tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2116136720032202332024-03-13T23:25:31.735-07:00andybinasiaThis is the blog of my adventure of leaving London and moving to Singapore at the start of 2010.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-67877554653318125342011-02-21T19:05:00.000-08:002011-02-21T23:24:49.266-08:00Dog days<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mIDr7tIds4Y/TWNkr80a0-I/AAAAAAAAANk/IZwILG56V_s/s1600/1296259600_161719480_1-Pictures-of--MALE-AND-FEMALE-SIBERIAN-HUSKY-PUPS.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mIDr7tIds4Y/TWNkr80a0-I/AAAAAAAAANk/IZwILG56V_s/s400/1296259600_161719480_1-Pictures-of--MALE-AND-FEMALE-SIBERIAN-HUSKY-PUPS.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576411469837947874" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">I’m not sure if it’s just because I live next to one of the largest parks that there is in Singapore, but Katong where I live is inundated with a plethora of pet shops.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>On a mile strip of East Coast Road I counted four alone.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe Singaporeans are super pet friendly or maybe it’s just that my habitual locale makes for a suitable place to pitch to the pet loving fraternity who are often seen taking Fido for regular walks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Even more odd is the choice of dog I seem to see the most.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Singapore is a hot and humid place for the majority of the year so you’d expect to see small dogs or those that cope with the heat well, such as miniatures or the less hairy breeds.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Nope not in Singapore.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">I just keep seeing endless numbers of Siberian Huskies trotting up and down the place - which is probably the most unsuitable dog you can imagine for a climate like this.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">For a dog you normally expect to be sat lolling in front of a roaring fire after overdosing on the aroma of too much fondue in an Austrian ski chalet it’s a tiny bit odd seeing it pull a tanned </span>roller-blading<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"> girl in hot-pants down the park path.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Typically being pulled on the wrong side of the track going against the flow of traffic, but that’s a different story altogether.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">What is it that makes people buy a dog with the thickest and most efficient heat absorbent coat and plonking it in a climate where people only own one sweater?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">I am a little perplexed to be honest. Now a husky is a lovely animal and I’m a dog person (I was going to say lover but it sounds a bit dodgy) as much as the next</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">but I would certainly be asking myself the question of “is this the most suitable dog I can really think of buying here?”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">Not to perambulate around the bush but it does make you think that the thought process has not been too well walked through.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">For me it’d be easy to choose a dog like that as I used to watch the TV show Due South as a growing kid and always wanted to have a dog like the immensely cute and perversely talented Diefenbaker when I was grown up. This was the kind of dog that had attitude, selective hearing and made Lassie look like she’d be better off at home assisting in some delicate baking rather than saving little Jimmy from down the disused mineshaft. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">I’d still love one, but my track record in temporarily abandoning my two cats in London for a while along with living fifteen stories up in a house a third smaller than my house in London does not make me the ideal candidate for having one. </span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">It does seem a little bit wrong having one in the least snowy climate that you can possibly find but the ones </span>I have<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"> seen seem happy enough panting away happily up and down by the beach.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">You do see a lot of smaller handbag type dogs too. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">I say handbag as you generally see them being carried inside handbags but predominantly the dog I see over and over again is the Husky.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Maybe it’s a fashion trend that </span>I have<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"> not picked up on.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">A quick google of ‘Singapore, Husky puppies’ gives quite a few cute looking hits which are surprisingly cheap compared to puppies back home.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">Sadly though, you do see quite a few dogs around 12-18 months old looking to be re-homed probably after the owners have realised that the maid has been swallowed or something.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Maybe at home these dogs are being kept in sub zero condo conditions which makes them feel slightly more at home.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Sat shivering away in some arctic tinged high rise stalactite ridden apartment where the children are huddled around the dog in the evening as if to draw off the heat </span>they've<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"> absorbed from a day basking under the palm trees might be what goes on.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Friends of mine missing the winter season had such a party last year.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">Inviting friends around for a winter fondue party in full hat, gloves and winter parker.</span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">All the windows were closed, every AC unit turned onto the coldest setting and the frost free freezer door opened for good measure.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">Brr – make me cold thinking about it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">Maybe it’s my trip to London next week and the onward trip to Utah which is making me think of cold thoughts again.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">A fortnight back in London via Utah for some snowboarding is lined up. </span><span style="font-size: 15.6px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;">It is going to be nice to be back in London briefly, if nothing else but to stock up on things that </span>I have<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"> actually found are impossible to buy in Singapore:-</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">Namely muesli, good sun lotion (as in not emulsion paint)and good handmade shoes that are less than $1000.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; "><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">The thought of getting to wear not just a sweater, but a coat some gloves and a scarf for the first time in nearly 8 months is giving me the chills just thinking about it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>From 26 degrees in the shade to minus 20 in my thermals is going to be a bit of a shock to the system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px; ">Maybe I should try and get invited around somewhere to huddle up with the dog in preparation.</span></p>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-52714841261018179422011-02-18T03:29:00.000-08:002011-02-18T03:30:03.240-08:00Speaking in code.My day to day job is based around ecommerce working for one of the banks here in Singapore. Let’s call it ShiezerBank Corp to keep some anonymity here. Our financial competition is formed of the usual suspects of Mighty Yank Bank, Shittybank and Briecrap, all of which have great towering offices here.<br /><br />Working in IT and especially banking IT everyone talks in acronyms for reasons I’ve never really understood. Perhaps it’s because were a bit lazy and can’t string full incondite sentences together using the proper words. Perhaps it makes us sound a little bit more clever or in a unique clan using three abbreviated letters when those around us have absolutely no idea on what is being discussed. I put it down to people having too much to say and not enough time to say it so using them gets the maximum amount of information expended into the air with the minimal amount of conversational dexterity. Of course it could simply be that people in banking IT are complete twats.<br /><br />So as I was flaneuring down the road the other day in a taxi the local radio DJ was reading out the local travel bulletin and it caught my ear. Funnily enough, even the DJs here have that mid-Atlantic nasal sound like UK DJ’s did back in the 90’s. He was reading out the travel bulletins and they are the same as you’d expect everywhere else. Too many cars, too many pillions having altercations with other peoples bumpers and the odd thoroughfare or byway being blocked by bumbling bystanders.<br />The one thing that stood out though was the sheer number of acronyms being used in the delivery. The entire bulletin must have been less than 30 seconds and he must have dropped in about 20 between words like avoid, sunny, overturned and flabbelation. Ok I’m lying about the last one but it’s a great sounding word and if you heard that on a travel bulletin you’d probably crash through excitement and end up in the next bulletin.<br /><br />After being here almost a year, I’ve picked up that Singaporeans love acronyms. They just can’t get enough of them. Everywhere you go, from the banks, to the roads, to your personal status to the food you eat - it’s all using acronyms. <br /><br />Now in the travel bulletin – I worked out about half of what was being said seeing as a lot of them are traffic related to the many highways and expressways that spider out in all directions over the island. <br />The funny thing is, you end up picking them up and regurgitating them when you least expect it. <br /><br />Since I arrived I’d come in via SIA on an EP visa hoping to get my PR from the MOM. Working hard all day saves me enough money to think about buying a HDB near the CBD, hopefully close enough to the MRT as it’s too damn expensive paying the ERP going on the PIE when the ECP is backed up. It’s not as if I can even afford the car COE as a what’s left in my DBS and UOB accounts after my CPF an SPG took anyway. Still I better not complain too much as the PAP might not be AOK with it. <br /><br />There’s a small game there to see how many you can get right.<br /><br />It takes a while to pick up the patois of the local pericombobulation being spouted in a tonal splurry of shortened words. I’m still very confused half the time and I’m often saying to myself - WTF?<br /><br />When you intermingle it all together with bit of Singlish it makes for an interesting conversation, even if you really don’t have much of an idea of what is being said – Ken?Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-32990788073539551232011-02-09T03:16:00.000-08:002011-02-09T03:37:15.130-08:00Gong Xi Fa Cai!Yes it’s happy Chinese New Year to all this week. It’s been quite an exciting week for me as it’s my first real experience of CNY here in Singapore as I arrived last year just after the end of it. This year I was quite prepared to make the most of seeing the celebrations here which started off rightly with a trip to Chinatown on new years eve.<br />It was packed as you’d expect and all manner of red and gold ornaments, charms and decorations were being sold from the makeshift stalls in the rammed streets to starry eyed passers by looking for that last bit of useless crap that everyone from nearly every culture ends up buying at celebration time. <br />I got sucked in by the mind bending tractor beams of one eager salesman and came away a few dollars lighter with some Chinese scriptures and a bag full of sweeties to help assist my expanding waistline through the proceeding year of the rabbit. Being a rabbit myself as far as Chinese astrology goes, it should be a fruitful year for me, so lets just see shall we.<br />Chinatown on any normal night is a veritable feast of bargaining and browsing the numerous stalls which range from the buy 5 get 5 free fridge magnet type to the somewhat moderately tastefully looking antiques shops which are probably not all that antique.<br />On new years eve, it was like the very fabric of society was about to unravel and the only way to save yourself was to buy up more food than you could possibly eat in a year and just for good measure buy up a few extra fridge magnets just in case. It was lots of fun though and I ended up having some of the most amazing oyster omelette I’ve ever had. It’s exactly what it says and is just oysters cut up and mixed into an omelette. It is mind blowingly good and as with most hawker food it was gorgeous to gulp down with an ice cold Tiger and have a bit of a laugh with the passing waitress who was keen to try and teach me some additional Mandarin other than the very rude swear words that I’d been taught by a couple of my local friends here. There was a good reason to this as I’d been very kindly invited to spend Reunion dinner with one of my good friends family so it was going to be handy if I could turn up and say a few words and not look like I had a bad case of Tourette's. <br /><br />My good friend R was kind enough to invite me to her cousins condo to experience a proper CNY family dinner as she thought it would be good for me to see. I was overjoyed at the prospect so spent the next few days trying to muster up some basic Mandarin and learn a few bits about some of the Chinese customs and general do’s and don’ts. The Chinese are probably some of the most superstitious and ceremonial people I’ve ever met and all sorts of strange and quaint peculiarities come into effect at this time. Not owing money to people, cleaning the house on a certain day, wearing the right coloured clothing. It’s a minefield of potential faux pas for a lumbering Ang Mo like myself to fall into so I spent a day or two trying to find out as much as I could so I’d look less like the clumsy grinning idiot that I often do at functions where I’m the odd one out. I actually do quite enjoy being in new situations but only when I’ve got something to contribute and if spouting a bit of Gong Xi Fa Cai was going to raise a smile or the odd "What's he saying??" eyebrow or two then so be it.<br />So off I trotted up to the north of the island on my trusty Hog (i.e not so trusty after developing yet another funny rattle and a spuriously odd sounding horn) with my bag full of mandarin oranges and sweaty palms clutching a few post-it notes with enough polite gestures scribbled down to get me through most dinner related conversational situations.<br /><br />If during the day I was ever in need of saying “I’ve lost my passport” or “ “Where is the chemist?” then I was truly equipped with the right vocabulary. Anything else and I was going to be winging it.<br /><br />The mandarin oranges are presented to the householder as a good will gesture as they represent abundance and good fortune. You give two to the host – and you get two back, which you then continually recycle as you visit other homes. For a nation that does absolutely bugger all in terms of recycling (something which I find odd given the organisational side of things) it’s the best example of use and reuse you’re likely to see here.<br />Cunningly I’d gone with an entire bag of spare oranges just in case I cocked up something and ended up being an orange down, but it seemed to go to plan and I left with the requisite number of fruits. I did spend the next few days having mandarin orange smoothies which was another plus side to my over exuberance at filling up my fridge magnet and fruit armageddon stockade.<br /><br />When I arrived I was warmly greeted by R’s family who were all super friendly and made me feel at home. As customary at these kind of occasions a paper plate was thrust in to my palm (slightly obscuring my now streaking “Do you have an extra pillow” translation) and was then instructed to fill my boots with as much homemade food as possible. Mrs R was happy to point out all the things that they’d made which I confess were all delicious. I think my favourite was the little jellies in the shape of animals of which I must have been around 12 years old when I had last had it without Tequila in it.<br />I ate so many of them I started getting an odd look from a passing 5 year old which was something of a look of "How many of MY jellies are you actually going to eat Mr??". I backed away at this point to the slightly more grown up food of chicken wings giving my most polite smile that is actually possible with a mouth full of jelly.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ6NqoqDjI/AAAAAAAAANM/t-PpF9uwR84/s1600/P1000835.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ6NqoqDjI/AAAAAAAAANM/t-PpF9uwR84/s400/P1000835.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571650064212430386" border="0" /></a>It was really fun to meet generation after generation of family members and it made me think about Christmases at home long ago when I was younger when aunts, uncles and grandparents all used to gather around and generally remark on how much I’d grown up since the last time they’d seen me. Ha – I’m now 6ft 4’. No more growing required!<br />One of the great traditions here at this time is the red packet giving or Hóng Bāo. The custom is for the more senior folks to give red envelopes of money to those that are younger and unmarried as a symbol of property, good luck and also to ward off evil spirits. In the envelope there is a small wad of notes which will add up to an even number, again another good luck sign. I never really expected to get any red packets at all as I was after all a complete stranger in the house and not exactly a spring chicken these days but some of the elders were quite curious about me and demanded R to have me dragged over and to duly have a little packet thrust in to my mitt.<br />Now being invited around to someone’s house for a special occasion and being fed till you drop with jelly and then being paid for it is my idea of a good day out.<br /> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ59NF1bhI/AAAAAAAAANE/DWp5D0P0up0/s1600/P1000843.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ59NF1bhI/AAAAAAAAANE/DWp5D0P0up0/s400/P1000843.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571649781403840018" border="0" /></a>I left it to the next day to actually open one and inside was a bunch of crisply folded brand new two dollar notes. R giggled a lot at my expression on receiving my first as I was quite surprised about it to be honest and secretly chuffed to bits.<br /><br />My favourite bit of the day was the tossing of the Yusheng fish salad.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ6s-f9o7I/AAAAAAAAANU/gKY6nWF-C-U/s1600/P1000846.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ6s-f9o7I/AAAAAAAAANU/gKY6nWF-C-U/s400/P1000846.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571650602120618930" border="0" /></a> Yusheng is a fish based salad which originates from the 1960s in Singapore. It’s another sign of prosperity and good health to have this. It’s a very brightly coloured dish made up of carrots, pickles, peppers with salmon strips mixed into it. It’s then drenched in a mountain of crackers and sesame seeds until it looks like a food version of Mount Vesuvius that is just about to go off if even another morsel of food is added to its crater like peak.<br />The best bit about this though is that everyone gathers around it with chop sticks and decimates the thing in to a frenzy of salad tossing - throwing it higher and higher whist yelling out phrases of prosperity. The higher you toss the salad the more prosperous your year ahead is supposedly going to be. Step back kids – the 6ft 4 fella is coming through. <br />After getting a bit carried away I ended up nearly having to wipe my salad out of the ceiling fan - although it certainly appears that my year ahead might actually be quite prosperous given the amount of vertical my little bit of salmon took.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ5oZmxxaI/AAAAAAAAAM8/F29Rqf4uQus/s1600/P1000853.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TVJ5oZmxxaI/AAAAAAAAAM8/F29Rqf4uQus/s400/P1000853.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571649423985984930" border="0" /></a>After everyone has had a go at mixing the salad it’s served into small bowls and eaten with chop sticks. It’s actually quite tasty and one of R’s uncles was adamant that I have second and third portions whilst making sure I had a good fill of the yummy salmon which was pretty fantastic.<br /><br />After dinner it was time for some family photographs which was cute and nice to see a whole range of family generations sitting together whilst desperately trying to keep a front row of 7 year olds still long enough to get a couple of shots for the family album. After dispersing and for a brisk walk around the condo gardens it was time to listen to Mr R sing some traditional Chinese folk songs, mostly from around the communist era I believe. Here my Mandarin phrasebook was sadly lacking I’m afraid. I believe communist folk songs are in the next edition.<br />Now the Chinese love a good sing song but Mr R was actually pretty damn good and it was really nice to watch and listen to. He was good enough to explain some of the meanings but it was nice to just listen and see some of the places that he’d been invited to sing at in China which set me off thinking of all the places that I’d like to go and visit there in the coming year. All in all it was a really interesting day and I was really grateful to have been invited along. It’s exactly why I’m here and being able to experience it was lots of fun. Big thanks to R and family!<br /><br />I must have made a good enough impression as I got my invite back for next year. I think some of that might be to clean off the remaining Yusheng that is still stuck in the ceiling fan but we’ll see.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-80083319367442971132011-01-26T19:49:00.000-08:002011-01-26T19:57:20.797-08:00January happenings.This last week I was back in Borneo doing some more technical diving courses that I’ve been meaning to do, just so that I can start doing some longer mixed gasses on the rebreather. For those that don’t know what a rebreather is, it’s a device that sits on your back a bit like a suitcase and closes the breathing circuit so that exhaled gas goes back into a unit on your back which then messes about with it so that you can breathe it again.<br />It just means you dive for hours and potentially deeper without having nasty decompression stops for hours at a time.<br />It’s a bit more complicated than that in reality – but that’s the 101 lesson. If you want to know more - hey – I’ll teach you ;)<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TUDshQZ_oZI/AAAAAAAAAMo/9d0E0Uzh4D0/s1600/167831_489594370898_694640898_6525758_3476266_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TUDshQZ_oZI/AAAAAAAAAMo/9d0E0Uzh4D0/s400/167831_489594370898_694640898_6525758_3476266_n.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566709195513766290" border="0" /></a><br />It was a cool course although harder than I imagined to master and a little bit scary to be honest when going through some of the disaster drills. Still a way to go before I can teach it - but not a bad start until the point when I got a bloody great cold half way through the week and had to stop diving. I pushed it a bit and now I’m deaf in one ear for the next two weeks whilst it sorts itself out. Not too clever.<br /><br />I flew back a few days early in the end as I was getting bored silly of Malaysian TV (only 5 channels) and one of those is an all day repeating cycle of MacGyver, Remington Steele and Matt Houston. It’s the channel where shitty detective TV series never die. I’ll pop back later in the year after I get back from the UK/US in March once I need my fix of Murder She Wrote.