Cebu, Philippines

The previous post re: HK seems ti have got lost in cyberspace :-( can't be arsed doing it again, it was a classic and I'll never post something that good again:-P
Anyway, I've come to the island of Cebu, in the Philippines. After a few days in the city, I bought a guide book to work out what the hell to do and decided upon Moalboal, on the south east coast. "diving, eating and drinking" as described in the book. That's me!
2 hrs in a taxi and arrived to this.

A completely flat calm waveless ocean, with corals and fish a few yards off the shore.
Have basically come here to dive, and little else. I'm still here, sat here using the hotel wifi to post this. Have done 20 dives here and will get a few more in before I leave in 4 days' time.
It's a wonderful relaxing place, where the diving takes precedent. Early rises, early bedtimes, 2 dives a day. Apart from an ear infection, it's all been good.

Above, one of the local dive boats.

Me and Woodbridge (the little hippo) preparing for a dive.

The local dive sites of which I've now done most, pescador island being the highlight, with a population of half a billion sardines which having recently
flourished after a net fishing ban, are starting to attract predators such as jack, tuna, barracuda and these fellas, the thresher shark.




That's not my pic, still haven't bought an underwater camera, but that was taken at the site I've been diving. The sardines block out the sun sometimes and no picture could ever give you an impression of just how many and how awe inspiring this cloud of fish are. Other highlights have been the frogfish:




And the Pygmy seahorse:




But I could fill thousands of pages talking about the life underwater here; just crazy amounts of corals (hard n soft), sponges, algae, turtles, thousands of species of tropical fish etc etc etc.
Wonderful. I didn't think I'd dive anywhere better than the Maldives; I was wrong.




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Maldives

So, after my trip to india, Laura and I went to the Maldives for 4 days. Flew to Mali and then caught a twin otter seaplane to our resort. Awesome, seeing the atolls and reefs a few thousand feet below, taking off, landing n taking off again, brilliant and started the hol off in exactly the right way, the Maldives is a luxury holiday, may as well start with a real extravagance.







We spent our time in a place called maayafushi resort. A smallish resort with a beautiful house reef. The diving was prohibitively expensive so we just snorkelled ( and burnt ourselves to a crisp whilst doing so).
We were circled by 5 White tipped, 2 metre long reef sharks at one point, that got us both a little worried, an I saw five unknown rays the next day 'flying' in formation.
Resort was beautiful and neither of us wanted to leave, though the seaplane back was great again.

A crane on the beach!

Our flight back to Lanka was late in the evening, so we took a boat ride over to Mali proper for a look round. Near the end of Ramadan, and as Mali is Muslim, most of the shops and restaurants were closed, and while you can drink on the resorts, you can't drink in the capital. It's a bizarre place 2km x 1km, yet full of scooters and expensive big cars (why?).






Laura, at the seafront, waiting for a restaurant to open so we could eat.
A weird and long day, but a great holiday, a little sad to leave, as I'll probably never go back. I'd done my advanced diving course there 2 years earlier, and enjoyed that time too, even though my folks, who went with me, had all their money stolen from their room :-(


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Indian bike trip or 'how shit are Enfields?'

So, many months ago Mssrs Martin and Carr started planning a motorbike trip across north india. Carr's idea really, sam bought in quite quickly and I was interested. I'd seen people riding around india on these beautiful old British bikes (now made in Chennai, India) and thought 'what a bunch of wankers' but secretly wanting to have a go. Sadly my contract didn't end in Lanka until October, and when they were planning it, would be term time for me :-( I thought about it for a few days and thought "fuck it", handed in my notice at work and agreed to join them. Mr Carr then rang the bell of C**t and pulled out due to some pathetic excuse that had something to do with large amounts of poo in his pants. Sam n I decided to go ahead. Nearer the date, I bought mr Carr's enfield 350 bullet from him for way too much money, cos it looked lovely on facebook and I was a bit drunk at the time.
I arrived in Delhi, to find the disastrous commonwealth games preparations well under way, in that the city was a bomb site with rubble, deep holes, large pools of mosquito breeding grounds, part finished metro tracks/stations and lots of 'workers' sat round drinking tea, while large machinery sat idle. I'd been looking forward to it, as I hadn't been in Delhi for 8 years and it used to be one of my fave places to wander around. This was my first view of pahaganj!




Not as I remembered at all. Went to pick up my new bike the next day, and it turned out to be a bit older than I'd thought (should have asked really!) but still a great looking bike!

Trip back to new Delhi from old Delhi was a bit of a mare, everything in the wrong place, gears on the wrong side and going the wrong way, back break not where it should be, and it stalled at every set of lights and had to be kicked back into life in the heat of a Delhi day. Not a good beginning.
Sam arrived 6 days later and we picked up his rental bike, and prepared to set off the next day.
First stop: Shimla, in the foothills and once prize hillstation of the old British army days, where the entire Indian administration used to move to en-mass went the heat if the plains got too much.
What a shit-hole! I'd been years before but had forgotten how much I hated it. I have no pics as it rained for the first 2 days of the trip and I wasn't getting my DSLR out in the monsoon. This is sam not far outside if shitla the following day, we were both caked in mud for this entire day.
On to Narkanda, a hard days ride through rain clouds and mud. Visor up, too dirty to see through, trucks splashing thick mud all over us and into our helmets. A woman at one point decided to jump from a low wall directly in front of my slow moving bike, the result being me on the road, cuts and bruises and giving her evil looks. This was maybe the first time of very many that I had to man-handle this heavy bastard bike upright after it lay in the road, often with sam's help.

Narkanda was lovely but we over indulged in the local apple wine (himachal pradesh is famous for its apples).
The 3rd day took us to Reckong Peo, place of permits to enter the valley beyond, our destination Spitti valley, high in the himal and close to the Tibetan border.

Our first view of the snow capped peaks from Reckong P. We had a rest day here and (in theory) got the bikes prepared for the rough roads and high altitude to follow.

Sam waits for bike repairs/maintenance to finish.

All a bit hazy around here, Tabo may have been next, I don't remember. We were heading for Nako, that much I do remember. This is where the brown smelly stuff starting hitting the spinny wind machine, and shortly after Pooh (yeah really) we failed, or rather the bikes failed to climb a hill. We returned to pooh, in the poo. After failing to get the bikes fixed for a day and a half we took out air filters, cleaned plugs, cursed a lot and attempted the incline again. We managed to get to the top and arrived in Nako. A fantastic little Buddhist Himalayan village adorned with prayer flags, prayer wheels and walls, with a nice little gompa to boot.




Walls full of carved slates, Om Mani Padme Hung (praise to the jewel in the lotus) a Tibetan chant/ prayer referring to the buddha's rise from the shit of life to enlightenment.
Part 2 to follow soon.

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Into the hills

So we left Arugambay and headed into them there hills. First stop Ella, famous for a gap! And the view from there down to the plains. Stayed in a nice place but sadly owned by a nut job, who seemed to hate everything and everyone in Lanka, give Ravana guest house a wide birth, don't think he's in 'the book' anymore....he hates that too.



Ella and half its gap, shrouded in rain cloud.
We then decided to treat ourselves to a few days in the Tea Factory, as the name implies, an old tea factory converted to a luxury hotel. It was nice to be cold for once in Lanka, but it did rain consistently.



Not a great pic, but the only one I have from around Nuwara Eliya, where the tea factory is.
We then headed back to Colombo, which was a hideous 7 hr drive along some of the worst roads in SL, which is crazy as it's the No. 1 tourist destination for the locals.
What follows are some just for fun shots I took on the trip, a bit random, but pics I like anyway.













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