas lounge. Had some [...]

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Well, I finally made it. The delayed flight set off around 20 minutes later than the re-advertised time, but I landed in Bangkok at around 15:00. There were the usual Stansted-esque queues at immigration and then I had to wait over half an hour for my baggage. Despite having a load of empty carousels, the [...]

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It’s around 13:00 and there was just an announcement that they’re dishing out free food vouchers for our flight. Not a good sign. I went to get one and it’s MR10 for any McDonald’s in Malaysia. Which is worse given that I’m flying out of the country. The nearest McD‘s is back through security and [...]

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I got back to the bungalows around 1:30am. Not long after I redid all my packing, Valerie came home as she was too hot in the nearby nightclubs. Sweetheart that she is, she offered me the spare bed in her room so I could get some sleep before I was due to leave. Much more [...]

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My final full day in Bali wasn’t to be a very busy one. After crashing at around 6:30am, I woke around 10:00 as I just couldn’t sleep any longer. I shook off the alcoholy cobwebs, showered and packed. I had to vacate my room by midday. Even though my flight wasn’t until 6am the next [...]

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My first lie in for the better part of two weeks and I still ended up getting out of bed at 9:30 as I just couldn’t sleep any longer. I had some plans so that wasn’t a bad thing. First up, I finished the book I was reading and went to the nearby bookshop to [...]

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I was back at Nusa Penida / Nusa Lembongan today, racking up dives 58, 59 and 60. My companions were the same group from yesterday minus the token snorkeler who opted to stay home. For the first and last dives, I was buddied with Peter who’s still progressing on from his Open Water. Both dives [...]

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Another new site today. I was picked up early by Peter and driven to join Kadek and a small group for a couple of divers up at Tulamben. After they’d had breakfast, we journeyed back in the rough direction of Kuta to Amed. It’s a similar site to Tulamben, with a rocky beach and two [...]

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Change of plan – I’m getting used to these. As I helped sort out the gear for the Singaporean group I was due to dive with, another bus arrived crammed to the gills with Americans on a Discover SCUBA course. Eight completely amateur divers and two staff wasn’t the perfect ratio so I was switched [...]

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