<br />The entire week was a bit of a disaster as I broke my iphone by taking it diving, I broke my hearing through the cold – and whilst there I also had the third ID fraud in the last two years, this time on my iTunes account. Not a very good week really.<br /><br />Since arriving in Sing I’d been missing doing the cultural activities that I used to do in London so at Christmas I booked myself some tickets for Carmen which was in town and playing at the Esplanade Theatre.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TUDs7I3-qZI/AAAAAAAAAMw/csQvb_Ek54M/s1600/The_Esplanade_4%252C_Singapore%252C_Dec_05.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TUDs7I3-qZI/AAAAAAAAAMw/csQvb_Ek54M/s400/The_Esplanade_4%252C_Singapore%252C_Dec_05.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566709640168647058" border="0" /></a><br />This was great, as I’d fancied seeing the Esplanade up close for some time. The building, like most grand theatres is quite a spectacular sight glistening away on the Singapore horizon. The building from the outside is quite remarkable and is not dissimilar to the shape of two halved Durian fruits. As long as it doesn’t pong like one thank you.<br />Durian for the uninitiated is a fruit of truly nauseating properties. You either love it or hate it. Some say you’ve only really got Asia in your blood once you’ve accepted the fruit. I’m not so sure about this. The great thing about Durian is all the various guises it comes in.<br />Durian chocolate, crisps, moon cakes, ice cream – you name it. If you can get it – you can be damn sure there is a Durian flavoured hybrid of it.<br /><br />It’s hard to really describe the Durian smell in words which don’t make it sound totally foul. It divides opinion into equally as hostile encampments as Marmite can. Personally, I’m not a big fan of anything that smells like old socks full of smelly cheese that’s been festering in the boot of the car on a hot and humid day. But that’s just me.<br /><br />Maybe it’ll grow on me in time.<br /><br />Anyway, after grabbing the tickets and settling down in the surprisingly big seats I sat back and took in the show. The theatre was basically a carbon copy of a traditional Shaftsbury avenue theatre. The classic horse shoe design on a slight slope, with four tiers offering elevated seats all not too far away with pretty good views. I’d prompted for tenth row stall seats as I quite fancied a good view and was not disappointed.<br />I’d never seen Carmen before, although I did know the story and was aware it was a relative smorgasbord of classics and ditties that you pick up with relative ease. What was unusual was watching a majority Chinese cast sing a Spanish themed opera in French. It was all done pretty well and the screens at the side translating into Mandarin and English made it all the more easy. The English, not the Mandarin obviously.<br />For those that don’t know the story of Carmen – here is my slightly abridged version.<br /><br />Girl working at Lemonade factory starts drinking far too much of the local produce and goes a bit loopy on it and has a bit of a rough and tumble at the office with one of the other girls over the merits of fruit based drinks counting as one of the required five-a-day. The ensuing altercation is split up by the local shop steward, Mr Jose – who subsequently decides that Carmen is the best thing since R. Whites was invented and promptly decides that she’s the one that he want to make juice with from now on.<br />Carmen tries to persuade Mr Jose into running off to the hills to start off their own Organic Lemonade business with the possibility of resurrecting Panda Cola. He finds this a bit hard to believe and decides that nobody would want to buy Panda Cola, particularly in the hills of Seville, so goes back to the factory shaking his head in disbelief.<br />Carmen being a slightly more fiery Spanish women clobbers Mr Jose over the head and drags him off to the hills where she dreams of making ice cream floats. Mr Jose starts coming around to the idea of this as a sound business idea just as Carmen bumps in to the local prized flower arranger Mr Hyacinth. She realises she can only have true happiness with a world champion flower arranger and decides that Panda Cola was truly an awful business proposition and that eighties based cola drinks was a ridiculous idea. Mr Jose is swiftly consigned to the back room and is no longer considered as a viable entity which peeves him somewhat.<br />Mr Jose having just invested everything into this takes this ever so slightly badly and decides that it’s in the best possible interest to kill everyone, which he goes about doing.<br /><br />There’s a bit of singing and dancing involved in all of this and everyone seems to have a jolly good time about it, until of course when they all die.<br /><br />That’s my slightly shorter version of the story but I think it captures the prevalent parts of the story and portrays the layered and complex messages of love, lemonade making and not to mess with Latino women. On the whole, it didn’t have the complete magic or energy that you’d get in a London theatre, but it was a great substitute and I’d love to go again sometime in the future.<br /><br />I’ve finally figured out the local theatre circuit now, so should be planning a few more trips as the year progresses.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-91006705886782582782011-01-09T05:05:00.000-08:002011-01-09T05:45:43.983-08:00Two wheels best.A new year brings new hopes, new challenges and for some reason a whole bunch of paperwork and admin.<br />This week it seems like my letterbox has been carpet bombed with flyers, letters, forms and just about every product under the sun.<br />I’m thinking of having my letter box Feng Shui’d to ward off evil Pizza delivery letters and Real Estate offerings for properties that I can neither afford nor desire.<br />Some quite pleasing letters that have arrived are my appointment letters for the Ministry Of Manpower (see previous posting for the MoM) so that I can apply for my Permanent Residency (or PR as it’s know). PR basically changes my employment status over from a temporary resident (i.e 2 years) to a visa that has a few more practical benefits and also opens the door to me perhaps buying a house and becoming more of an long term member of society. There are some disadvantages to this as well for some expats, but on the whole it’d be a good thing for me to have especially as I hope to stick around for a while which is kind of handy as my company has renewed my contract to stay for another year which is jolly fine with me. Like most forms in Singapore, it’s a doddle to fill in and hopefully in the coming months I’ll be getting a Welcome To the Club! letter back. I do go on about Singaporean efficiency a lot but when it’s good it’s very very good, and when it’s bad, it’s not actually all that bad at all. It’ll take a few more forms and a few more months to sort out but it’s a step in the right direction.<br /><br />Being the new year and with a Christmas void of family and friends from home there was no Christmas tree, no baubles and certainly no Escape To Victory playing on ITV2. To make up for this I did what any self respecting guy would do and went out and decided to buy myself a big f*ck off present. This came in the shape of a 1996 Harley Davidson Fatboy Softail motorbike. Having being declined entry on to this island of my beloved Ducati 996 I’ve been enviously looking at bikes passing me since I arrived. This being Asia I did the only thing that you can do and bought an American bike. I’m told that more HD’s are sold in Asia than in the USA which given the number I’ve seen scooting about could be a very reliable statistic.<br />I’ve never been a HD fan, but my dream bike is stuck in a garage at home so anything else would be second best to that, apart from maybe a 1198 in matt black, but I’m hardly going to spank 70K on a bike that I can’t ride anywhere on without hitting the sea in 15 minutes. Singapore is only 70ks from the widest points so it’s not going to take long to get from the sea to the sea.<br />I’ve fancied the idea of doing a bit of road touring in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia next year so when I saw this beauty up for sale, at a price that seemed ok, it was an offer I could not refuse.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSmzpWn2jEI/AAAAAAAAAMA/Olm00Gt4H1M/s1600/photo.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSmzpWn2jEI/AAAAAAAAAMA/Olm00Gt4H1M/s400/photo.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560172737994329154" border="0" /></a>After picking the bike up and realising it’s not the quietest ride in town I soon discovered that it’s also not the lightest nor has the best stopping distances. I’m used to riding Italian racers which you can stop with your little finger on a penny. This thing needs a hand like an Olympic lifter and the foot brake being pressed with some vigour to stop it’s hulking mass from becoming intimate with the vehicle in front. I’ve never ever used a foot brake to stop a bike before so as the first set of red lights approached my heart started to race a little as they got closer and closer as my little pinky feathered the three pound brake leaver. Only when firmly pressing a good portion of my size eleven on the foot long brake pedal did the beast come to a standstill. After a little wipe of the brow, we moved on having learnt my first lesson of American brakes.<br />I’m being a bit harsh here as my Ducati has six pot callipers on two twelve inch galvanised discs just on the front. That’s the kind of stopping power the space shuttle utilises when they realise a crucial bit has been left off on a trolley in the hanger and they decide to abort take off. The HD has a bar of soap and some sort of heavy anchor you throw off the back to slow you down string as far as I can see.<br />It really is a fun ride though and I can see the attraction with Hogs and why people rave about them. If you need to drive a sofa to work and back there really is no other choice. Apart from actually putting some wheels on a sofa and sticking some chrome bits on the side I suppose.<br /><br />I’ve managed to get a few of the guys in the office geed up so we’re all off up to Central Malaysia in a few weeks to have a bit of a boys road trip which I’m looking forward to very much and I’m sure will give me some stories to wax lyrical anecdotally.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSm7BM6R7mI/AAAAAAAAAMI/XvJHqDCgxf4/s1600/P1000732.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSm7BM6R7mI/AAAAAAAAAMI/XvJHqDCgxf4/s400/P1000732.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560180844285521506" border="0" /></a>So from two wheels with an engine to two wheels without. This weekend I indulged in my other big passion which is cycling. I bought myself a Trek road bike a few months back with a view to using it to keep a bit fit by cycling to work every other day or so, but also to explore a bit of the island upon. I’ve always been more of a mountain kind of guy, but as most of the hills here resemble small mole hills there is not much choice in vertical.<br />I’m really enjoying the road riding so a few of the guys from work and I ventured off to Bintan in Indonesia for a days riding the pristine roads there. We set off at 5am to cycle to the ferry terminal in the east and took the 50 minute ferry over the waters to Indonesia.<br />We coined ourselves the affectionate and slightly deprecating name of Mamils. Middle Aged Men in Lycra to you and me.<br />I’d been to Bintan once before but only on a luxury spa weekend so was quite looking forward to seeing what the real place is like beyond the ringed fences of the spa compounds that scatter the place.<br />The riding and roads where epic. It’s the most pristine island of islands and is surprisingly bigger than Singapore by a fair bit - and the roads, hills and scenery is unparalleled. I’d ridden a bit in Borneo the year before and it was certainly on par with that, if not better for road riding.<br />We did a 90k loop of the north west part of the island which is used as a stage run for the Tour De Bintan cycle race held yearly in October. I’d not done it the year before as it’s a bit of a killer event, but it’d be something I’d be keen to do this year after seeing the layout.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSm7Qkcr4aI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/oI1q9Vv1ST0/s1600/stage2-big.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 336px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSm7Qkcr4aI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/oI1q9Vv1ST0/s400/stage2-big.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560181108301881762" border="0" /></a>The three of us set off on our pristine bikes with the combined street value of a Porsche 911 and swiftly started to sweat our own bodyweight as the first of many rolling hills and king of the mountain stages started to loom into sight around gorgeous traffic free bends.<br />After not riding a hill for over a year and after 90ks of ups and downs I can safely say I had nothing left in the tank at the end. So much so that when I came to stop outside the police station at the end of the ride I promptly got cramp in my dismounting cleat foot and landed in a heap with Trek’s finest on top off me with it’s wheels spinning.<br />The local constabulary thought this quite funny and gave me an inspiring round of applause whilst I tried to look a bit like I knew what I was doing. It’s a bit hard trying to look anything other than a total dick when you’re strapped to a bike by your feet whilst your head is in a ditch. After scrabbling out from under the bike and dusting off my lycra we got our bearings and headed off back to the ferry for some well earned Satay and copious Bintang beers.<br />All the way around the island we were greeted and waved at by the most friendly school kids and people you could hope to meet. Being smiled and at and cheered by a sea of gappy toothed kids out by the roadsides in the brightest of school uniforms made the day go by brilliantly and made us all feel very special. I can’t wait to go back and spend a few days exploring more of the routes and seeing more of the island. After doing it, you can really see why people do these amazing trips on bike over extraordinary distances in the most remote of places. There really is nothing quite like appreciating friendly inquisitiveness than getting amongst the people than on a bike and I’ve found.<br />Planning has commenced to go back with with a bigger group for the 156Km stage ride in late February with a well deserved stay in the spa in the evening to tend to our battered and bruised bodies.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSm7q0FpfzI/AAAAAAAAAMY/k8MZPodQLhA/s1600/P1000736.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TSm7q0FpfzI/AAAAAAAAAMY/k8MZPodQLhA/s400/P1000736.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560181559176822578" border="0" /></a>I just need to take the padded shorts next time and get some more practice in as my backside feels like it’s been riding a razor blade today.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-37973546425860908332010-12-29T07:19:00.000-08:002010-12-29T21:32:57.507-08:00New Year messageAs the new year beckons I look back fondly on the last few months since I arrived in Singapore and some of the great experiences I’ve had, some of the great people I’ve met and most of all some of the wonderful things I’ve learnt since I arrived with a couple suitcases full of stuff that I thought you could not buy here. Turns out the snowboards, sweaters and puffa jacket have not seen the light of day since I unpacked them and I’m already on my third pair of flip flops so it gives you an idea of the weather I'm used to. Going back to the snowdrifts of the UK does not seem like a good prospect. Even more interesting, I've had one day of being ill since I arrived and that I suspect was down to some rather dubious satay that I'd polished off one evening.<br /><br />So as I look back, what have I garnered about this new land?<br /><br />I’ve learnt that everything and anything can be bought in Singapore, apart from Muesli.<br />I’ve discovered that you can buy over 100 different types of Chilli Sauce at the most basic supermarket. The wall of chilli I’ve coined it.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRtTW8HTTsI/AAAAAAAAAL4/hdWa4AugTBo/s1600/photo.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRtTW8HTTsI/AAAAAAAAAL4/hdWa4AugTBo/s400/photo.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556126218850619074" border="0" /></a><br />I’ve figured out that you can reserve a table place from the massing hordes in a public place with nothing more than an elaborately folded business card.<br />I’ve worked out that the most valuable and often rarest item amongst friends is a serviette in a hawker centre.<br />I’ve come to the conclusion that Singaporean deserts whilst looking like they’ve come from Mars are actually quite nice once you brave them and give them a go.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRtSy4iLeII/AAAAAAAAALw/do1RG7hLz24/s1600/IMG_0232.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRtSy4iLeII/AAAAAAAAALw/do1RG7hLz24/s400/IMG_0232.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556125599414319234" border="0" /></a><br />I’ve just noticed that these all seem to be food related... Maybe I’m just a bit hungry.<br /><br />It’s not just been all about food though. I’ve been enriched culturally and potentially emotionally since I’ve arrived and that was always the goal above any positive of warm weather, low taxes and a clean city which are the things you hear most of the people comment on when they describe why they like it here.<br /><br /><br />Some of the things I’d like to achieve this coming year include....<br /><br />The damn four tones of Mandarin. Erggg – Arghh – Urghh – ZzzUgg is all it sounds like to me. Mandarin does actually make a little bit of sense when you deconstruct it but the tones – they’ve got me stumped.<br /><br />Convert ten people to give up eating Shark Fin. For every one I convert the ripple effect will continue. I’ve managed it with 2 people so far with not so much effort, so it can be done. Granted, they’ve now switched to Tiger penis so I might need to perfect my cross over technique but it’s the thought that counts.<br /><br />Learn some Asian cooking – I do miss cooking and cooking for 1 is nowhere near as much fun as for a bunch of folks. So, I’d like to go and learn to make a few dishes and make use of some of the great local produce out here . Starting off with figuring out the local wet market.... I need to find some unwitting test subjects to try out experiments on and now I’ve finally got a dining table it’s something I’d like to try out.<br /><br />More travel. It’s hard to know where to start with the travel options ahead this year. China, Japan and some road trips on my new steed around Malaysia and Indonesia are top of the list and a couple more diving trips that I’ve got my eye on in Sipadan, Sulawesi and a a few of the more eastern Indonesian islands. Who knows what opportunity will arise with work as well. My trip to India this year was very interesting and somewhat humbling and was a place I’d love to go back and be able to explore some more.<br /><br />So as the year closes to an end I’m quite excited about the year ahead and what may, or may not be. Even better is that I can say this all again in February as it’s Chinese New Year then!<br /><br />Happy new year to everyone and hopefully I’ll see some of you this way in the coming year.<br /><br />I’ll keep you posted on the continual search for muesli and the progress of my Ergggs and Arghhs.<br /><br />In the meantime as I stock the fridge full of Tiger for the friends and festivities that tomorrow brings I bid you Xīn Nián Kuài Lè!Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-86115763435946404962010-12-26T20:28:00.000-08:002010-12-26T20:50:45.722-08:00Christmas in the Philippines<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">Christmas day this year was a little bit different than any I’ve spent before. Not being able to go back to the UK for the seasonal break as had most people I decided that a few days diving somewhere exotic would be a good idea. So after a little bit of planning myself and three other dive buddies set course to Puerto Galera in the Philippines to spend a few days either side of Christmas day doing a bit of lounging around with the occasional diving thrown in.<br />PG is a quaint little place in the province of Oriental Mindoro (which is a very cool sounding name) which is about 100ks drive south of Manila. Having never been to the Philippines before and facing the prospect of having my turkey on the beach I was quite looking forward to this mini excursion.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgW4sk73HI/AAAAAAAAAKg/ijk68W1Cwkc/s1600/IMG_0239.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgW4sk73HI/AAAAAAAAAKg/ijk68W1Cwkc/s400/IMG_0239.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555215303656070258" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">Once you reach the coastal town of Batangas, a jump on a little bum boat across the Manila Channel for an hour’s sail and you’re plonked down on the sandy beach of Sabang which is the main heart of the bay where most of the cafes and bistros (spelt Bistrot oddly) are perched.<br />It’s a sleepy enough little place and I’d expected it to be rammed at peak season but mostly down to the credit crunch, snowfalls in Europe and other unknown factors the place was oddly quiet. I’ve no problem with this at all and it made the place feel all the more quaint without hoards of European tourists clogging the place up. The Philippines is a great location to spend the festive period as the majority of Filipinos are Christian so Christmas (or Cleese-maaass!! – as I now find myself pronouncing it ) and the shenanigans that go with it are celebrated in gusto.<br />The minute we arrived in Batangas, a flurry of bargaining, payment of taxes, bribes and backhanders commenced at a rate that I’ve never seen before in all of my travels. From unloading of my dive gear from the taxi in the ferry terminal car park to setting sail on the bum boat we must have paid 5 different taxes and paid off 3 or more people looking for a quick peso or two. It’s a bit daunting at first to have such a full on frontal of people looking to make a quick buck off you, but once you’ve figured out that it’s done in a friendly and non menacing way, you quickly get into the spirit of it all and go with the flow. Ian, my half Chinese mate had a field day bargaining and negotiating everything from his bags being carried to the environmental tax and even the price of a cup of coffee. I just sat back and watched and took it all in. My top tip for anyone doing this is to carry a wad of low denomination peso notes around and give them out like they are going out of print.<br />The amount that Filipinos earn and the poverty level is strikingly low so I wasn’t going to begrudge giving a few of my dollars away to people who needed them a lot more than I did. It’s hard not to give a few pesos to a wide toothy grin smiling back at you in people that just want a few pesos for helping you out in any way that they can. There is not a lot of paid work to be had so anything that can lend itself to a bit of income is fair game.<br /><br />After a plane, car and ferry ride we arrived in Sabang and decamped our stuff, wacked on the dive gear and promptly set about exploring some of the local reefs and dive sites that were on offer. The diving in PG is scattered around the many coves and pocket beaches which make up the coastline. It’s mostly accessible by small boat as the rugged coastline is fragmented with big rocky outcrops which are simply stunning to look at.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgXsq5W_NI/AAAAAAAAAKw/C3WT4FXfixQ/s1600/P1000646.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgXsq5W_NI/AAAAAAAAAKw/C3WT4FXfixQ/s400/P1000646.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555216196558060754" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">Behind and right up to the white beaches the thick jungle encroaches all the way back up to the mountainous ranges of Mindoro. It would have been great to do some exploring of this and do some trekking of the interior, but that would have to wait for another time. PG being one of the top diving destinations in the Philippines which is what we were here to do.