Diving in Lembeh, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Looks like we missed out a whole month's blog. What happened in Oct 06? Well, the first part of the month was spent recovering from the visit by the Senior Gruesomes (just kidding!). We have in fact been busy getting ourselves fit in boot camp for the big event which was our trip to Bali and Lembeh. On Oct 20th, we left LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) at 9.20pm .. finally.. after a delay of 4 1/2 hours. Arrived Bali past midnight, checked into Putu Bali Villa and headed straight out for Sup Buntut (check out Julian Si's blog for details...www.juliansi.blogspot.com)

More Tenggol Island photos

Tenggol Island

Aug 31st, Merdeka Day saw us packing our car with two sets of dive gear and wonder of wonders, 1 bag between Dave and me for our diving trip. We picked up Karen, Whye Mun and Wee Tee at 10 am and headed out to the Karak Highway. We managed to fit all our bags/dive bags into the boot! Kudos to Wee Tee who kept it simple, one tiny bag. But then, she is a tiny person who wears only tiny clothes! Expecting heavy traffic, we found none. The streets were quiet and in no time at all, we found ourselves in Kuantan where we stopped for a lunch of wanton noodles and pork noodles. By 4.00pm we were in Kuala Dungun and found ourselves a brand new hotel called IPM (Institut Perdagangan Malaysia) on the outskirts of the town. It was nice to be in a new clean room. We wandered around town for a while and stopped off at KFC for dinner. After that it was on to the mamak stall next to the hotel for the requisite bedtime drink...teh tarik !

The following day, we caught up with the rest of the group, Allan, Nigel, Daniel, Chui, Pierre, Fookie, Patrick and Cindy who had driven up from KL at 2am. They arrived bleary eyed but raring to go. Well, unfortunately, the boat was two hours late departing for the island. We kicked around, chatting and taking photos at the jetty.

Hatchdays in August

We celebrated Dave's birthday (August 13th) with a family barbecue on Saturday night (Aug 12th). Uncle Lye Huat, Aunty Pek Ling, Chian Tyng and Beng Han came over and whilst the birthday cake wasn't made by Mummy or Grandma in England (or Secret Recipe in KL - sorry Nigel), it was, nevertheless, very nice and enjoyed by everyone. On Sunday, August 13th, we went out to dinner at the Eagle's Nest with Allan and Nigel and then it was on to the Red Box Karaoke for a few hours of singing. Allan and Nigel were very good as always and Dave's falsetto rendition (Rhona - I think you are geting a little carried away - I croak) of a couple of songs earned praise from Nigel!!!.

We have missed celebrating Ali's birthday on August 23rd with her this year but hope the birthday pressie will make up for it.

Our friends at boot camp organised a surprise party for Adrian (Applemangox) and Daniel (Dangermouse) on August 25th. After a flurry of emails over a couple of weeks and feigned ignorance in front of Adrian and Daniel at the dojo, we all met at the Checkers Restaurant at No 19, Lorong Setiabistari 2, Bukit Damansara for a fab dinner. All thoughts of our diet went out of our heads when the food arrived. Huge platters of salad were followed with equally huge platters of stewed pork leg, baby back ribs, salt baked fish and roast duck.

Nigel and Allan (naturally) produced two lovely cakes, one in the shape of a guitar for Adrian and the other had a piccy of Dangermouse on it. The cakes were nearly as good as Secret Recipe's, according to the restauranteur and the chef. Obviously a joke between good friends. The cakes were delicious as were the panacotta and chocolate sauce that were served. We finished up at The Attic and almost all stayed on till 2.30am. All in all, it was a very successful, raucous birthday party, enjoyed by all who attended.

Old Friends and New Friends

Another day in KL... Dave and I are now thoroughly addicted to core strength training (boot camp). It's brutal and you'll love it is KDT Academy's slogan. How apt! Dave has lost a couple of inches of his waistline and even Vince noticed this evening (24th Aug 2006). During our stretching exercise, Vince said, "Ah, you can touch your toes now, Dave.!" Hooray! Mission nearly accomplished!

