The first things that struck me in Sri Lanka were the amount of police and security officers at the airport, the number of crows happily roaming the air, and the gigantic piles of curry leaves traded at the market behind the Fort train station. The first night and day passed well, and I moved smoothly from the arrival hall, to the ATM, to the free shuttle bus connecting to the nearest bus station, to the bus to Colombo Ford bus terminal, and finally to the nearby train station - and all this between 2am and 5am, by which time I had bought a second class ticket to Galle where I arrived at 10am, walked into the Fort and got myself a lovely room at the Weltervreden guesthouse for much less than expected – one has to love the off season :)I spend two nights in Galle - recharging.

The Weltervreden was bliss, absolutely quiet with a wonderful courtyard in which I spend most of my day just sitting and reading. In the morning and afternoon I went on walks on the walls of the fort or through the many streets taking pictures of the old houses. As lovely as it was on the third day I decided to move on and took a bus to Mirissa. Here I got a lovely bungalow right by the beach for only 900 rupee in the Central Beach Inn. Mirissa is a extremely beautiful beach and still very quiet. The noisiest feature at this time of the year are the majestic waves crushing onto the beach. The first day I strung my hammock and enjoyed the sound of nature and the waves. The second day I decided to take the bus into the nearby Weligama to hunt for some of the beautiful sarongs that I saw men wearing in this area. I have no idea if these orange and red coloured ones are available all over Sri Lanka, but I did not want to risk it. After much walking around I realised that these Sri Lankan hand woven sarongs are rather expensive, but nevertheless I bought two which I want to use as blankets at home. Never even panning for this I also bought some laze for my grandmother from three women whom I found working outside their home. How they manage to create the laze pattern is a mystery to me, I was in awe and bought on piece to show appreciation for their art.

Coming back to Marissa the guy running the Merissa Beach Wadiya restaurant showed us that the turtles had just hatched from a nest they had protected for the last 45 days. It was the first time I was fortunate enough to see turtle hatchlings and even better watch them go on their way later in the afternoon and at night. Some of the locals and the coast guard fight hard to stop the poaching and selling of turtle eggs in Mirissa, where turtle numbers are rapidly declining and it is awesome to see the tiny creatures dashing into the wild sea, boldly swimming into a rather dangerous future. With a seemingly endless string of fishing boats on the horizon one knows that many of these tiny creatures will end up dead in trawler nets and on longlines, but it is better not to think of this at such a moment and just wish the tiny creatures luck.

With time being limited and Sri Lanka having so much to offer I decided to leave Marissa after two nights to make my way towards Yala national park to spot some leopards.

The bus journey to Tissamaharama, or simply Tissa bought a sudden change of landscape as I travelled from the tropical to the arid zone. Soon there was little green to be seen until the lush rice fields around Tissa replaced the red sand with lush green once more. At the bus station I was greeted by man who offered me a tour and a lift to the guesthouse. I was little inclined to go with him but eventually accepted the ride to Vikum Lodge. The place turned out a lot less attractive than described in the travel guide and had a rather tired feel. Still, it would do for a night and so I settled into the room before a casual evening walk to the nearby manmade lake where swarms of locals bathed in the adjacent stream and thousands of ibis and cormorants flew in to sleep on the lake's island. It was a rather spectacular view. I finally accepted the trip offer by the guy who brought me earlier planning to leave at 5am in the morning for Yala. Yet when another driver in another vehicle picked me up in the morning and then single-handedly asked for 3 times the amount agreed up front I refused to pay. In turns he started to scream and shout at me and brought me back to the guesthouse. Thus I went straight to the police to launch a complaint and the head of police came down with me to talk to the company to settle the matter. It appeared strange that every bus conductor, shop owner, and guesthouse employee can speak English, but hardly a single person in the police force could understand a word of my explanation. Still the deed was done and in the process I reckon that the entire town new that “Independent Traveller's Inn” is cheating its customers, which was the entire point of the exercise. I then went on a bus to Kindara where alighted just before the village to try my luck in the Sudaweli guesthouse, which turned out to be a gem. I found the garden dry at this time of year, but the cabana was delightful and I got it for 1000 rupee, which is a good price. The owner Santha also offered me a safari the next morning, which I happily agreed to. Sadly enough he had a couple of friends around for the night and hit the Arrak bottle with the result that I got up again the next morning at 5am only to find no Santha. My attempts to wake him were futile so I finally gave up on the entire Yala idea and decided to forgo the chance to see a leopard in the wild. Instead I packed my things and in the process got stung by a centipede that hid in my backpack. Having thrown it out it was caught by a large lizard and eaten, which seemed a bit as if the saying “to eat and be eaten” took shape right at that moment. I took the first bus back to Tissa from where I took the Kandy bound bus till Ella. I was lucky to get one of the last seats, thus the journey from the lowlands along increasingly curvy roads into the highlands was pleasant. In Ella I got a room for 1000 rupee in the Hill Top Guesthouse which, true to its name, is reached after a steep 100m climb along a tiny road. The next morning I climbed Ella Rock and realised along the first kilometre how much I missed walking in nature. It was amazing that after a short walk out of the village I was surrounded by absolute silence. I loved the climb up the little mountain and decided to to climb the even lower Little Adam Peak in the afternoon, which was another nice little walk to finish off the day.