<br />The first couple of dives where a little uneventful, but by day two we were in the thick of some good diving on the some of the more advanced sites. PG really does have a great variety and health of corals which is easily on par to that of Komodo which I was at a few months before. The visibility is not as great but it’s pretty acceptable and coupled with some great drift dives in a some quite strong current made for a great couple of dives on Canyons and Fish Bowl.<br />I had to laugh at the Fish Bowl name. I must have dived in over 20 places with dive sites of the same name. I’m going to start a campaign for more creative dive site naming. Surely there has to be a better and more interesting method than taking a fish or animal name and appending it with a topographical noun. Shark Reef, Coral Garden and Crystal Point are getting a bit repetitive to see on dive maps. I’ve decided that I’m only going to dive sites that have more interesting names next year, that or just rename them myself as something more descriptively accurate. Sounds good in principle but I’m sure not many people will want to go diving with me to “Swampy quagmire” or “Nowt at all to see bleached mound”<br />If you do like drift diving though, some of the sites here are pretty good for that and I can see myself going back at some point to do some more of the more technical 60-70mtr channels and canyons that are within easy reach of the main beach.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgaz6shR-I/AAAAAAAAALo/ffDyEa4FSxo/s1600/IMG_0236.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgaz6shR-I/AAAAAAAAALo/ffDyEa4FSxo/s400/IMG_0236.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555219619593144290" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">As a place to go out PG is quite a lot of fun as well. The beaches in Sabang are not much to write about as the influx of cafes and dive shops has spoilt the idyllic feel of the main bay coupled with quite a large selection of girly bars to frequent in the evening which gives it a more of a Patong feel than Mediterranean infused hideaway. What it lacks for in being rough around the edges it more than makes up for in exuberance. You can easily spot the folks that have arrived more for the pleasure of the bar girls than the diving but hey, this is Asia after all and I’m no prude. The beaches further along the coast which are pleasant boat ride away are simply stunning. If ever you wanted to see a place that has been hardly touched by man and to have your own beach for the afternoon with a glass of Chablis or two, then this is the place. Get dropped off, crack open the vino, swim around on your own beach and get picked up later by your own little boat.<br /><br />But this still being Christmas eve we were duly required to have our Christmas lunch or something as close to it as we could find. In the end, it was not difficult to find a decent lunch as most of the hotels had laid on buffet style dinners with salmon, turkey, lamb and all the trimmings of cranberry jam and accoutrements that one could wish for. It really was pretty good although sadly no Christmas pudding and a tawny port to wash it down afterwards.<br />As far as Christmas dinner was concerned, it was my first in Asia, my first by the beach and my first away from friends, family and loved ones. It was really enjoyable though and as I looked out over sea watching the colourful hanging lanterns swinging in the sea breeze I gave a little toast to those far away in distance, but not very far away in thoughts.<br /><br />In the evening I made my way into the locals end of the bay and got talking to a bunch of young local guys and some girls who were back from overseas visiting their families for the celebratory period. In the Philippines, it’s a big thing to come back and see your family and spend time together at this time of year as they are very family orientated.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgZOhCyYrI/AAAAAAAAALQ/0Co__mEBBAI/s1600/P1000686.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgZOhCyYrI/AAAAAAAAALQ/0Co__mEBBAI/s400/P1000686.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555217877540430514" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">After a few drinks of some of the local fire-water which consisted of pure gin and lime juice fused together in some magical swirling concoction followed by copious amounts of Red Horse, the local 7% beer, we were all hugging and singing Filipino party songs like I was one of the family, albeit a slightly taller and more pale version.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgXNS-PyhI/AAAAAAAAAKo/5rryG9o9n_I/s1600/P1000678.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgXNS-PyhI/AAAAAAAAAKo/5rryG9o9n_I/s400/P1000678.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555215657560164882" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">Speaking of beer, it took me a few days to work out this little peculiarity of napkins being wrapped around the heads of the beers. At first, I’d thought it was some polite hygiene thing or to keep the condensation at bay like in humid Singapore, were your beer will be sat in a pool of water within seconds of leaving the fridge. After watching a few locals wipe the rim upon opening the bottle my curiosity got the better of me and I gave in and asked. It was explained to me that the bottle tops of San Miguel rust for some reason and occasionally make the neck go a rusty colour, which is to be wiped off. So, every single bottle of San Miguel comes with a little hat napkin to wipe it, rusty or not. My inquisitive mind was satisfied at last.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgYAWqjeFI/AAAAAAAAAK4/yxHvx6S2Hfk/s1600/IMG_0242.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgYAWqjeFI/AAAAAAAAAK4/yxHvx6S2Hfk/s400/IMG_0242.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555216534724638802" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">As we all sat out by the family house by the bay the local band in the bar next door were belting out local renditions of Let it Snow when clearly it could be seen that it was anything but snowing and no amount of letting would be likely to change that meteorological forecast. As we all danced around I was made to feel at home in a way that you’d never see anywhere else in the world. Allowing a complete stranger into your home, into your lives and at the most important family time of the year and making them feel like part of the furniture was something that I’ll remember for a long time. The world really does have some good people in it.<br /><br />After being invited into their home in the early hours for yet more traditional local food (the goat curry looked a bit odd but was amazing) we had some more drinks and I got to ask lots of questions about the Filipino way of life and I was probed, climbed on and giggled at by the small children about what it was like in England at Christmas time.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgYv6FPsaI/AAAAAAAAALI/LLuJ55w1lSA/s1600/P1000677.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgYv6FPsaI/AAAAAAAAALI/LLuJ55w1lSA/s400/P1000677.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555217351685681570" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">No TV or Playstation to be seen, no family bickering, no expensive gifts being exchanged but a simple and enjoyable get together with anyone who was sober enough to be able to still speak coherently. Man, I can tell you Filipino know how to drink!<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgYWAFc4QI/AAAAAAAAALA/M8RzCMxo2n4/s1600/P1000696.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgYWAFc4QI/AAAAAAAAALA/M8RzCMxo2n4/s400/P1000696.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555216906620559618" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">In the early hours as I walked back to the hotel along the beach I sat down on the harbour steps and looked out to the mainland wondering what was going to be in store for the year ahead. Certainly some new adventures, certainly some new friends to be made. As the firecrackers and fireworks subsided I picked myself up and started the short walk home just to be greeted by a grin of one of the young kids I’d been chatting to. “You are coming for New Years Andy?” was the question. “You should really see us party then!!” he smirked.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgZuqBqSvI/AAAAAAAAALY/JHmXFkk92mA/s1600/P1000680.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TRgZuqBqSvI/AAAAAAAAALY/JHmXFkk92mA/s400/P1000680.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555218429707438834" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">I smiled to him and replied maybe. For sure, it’ll be a place I do end up going back to one day. I just need to let my liver relax a little before then.<br /></span></span></span>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-8093106862591592562010-12-09T08:18:00.000-08:002010-12-09T08:46:29.584-08:00I do in Bali<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">This weekend, I was back to Bali for a friend’s wedding that I’d kindly been invited to. It was quite exciting as not only was this the first wedding I’d been to this year but it was also my first Singaporean wedding too, albeit it being in Bali of course.<br />The wedding was in the north of Bali in Tulamben which is a pretty little village in the northeast of Bali, about two and a bit hour’s drive in a rickety little minibus. Previously I’ve been a bit hard on Bali but that’s more to do with the south as the north and anywhere other than Kuta is actually quite pretty. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why I like Indonesia so much but it’s a place I find myself enjoying whenever I end up there. I’m certainly not enjoying the annoying $25US visa that you need to buy every time you decide to enter and then the $10US tax you have to pay to leave so it’s time to investigate getting a longer term visa. That and another passport as I’m down to the last few pages and it’s starting to get funny looks from the immigration folks as I pass over my 10 year old battered and frayed paperwork over the counter.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEEtuyJ3zI/AAAAAAAAAJc/-qwFaOyk15w/s1600/P1000609.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEEtuyJ3zI/AAAAAAAAAJc/-qwFaOyk15w/s400/P1000609.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548721399596179250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">I was in Bali for a few days and being a bit of a diving connection to the group, it was customary to get a couple of dives in whilst there. Tulamben has three or so shore based dives which are actually really nice. The water was a tepid 30 degrees and with pretty good visibility and no current at all. I even managed to see a few new things that I’ve never seen before which was cool (Ribbon Eel for one and a Leaf fish!).<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEFGjDzqhI/AAAAAAAAAJk/Ss9fJHhxkhs/s1600/P1000642.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEFGjDzqhI/AAAAAAAAAJk/Ss9fJHhxkhs/s400/P1000642.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548721825945725458" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">The main highlight for the diving is the Liberty wreck. This is a huge WWII ship which was torpedoed by the Japanese, although apparently it was only sunk off Bali by an erupting volcano in 1963. Diving it is pretty easy for all levels and I was lucky enough to dive it pretty much alone one morning when I got up before the others and had it to myself.<br />It’s about 120mtrs in length and has some good swim throughs and for a shore based wreck the flora and fauna is very impressive. A dream to teach on I’m sure.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">After a day’s diving and a fun evening of drinking far too much of the local firewater (Arak – a fermented coconut number) with some Instructor mates, it was time for the wedding the next day. Luckily, the weather held out after the torrential downpours which we had the day before and a lovely ceremony was had. It was a simple enough ceremony with about 40 guests right on the beachfront.<br />Being a bunch of divers, we had changed the “Arch of Sabres” to an “Arch of Fins” as the happy couple passed through a plethora of brightly coloured raised ScubaPro and Mares fins.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEFpLQ0W4I/AAAAAAAAAJs/Vy2wlGDs4Zc/s1600/P1000610.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEFpLQ0W4I/AAAAAAAAAJs/Vy2wlGDs4Zc/s400/P1000610.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548722420853267330" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">It was quite funny to watch and will probably the only time I ever see that again. The ceremony was on a little bit of beach next to the dive school and had been decked out in pretty ribbons, balloons and traditional Indonesian ceremonial bits and bobs (not a very technical description I know)<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEHV_KigRI/AAAAAAAAAKM/aH68olUIQpc/s1600/P1000621.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEHV_KigRI/AAAAAAAAAKM/aH68olUIQpc/s400/P1000621.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548724290211447058" border="0" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEFpLQ0W4I/AAAAAAAAAJs/Vy2wlGDs4Zc/s1600/P1000610.jpg"><br /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">After the ceremony the drink flowed and everyone ended up getting thrown into the pool, which was quite refreshing as it was getting pretty sticky in the afternoon.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEHsPyZx-I/AAAAAAAAAKU/xvLBiDiX2ao/s1600/P1000619.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEHsPyZx-I/AAAAAAAAAKU/xvLBiDiX2ao/s400/P1000619.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548724672630736866" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">The traditional tossing of the bouquet was performed but with a slight twist in throwing it to a bunch of burly 6ft blokes splashing around in the pool who were still wearing the somewhat de rigueur wedding uniform of khaki beach shorts and white linen shirts.<br />Annoyingly, I was out jumped by a rather large ex second row rugby player who caught the bouquet, much to the delight of his hysterically giggling Malay girlfriend. It was quite funny to watch (the catch not the Malay girlfriend) and once the frothing waters had subsided the victoriously caught bunch of slightly soggy and battered flowers were held aloft for all to applaud. Well done Neil!<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEGSw1WJlI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/hNKR7lkrL1A/s1600/P1000628.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEGSw1WJlI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/hNKR7lkrL1A/s400/P1000628.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548723135313225298" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">In the evening we were treated to some traditional Indonesian dancing which was really fun to watch. Not being the most appreciative of the communicative medium of dance I could not really understand the full sequence of what was being conveyed, but it was very interesting nonetheless.<br />I do now understand where the robot dance gets its origins from though.<br /></span></span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEGp9kK_KI/AAAAAAAAAKE/vDbg4ZI0WNY/s1600/P1000633.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TQEGp9kK_KI/AAAAAAAAAKE/vDbg4ZI0WNY/s400/P1000633.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548723533867842722" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">What was great over the few days that I was there was that I met a load more great people especially a few more instructors which was fun in so much as to swap travel stories and tales with. All in all, a very relaxing and fun weekend. I forgot how much fun weddings can be, which is handy as I’ve two coming up back in England next year.<br />Which reminds me – time to start writing the Best Man speeches.</span></span></span>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-60948154839046078872010-11-30T08:58:00.001-08:002010-11-30T08:58:42.350-08:00Reflections...It’s been nearly six months since I started out on this journey and although it only seems like two minutes since I was packing up my London life and coming out here to make a new start, I guess I’ve discovered a lot but in some ways I’ve only just scratched the surface. Some things are easy, some things are hard and there is nothing more satisfying than writing a list about what is floating my boat and what is not.<br /><br />Floating the boat<br /><br />Travel – Singapore is one massive bus stop to the world, either by air or by boat. Nearly everything coming from West to East or vice versa comes in close proximity if not actually even stopping here. Taking a cursory look out of the window down to the beach (ok – I exaggerate about the quality of my view) it’s one long cavalcade of container ships, freight and tankers ploughing up and down the Straights on to destinations further and more unpronounceable than I know. The same goes for me. It’s possible to be in a different country every weekend for a year in less than 4 hours on a plane for a few hundred dollars and not even hit the same place twice. I’m whittling them down a bit but even I know it’ll be a list of places that would take a lifetime to see and I’ll be lucky if I even do half of them.<br /><br />Food – Trying desperately not to put on the famous Singapore Stone is a tricky job. One of the two national sports here is eating and it’s possible to eat out on hardly any money at all and satisfy one’s palate on everything and anything from any corner of the globe and some odder places in between.<br />As long as you like it with chilli sauce you’re sorted. Screwed if you don’t. Even McDonald's have a special chilli sauce pot that I’ve only ever seen served here.<br /><br />Cheap beer – Singapore is actually an expensive city to go drinking in if you don’t watch what you are doing. It’s quite easy to be racking up S$16 beers if you don’t pay attention, but in the same sentence, if you shop around when plying the local barmen for his trade, you can easily be knocking back S$5 beers a few feet in the opposite direction. Happy hours are the rule here and hawker stalls peddle the amber nectar at prices that can hardly be beat as long as you don’t mind the beer of choice here, Tiger.<br /><br />The beautiful people – Ok, Asian women are very hot I’ll make no bones about it. Even still, Singapore does seem to attract a rather above average set of people, both male and female I note. I’m not counting myself in any of this statement but the journey to work is all the more easy on the eye than anywhere else in the world I’ve been lucky to work. Maybe it’s something in the water.<br /><br />Exploring – Maybe it’s living in a new city after living in the old one for so long, but the weekends and holidays seem all the more exciting when there are new places to explore, new people to meet and new experiences to try out.<br />Getting up early on the weekend is all the more easy knowing that there is a whole new exotic world outside the door waiting for you.<br /><br />Cycling to work by the beach – I’ve been a keen cyclist for quite a few years now and NOTHING beats cycling to work along the beach with the morning sun shining on the sand and the waves coming rippling in. Fair enough, I’m painting a picture of absolute paradise but whilst the sand is imported from Indonesia and the waves are laced with marine diesel, it’s still quite exhilarating to be able to wrap the start and end of the work day with a pootle down the promenade.<br />Changi may not be the most rip roaring of places to have an office on the island, but for the days that I am there it’s actually a pleasure to go to work that way.<br /><br />Bonkers food names – Kang Kong, Kai Lan – the list goes on of foods that look familiar but of which I’ve no idea of what they actually are. It’s an education just trying to do the local shopping and lots of fun deciphering that some exotic word that you can’t pronounce just means garden peas.<br />Buying fish from the wet market is even more of a fun activity. All manner of fish types are on offer of varieties that I’ve never been able to buy before. I think I might sign up for a local cooking course to try and not only understand what I’m actually buying, but also to find out what on earth I'm to do with it as well.<br /><br /><br />Not floating the boat.<br /><br />The lack of seasons – Singapore has two seasons. A hot one and and a really hot one. You never even know which one it’s going to be on any given day as well I’ve found. I’m not complaining at all and more than anything I’m not going to be a moaning Brit who bangs on about the weather all the time. What I do miss is the seasons and especially the changing of seasons. No more crisp crunchy frost on the way to work. No more kicking brown leaves down the pavement. No more seeing a cool mist on the Surrey downs whilst walking the dog before breakfast. Ok, I never lived in Surrey, and I don’t even have a dog, but it’s the thought that counts.<br />It's now Christmas here and seeing Orchard Road lit up in all it's glory, which is quite impressive actually is rather nice but it's not the same without roasted chestnuts, a cold crisp breeze and the excuse to warm yourself up with lashings of warm mulled wine as you traipse along.<br /><br />Ants in my condo – I have very mild OCD. I like things to be in order. Ants do not have OCD. Ants like chaos, apart from that thing they do when they go in a nice neat line (which is quite nice to watch).<br /><br />I don’t like ants. I have lots of ants in my condo. Therefore, it’s very annoying.<br /><br />I don’t know if it’s just me but the general fumigation exercises I see every few weeks around the place does make me think that it’s more of a common thing than my taste in home furnishings being particularly desirable to the local ant population and making them want to move in with me.<br /><br />Building noise - Singapore in places is one massive building site. Everywhere you look there are condos, malls, MRT stations and office buildings being built. Either nothing has been built in the last ten years and someone has been given the mandate of “Hey – We need to build a load of shit!” or there is a boom going on that I don’t know about. It’s a rush job though as building starts from 8am in the morning till 8pm in the evening and even over the weekends now outside my condo on the East Coast. The sound of the jack hammer and pile driving was not the dulcet tones I’d set myself to hearing on a Sunday morning over my breakfast noodles.<br /><br />Having to change the bed sheets every week – Just to set this straight before the giggling at the back starts – this is nothing to do with my prowess but more that I sleep without the AC on when I can which can make it bloody hot and sweaty at night. This means that the sheets only last a week before they’re whisked off to be changed for another set. My two cats will think it’s an amusement park for them alone as they go mental whenever I change the sheets and they are around. Obviously the answer is just to sleep with the AC on, but maybe I’m just getting a bit green in my old age, or maybe I’m just a bit tight when it comes to paying bills.<br /><br />Never being able to get a cab after 10pm on a Sunday, anywhere – For some reason all the cabs in Singapore enter the twilight zone at 10pm on Sunday. Now, there is obviously something going on at this time which likens the chance of hailing a cab to the same odds as the winning the lottery, twice. Where do they all go? Where tell me? If it starts to rain at this time, give up as all the taxis are made out of something that makes them dissolve in rain water and you’ve no chance at all of seeing one.<br /><br />Being able to share it with someone – this is pretty self explanatory but half the fun of doing the kind of stuff I’m getting up to is precisely what it says. Half the fun. I’m a double the fun twice the laugh kind of person so it’d be all the more nicer to have a partner in crime to do some of the things I’m doing with. Besides it’d make the hotel bills half the price.