Malaysia

We had a first couple of interesting days in Malaysia! First off, I didn't do my research so didn't realize how very muslim the country was. Because of the Muslimness Tanya and I were made to feel very uncomfortable walking down the street. The men stared like 12 year old boys. I mean it was really staring and pretty creepy. At first I thought it was because I was wearing a tanktop and showing my shoulders. So the next day I wore a long skirt and a t-shirt, but it didn't change anything. I still got stared it. It was really irrating. Its like they have never seen a woman (or western woman) before. Arrrrggghhh.

We stayed the first few days on the mainland in Semporna. Semporna is right on the sea so we assumed that there would be beaches. We were sadly mistaken. Not a beach in sight, just a dirty little town!

The first day was spent wandering around town to find a dive shop to go diving with. We found Scuba Junkie and they stated that they had a resort on the island Mabul where we could stay rather than in the smelly town of Semporna. So we took them up on the offer. However, when we got to Mabul their resort was full so we were sent to what was called the Long House. It was crap!! The put me, Tanya and Becker into a room with 2 twin beds. We were paying $20 each per night and had to share some really dirty toilets with everyone else. The place was really only worth $3 per night per person, which I would have gladly paid, but seeing as how it was really bad accommodations for over twice the price as in Semporna ($15 per room), we ended up only spending one night there. The island also wasn't very developed so meals were provided by the Long House, but only at 7:30am, 12pm and 7pm. If you were hungry in the meantime, tough! So after our coupld of day on Mabule, we hoped on the transfer back to Semporna. This way we got better accommodations for much cheaper, so with the money saved there we were able to dive more!

Diving there was amazing!! Becker and I did 5 days of diving totaling 15 dives!! Becker now has 68 days logged and I have 42. Not bad considering we've only been divers for about 4 months!! Becker now has all the dives that he needs for his divemaster, now he just has to do 2 more assists on courses. I am now 18 dives short of what a divemaster needs. But I would still have a ton of tests, a couple more courses and some assists to do. But at least I would have the dives done!!

But anyways. We had a GREAT time diving in Malaysia. We took lots of pics underwater, which we will have online in 3-4 weeks. Right now we are in Bangkok for a couple of more hours before our flight takes off to Nepal for our Everest Trek. Its going to be fun, but tough! I'm not worried so much about the physical challenge of hiking, I'm just worried about using the woods as a toilet and the possibility that I won't be able to shower for a week or so!! Gross and smelly will be my name!!!