One of the biggest delights of Ella was the curd and mixed fruit at the Curd and Honey shop right next to the bus stop. The dish is a true marvel which one ought to try when visiting the town. The next morning I took my last buffalo milk curd before heading for the train to Haputale. The one hour trip runs through marvellous landscape and Haputale itself is perched on the top of a mountain ridge with stunning views across the surrounding landscape. I got a room in the Sri Lak View Inn, which is right in the town centre. Its proximity means that one hears every azan, but I planned to get up early anyway, thus I did not mind. I had managed to arrange a tuk tuk with very honest driver Ajith at 5am the next morning to the Horton Plains national park. The park is a 1h 30min drive away from Haputale and while my tuk tuk cost me 1700R both ways, the entrance fee for the park was a hefty 3047R. Despite my shock at the cost I enjoyed the walk through the park's unique mist forest and open plain landscape. The 9km loop brought me to Little World's End, World's End and Baker's Falls. In my opinion the park is a gem, eve though the only animals I saw, apart from the many small birds, were Giant Squirrels and Samba Deer. Back in Haputale I walked to the Haputale Tea Factory to buy fresh BOP at bargain price at the Haputale Tea Centre.

The next morning I left early to catch the first train to Kandy. I bought myself a second class ticket, but when the train arrived the 2^nd class was full. Thus I first sat next to the door on my backpack, then the officer took me to the third class where I found a seat, yet I eventually gave that one to a mother with travelling with four small children, thus ending the journey sitting at a table in the canteen carriage. Kandy came as a bit of a shock. After all the village and small town settings it appeared noisy, overcrowded and extremely unappealing. I took a tuk tuk to the Green Woods guesthouse, but the rooms were too expensive and finally got a room right next to it in a brand new house for 1100R, the dearest room since my arrival. The forest setting of the place were beautiful, but one was constantly threatened by the roaming monkeys that invade much of Kandy. The guesthouse had no food, but I found Hotel Saumiya, a brilliant roti place in D.S. Sannayaka Visediya and New Javantha Hotel, the best bakery in Sri Lanka, in Anagarika Dharmapala Mawatha. To avoid the thousands of school children I went into the fenced in temple complex around 7am the next morning only to find that the Temple of the Tooth entrance fee was 1000R which I refused to pay. Instead I walked around the encloser visiting the four Devales at the time of the morning pujas, which was wonderful. That done I decided to leave Kandy, walked to the bus station and took a bus to Dambulla. Dambulla is the only place that has really grotty, run down rooms for rather high prices on offer. I wish I had seen a more high end place before settling for one of the better of the bad places. In the afternoon I visited the Dambulla cave temples for which I had to pay 1200R. The entrance fees in Sri Lanka are so much inflated that I decided at that point to forgo virtually all cultural sights and travel to the east coast instead, especially as I found the cave temples filled with noisy school children and all the rock pools filled with litter. The temples were beautiful, but the entrance fee makes it a questionable experience.