<br /><br />Singapore organisation – sometimes it’s good when things don’t work. Don’t pay your Electricity bill on time – they cut you off exactly at 9am the day after. Want to park your car overnight in the visitors spot and don’t have the green sticker but have the red one, forget it. Rules are rules I agree, but there is absolutely no chance of flexibility, bending, letting go or even trying to argue about anything as it simply won’t wash. “Cannot” is the answer if you try, which is a pretty infuriating word I can tell you. I’ll get on to the joys of Singlish another time when I’ve managed to get to 10 or more words that I can make out.<br /><br />It’s not much of a list and the negatives are hardly very important. All in all, it’s hard not to love Singapore and coming here has been a real highlight of my life so far. Let's hope they let me stay a bit longer!<br />If the worst I can complain about is the amount of ants I have wandering around the place, whilst shirking away from the wider topical points such as discussions on oppression of freedom from a single party government for the people, then things aren't too bad I suppose.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-68237420806916779712010-11-30T03:00:00.000-08:002010-11-30T08:14:46.141-08:00Driving<span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As a newbie here in Singapore, I’m entitled to drive on my international license for the first 12 months without having to worry about anything. Once I get past 12 months though, I need to take the Singapore Basic Driving Theory test. Why, I don’t really know. They drive on the same side as the UK, all the signs are in English, even the road signs look the same.<br />The only reason I can make out is that I probably drive quite sensibly and I have to take a test in how to drive like a twat.<br /><br />Here is some evidence to go with this,<br /><br />Example 1.<br />Whilst approaching an open junction with no clear right of way, what is the best course of action when two cars from opposite sides arrive at the same time?<br /><br />Answer in England - Slow down to a safe speed, flash ones headlights whilst raising eyebrows northerly in a manner to suggest, after you dear Sir, thus allowing the opposing vehicle to navigate the crossing in a safe and thoroughly jolly encounter.<br /><br />In Singapore – Drop your head down, make no eye contact at all with the opposing enemy and accelerate wildly until you either make it first or crash and explode in a fireball of death.<br /><br />Example 2.<br />In a three lane highway, which is the correct procedure for overtaking slow moving traffic?<br /><br />Answer in England – Using ones mirrors (all three of them), indicate well in advance and manoeuvre in a controlled and somewhat graceful manner into the lane to the right hand side of said slow moving vehicle. Politely wave in a nonchalant manner to the passing vehicle with a slight waft of the relaxed and loose wrist whilst smiling in appreciation throughout the exercise.<br /><br />In Singapore – Never show weakness or anticipation by giving the game away by signalling, just jam your foot down on the gas and use any means necessary to undertake or overtake the infidel in front of you. Once past, rapidly jam on the brakes before slamming into the back of the vehicle you could not see as you were on your mobile phone therefore crashing and exploding in a fireball of death.<br /><br />Now I’m not saying everyone drives like a complete cock in Singapore but there are some seriously bad examples out there. Maybe I’ll turn into one if I actually pass my test, who knows. It’s been over fifteen years since I learned to drive a car and over ten years since I learned to ride a superbike. To get me through the mish-mash of different signs here I’ve bought the theory book, which has the majority of signs and sample questions that you’d expect plus a couple of ones that you’d not expect on the mean streets of London. It’s got nothing like the “Give way to Elephants” or “Caution! – Monkeys” signs I saw in Africa, but there are a couple of odd ones for sure.<br /><br />My test is on the 21st Jan so I’ll swot up a little on stopping distances, aggressive taxi evasion techniques and other salient pieces of information that might be in the book beforehand.<br /><br />As they say, if you can’t beat them, join them<br /></span><br /></span></span>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-32182891574531240562010-11-08T01:54:00.000-08:002010-11-08T06:59:29.483-08:00Musings from IndonesiaAfter a few busy weeks at work I was all ready for a vacation and some trip I had lined up! I’d been planning a bit of a dive/bum around type trip for a few weeks and finally putting a trip together to Indonesia to visit Bali, the Gili Islands and finally some of the lower parts of Indonesia, Flores to be exact which is where Komodo and the famous Komodo dragons are to be found.<br />My good mate Steph happened to be in town at the same time with work by chance so I had my dive buddy to drag along and get reckless with underwater.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfKDd0nWRI/AAAAAAAAAHU/x2dhRA51vls/s1600/P1000314.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfKDd0nWRI/AAAAAAAAAHU/x2dhRA51vls/s400/P1000314.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537116427769043218" border="0" /></a>First point of call was Bali for no other reason than it’s the main small island hub in Indonesia, at least from a flight perspective. I’d no real affinity or desire to visit Bali and to be honest it’s not really my kind of place, at least the parts I visited anyway. I know there are probably some amazing parts to Bali, and I know I travelled to the bits that are advertised as bawdy, brash and over commercialised. At least the guide book was accurate.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfJtLIHnQI/AAAAAAAAAHM/zFFbGwXHKOg/s1600/P1000318.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfJtLIHnQI/AAAAAAAAAHM/zFFbGwXHKOg/s400/P1000318.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537116044793453826" border="0" /></a><br />Kuta is like the Indonesian version of Blackpool/Brighton/Margate for the visiting Aussies. Sadly, it was not my cup of tea, but I knew what I was in for prior to arriving so it was not too disappointing. I’ve already promised myself that next time I’m passing through that I’ll visit the more remote areas to get a better balance of it and not think that the entire place is covered in pasty looking half cut fat Aussies. I think being in a predominantly Eastern culture the last few months may have made me more susceptible to being slightly irked by the beer chanting rugby loving whose got the most tattoos brigade. God help me if I ever go back to London!<br /><br />After an evening in Bali it was a super early flight over to the Gili Islands. Gili Trawangan to be exact. The Gili islands are just off Lombok and consists of three small islands with no cars or motorised transport other than the occasional horse and cart that lug you from the ferry terminal, which is more like a few planks of wood on a bit of sand up to the hotel/guest house/boardings of choice you have booked. The little horse and carts are quite cute and the small ponies seem to have an enjoyable time of trotting up and down the seafront with the occasional sugar cube treat from passing tourists to keep them happy.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfMQycF8SI/AAAAAAAAAHs/TGbZo00-pVg/s1600/P1000343.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfMQycF8SI/AAAAAAAAAHs/TGbZo00-pVg/s400/P1000343.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537118855664890146" border="0" /></a><br />Gili T is quite small as an island and you could ride around it on bikes in about an hour or so. On arrival, the place seemed quite similar to a few other dive location places I’ve got to over the last few years, such as Phi Phi (pre Tsunami in 2000) and most obviously Dahab in Egypt.<br />The main difference in this trip was that I was 10 years older than other previous trips like this so lodging with the hippy, dreadlocked crusties in their twenties was not going to be that appealing as it once was.<br />So doing the only thing I could think of when presented with a beach full of crusties, I swiftly checked myself into the nearest fully equipped private infinity pool luxury chalet for 5 that I could find.<br /><br />I was not disappointed.<br /><br />I’ve stayed in some plush places in my time, but this was certainly in the top 5.<br />Private plunge pool that can take a 6ft 4 guy dive bombing into it – check<br />Fully equipped fridge full of beer, spirits and all you can drink booze – check<br />Fully appointed living rooms with lounging sofas and open walled rooms onto the pool – check<br />Horse and cart to take you wherever you wish whenever the need calls – check<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfLx6l1nnI/AAAAAAAAAHk/FZiOzi9pGxI/s1600/P1000341.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfLx6l1nnI/AAAAAAAAAHk/FZiOzi9pGxI/s400/P1000341.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537118325277302386" border="0" /></a>All in all, it was one of the best holiday accommodation finds I’ve ever had, and for a price at far far less than I imagined. Good start then.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfLVhx__ZI/AAAAAAAAAHc/B6AE9LNADhg/s1600/P1000322.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfLVhx__ZI/AAAAAAAAAHc/B6AE9LNADhg/s400/P1000322.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537117837581090194" border="0" /></a>Even better was that the chalet was a little off the beaten track and quite close to a secluded beach on the opposite side of the island that I imagine a lot of the other inhabitants would never venture too. This made sunsets all the more spectacular whilst supping upon a nice cold Bintang on your own private beach. As Mastercard put it, the price for no crusties, priceless.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfMs6p3HiI/AAAAAAAAAH0/kJo_1W7mFII/s1600/IMG_0214.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfMs6p3HiI/AAAAAAAAAH0/kJo_1W7mFII/s400/IMG_0214.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537119338906459682" border="0" /></a><br />Gili was to be home for the next 3 days or so whilst I hatched a plan to venture further East through the Nusa Tenagarra . The Nusa region itself is absolutely massive and is made up of various isles forming a rather large labyrinth of islands, inlets, idyllic locations and places to lose yourself in.<br />As ever, some diving had to be done in Gili before the real stuff later on. Diving in Gili is pretty good but nothing to get too crazy about. The highlight for me though was a 45mtr Japanese wreck between the main islands. Whilst nothing on the scale of the Thistlegorm or other big wrecks that there are, it was very impressive if not for the fact that the coral build up and aquatic life surrounding it was quite spectacular. Sunk in WW2, it’s a small sized patrol boat sitting perfectly upright in a reasonably strong current. Being one of the harder dives to do in the area (although its pretty easy to be fair) it was only me and two other Instructors doing it which made it all the more better as we could relax and do our own thing.<br /><br />As now seems customary on holiday nowadays or maybe it’s just that I’m holidaying in Asia, I found myself leaning towards going for a massage whilst here. Actually, it was Steph dragging me along to the hotel spa as she was after a bit of a scrub and wash.<br />When we arrived at the spa, the lovely girl behind the desk answered that they had space for two people having a Balinese massage but one of them would be by a man and would we mind. Steph being the honourable female instantaneously laid claim to the 4ft something delicate waif like Balinese girl whilst I was saddled with the male masseuse.<br />I have never had a male massage before and after a minute or so of deliberation I decided that in the interests of equality and balance that I was quite ok with the matter. The more I thought about it, the more the idea of having someone with a bit more butch about them to kneed my weary limbs became appealing.<br />So in I walk and was presented by a slightly more miniature but equally alarming version of Johnah Lomu. To say that this guy had hands that looked like they had shaped planets would be something of an understatement. His fingers were each about the size of a Walls sausage and his thumbs had been flattened and softened into what I can only describe as gigantic ladle shaped implements.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfPAUEHeKI/AAAAAAAAAIM/de1UIX1WjaY/s1600/P1000391.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfPAUEHeKI/AAAAAAAAAIM/de1UIX1WjaY/s400/P1000391.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537121871168239778" border="0" /></a>Balinese aromatherapy massage is supposed to be quite deep on the muscles and is described as invigorating, stress relieving and therapeutic. I can safely say that I was none of those things upon the sight of “Edward-going-to-wring-you-dry-bitch-Hands”.<br /><br />As we started off with some gentle stokes all was good, although as we progressed on to the more stronger parts I did end up thinking that if he squeezed me any harder that I’d burst like a tube of toothpaste and all my innards would shoot out of one end or the other. To say that I could feel the vital bits inside of my body bobbling along on the underside of my ribs like a human xylophone would be a good example of just how tough this guy was. Being a typical guy, when he asked me in the most effeminate Mike Tyson of lilts of “Are you ok?” I could only just suck in enough enough air into my squished lungs and squeeze out a whimpering “Yes, thaaaaaatts..... <wince> fiiiiiiine” that seemed to fluctuate wildly between the higher octaves. Julie Andrews would have been proud.<br /><br />After about an hour of this my time was up and my body was done. During the last few minutes I think I was having some kind of outer body experience as I was thinking some very odd thoughts. Granted, my very essence of man and inner soul had probably been squeezed out of my now limp body and was swishing around somewhere on the floor amongst the flower petals, but after a bit of reflection the last time I’d felt like this was probably as a small boy being towel dried by my Dad after my Sunday evening bath just after the end of Songs of Praise. It’s odd how the senses can bring back the most distant of long and forgotten memories.<br /><br />Having slowly come out of my regressed state I finally scooped up my innards and lolled my way down to the beach in a jelly like state for a few well earned cocktails.<br />The great thing about Bali is that you can allow yourself to drink all manner of naff cocktails served in glasses made out of opened up coconuts and not feel like a complete tit. I can’t remember the last time I drank a cocktail out of a cup shaped like a monkeys head, but after a few I was past caring and coupled with my softy skinned and supple exterior my brain was reaching a suitably addled level as well.<br /></wince><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfTBvHXZZI/AAAAAAAAAIs/zQ9NJ1FTTf4/s1600/P1000325.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfTBvHXZZI/AAAAAAAAAIs/zQ9NJ1FTTf4/s400/P1000325.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537126293656003986" border="0" /></a><br /><wince>The next day I felt like I’d been hit full on by a train but was able to stretch to places that a Russian gymnast would be proud of.<br />I’d have no qualms about having a guy massage me again having done it. In fact I can highly recommend it, especially if you’ve got a few clicks or knots that really need shifting. Just don’t be afraid to say when it’s just a little bit too hard and you’ll be right as rain or just a little bit taller than when you first went in.<br /></wince><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfNVygEJqI/AAAAAAAAAH8/0C10JEu8clw/s1600/P1000346.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfNVygEJqI/AAAAAAAAAH8/0C10JEu8clw/s400/P1000346.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537120041092523682" border="0" /></a><br /><wince>After a few days of beach bliss it was time to get back on the speed boat and whisk back to Bali to get the puddle jumper of a plane to Flores. Flores is one of the more westerly parts of the southern Indonesian Islands and has been recommended to me many times as one of the best dive locations around, especially for seeing Mantas, something which have eluded me for most of my diving career. The flight is a quick forty minutes and landing in Labuan Bajo is quite a neat experience. Bajo is a little ramshackle fishing port with nothing much at all to it other than a few dilapidated fishing boats and a scattering of little shops selling all manner of tat to the visiting tourists who use it as a base for visiting Komodo and the surrounding islands. I’d actually done a bit of homework for once and had plumped for the idea of going on a three day liveaboard at sea with one of the local dive dudes. The beauty and advantages about doing liveaboards rather than shore based diving are many and as I wanted to do as much of this away from the crowds this looked like the best option available.<br /></wince><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfN7fpQT0I/AAAAAAAAAIE/wO_zrRc1894/s1600/P1000427.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfN7fpQT0I/AAAAAAAAAIE/wO_zrRc1894/s400/P1000427.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537120688865824578" border="0" /></a><wince>I chanced upon local dive dude Condo (pronounced Jondo in these parts) who was an ex Komodo National Park Ranger and a bit of a dive god in these parts. Having done over 10,000 dives and pretty much discovered the entire region over the last 20 years and named most of the dive sites (still a dream of mine to do) I decided that this was the fella to show me around. Condos boat he explained was not much, but it was cheap, friendly and we’d be the only two on the dive sites so would have pretty much the entire National Park to ourselves. I signed up quickly, agreed a price and we were off down to the jetty the next day as quick as a flash.<br />Having my own boat, my own dive sites and my own personal dive god was not something I was going to dally over.<br /></wince><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfPuWjc3HI/AAAAAAAAAIU/HW616BdVP0k/s1600/P1000388.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfPuWjc3HI/AAAAAAAAAIU/HW616BdVP0k/s400/P1000388.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537122662110518386" border="0" /></a><wince>His boat I can only describe as rustic. No radio, no O2, no radar - which are all pretty much common place on most dive boats. It did have a resident ants nest though which is a first for me and I’ve been on a lot of boats! As far as a dive boats go it had all the required prerequisites of being able to chug around the Flores seas and plonk us down right on to the pristine reefs and channels that I’d come so far to see. The best way to describe the boat is that it looked not to dissimilar to the wooden boat in Jaws just after the shark had taken the back half of it off in one giant bite. It was certainly as flimsy as that one and had more bits of sea beaten and frayed rope holding it together than any boat I’ve seen or sailed on before.<br /></wince><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfQD5HW2OI/AAAAAAAAAIc/2nY-YuJuvmE/s1600/P1000397.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfQD5HW2OI/AAAAAAAAAIc/2nY-YuJuvmE/s400/P1000397.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537123032165177570" border="0" /></a><br /><wince>My personal favourite though was a rolled up sock stuffed into the side of the boat which I can only presume was shoring up some sort of leak just above the waterline. It took all of my personal might not to pull it out and see what would happen. Now, don’t get me wrong, the boat was more than worthy for sailing in and for a couple of people on a three day trip around the islands it fit the bill perfectly. I instantly took a likening to Condo, which was not so hard in that his easygoing nature and absolute and totally overwhelming knowledge of the local area was second to none. He was as curious about me as I was about him so we had many a good story to tell in-between dives gassing about our lives while we ourselves off–gassed in the sun lounging on the jib of the boat.<br />It’s pretty rare that you meet someone who is an absolute master in his field but Condo really did bowl me over from the minute we got on the boat. I knew I was in secret awe of the guy and in great company and I was going to try and soak up as much of it as possible. Fishing together off the back of the boat to catch our supper was something that I’ll remember for a long time, although if I eat anymore perfectly cooked fresh fish in the next month I’ll end up looking like one.<br /><br />The big hope for me on this trip was to dive quite closely with the large Manta rays which were apparently in abundance in these parts. When I asked if it would be possible to see them on the trip, Condo coolly turned back to me and with a slight smile asked me “What time I’d like to see them?”. At this point I got a little bit overexcited and did a bit of a schoolboy giggle which I’m not entirely sure I got away with made me look cool as you like.<br /><br />The diving in Komodo I can safely attest to is some of the finest in the world. I’ve dived in a lot of locations all over the world and have never really been able to answer the age old question that Instructors get asked a lot which is “Where is the best place you’ve dived?”. I’ve never been able to answer that properly before because nearly everywhere in the world has something unique to that place which will make that one and every other one like it special in some kind of way. I do of course count out Wraysbury lake which will always be a complete cesspool and should be filled in with concrete at the nearest opportunity, but that’s a different story altogether.<br /></wince><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfQm_qFidI/AAAAAAAAAIk/RHgLFghJLmA/s1600/P1000450.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfQm_qFidI/AAAAAAAAAIk/RHgLFghJLmA/s400/P1000450.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537123635216878034" border="0" /></a><br /><wince>After just a couple of dives with Condo and before we’d actually even seen a Manta I already made my mind up that this place was one of the best if not the best location I’d ever been to. The diving is truly out of this world. The abundance, magnitude and diversity of aquatic life on a single dive is something that I had never experienced before in many many hundreds of dives. The reefs and corals themselves look like they’ve been down to the gym, got on the Arnie bulk fast programme and pumped themselves full of steroids as if to be in some body building contest just for fauna. They are in such fantastical shape and are in pristine show condition.<br />After my second dive here whilst climbing precariously back up the wooden ladder on the back of the boat in case it might come away at any given moment and launch me spectacularly back into the sea I found myself being a little bit awestruck.<br />I can't actually remember the last time this happened to me and we had not even seen the big stuff yet.<br /><br />That my friend was going to be in the afternoon.<br /><br />The Komodo diving is not for everyone to be honest although Condo, like any good Instructor, would never take you anywhere that was not possible for you to go. Being quite experienced, we decided to go and do a dive that tourists don’t normally get to go on and to say the least, I’d call it slightly hairy.<br /><br />It was truly epic. We dived a 45mtr dive on a two point current meet. That’s where two strong currents meet together at the edge of a reef system and bring in all manner of activity. Current diving can be quite taxing, especially if you just want to stay in one place and watch the world pass you by without having to fight against the oncoming current. Not that you can fight it, as the sea is all big and powerful, and simply put, we are not.