During the advance class of our training session, that stretchy yellow lates thingy of mine snapped into two and poor old me was slapped hard on the back. For a moment, I thought that Vince had slapped me with his best "Buddha's Palm" for not working hard enough! Good old Kate, Vincent's wife, very kindly replaced my torn exercise band with hers.

After training, we nipped over to Lucky Garden with Adrian to enjoy a well-deserved dinner of wantan noodles, char siew, roast chicken, steamed fish and vegetables. Then it was on to the driving range in Extreme Park, Bandar Sunway for a few hours of practice. Allan, Nigel, Will and Ee Siew joined us. It looks like we have a natural golfer in Allan who, in one quick lesson, is sending the balls flying, almost every single shot straight and true. Adrian sighed and said, "It took me 7 years to master what Allan so easily demonstrates after 10 minutes on the range!".

At midnight, we went on to Ming Tien, a hawker centre in Taman Megah, for our customary supper and enjoyed yet another superb evening with our old and new friends. Do we ever sleep or stop eating in Malaysia ???

Photo - From the left are Will, Ee Siew, Caroline aka Aaaarrrnty, Adrian, Allan, Nigel and Dave.

Lean Mean Fighting Machines We Are .....

.... not ! Thanks to Eleanor, a fellow boot camper, we found ourselves in a boxing class last night (23rd August 2006). No, not the tae-bo-boxercise-aerobics-pansy- type class but the Real McCoy! So, right after our regular core training session, we donned boxing gloves and under the expert guidance of Vince and Alex, we adopted the required stance, learnt to position our gloves properly so we don't get our noses broken, cheeks smashed, eyes taken out etc etc and learnt to shuffle forwards and backwards.

We also learnt to peer over our gloves so we can see what the opponent is doing, slap each other, block blows and way-hey, we got to hit back! Our instructors and experienced sparring partners were extremely gentle with us beginners and the blows came in slooooow motion. Dave disagrees saying, "Hey, Alex wasn't that slow with me and sucker-punched me a couple of times!".

It was a most enjoyable evening and we can't wait for the next class!! Thanks Vince, Alex, Mike, Charles, Eleanor and Will, for making the lesson so enjoyable and for not beating us to a pulp.

At the end of the class, I said to Vince, "Cool...I can't wait to learn how to inflict maximum pain.........no, just kidding!." Vince replied, "That's a shame!".

Be afraid of us... be very afraid...

Antics at Boot Camp and the Driving Range

Last night, Tuesday, 22nd August, saw us braving two back-to-back sessions of core strength training from 6pm to 8pm. We bought new accessories for our session this evening. A latex exercise band that doubles up as a scarf! Never knew we could ache in the places that we ached. Thanks, Vince (BJJ/Karate/Boot Camp Instructor) Still, we survived and made our way painfully to the driving range in Bandar Utama for a couple of hours practice with Whye Mun, Julian, Karen and good ol' Adrian. The evening ended with the customary teh tarik at Taman Tun Dr Ismail's 24 hr Nasi Kandar restaurant. Laughs galore with all sorts of useful and not so useful information being traded i.e. golfing tips, diving tips, night dive fears and phobias, how to retch into your regulator and how to conserve your air underwater (never forget this one chaps!)

Hired Doggies

Oh yes, on Saturday, 19th August, our friends Julian and Karen took us for a walk up Bukit Gasing in Petaling Jaya. As it was an organised walk for dog owners and their dogs and we don't have a dog, they very kindly lent us their cute Shih Tzu, Monty. The walk took about two hours with a couple of stops along the way for the dogs and their owners to take a breather. We took turns to walk our hired doggies, Monty, Bentley and Duchess. Duchess is the sweetest Miniature Schnauzer. Poor old Bentley, a Shih Tzu, thought he was jumping into a shallow puddle and found himself in too deep. I think he was more than a little cross and more shocked than he looked! It was a lovely walk and ended with teh tarik, roti canai and Maggi Mee goreng at a local pet friendly mamak coffee shop. (Our blogs are obviously not in chronological order but we'll catch up eventually!)