<br />I’ve dived some great drift dives over the years but nothing prepared me for this. As we dropped down to about 40mtrs we roped ourselves on to some reef hooks and latched ourselves on to the corner of the reef and held on for dear mercy. Two currents were meeting together about 20mtrs in front of the point and being aimed straight back at us over a coral pinnacle maybe 6ft tall in front of us which I was now attached firmly to. This allowed us to pop our heads up over the coral head and look down the edge of the reef without being swept away in the current. I’ve never experienced anything like it and to be hit full face on with a 4 knot head current was something that I won’t forget in a hurry. The effect of this was mesmerising. As we hung there cowering behind the pinnacle holding on for dear life, ten or so reef sharks hung about three feet away from me circling the pinnacle picking off lunchtime fish as they pleased. Just as I gawped at this a pair of dolphins clicked past giving us the eye as they stopped, taking a cursory glance towards us and deciding that we must be a bit mental to be sat hanging around there and sped off into the open sea.<br /><br />We lasted about 40 minutes there which any seasoned diver will know puts you way into decompression so it was time to leave. My tank was precariously low by now and ideas like drop tanks and decompression stages gasses had been thrown out with the ships radio, radar and other useless diving paraphernalia back on the shore.<br />After we unhooked ourselves from the coral we had to throw ourselves into the maelstrom of the two currents and wait to get spat out the far end so that we could be picked up by the tender. This bit was a little bit scary but Condo had told me what to expect so I was pretty comfortable with it.<br />Condo’s dive briefing was something like this.<br /><br />“OK - Andeee ....This is the sea....We jump in..... We see sharks...We get thrown around a little.... We get out.”<br /><br />Personally, I see nothing more that needs adding to a dive briefing like that, but even I was feeling that the descriptive parts of “You’ll get thrown around a little” to be somewhat lacking in creative narrative.<br />The actual effect was like being put on a fast spin cycle and was one of the few times where I was totally out of control and at the mercy of the sea. We were thrown from 10mtrs to 5mtrs back to 10mtr about three or four times and then finally spat out on to a flat coral ledge at 5mtrs which is where it all calmed down and I could try and figure out what had just happened. It was a bit hairy like I said, but Condo was smirking away at me from behind a battered regulator so I tried to not look too mangled up and gained a little bit of composure whilst attempting to settle into my 20 minute decompression stop that I’d managed to accumulate whilst doing the impression of a solitary old sock in a extended rinse cycle.<br />It’s rare that I bleed a tank totally dry before finishing a dive, but after this one I was taking no chances and left the water only when a turtle sat next to me decided that I’d been sitting still there for so long that I was either worth some turtle based rumpy pumpy with or having a little nibble upon my rather edible looking fins.<br />After a long 1hr 10 mins which is pretty good for a 45mtr dive on a single tank it was time to dry off and reflect on the surface.<br /><br />Reef hooks are pretty much an essential piece of kit here as you will get swished around quite a lot in the rapidly changing currents. If you want the chance to see something without being thrown past it you need to know how to use one properly or you’re either going to get lacerated on the protruding coral or see absolutely nothing as you are tossed around like a piece of lettuce in a colander.<br />Condo had this amazing reef hook which he waved around like some magic wand which was quite a good effect as he’d wave it in a general direction and low and behold, as if some Harry Potter scene was happening in front of me – something large and impressive would magically appear in the direction it was pointing. This I found very entertaining and wished for one of my own. This proved to be a very invaluable piece of magical attire when we went on the Manta dive of the day.<br /><br />As I’ve said and I make no bones about it, I’ve only seen a Manta once in my entire dive career and it was one of those “Did I really see it??” type sightings where it was a bit blurry, several metres away and with about 40 other buffoons splashing around somewhere. So, I’d hardly say it was the kind of sighting that Attenborough would be silkily regaling about. I’d high hopes here and I can safely say afterwards that I had my fair share of Manta action over the few days I had here.<br /><br />On our final dive of the day and with one flick of the magic manta divining rod, Condo laid out 8 or so gigantic Mantas on what was the best dive of my entire life. Luckily, I even got a bit of video of it and you can just make out me in the background. Yes, that’s me, the one who has swallowed the regulator from smiling too much.<br /></wince><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwU00NlXudRUz-bRchqxw8-dvX5LkCo6KK-RciLNagfepHzf7tMcZ0rWYtN2yCCP68g24TawnW0j-PqpQV7Lg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /></div><wince>Mantas to me and quite a lot of other people are the true majesties of the sea. They are massive beyond belief, they are graceful to an extent that they are entrancing to watch and to top it off they are quite inquisitive creatures who will take a bit of interest in the odd passing diver if you are lucky enough.<br />That I was when thankfully, the biggest one of the day which was about 20ft across came swooping by just centimetres over my head as I led down flat on the coral bed barely daring to breathe. Its tennis ball sized eye giving me a cursory glance over as it stopped, flapping it’s huge wingspan a little whilst just glancing gently against my head and moving onwards will be something that I’ll remember for a long long time.<br /><br />I really need to get myself one of the magic reef wands though.<br /><br /></wince><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfVX1Hvv-I/AAAAAAAAAJU/UoCsdq8LQQg/s1600/P1000421.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfVX1Hvv-I/AAAAAAAAAJU/UoCsdq8LQQg/s400/P1000421.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537128872248590306" border="0" /></a><wince>On the final day it was time to set course back to Bajo and stop off at Komodo and The Rinca Islands, which are the natural habitat for the Komodo Dragon. Ore as they are commonly referred to are the largest living reptile still in existence and are commonly thought as the nearest thing we have around to the dinosaurs. Rinca, the island that I went to is the smaller of the two and offers a few hikes around with the local rangers to go and spot these magnificent beasts in the wild. In Rinca, they feed mainly on water buffalo which have been introduced by man as to keep the numbers of Ore at a high enough level as to not endanger the population level. Until about 10 years ago a live goat used to be sacrificed each day to them as to put on a bit of a show but this has now been ceased and they generally loll about until they get hungry enough to go kill more naturally. Again, Condo being an ex Ranger had lots of good stories to tell which made the day all the more interesting. The Dragons themselves are quite impressive and it’s pretty disconcerting to be 5ft away from these beasts when they are eyeing you up as their next meal. It’s all pretty safe though and quite good fun and something I’m really pleased to have done.<br /></wince><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfUSfkZydI/AAAAAAAAAJE/3lO-ADo9_vo/s1600/P1000374.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfUSfkZydI/AAAAAAAAAJE/3lO-ADo9_vo/s400/P1000374.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537127681052232146" border="0" /></a><wince>The landscape on Rinca is out of this world. You really do feel that you are back in the beginning of time looking out over the terrain from Jurassic Park without a human blemish on the landscape. It made me think a lot about how much me do cock the place (i.e. the world) up by us being here. When you look out at a landscape untouched by us you can see what a different place it would be if we weren't around building coffee shops everywhere.<br /><br />As we chugged back into port I thought to myself why I’d never considered this before? When I worked out that from London it would take 3 days travelling just to get here and the same to return the answer was a bit more obvious. The gateway to these parts has been opened and I absolutely wholeheartedly cannot wait to explore some more of it over the coming year. I guess that’s what the purpose is here.<br /></wince><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfT8va_sOI/AAAAAAAAAI8/2azUt4-n5F0/s1600/P1000378.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TNfT8va_sOI/AAAAAAAAAI8/2azUt4-n5F0/s400/P1000378.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537127307350618338" border="0" /></a></div><wince>Moreover, I looked back out to the sea and smiled to myself and for the first time in a very long time I finally felt content inside. It’s taken a while but it’s getting there.</wince>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-71437417752862088402010-10-18T08:31:00.000-07:002010-10-18T09:11:30.870-07:00Lost it...... Found it!Singapore is known as quite a safe city and on the whole crime is something that you rarely see or hear about.<br />In fact, the local rag which is the Straights Times http://www.straitstimes.com/Home.html is probably the single most boring read for exciting news that I’ve ever seen. If you used it to lay the bottom of the canary cage the bird would take one quick cursory glance at the dull and dreary headlines and promptly launch itself into the nearest cats jaws rather than the alternative of being subjected to having the world’s most boring locally penned headlines staring right back at you between ones supercilium.<br />Now, the online version might be a little more juicy in the gossip stakes than the printed version, but if my favourite sub story which I once read, on what I must only guess was some horribly mediocre news free day was the absolute ripping catch of “Boy arrested for dangerous wheelie”.<br /><br />Now call me fuddy but it really must have been some wheelie.<br /><br />After reading this and digesting the full 2 inch piece I ended up picturing young kids up and down the halls of the HDBs reading this and muttering lines such as “respect dude...” or whatever young wheelie respecting kids mutter these days.<br /><br />How is it that such pointlessly banal news stories reach the front pages here? That’s not to diss (see, I know the street language) the great skill and obvious newsworthiness of performing two wheeled stunt trickery but it’s simply the truth that not that much actually happens here of noteworthy substance which would be splattered all over the papers back home.<br /><br />Having been brought up in England and having spent most of that living in London I spent many an evening home on the tube reading the local horrors of the day and assessing the probable likeliness of me being blown up/stabbed/becoming a scientologist before the imminent arrival of the Tooting Bec stop.<br />Not only did I grow up with said stories of death, destruction and deplorable deeds of dastardliness but I even had the ultimate torture of having to read the Daily Mail. It’s a wonder I didn’t turn out some deranged middle class conservative f*ckwit having to read that drivel through my most impressionable years. Talk about telling your kids not to do drugs. I’d personally have focussed more on the lines of don’t read this sad sack of shit excuse of a newspaper and becoming a complete twat.<br /><br />Most UK headlines are made up of either the shock and awe type or focus primarily on a large pair of tits of either the silicon enhanced type or a pair of the political type. This is where things take a turn here. Large prominent breasts are generally not that much on show here and given that there is only one tit in the political hierarchy here, it does cut the number of likely stories down a tad.<br /><br />The other major contributor is crime stories. Back in Blighty there are folks up and down the land too scared to come out of their front doors because of the delinquent mobs of alchopop fuelled hoards roaming the streets and bashing people over the head with their rolled up extra thick free CD, garden supplement included versions of the Daily Mail.<br />It’s a dangerous place I can tell you.<br /><br />Not in Singapore though. As crime is relatively low, at least serious crime anyway, there is a bit of a gap in the market of things to pen. I’m not saying that violent or serious crime does not happen here at all, but you do feel like it’s something that has been removed from your daily consciousness. Having grown up in what some people refer to as up and coming areas of London I can safely say that the street wise edge that you develop as you go about your day is slightly subdued here.<br />A great example of this and probably the main reason to this story is something that we’ve all done many times before and was something I’d done for the first time since I got here.<br />Whilst on an evening out pre intoxication and wearing what were politely described as “Rupert Bear Shorts” I egressed a local taxi on my way to the next watering hole. All good so far but my fan dangled short pockets were a little bigger than customary and I deposited my mobile phone apparatus on to the back seat of the taxi.<br />I noticed this about the exact same nanosecond after I closed the door and the taxi sped off at what I can only imagine was the requisite 88 miles an hour as the taxi seemed to break the space time continuum and simply vanished. It was only missing that special effect in Star Wars where all the stars go blurry when Han Solo presses the button to go into hyperspace and they all disappear in a whoosh.<br /><br />I’d have shouted some expletives and jumped up and down in the comical fashion that is associated with such conundrums of stupity but a six foot odd guy swearing out loud and jumping up and down in “Rupert Bear Shorts” outside Satay Heaven might just have edged the wheelie story to page two if the passing paparazzi had seen me.<br /><br />Lucky enough I was with someone who had a spare phone so I dialled my number, but to no avail. Thinking bugger, there rides of to 1955 my perfectly good iphone, I wonder what they'll make of that. I tried calling it a few more times over the course of the evening with some of the finest courses of Satay that I’ve ever had. More on the joys of Singapore Satay another time...<br />By about the 10th time, a guy answered the phone to which I babbled without pause that I was the owner and that I was a dick for losing it and that if he could return it to the drop off point I’d be most grateful. At this point you see I was a little tipsy<br /><br />At this point, he explained that he was not the taxi driver.<br /><br />He did however explain that he’d found it in the back of the taxi and was giving it to the driver to return. After about another 10 calls trying in my best Singlish to describe myself and where I would meet the driver it did in fact finally turn up about an hour later. Where in the world would you get a random guy give a random taxi driver a $500 phone and expect it to arrive safely? As I walked back to my Satay I could not help but smile at this and think that although the day to day news in the papers might be a little on the dull side it would be something I could easily cope with.<br /><br />Low crime is not no crime they say, but it does make you think that the world is not such a bad place. There are some good folk about. We just need to spread them around a bit more finely.<br />If that means that I live in a place where bad things don’t happen very much and that the worst outburst I’ve seen yet was somebody realising that they had 11 items rather than 10 in the 10 items or less queue then I can probably stop worrying about half the things that I’ve spent half a lifetime learning to worry about.<br />I guess that some deeper thought is deserved on to why the social make-up is actually this way. Why is crime is so low? Why is it that people respect the laws more than I’ve seen in many Asian countries? What makes this small place so unique whilst neighbours and foreigners alike seem to make such a cock of it in their own back yards? The deeper questions are the one that I’m looking forward to figuring out.<br /><br />This week though, I shall mostly be trying to perfect my wheelie technique.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-40664252432398768042010-10-04T03:02:00.000-07:002010-10-04T04:04:49.574-07:00Jakarta for a dayThis weekend I found myself on a plane to Jakarta, which was a bit of a last minute jump on an airplane and see what it’s like at the other end type trip. Now, Jakarta is not a place you really think of as an exotic city break type destination I agree. The Lonely Planet guide book is even more cruel in that it says that Jakarta “...is a hard city to fall in love with” I can kind of see what they mean, but if I only spent the next year or so travelling to exotic places with wonderful beaches, great monuments and museums with rich tapestries of colourful history then I’m pretty sure I’d be seeing a one sided view of this great continent.<br /><br />Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia and is in Java. Now, I never knew this until I looked it up, but it’s the 12th biggest city in the world, which is no small feat.<br />The other big fact about Jakarta is it rains all the time. I don’t think it ever stopped the entire time I was there. So much so that to cross the road during a seriously hard downpour, I had to take my shoes and socks off, roll my jeans up and wade across four lanes of kamikaze traffic Indiana Jones style ,although being minus the whip and the hat. Probably minus the debonair good looks too but that’s a private joke between me and a couple of friends at home.<br /><br />Jakarta is also not the prettiest city in the world either. In fact, you could say it’s one of the ugliest. Although, it is sorting itself out and becoming much more generic in the number of shiny glass malls that are springing up all over the place. Normally when I do a trip like this, I’d gem up on tit bits of factual information about the place, or at least have some inclination about the social make up of the place, but on this occasion I failed to do any of this. Even so, there are not really many things to gem up on over Jakarta that you can’t absorb anywhere else in Indonesia, which is a place I’m going to be spending a lot of my time over the coming year. In fact, I’m back in a few weeks already to knock off two of my top ten dives that I want to do. More on that another time though.<br /><br />Jakarta is touted as being a pretty unsafe place these days. After having spent 5 years of my life living in Brixton in South London it take a bit more than a bit of rumour to faze me, so I was not too concerned about this. Although seeing metal detectors at the front of hotel foyers is something I’ve seen many times before, it did make me realise that this is still a place that has had its fair share of trouble in the last few years. Besides the obvious threats of people wanting to blow up the All You Can Eat continental buffet counters of mid range business hotels, the rest of the city is comparatively safe. Indo people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met and simply love to chat to you and have a natter. This is even more so when you go shopping at some of the local malls. There is none of the incessant “You wanna buy DVD???” or “Lalf Loren Sir?” to which I was already mentally preparing to compartmentalise into my white noise part of my brain.<br />In fact it was quite the opposite and actually a very pleasant experience all in all to go shopping in the local district of Glodok, which I highly recommend.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKmoWN3JdrI/AAAAAAAAAG0/KuLlRLo2MUE/s1600/IMG_1282.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKmoWN3JdrI/AAAAAAAAAG0/KuLlRLo2MUE/s400/IMG_1282.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524131517578180274" border="0" /></a><br />Glodok is the main Chinese influenced market area in Jakarta. It’s a bit of a visual onslaught and not really for the faint hearted. It’s a very traditional old street market with local fruit, seafood and every other manner of delicacy from skinned frogs, live bugs to small birds in cages being sold for god knows what. It’s all opposite an open sewer with houses backing on to it in a scene not a million miles removed from the Dickensian scene of Oliver Twist with the slums of East London in the background. I spent half the time expecting the Artful Dodger to jump out from behind a stack of half filled ships barrels and cordon me with some rhyming slang patter about it being a decidedly tricky but right old larf on his manor or something.<br />It was actually quite a laugh wandering the roads around here and as rough looking and strangely smelling as it was it was a good experience. I’ve not learnt much Indo yet, but hearing Ole (Hello) every few feet, often accompanied with a very toothy grin was a pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKmoixYLf8I/AAAAAAAAAG8/UnXIouKvK_o/s1600/IMG_1281.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKmoixYLf8I/AAAAAAAAAG8/UnXIouKvK_o/s400/IMG_1281.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524131733270396866" border="0" /></a><br /><br />After this little escapade and after getting completely drenched yet again in another horizontal flowing rainstorm I chanced upon a local mall named ITC. This was a quite an old fashioned street mall, mostly for locals and pretty much void of any toursist. In fact, I was the only Caucasian there at all - and being slightly taller than the average Indonesian, I did cause a few stares and sniggers from the predominantly female crowd. The joke for me here being that a size 36 pair of shorts can be found (albeit slightly dodgier than the strict quality control that Mr Ralph Lauren would typically allow out his front doors) but can not be found for love nor money in Singapore.<br />I should really have taken some more pictures here. I think I need to get over my typically British anxiety of photographing random people doing things.<br />Another odd thing about Jakarta is just how screwed the traffic is there. The city sprawls over 30 miles in every direction but still has no MRT, no subway, train network and a woeful bus network. All the small tuk-tuks you’d see in Thailand and India have been been banned from the roads, so nearly everyone drives cars on roads untouched in the last 10 years. It takes forever to get anywhere and I came within a whisker of missing the return flight home after an epic 90 minute journey to travel 10 miles through town to the airport. How people get around daily I’ve no idea. You’d need the patience of a saint.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKmo20Lo3VI/AAAAAAAAAHE/tXaU7BVSfo8/s1600/IMG_1283.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKmo20Lo3VI/AAAAAAAAAHE/tXaU7BVSfo8/s400/IMG_1283.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524132077620485458" border="0" /></a><br />So in summary, Jakarta was a great place to visit for a day or two. There is absolutely no real reason to go there apart from to transit to somewhere else. It’s grey and it’s scruffy. The locals stare at you in a friendly and welcoming way and speak the most odd language to you like you have been speaking it all your life.<br /><br />It’s the Birmingham of Asia.<span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"></span></span><!--EndFragment-->Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-53595488281002952462010-09-29T22:40:00.000-07:002010-09-30T00:28:52.118-07:00Holiday time!Well, after a bit of a break it’s about time I wrote up some words about what on earth I’ve been up to over the last 6 or 7 weeks.<br />After a much longer and quite pleasant trip back to London for work in July and August I finally returned back to sunny Singapore about a stone heavier from a daily diet of client dinners, smoozing, summer BBQs and enough pints and of London Pride to shift the share price of Young’s in a positive direction.<br />Work has been a little bit hectic, which has meant a bit of knuckling down and getting stuck in rather than sitting about in the sunshine by the pool drinking frozen margaritas.<br />So after this busy period I decided that it was time for a bit of adventure and some long overdue holiday. There is no shortage of amazing places to throw oneself at in this part of the world and Singapore has some great and very cheap flight connections to lots of places that I can neither pronounce nor have any inclination of their geographic whereabouts.<br /><br />It’s odd looking up and taking a precarious glance at the departures board and seeing a long list of places that I’ve never heard of but all sounding quite exotic nonetheless. Having two full weeks of which to play with I decided on a bit of beach pampering for the first half and some sort of mini adventure for the second half.<br />Luckily, I had a friend visiting from overseas for some of this too, so it made it even more fun to have someone to go with.<br /><br />So, Bintan (an island a few hours south of Singapore in Indonesia) was chosen for the former and a full week in Saigon in Vietnam for the latter.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQribE5QMI/AAAAAAAAAFk/y_FwCKRmZCE/s1600/P1000090.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQribE5QMI/AAAAAAAAAFk/y_FwCKRmZCE/s400/P1000090.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522586913446904002" border="0" /></a><br />Bintan was great and is only an hour by high speed ferry from the south of Singapore. I stayed at the Banyan tree resort which is a top notch resort spa where you are pruned, preened and plucked to within an inch of your life by some expertly trained staff. I’d never really had a proper spa massage before so I was not really sure if I’d like it or not. I can safely say, it’s a great experience and very very relaxing.<br />So deeply relaxed was I after said massage that as I looked out yonder from the private balcony to which my newly massaged and scrubbed derrière was perched, I perused the calm seas only to see two people come screaming past on jet bikes whooping with glee. You’ve never seen me run down to the beach hire shop so fast clutching a wad of sweaty dollars in my hot but perfectly manicured hand.<br />After all these years and having ridden, driven, sailed and most often crashed most things I’d never before had a go on one of these so was quite excited. It’s brilliant so if you get the chance, have a go.<br />Whilst shooting across the waves at a fair rate of knots (and that’s the first time I’ve ever been able to use that phrase in it’s true context) and being bounced around and sprayed with the salty waters of the South China sea, I came to the conclusion that I was undoing all the good work that I’d just forked out good money on, so after 30 minutes I sailed it back up the beach and promptly went back to lounging around with a couple of frozen margarita from the passing waiter. After all – holidays are supposed to be relaxing are they not?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQscqHj75I/AAAAAAAAAFs/aQRiBuE1zWo/s1600/P1000106.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQscqHj75I/AAAAAAAAAFs/aQRiBuE1zWo/s400/P1000106.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522587913917034386" border="0" /></a><br />Bintan is also home to a great golf course designed by the Great White himself. It really does look like an epic course, but me not being such an epic player I just looked fondly at the crashing waves lapping against the steep wall of the 8th and sighed. Maybe next time....<br /><br />So after a few days, it was time to head back to Singapore to repack, regroup and drop off all the Indonesian tourist tat and head off to Saigon for the adventure part. I’ve always had a penchant to go to Vietnam and that’s nothing to do with watching Platoon as a teenager too many times either. I can’t really say why, but when it’s only a two hours north of Singapore it was a great choice for a 5 day break. So armed with my Lonely Planet guide and a few recommendations from the Vietnam contingent at work I set off to go and explore a new land. I only had 5 days so I decided to concentrate my time on the southern areas of Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Hanoi and the Central Highlands and the beaches would have to wait another time.<br /><br />Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City) as it’s often now referred to is quite literally bonkers.<br /><br />I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been living in the sanitised bubble of perfectness that is Singapore but the moment you step out of the departure hall into the Vietnam open air everything feels like it’s been put in a blender, put on to max without the lid being attached correctly and then exploded down the kitchen wall.<br />Singapore is relatively quiet – Vietnam is noisy. Sing is spotless, Vietnam is slightly grubby, People in Singapore can’t drive for toffee – Vietnamese people also can’t drive for toffee..... Ah we’ve found the common ground then.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQuQBXCKiI/AAAAAAAAAF0/WA4ViTHc2wU/s1600/P1000137.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQuQBXCKiI/AAAAAAAAAF0/WA4ViTHc2wU/s400/P1000137.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522589895840901666" border="0" /></a><br />In a nutshell, I loved it from the moment I nearly got run over in the first 10 seconds of arriving to the moment I left. I’ll try and explain why.<br /><br />Vietnam is rough around the edges and I guess that might have been it. For a country that was at war until a few weeks week after I was born it’s come along leaps and bounds.<br />Considering that more than twice the number of bombs than in the entire second world war were dropped on it, it’s a wonder that the place has anything left of it at all. Granted, it’s not the cleanest place in the world, nor is it the most coherently run, but what it lacks for in these areas it more than make up for in its underlying character, the friendliness of the people and the general sense of energy that makes places like this so much fun to visit.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQvRyA6IeI/AAAAAAAAAF8/ESv5E0skcX0/s1600/P1000126.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQvRyA6IeI/AAAAAAAAAF8/ESv5E0skcX0/s400/P1000126.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522591025592934882" border="0" /></a>Take the traffic for instance. More motorbikes live here than anywhere else on the planet. Over 3 million of them are on the roads, tracks and pavements, up trees and in the gutters.<br /><br />I’ve never seen anything like it. Crossing the road is something that would send The Green Cross Man to drink.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I can just imagine a gigantic Peter Prouse staring down on these little scooters zipping around the place like mosquito’s with the sea of black haired Vietnamese paying absolutely no notice to his informative but educational Stop, Look and Listen campaign and shouting out an enormous “NOOOOooooo Luke!!”<br />Basically there are two rules to crossing the road in Saigon. The first rule is that traffic lights do not count for shit for scooters. When the lights are red, simply bunny hop up on to the nearest curb (which has already had a helpful little ramp fitted to it) and scoot around the pesky red tinged light. Once on the other side of the light, let rip with all your 50cc might and off to the next set of lights. Repeat as necessary until the final destination has been reached. It’s like a training ground for wannabe Evil Knevil daredevils.<br /><br />The second rule is that when crossing the road and in particular at junctions with more than 4 exits, nobody stops. 4 or more lanes of traffic just all collide at once and mingle amongst each other like ants. It’s a wonder to watch, so when you cross the road you just close your eyes and walk out. I liken the not being hit by a passing scooter with the same measure of biblical miraculousness of the parting of the Red Sea. It’s truly a wonder that a scooter can be ridden with 5 people on it and not end up under it. I shit you not, I even saw one with an entire double mattress (sideways) on the back being rode down the high street.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQwMbxozfI/AAAAAAAAAGE/tBKg28mGa1s/s1600/P1000119.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQwMbxozfI/AAAAAAAAAGE/tBKg28mGa1s/s400/P1000119.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522592033235586546" border="0" /></a>Another great thing I noticed was the street cabling. I’ve seen some shitty wiring in my time, but how on earth anyone can make sense of the telecommunication network that services the Vietnamese people is an amazement to science itself. Seeing some cables that could be carrying any medium know to man dangling from the trees and being wrapped around the nearest nail sticking out of a wall does not inspire you with confidence that any email, volt or phone call is ever going to get to where it needs to go to. The analogy of the concrete jungle was no more fitting than here as the cables looked like vines growing any which way then could around the myriad of protruding manmade structures.<br /><br /><br />After a few days of Saigon it was time to move on<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />No trip to Vietnam would be complete without a trip to the famous Cu Chi tunnels. These are the famous tunnels that the Viet Cong used to hide in and use as a secret underground network during the Vietnam war against the Americans. This truly was a fascinating experience to go and see along with the War memorial museum in Saigon. This really was a thought provoking place and you really do see the true horror of man when you walk around it.<br /><br />I’ll be honest and upfront that I never really knew much about the Vietnam war. Its history, purpose and general conduct was always a bit of a mystery to me. The museum is a great place to learn about it and visually see tanks, machine guns and a pictorial history of the entire background of the conflict and the some of the history during the lead up to it. The entire place is a little one sided in opinion that the Americans were a megalomaniac all encompassing evil, that the war on Vietnam was illegal and that left to their own devices the world would have turned out a much better place. Granted, Americans generally are a little bit evil and it was illegal, (it’s nice to know we’ve progressed a long way on that front then I guess) but being left to their own devices would have led to a further imbalance within the pro communist sympathetic countries in the region, potentially leading to a deeper conflict or destabilisation of the entire region. I made that bit up myself so you won’t get to read that bit there just in case you start to look for that poster ;)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQym-yFr8I/AAAAAAAAAGU/_Acmr2CH0PA/s1600/P1000152.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQym-yFr8I/AAAAAAAAAGU/_Acmr2CH0PA/s400/P1000152.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522594688332574658" border="0" /></a><br />The tunnels are a good day out from Saigon and are quite odd to see. The Viet Cong were quite small people, so that could fit down these tiny tunnels, where obviously the fat evil Burger King eating M16 wielding American GI could not fit. I managed to get my inner thigh in before I got stuck. They have made a few more tunnels that are a little bit bigger than some of the real ones but even they are tiny to get through. It was super hot, and very cramped and to be honest, a little bit scary. How it must have felt with half the American army bombing and shooting the crap out of the place is a thought I’d not like to dwell on too much.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQ3gz2eUkI/AAAAAAAAAGc/pMz2ePK3eAQ/s1600/P1000129.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQ3gz2eUkI/AAAAAAAAAGc/pMz2ePK3eAQ/s400/P1000129.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522600079877100098" border="0" /></a><br />I left the place a little sombre as it really did make me think what a shitty bunch Man can be. What drives us to do the things we do over something as trivial as the next man having a bit more tin or a little bit more rubber is boggling concept to get a hold on and one I don’t think I’ll ever really grasp.<br /><br />It has kicked off a bit of history switch inside me though and I’m developing a bit of a likening for books on the region, particular late second world war stuff in and around Singapore and the region. In particular King Rat by James Clavell and The Naked Island by Russell Braddon which are based around the infamous Changi prison around the second world war. Both are fantastic accounts and have really made me want to go and see Changi prison in the future, which I’ll hopefully blog about.<br /><br />So from the concrete jungle to the real jungle, to another jungle – it was time to float off down to the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is an area of southern Vietnam which is mostly a network of silt rivers and estuaries. Over half the rice in Vietnam is grown here and the nearly all the locals are involved in some sort of farming, either on a subsistence basis or larger trade. Nearly everything that happens revolves around life on the river in this part of the world, so I got booked on to an overnight river cruise on a boat not to dissimilar to a traditional river junk.<br />Technically I think it’s a rice barge but I’m not sure.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQ5dou0O2I/AAAAAAAAAGk/zjyvAOSCKwQ/s1600/P1000212.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQ5dou0O2I/AAAAAAAAAGk/zjyvAOSCKwQ/s400/P1000212.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522602224375839586" border="0" /></a><br />The boat was amazing not only because of the food and the amazing scenery but for the fact we had the entire thing to ourselves. Watching the scenery pass by as we sailed deeper up the river made me a little bit like Martin Sheen sailing up the river in Apocalypse Now. After the busyness of Saigon the peace and tranquillity of the jungle was a stark contrast.<br />Along the way, we stopped off at various village houses to see the locals and how they lived, which was fascinating and ranged from local brick factories, to fruit plantations to a small set of houses making handicrafts and coconut sweets, which were very tasty. Nothing amazed me more than the friendliness of the local people and them wanting to share their houses, their food and welcoming a couple of strangers us into their lives, if only for an hour or two. Just makes you think if you’d do the same.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQ7mLLqOqI/AAAAAAAAAGs/jsskF2wEmKg/s1600/P1000293.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TKQ7mLLqOqI/AAAAAAAAAGs/jsskF2wEmKg/s400/P1000293.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522604570085833378" border="0" /></a><br />The main memory that will stick with me of the Mekong River would be the floating market, which is a large market where all the local traders come to exchange and sell goods. It’s a bit chaotic, but lots of fun and had some of the most tasty fruit I’ve ever had the delectable pleasure to taste. All in all, it was a great trip that I would recommend. Beats getting your bananas at Waitrose for sure.<br /><br />So this week it’s back to work and back to Singapore and normality, if of course you can call it that.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-60123296571668830872010-07-01T17:29:00.000-07:002010-07-01T17:37:26.430-07:00Shore leave.<span style="font-family:Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Since I arrived on back in late May I’d not actually left the shores of Singapore and half the point of being here is to do some exploring of Asia and it’s surroundings. Moreover because there is some great scuba to be done around here and having pretty much exhausted the diving in the Red Sea (I can visualise some Instructors mates firing up the complaints emails on this statement) I’m quite keen to explore new oceans, seas and puddles of water deep enough to stand up in to see what oceanic delights await me in this part of the world. Even better is the fact that places that I’ve looked at on the spinning miniature globe on my desk which once looked so far away are now just a small step away, or at least a smaller credit card bill away.<br />One of the guys at work was talking about learning to dive, so last Saturday I tagged along to see what the local school setups are like and also to find a store for spares and maybe a few dive trips and the like. I met up with Rafi and Louise from the Dive Company which is a great little dive shop and school absolutely nowhere near the sea. I always find this funny as people often paint the picture of dive shops being these run down little shacks held together with twine with stolen starfish nailed to the corrugated iron roof. Truth be told – I’ve certainly been to a lot like that, but this one was a much more modern affair and the only thing nailed to the wall was a load of cool new scuba goodies to spend your hard earned dollars on.<br />So having a chat with the guys about my teaching background and adventures, I promptly got offered a job to help out with teaching and was asked if I wanted to go to Pulau Aur in Malaysia that weekend. Bit of a result. I felt more at home than a pig in the proverbial.<br />Having had a couple of years off I was quite excited about teaching again so this was not only a result that I’d be getting to try out some of the dive sites in the area and getting to meet some really great people but I’d also be getting paid for it. It won’t pay the mortgage off, but teaching is something I’ve always enjoyed so it’s more about the love of it that making oodles of cash out of it.<br />So I rocked up to the dive shop on Friday evening and was promptly given my official “dive crew” black polo shirt that officially marks you out as someone who is supposed to know what they are doing. Truth be told I was rustier than a Lada at the bottom of the North Sea and fumbled my way through a lot of things that I really should have known back to front. Luckily, I had a small group and my DM Bobby and other Instructor, Jeff helped me out a lot and made it a fun weekend.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TC0z3f1GKhI/AAAAAAAAAFE/US1cJE5B2uA/s1600/IMG_0170.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TC0z3f1GKhI/AAAAAAAAAFE/US1cJE5B2uA/s400/IMG_0170.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489100549364525586" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The trip to Pulau Aur is a 2hr coach journey to the causeway which links to Malaysia. It’s then a 2hr drive up to Mersing on the East coast of Malaysia which is where the small ferries head out easterly to the smattering of islands scattered between 2 and 4 hours sail away. Aur is the furthest island from the coast at about 80ks away. It’s also the most isolated in terms of facilities in that it’s just made up of a few ramshackle dive resorts which consist of a few wooden cabins on stilts on the rocks.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TC00J03cZ0I/AAAAAAAAAFM/gA6fA1JoEoM/s1600/IMG_0171.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TC00J03cZ0I/AAAAAAAAAFM/gA6fA1JoEoM/s400/IMG_0171.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489100864249161538" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Whilst not 5 star in appearance or it really was 5 star in terms of friendliness and overall character. The food was also relentless in that it just kept on coming. After the first day diving on the Saturday there was a fantastic BBQ buffet with all manner of foods on offer. It really was great and the party spirit flowed as well as an inordinate amount of booze that Jeff and Bobby brought over. Now, Instructors and DM’s are particularly renowned for being able to put the booze away and these two had come away for a boozy weekend with diving being a secondary bonus level activity. It was a drink hard and fast quickly and go to bed early routine that left me in a little bit of awe. I’ve seen a bottle of vodka disappear pretty quick but not as quick as they hit the sack after it. The next morning I realised why as getting up at 6 for the breakfast dive made it hit home.<br />The diving at Aur was good fun. The sea is a balmy 28 so a skimpy shorty was all is really required. The diving was quite varied and lots of small things to see in the water on offer with some nice corals and the occasional turtle thrown in to spice it up.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TC00hshtqhI/AAAAAAAAAFU/LSrTguNCAjY/s1600/IMG_0169.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TC00hshtqhI/AAAAAAAAAFU/LSrTguNCAjY/s400/IMG_0169.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489101274327394834" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> This does of course mean my full length custom 5mm wet suit is bugger all use here as it’s a bit like diving in bath water. More dive gear purchases looking likely.<br />I’ll do a bit more teaching every now and again and especially when the trips to Bali come up. Rafi was good enough to give me a call a few days later to see if I enjoyed myself and if I was up for doing some more teaching when I’m back. Yes on both counts.<br /><br />I’m back off to London this month for a work trip so the adventure is on hold for a couple of weeks hiatus.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span> <!--EndFragment-->Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-64412101366479629352010-06-29T18:16:00.001-07:002010-06-30T20:44:02.661-07:00Magic mash<span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I finally got the keys to my place last week which was great as I was getting a little bit tired of not being able to sit on a proper sofa or cook things in my own kitchen. Granted, I still don’t actually have a sofa to sit on still nor any cooking implements or anything even to eat off or in fact eat with yet, so it’s a bit of an anti climax as far as thinking that having my own condo would allow me such luxuries as sitting down and dining.<br /><br />All my stuff (and I say stuff) as as it’s not a great deal arrives today so at least I can at least think about cooking something and perch myself on the kitchen counter whilst I eat it. Still a lot to buy but it’s coming along. Annoyingly, I’ve had a bit of a busy couple of weeks with work and watching the shambles of the World Cup, so I’ve not had chance to use the amazing pool that I have nor any of the other facilities yet. As both of those have calmed down a bit it’s a bit of R&R later this week as I’ve a couple of days off.<br /><br />Here’s a picture to give you an idea.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqbe9i310I/AAAAAAAAAEk/-aiorwUI618/s1600/IMG_0163.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqbe9i310I/AAAAAAAAAEk/-aiorwUI618/s400/IMG_0163.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488370052123580226" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Even though the footy has been dire, it’s been great watching it here in Asia as everyone here is footy mad. It’s much more of a female spectator sport here too and the crowds of fans you see (mostly Liverpool oddly) are a 50/50 split between the sexes. At least it’s not full of Man U fans which is quite refreshing. The good thing is that there are loads of great outdoor bars to sit out at and drink lots of Tiger beer and watch the games in the balmy night air. When I say balmy night air, I mean heavy, thick, sticky and humid air that makes you wetter than a fishes towel after a very long shower.<br />Shame I won’t get to see the final here as I’ll be back in London for that as I’ve a trip back to London coming up in a week or so. It’s had the feeling of watching important footy when you’re on holiday somewhere. Perhaps it’s the heat, or maybe it’s the getting up at 3am to see England draw 0 –0 against a team made up of plumbers and carpet fitters that makes it feel that way. Either way, it’s been fun to be part of it and I’m looking forward to the Grand Prix in September and even more so as I’ve a couple of friends coming over to watch it too. It’s quite a big event here so I’m quite looking forward to watching my first F1 race over here.<br /><br />One of the funnier things I’ve found here on a bit of a tipsy night home from one of the games was the most bizarre fast food (if you can call it that) dispensing - erm... thing that I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some really odd ones over the years but this is easily in my top three. Popping into a 7-eleven one drunken evening home with a few colleagues I chanced in to the Magic Mashed machine.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqb6Qd6kHI/AAAAAAAAAEs/JeUKnW129hE/s1600/IMG_0159.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqb6Qd6kHI/AAAAAAAAAEs/JeUKnW129hE/s400/IMG_0159.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488370521059528818" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now being a Londoner I’m not totally surprised by the excitement that a bowl of mash can summon up but this was a new take on it that I’ve never seen before. You stick a dollar in the machine – stick a cup under the nozzle and out pours a concoction that I can only describe as runny powdered smash. Once the mash solidifies into a semi plasmatic like state the machine makes a bit of a gurgle and spurts out a thick dollop of super thick dark gravy on to the glistening surface of the nuclear hot mash like substance.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqcQ5eHseI/AAAAAAAAAE0/fY0ZhnRaw5E/s1600/IMG_0156.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqcQ5eHseI/AAAAAAAAAE0/fY0ZhnRaw5E/s400/IMG_0156.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488370910023365090" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This was quite entertaining, so we bought about 4 of them although being only two of us I have no idea why still, so we asked Mr Mash standing behind the counter if he’d ever tried this ingenious but tasty meal out the machine. He replied that in the 2 years he’d worked there that he’d never tried it - but by golly he’d take one of our spare mashes (not sure of the possessive plural on that I’m afraid) and try it out.<br />So it was mashey goodness all round for everyone. I’d like to say it was horrible, but at 4am in the morning when you’re sharing mash in a pot with your new mate from the 7-eleven everything just seems a bit tastier than it should and life is just a tiny bit rosier.<br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqcoZNnuxI/AAAAAAAAAE8/ajxCm2qnk_Q/s1600/IMG_0158.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TCqcoZNnuxI/AAAAAAAAAE8/ajxCm2qnk_Q/s400/IMG_0158.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488371313681087250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Not sure I’d be trying it again as the 7-eleven was closed the next day and they NEVER close... Ooops.</span></span> <!--EndFragment-->Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-29943369169695316782010-06-13T06:26:00.000-07:002010-06-13T06:39:21.318-07:00messing about in boats.<span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This weekend I decided that I'd have a go at something on water. As all my dive gear is still being shipped here picked something that I've quite fancied doing for a while but never got around to.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Sea Kayaking. Well, the first bit to this was the 1 Star course, which takes you from knowing nothing about a kayak to being able to zigzag (ok - you are supposed to go in a straight line) around the marina bay and do a few rudimentary manoeuvres. I did give kayaking a brief go when I was about 12, which was about half of the average age of the folks on the course, me being the oldest by a fair bit. I do remember it being a bit easier when I was in my teens, but then I also remember most things being a bit easier then when I think about it. The guys on the course were all good fun and lunchtime was interesting as they probed me all about London life and generally what I thought about Singapore. I also got to try a few more foods that they insisted that I try out from the local hawker centre nearby. Something that I always love doing. I should really start paying more attention to some of the names of things rather than pointing inanely at things and saying "Yes please!" when I see something that looks interesting.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The course I did was run in a small river bay that is now a catchment area for a resovoir nearby. I say now, as like most things in Singapore, it's going under a huge reconstruction phase of linking all the rivers up to increase the water catchment area for the Marina Reservoir. This does mean that eventually, you'll be able to kayak most of the river system in Singapore, which sounds pretty cool.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TBTd9dgKLII/AAAAAAAAAEU/665Q8aUJxD4/s1600/IMG_0147.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TBTd9dgKLII/AAAAAAAAAEU/665Q8aUJxD4/s400/IMG_0147.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482250694378007682" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The point of going on this course was not only to have a bit of a mess about on the water one weekend but also to pursue the 2nd and 3rd star grades so that I can do a kayaking trip up the rivers of Thailand on a 4 day camping trip that I've seen. Once I've got a bit more practice in and ironed out the zigzags into more of an A-B path missing out involuntary excursions into the international shipping lane or the path of an oncoming sea tanker I might be good enough to give it a go.</span><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TBTdVDUL2_I/AAAAAAAAAEM/Yp8M3WwsPVs/s1600/IMG_0145.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TBTdVDUL2_I/AAAAAAAAAEM/Yp8M3WwsPVs/s400/IMG_0145.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482250000153697266" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The course itself was great fun and I forgot how much fun it is to learn something again from scratch, even if you do look a bit rubbish at it at first. My arms do feel like they've been pulled out of their sockets this evening and the factor 50 missed a few key areas (back of neck and ears look like they've been dipped in pink paint) but all in all a great weekend and recommended.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">One thing the SGs have well and truly sorted out is making courses for young people readily accessible. Maybe I've been inner-city living for too long but this is an inner-city and as far as I can see there's a lot of choice and availability, for hardy any money at all. The entire course for an adult was less than 40 bucks a day which I thought was great value for all the kit hire, great instruction and quite a fun learning experience too.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TBTeW_iyiaI/AAAAAAAAAEc/ALeuIcel5CA/s1600/IMG_0146.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TBTeW_iyiaI/AAAAAAAAAEc/ALeuIcel5CA/s400/IMG_0146.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482251133012576674" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" >They should put on a free wiping of after sun cream service on the way out though as loads of us had no strength in our arms to lift them to gingerly dab at our overly pink ears as we left. </span> <!--EndFragment-->Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-42536425437521586272010-06-08T08:28:00.000-07:002010-06-08T08:30:32.738-07:00Open for guests...Open for guests.<br /><br />Having had my first real month in Singapore and as part of the relocation service my company has given me, I’ve had the first real month here being put up in a serviced apartment. While this sounds quite grand, it’s just like being in a hotel room with a small dining room and a kitchen bolted on to it. The only difference between it and having a normal flat is that the magical cleaning fairy comes every morning and tidies up your towels and moves the papers you scattered on the left of the desk to the right of the desk each evening when you come home. I tested this one day by leaving the papers scattered on the right side of the desk for a change and yes, they’d been moved to the left when I got back.<br />I tested this even further by leaving them in the middle one day but this must have confused him/her as they were thrown in the bin. Either the middle part of the desk is a no mans land as far as cleaning goes or I made some huge cultural paper placement faux pax. That or three day old copies of the Straights Times got on her/his tits enough to warrant the use of the bin.<br />Property hunting in Singapore is quite an easy affair really as there is a massive amount of choice to suit all manner of budgets. It’s just a question of putting in an afternoon and going to visit a few with one of the local Realtors. <br />I could tell you some stories I’ve heard about Realtors here (basically anyone can be one with absolutely no qualifications and it’s a license to print money) As I come to think of it, it’s exactly the same as being an Estate Agent back home. (drum roll please).....<br />In my experience, I had quite a good one and James took me around a few places that I’d heard good things about and it was an easy choice one Saturday afternoon to pick my new home down on the East Coast.<br />I’d pretty much decided on the East Coast the day I arrived when I went for a bit of a wander down by the park facing the sea. <br />Now don’t get me wrong, the sea is the last place you’re going to dip your toes in unless you have leprosy and are at the hacking it off stage of preventing it from travelling further, but it is a pleasant view and living by water, no matter what the colours of the rainbow you are likely to see glistening across it’s filmy surface is– it’s still the sea after all.<br /><br />I pick the keys up in a couple of weeks by which time I should have my stuff from England so it’ll shortly be home sweet home and I’ll be back to life without the magical dish fairy.<br /><br />For those of you wishing to visit this lovely isle, it’s open season from the end of July when I’m back from London. Hope to see some of you soon!Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-78816833685873457882010-06-06T08:27:00.000-07:002010-06-06T08:28:24.858-07:00Ministry Of MoMThis week, I finally got around to sorting out my EP visa. Like all bits of officialdom, everything has a three letter acronym and lots of application forms to get it.<br />Singapore is no different than anywhere else in the world in respect to the sheer amount of forms you have to fill in just to be able to use three sheets of toilet paper in a visit rather than the two.<br />Having spent the last year of my life being given the full on treatment of Her Majesties effectiveness in bureaucracy and sheer crappiness of arranging and coordinating absolutely anything that involves one piece of paper being passed correctly six feet to the person on the other desk without a 3 week delay and 5 phone calls for it to be fixed, I was half expecting that Singapore would be similar given the amount of forms that need to be filled in to arrive/live/work here.<br />UK paperwork officialdom people really should come here for one of those 3 week learning exercises as it really is a well-oiled machine here. <br />On Friday, I took the morning off to come down to the Mom (Ministry of Manpower) at Clark Quay. <br />MoM is one of the things all newcomers need to go and do. Basically, all the paperwork that you’ve gone through to get here and live and work needs to be made official with the government department of manpower.<br />Needless to say, I’d resigned myself to taking off the whole morning to get my mountain of forms looked at, my fingerprints taken and a passport photo taken. Having done some similar exercises in the UK, I knew that my very life force was likely to be sucked from my frontal lobe with pen pushing lack of efficiency by some little twat with a red biro in his front shirt pocket.<br />It was a pleasant surprise to be, erm, surprised.<br /><br />The Mom is probably the most efficiently run, f*ckwit free place I’ve ever been to. So much so, they actually realise that you are the most likely fu*ckwit candidate in the entire place and throw themselves upon you like you are a human hand-grenade made of f*ckwit shrapnel and if not defused immediately of the forms and paperwork that you carry, you might explode and infect the place with ineffectiveness and general f*ckwittedness ™<br />As you step out of the lift on the fourth floor, which incidentally, is beautifully sing posted I might add, they literally have an armed guard of commando trained middle age women who wrench the paperwork out of your hands, check it, fill in all the mistakes you’ve made, take a passport photo of you (which you forgot to bring), sort out the new amended appointment (as you’ve come on the wrong day – see past history on this) and usher you to a counter with a 40” plasma telly over it with the words “Andy! – Shut up and queue here flashing on it”<br />After 5 minutes you leave with no paperwork and a bit of plastic with your name on it saying “Welcome to Singapore – you’re Legal!” written on it.<br /><br />It’s truly a master class in how to run stuff.<br /><br />I left feeling slightly violated, but in equal measure felt as though I’d spent far to long queuing up for shit in other parts of the world. Leaving this kind of efficiency behind will not be an easy task.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-70530397353208455372010-06-06T08:26:00.001-07:002010-06-06T08:26:52.759-07:00Spread The WordThis week, I went to this Expat thing called Friday Night Drinking Club. Now, FNDC (once you’ve been accepted in the group) is a facebook group for Expats that meet as a group social at different bars every Friday night in Singapore. Each week they go somewhere different so it’s a good way of exploring new drinking holes and meeting new people, which for folks like me that no neither the holes nor that many of the people, it’s not such a bad thing to attend.<br />I’m a bit mixed about some of the whole Expat thing and I’m not really here to get rat arsed with lots of people I could get meet quite happily in London. Anyway, I found myself on a Friday evening with no real plan of anything to do and the group were meeting at a cool bar near my hotel so I decided to go along and see if it was any good. In the end, I had a great time, drunk my own body weight in beer and met some really interesting people who were actually very nice and not as twatty as I thought they would have been. It just goes to show that you should never really make an assumption about things without at least giving it a go in the first place.<br />Stumbling home at 4am in the morning and knowing a few more interesting people and learning a bit of Mandarin - and forgetting it again in the morning was not a bad way of spending a Friday night.<br />The interesting thing about spending your time with people in the same situation as you is that you soon realise that some of the thoughts you have about the place are the same as everyone else. Will it become home? Will it start to feel like home? Will I ever get served any dish without chilli f*cking sauce?<br />These are all questions that it seems a few people have here and it was good to mull them over with some other folk who are new or slightly new to these shores.<br />I did end up meeting a couple of people also writing blogs in various flavours. Turns out that there is a competition each year in Singapore for bloggers, with which there are various categories to be nominated in. I quite fancy at least being nominated for a category, if nothing more than getting let in for the free booze at the awards party next August. <br />Do me a favour and add yourself as a “follower” or link to me, or just about anything that makes me look like people give a shit about this tirade of thoughts that I’m bothering to share with you.<br /><br />I promise if I win, I’ll thank each and every one of you.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-4842503955344906082010-06-06T07:30:00.000-07:002010-06-06T08:16:26.682-07:00Ubin<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 2008"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 2008"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu2ibHboZI/AAAAAAAAADs/uGMJxogFdFE/s1600/DSC01493.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu2ibHboZI/AAAAAAAAADs/uGMJxogFdFE/s320/DSC01493.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479674074137076114" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"> <meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 2008"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 2008"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/andy/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal">It was quite an overcast day on Saturday, and through a bit of a cock up of going to the wrong ferry terminal for my planned trip to the island of Batam in Indonesia, I ended up being a little bit stuck and going to Palau Ubin, a little island just to the East of Singapore.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For those that know me a bit better, I’m well known for being a bit useless at turning up to the wrong airports, on the wrong days and such misadventures, so it really was no surprise to be greeted with the look of disdain from the face behind the counter who explained that I was at the wrong ferry terminal to get to my chosen destination.<span style=""> </span>It’s not as if I’d gone to Dover to get to Sweden or anything, as Singapore is not that big a place to get your disembarkation points that kafuffled.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAuyx4cbdRI/AAAAAAAAADE/zc_yxDdMnkE/s1600/DSCF0539.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAuyx4cbdRI/AAAAAAAAADE/zc_yxDdMnkE/s320/DSCF0539.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479669941661299986" border="0" /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s a short 20-minute boat ride from Changi village on the back of a little clapped out wooden ferryboat.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The captain (I suppose that’s the official title for him) was the most sullen looking bloke you’ve ever met and had managed to carry the cool cigarette hanging off the bottom lip</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">a la Dirty Harry look to a tee.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">So after bobbing about in the water for a short while I arrived in Ubin.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAuyZswuiEI/AAAAAAAAAC8/E5s3EIxGoOU/s1600/DSC01479.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAuyZswuiEI/AAAAAAAAAC8/E5s3EIxGoOU/s320/DSC01479.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479669526208350274" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Ubin is a funny little place on which you can get around by bike in less than a few hours.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAuzRfHtjOI/AAAAAAAAADM/ZkY2vqvWyVw/s1600/DSCF0537.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAuzRfHtjOI/AAAAAAAAADM/ZkY2vqvWyVw/s320/DSCF0537.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479670484619332834" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As you arrive towards the small jetty, you are presented with a ramshackle street, which is what I can only describe as a bicycle graveyard.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s where all the knackered bikes in the world squeak and groan their way to die an un-oiled and fat bottom tourist carrying death.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">There are practically hundreds of bikes at about 10 or so hire shops.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The little street reminded me a little bit of Phi Phi in Thailand pre tsunami (i.e. A bit of a hole) but it does have a lot of character and absolutely none of the pristine polished to a shine look of the mainland only a few miles away.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I looked around a bit until I could see a bike that was not glued together with dirt and forked out my 12 bucks for a bike that was “Brand new Sir…. That bike is brand new Sir….”.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">As a bike made in Nottingham that had travelled to the moon and back was wheeled towards me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">“Hmm, yes, of course it is” I smiled.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And don’t worry; I’m not going to start putting my speech in quotes or anything. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I was never that good at English to remember how to do it correctly.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu0XnlEx6I/AAAAAAAAADc/E8WusUeFMbk/s1600/DSC01480.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu0XnlEx6I/AAAAAAAAADc/E8WusUeFMbk/s320/DSC01480.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479671689480816546" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Ubin is small almost uninhabited island with just a couple of small service roads on it and a few little roads scattered across it of which to ride or walk.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s a very pleasant place and is full of little mangrove forests, a few filled in granite quarries which now look quite pretty with the ultra marine coloured water rippling away in the sunshine.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">All in all – it’s a great day out and I can see myself doing it quite a bit in the coming year.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Having done a bit of cycling around Borneo last year, I was already prepared for the full frontal onslaught that the heat/humidity combo will throw at you.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s an upper cut of heat and a below the belt punch of humidity.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The way I found of blocking this is to cycle really really fast and let the breeze cool you down. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Once you do actually stop though, close your eyes, as the sweat runs down your face scooping up lots of Boots Soltan along the way which hits your eyes like someone has just thrown acid in them, then taken a piss in them, with acid piss.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: georgia;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu2ibHboZI/AAAAAAAAADs/uGMJxogFdFE/s1600/DSC01493.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu2ibHboZI/AAAAAAAAADs/uGMJxogFdFE/s320/DSC01493.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479674074137076114" border="0" /></a></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Ubin is pretty flat, but does have a lot of blind bends.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, Singaporeans are not the most safety conscious, so I was taking it a little bit easier, as not only could cyclists be coming around the corner on the wrong side of a dirt track (I mean, how can you expect there be lane discipline when there is clearly no lane) but some of them where dressed in full camouflage carrying machine guns.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">At this point I should stress that Singapore is not being overrun with gun touting hoodies, but that the local young army where on exercise at the same time.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now, I’m getting a bit older and like everyone else reaching their mid thirties, the young seem younger and the older seem more like me, but these soldiers looked a bit young to me.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I would have tried to get a photo, but having tried this trick in the Middle East a few years back, I can safely say that unless you have a day spare to be questioned for a few hours in a cell whilst having a hangover it’s a move I’d not recommend you try out.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Unless of course you are stuck for a story or two to tell down the pub.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Back to the toy soldiers story.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now these young looking soldiers where on bikes as I mentioned, which I thought was quite funny once I’d thought about it.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Was it that these soldiers were to young to be allowed to drive tanks or jeeps or other bits of motorised mechanical infantry? </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Had they not passed their tank tests with the local DVLA, or was it that they were simply not old enough or responsible enough to be given the keys to something a bit more hefty than a jungle edition Raleigh Mongoose with trick pegs and a bell?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Here you go son, you’re in the Army now.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Camo outfit – Check, desert boots – Check, M16 – Check, key’s to a big f*cking armoured truck – Ahhh.. come back when you’re 17.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The bit that perplexed me even more would be if a war broke out where would they be?</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">At the back cycling like buggery shouting “Wait for me!!!……” as the more grown up soldiers sped off to face the oncoming enemy in slightly better equipped warfare transportation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The great thing that I liked about Ubin the most was that you could feel like you where knee deep in the jungle or mangroves by just being 30 minutes away by a grumpy looking Captain Birdseye.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">30 minutes back and you could be back in your condo again applying mosquito cream.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Truly a geographical one off.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu02yQj5jI/AAAAAAAAADk/vBVlZNVQkOw/s1600/DSC01490.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAu02yQj5jI/AAAAAAAAADk/vBVlZNVQkOw/s320/DSC01490.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479672224923510322" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">After a day of peddling around Ubin, which was actually a very pleasant afternoon I plonked myself down for the customary glass of Tiger beer in the village back at the ferry terminal.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Now, as most blokes my age, I’ve developed more of a taste of real ale over the years.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Sadly, there is not much of that here (there is – but not on a small island with two flushing loos) and besides, the young Army kids are only interested in an appetite of Alco-pops or fizzy lager.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I can safely say that this Tiger was in my top 5 of best beers ever.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I’m not sure what the other 4 times are as I was probably “very, very drunk at the time” to quote a phrase.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="georgia"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" face="georgia"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" face="georgia"><span style="font-size:100%;">I promise that really was the last time on the speech marks.</span></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-22952018421336162822010-06-03T02:41:00.001-07:002010-06-03T02:48:29.813-07:00Say Cheese...<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAd6JvaAIMI/AAAAAAAAAC0/NUPsgowXOpI/s1600/DSC01917.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478481779482435778" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAd6JvaAIMI/AAAAAAAAAC0/NUPsgowXOpI/s320/DSC01917.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAd53mDPe5I/AAAAAAAAACs/QbyGU6jWJAY/s1600/DSC01917.JPG"></a><br /><br /><p>Singapore is a famous destination for its food, whether it be fine dining at the Michelin star end (and there seem to be quite a few here) to the opposite end consisting of the plastic garden chair hawker establishments scattered along the roadsides and next to most shopping centres.<br />Now, I enjoy the entire spectrum on offer but generally I find posh restaurants a bit too stiff, unless of course you have a raucous group of you with lots to catch up, or a special lady friend to fawn over. Hawker stalls here are a brilliant alternative and you can pick up pretty much anything and everything for just a few dollars. You do need to be a little bit brave at first as the mad looking Chinaman/lady chopping broiled chickens in half with a massive cleaver can seem a little intimidating, even if I am about three times the size of him/her. In my first week I must have walked past this one set of hawker stalls near my hotel about five times before I had the balls to go up and even look at what was on offer behind the counter. So one day, finally plucking up enough courage, I ordered my first Chicken Rice. Hainanese Chicken Rice to be exact. Chicken Rice is basically a chicken that is boiled whole, bones and all until cooked. The left over water stock is then used to cook the rice with, which gives a slightly oily texture and a distinctive taste which is then mixed with coconut milk. It’s then served with some dips, which generally consists of a plate of the most ridiculously spicy chili sauce known to man. The chili sauce here is in a league of its own. It’s the Man Utd of spiciness in fact. I say Man Utd as you see the bugger everywhere, everyone claims to be a fan of it and it gives you a red face of Ferguson if you eat too much of it.<br />Some people say that Chicken Rice is the national dish of Singapore and you do see it absolutely everywhere and people are generally quite proud of showing it off, so there is probably some element of truth in it.<br /><br />So after approaching said stall and having the customary “Whayowon?” shouted at me I had my first ever portion. So, it is quite tasty I must agree. The rice is really tasty and being cooked in all the oils of the chicken, it’s quite rich and very very filling. I had a portion for brunch on a Saturday and was full all the way up until the early evening. It’s a bargain way (about $5) to fill yourself for the day so you can see why at 11am the entire food court was rammed full of locals slurping away at various incarnations of it.<br /><br />So having started out at the bottom end of the market and thoroughly enjoying it I’m going to try and sort out a boozy lunch at the Hyatt or one of the posh hotels which specialise in afternoon brunches. The brunches here are very popular ways of expanding your stomach to epic proportions on all you can eat oysters, champagne and other bourgeois delectations until you fall over and pass out in a food coma. A colleague of mine had 9 courses of pan fried foie gras once and didn’t have a movement for three days it was that rich.<br /><br />Now, not having any stuff at all, and my serviced apartment not having much space in the kitchen to really make anything more complicated than the occasional scrambled eggs on toast, with a hint of butter, a pinch of cayenne pepper and a fleck of parsley (I mean, you’ve got to try and make it look exciting) I’ve not really done any cooking at all. Funny enough, I do actually miss it a bit so I’m quite pleased that my new condo I’m moving into actually does have an oven. Believe it or not, but lots of condos here don’t actually have ovens in them. So having one in mine was quite important as I do actually hope to do a bit of cooking once the pots and pans arrive.<br /><br />As eating out can be quite a cheap affair this does lend itself nicely as to whether or not it’s cheaper to actually eat out for a few dollars a night, or to cook for yourself at home? When you look at the sheer variety of cuisines that you can scoff away from home you really do question if it’s worth the effort to go shopping, slog the bags around in the heat and schlep them all the way home to make something. Obviously, being single does make this an easier decision than if you‘ve a family of small, medium or even pretty large mouths to feed. What does make you think about it is when you actually do hit the supermarkets here. On the whole some things are really cheap, whilst some things that I take for granted as being quite accessible in England make you smart when you pick them up and see how expensive they are here.<br /><br />The first one is cheese.<br /><br />If Wallace and Grommet’s space ship had accidentally landed here when they set off for the cheesy laden Nirvana of the moon, they’d have taken one look at the price of a slab of Edam and would have been running back up the stairs with the suitcases and firing the thing up faster than you can say Gorgonzola.<br />I’ve discovered that good cheese here has the equivalent street value of crack cocaine. Even a measly bit of Brie has the same monetary value per kilo as gold.<br />I like a good bit of cheese as much as the next man, so one evening whilst giving into this taste craving I ventured to Cold Storage (the equivalent of Sainsbury’s here) and in testament to my usual shopping habits went straight to the booze and cheese sections. I’ll explain more about booze pricing another time, but needless to say, it makes the cheese price fixing scandal discussion look a bit trivial.<br />So in go a few bottles of cheap red and off to load up on some crackers and a tasty bit of Port Salut.<br /><br />This is the part where I do a little double take once I see how much cheese really is here.<br /><br />If you go for a bit of standard cheddar, it’s not going to cause your wallet to haemorrhage too badly, but hit a bit of continental Dolce latté and you’ll be taking a trip to the cash point. I think I bought a bit of a selection, which along with a few crackers and water biscuits came to the best part of about $80 which is probably the most expensive cheese I’ve ever bought. It did taste pretty damn good though...<br /><br />I’m thinking of getting another mortgage if I ever go for a fondue night anywhere here.<br /><br />The big question is... Why is cheese so expensive here? Granted – there are no cows here, so no milk production, so no burly milk maids in frilly frocks churning the paddles to make the creamy elixir itself. But saying that – Singapore imports nearly everything anyway as it produces hardly any homemade or natural resources of its own, other than cold hard cash – so why is cheese being singled out? Is there some secret cheddar tax that I don’t know about?<br /><br />Honestly – I don’t know the answer to this, but I’m going to try and find out.<br /><br />That or I invest in a cow.<br /></p><div></div></div>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-7925110094677273732010-05-31T00:41:00.000-07:002010-05-31T01:34:09.857-07:00It ain't half hot..As some of you may know, Singapore is a very hot and generally quite humid country. Typically, the low temperate is around 4.01am in the morning and that is still a pretty balmy 28C at the moment. The reason I know it’s this time is that’s the time I wake up pretty much most mornings with my tongue stuck to the mattress with not a single drop of moisture left in my body as it’s all been sucked into the bed clothes. I imagine it to be how vampires feel when they end up getting caught out in the sunrise and end up turning into shrivelled columns of dust in the films.<br />Anyway, I digress. From what I've heard it's about that temperature for the vast majority of the year and seeing as it's only a couple of hundred miles from the Equator it gets dark around 7pm most nights as well, which is an odd sensation. Having grown up with balmy summer days when it is still light at 9:30pm and the BBQ fires keeping the midges at bay, I've found it quite odd to be shrouded in darkness in the early evening whilst still mopping rivers of sweat from the back of my neck.<br />Most Singaporeans once they've discovered you’re a Brit ask you "So, how are you coping with the heat here then?". Whilst stood in a puddle of my own sweat I generally answer back " What heat?"<br />It's not so much the heat here, but the humidity. Often it's in the high 80's and sometimes it does reach 100. 100 of what you may ask?<br />Well, it's this if you must know.<br />"absolute humidity on a volume basis is the mass of dissolved water vapor, mw, per cubic meter of total moist air, Vnet."<br />Exciting stuff I know...<br />Having realised that this is a hot sweaty place the only obvious thing to go and do to make me even hotter and more sweaty was to sign up for some long distance runs. The reason for this was mostly not to turn into more of a porker than I currently am given that there is so much good food on offer here for very little money and secondly, as a way of getting to see some parts of the island and Malaysia that I've wanted to go and visit.<br />So, I've signed up for the mother of all runs being the Singapore Marathon in December this year. It's been a few years and a lot of pies since I undertook such a feat, so starting off from last week I've started to get prepared by, yes you guessed, eating less pies.<br />I'm going to try and get out a couple of times a week from next week once I've got my legs warmed up a bit. December is quite a way off, so I've got a couple of 10k and half’s along the way so that will be a bit of a yardstick of how I'm going to perform on the day. I think once I've done those few practice runs I'll be able to gauge how the formula of Age + Pies consumed + Christ it's Damn Hot / Sheer lack of Fitness = time lying on road panting equation is going to look. <br /><br />It's not quite as mathematically scientific as the humidity one I'll grant you.Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-16501123596582890422010-05-30T07:25:00.000-07:002010-05-31T06:47:06.412-07:00Arab St and little India.So, one of the great things that separates out Singapore from other Asian countries I've visited is that it has a massive Indian influence which means one great thing above anything else. Curry.<br /><div>Now, being a Brit, curry is almost second nature to me, so I've been itching to go and try and out some of the local curry hotspots, and no better place to do this than Little India.<br />Little India is a little gem of a place where the first Islamic communities rooted themselves in the Raffles era when Singapore was being carved up into the varying districts by the man himself. I'll get more on to Raffles another time as this blog is mostly about curry today.<br />Now being a SW Londoner and a fellow Blackburner I felt right smack at home amongst the hustle and bustle of the night time markets selling all manner of tat with the distinct aroma of exotic spices wafting through the air. I'd arranged to meet a few guys from work on a Saturday evening to have a few Tigers (the beer of choice here) and to eat my first Singaporean curry. I'd heard that Little India was a bit of a gem so I'd purposely starved myself in the afternoon for the delectation that was to present itself in the evening. I wasn't disappointed. The good thing about Little India, and pretty much most of Singapore in fact is that it is so friendly. You don't get the hassle of street vending touts trying to drag you in off the street which is so common in other curry meccas that I've visited. So, we trudged the streets for about 15 minutes until we saw somewhere that had been recommended to one of us and duly plonked ourselves down.<br />We ordered the usual amount of food (i.e far too much) and enjoyed it immensely.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAJ9QYEqLbI/AAAAAAAAABg/NmuIHzp0IQ8/s1600/IMG_1246.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477077817129315762" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 363px; cursor: pointer; height: 274px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAJ9QYEqLbI/AAAAAAAAABg/NmuIHzp0IQ8/s320/IMG_1246.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />After that we lolled down the road to to my new favourite place in Sing - Arab St. </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div>Arab St is another carved out area so whereas the Tamils settled in Little India, the Arabs ended around, erm Arab St ?!? There are a couple of explanations as to why it's actually called Arab St but the one I like is that the area was once owned by an Arab merchant. It's mostly made up of some really striking shuttered shop fronts and eateries of Middle Eastern, Malay and Arabic flavours.</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAOzw9hM1uI/AAAAAAAAABo/aa9OmQB7TwI/s1600/IMG_1250.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAOzw9hM1uI/AAAAAAAAABo/aa9OmQB7TwI/s320/IMG_1250.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477419225541564130" border="0" /></a><div>I spent a bit of the morning wandering the streets just browsing the amazing basket shops selling all manner of rattan, cane and straw niknaks. It's got quite a young bohemian feel to the place as well and has quite a few cool boutique type places selling stuff that is far too cool for me to even think about buying or trying to wear.</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAO0aJQ8jsI/AAAAAAAAABw/7peRM5N3d9g/s1600/IMG_1252.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAO0aJQ8jsI/AAAAAAAAABw/7peRM5N3d9g/s320/IMG_1252.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477419933069250242" border="0" /></a><div> </div><br /><div>Incidentally, there are some really cool bars and restaurants to frequent here in the evening, which I duly did on the Saturday evening. I ended up with a couple of folks drinking G&T's and smoking far too much shisha at an open air jazz bar which took me back to my days dossing around as a dive bum in Egypt many years ago.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAO06g_Kp9I/AAAAAAAAAB4/VpnyYl7bKl4/s1600/IMG_1253.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAO06g_Kp9I/AAAAAAAAAB4/VpnyYl7bKl4/s320/IMG_1253.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477420489192941522" border="0" /></a><br />You can't really beat sitting outside watching the world go buy with a bubbling tower of apple flavoured shisha in one hand and a cool Bombay in the other. </div><br /><div> </div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAO1ptI74bI/AAAAAAAAACA/xT99h1Dk6Hw/s1600/IMG_1249.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/TAO1ptI74bI/AAAAAAAAACA/xT99h1Dk6Hw/s320/IMG_1249.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477421299908993458" border="0" /></a><div>On Sunday, I'd be given the kind offer of the loan of a mountain bike and to cycle the East Coast Park from my condo to Changi and back. So we set off at 5pm (the time it starts to cool down a bit to undertake such an activity) and started off on the 43km round trip. The East Coast park is a great little park on the South East coast with a cycleway/roller-blade path that snakes it's way along the coastal path all the way from Changi to Tanjong Rhu.</div><br /><div>I love the East Coast for lots of reasons and it's very popular with all sorts. In particular runners, cyclists, rollerbladers and budding taxi drivers.</div><br /><div>The budding taxi drivers are the f*ckwits that love walking aimlessley into the cycling lane as you go zipping past and cause you to crash in a heap by either hitting a tree or careering down the concrete on your arse. Now, so far, I've not actuallay crashed but I know that I'm a statistic waiting to happen. There is an actual defined cycle lane but nobody really pays any attention to it and people just mill about wherever they want. It makes it quite a hazardous ride especially when it's busy. The reason I call them budding taxi drivers is they show the same kind of lane discipline in youth as the adults in the taxis do. The first rule of lane discipline in Singapore is that there is none. My first new cycling purchase to bolt on to my bike frame is going to be an industrial duty bell. That or a lorry airhorn.<br />The other thing that is noticeably odd out here (for me anyway) is how popular roller-blading is. Now, I love the 80's, probably more than anyone I know in fact, but I remember roller-blading being slightly popular around 1989 and then anyone worth their salt who did actually own a pair figured out that they looked like a bit of a twat after 6 months of doing it and sent them off down to Dr Barnardos to probably get shipped off to some country for other less enabled children. Well - I've figured out where the f*ck Dr B sent them and it's here in Singapore. Anyone and nearly everyone dons a pair of blades here. It's like the land where time stood still here but instead of it being full of Dinosaurs like some Verne-esq setting it's full of leotards and tight fitting bright lycra. The only thing missing from the look is some big spongy Sony headphones and the theme tune to Fame. Granted, some of them are pretty damn good at it, but the majority are like an 8 wheeled pissed up Bambi on ice careering all over the place.<br />Maybe it's me and I never cottoned on to how popular it still is in places around the world, but the last time I was strolling in Battersea Park the only thing I remember whizzing past me was tooled up kids with staffy terriers on their way to mug someone.<br /></div><br /><div>Anyway, route wise, it's a really great ride all the way up to and behind Changi airport and then back again. Thnakfully, at Changi there is a great hawker stall to which to gulp down the customary three cans of 100 plus which is the drink of choice out here for before, after and during any kind of sport activity. That sounds like something out of a commercial I know. Actually, 100 pus is a pretty fine drink. It's a bit like a sugary sweeter fizzy version of Robinsons Barley water. It's probably really bad for you, but it hits the spot when you've sweated out your own body weight in fluids. Riding out past the airport is pretty cool as it gets a lot quieter once you get past the BBQ pits on the coast and the beach becomes less crowded. It becomes realtively safer as well due to the lack of numnuts getting in the way of the bike too. The path follows the entire length of the runway down one side, so you get to see all the planes come swooping in and landing alongside you which is quite cool.<br />As well as the East Coast path, there are some other good rides around here, but have not ventured on any of them yet. Once the bike arrives from England, I'll certainly look to give some of them a go. It's not as if there are many big hills here but the small mounds that there are here end up being just as hard as anything I've done prior, mostly down to the absolute effort it takes to get up the buggers due to the heat.<br /><br />Speaking of belongings, should only be another 4 weeks hopefully until my stuff arrives, fingers crossed.<br />In the meantime, I'll dust off the roller-blades and get out the lycra.<br />I mean, it's not as if I Wanna Live Forever.... ;). <br /><br /></div><br /><div> </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div> </div><br /><div><br /><br /></div>Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211613672003220233.post-66728321039655199462010-05-15T05:32:00.000-07:002010-05-15T05:46:52.438-07:00Booked it, Packed it, F*cked off!..Well the day finally came when the fellas from Crown relocation came and boxed up my measly possesions that I'm taking to Singapore.<br />So the great big pile of fleeces, coats, jumpers, hats and scarves that I'm leaving behind have been put under the bed for an outing at a later date.<br />I was quite surprised to find out how much stuff I was actually taking, and seeing as I'm pretty much starting out again from scratch as far as furniture goes, it did end up filling up most of the van.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/S-6WMrYAzzI/AAAAAAAAABY/I69q2LSTFq4/s1600/IMG_1244.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__F4ZJq5Yr5o/S-6WMrYAzzI/AAAAAAAAABY/I69q2LSTFq4/s320/IMG_1244.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471475741847768882" border="0" /></a>This picture shows only half of it.<br /><br />Seeing most of my stuff boxed up in the living room was actually a bit sadder than I thought it would be. I can't quite put my finger on it, as I know that I'm doing the best thing in leaving and making a new start, but it was still a bit of a funny feeling knowing that I'm saying goodbye to this house and the memories that go with it. It's funny - as I had the same feeling when I moved out of my first flat in Brixton years ago. Maybe I'm just slightly more attached to piles of bricks and motor than I thought I was. <br />So today, seeing the house slightly barer of possessions makes me feel even more displaced than ever. It's funny how having a few of the things you cherish around you make a home a home and without them it feels like something not totally different, but ... different.<br />So as we speak, my stuff is on it's 6 week round the world trip by sea to Singapore. Actually, it's probably stuck in some industrial estate near Folkstone, but it's not really painting the same romantic picture is it?Andy Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778611865793423543noreply@blogger.com0