Finding Dambulla and its horrid guesthouses appalling I took the first bus bound to Trinconmalee, a large, but very low key coastal town with natural deep harbour at the east coast. From here I took a local bus to the nearby Uppuveli, a village with a beatiful beach just north of Trincomalee. The beach turned out miles better than the Rough Guide promised and walking down the beach I struck a great deal at the Underwater Safari where I got the brand new bungalow for a bargain 1000R as the first ever guest. On my walks down the beach I watched the fishermen haul in their nets and paid them 100R for the privilege to set a young stingray free. As the only tourist restaurant in Shiva's served the most horrid watered down so called curry I followed some locals to the prata shop on the main road that did great prata, roti and after 6pm kottu roti, thus avoiding the uninspiring tourist option. On my way through the village I also encountered my first Grey Langurs, which are very pleasant and graceful monkeys unlike the rowdy Macaques. I spent three tranquil days at Uppuveli before taking the bus back to Trincomalee and from there to Anurdhapura. Here I opted for the cheapest option at the Sandalle Holiday Resort versus the more expensive, but nicer Nadeeja next door. With both options were better than the adjacent Lake View I picked the one with gave me the biggest discount. The next morning I explored the ruins at Anuradhapura which are little more than a few foundation walls and random pillars. It makes no sense to pay any of the horrendous entrance fees, as the Sri Maha Bodhi is free and the impressively huge dagobas (pagodas) are best viewed from a distance. Thus I wandered for 6 hours along the roads of the Mahavihara, Jetavana, Abhayagiri monasteries and the citadel which was nice enough and avoided paying the government another huge amount for very little.

On my arrival in Anuradhapuri I had bought my first class sleeper cabin train ticket to Colombo for my last day of stay as the following morning brought me to Dhamma Anuradha, the new Vipassana meditation centre near the town where I attend a three day meditation course before returning to the capital by train for my fight home. The Dhamma Anurdha was wonderful, a place full of bird life, including wild peacocks, which provide a perfect setting for the course. The first class sleeper on the other hand was far from convincing and Colombo turned out boring apart from the Pettha district, where one can buy pretty much everything before hopping on the bus 187 to the airport. All in all Sri Lanka was a wonderful experience and I am surely planning to return. There are only two things that can be mildly annoying in the country, which are the drastically overpriced entrance fees for national parks and cultural sites and the comments from young local men of the age between 18 and 25 who seem to reduce their thought process, if there is indeed any, to the area between their legs. Other than that Sri Lanka is beautiful, diverse, and an absolute pleasure to travel in and I reckon I might just do that again soon.

Going diving to Sipidan I managed to get a direct flight into Tawau, where I stayed overnight in the small Chinese Soon Yee hotel that is friendly, cheap, and simple and came to my surprise with an ensuite bathroom. Yet, at first sight Tawau was disappointing, as there was a bit too much of unwanted attention in the forms of people laughing when they see you walking into a supermarket, or guys whistling and commenting when you walk down the street. Add to the list the amount of poverty that I have not seen in Malaysia before. There are many beggars and street kids, or children that look as if they were either orphans living in the street, or to a large part neglected children from super poor families. This is something you see in the many Filipino slums, but not normally in Malaysia. I was especially taken back when I watched three of such kids kicking and pushing a new hawker stall that was locked up for the night, and nobody made any effort to stop or reprimanded them. And what made it harder to get a good feeling about the place was the challenge to find a place that sells food that I can eat, aka meat free, in combination with beer. Normally all Chinese coffeeshops sell beer, so imagine my surprise when I walked past 5 Chinese coffeeshops and all of them had none! Finally I decided to sit down for dinner in the Kedai Kopi Ingot for a rather good claypot and and awesome avocado shake instead. On my return to Tawau after the diving trip I found a few more suitable food places for both breakfast and dinner, which made life in Tawau a lot more comfortable.

The next morning saw the minibus driver arriving punctually at 6:30 at my doorstep and off we went to Semporna, with only a 1.5h stop at the airport waiting for the three Japanese divers who were to share the Celebes Explorer liveaboard with me. Actually most of the day seemed to consist of waiting; first for the Japanese, then for the four Italians and three French who arrived only in the afternoon. Thus the four of us who had been on the boat since morning went for a late morning dive to the nearby Sibangkat Island, which was not exactly a fantastic dive, other than me finally seeing a crocodile fish, but in sad circumstances – we found it dying in a large piece of tangled finishing net that had been stuck on the corals and remained there. Our efforts to save the fish were futile, as it was much weakened and consequently died after its release. The afternoon saw us sailing to Mabul Island, where the boat stays at night. The dive there was most marked by strong current that send us drifting past the wall at rapid pace, too fast to see many small things, but I was lucky to spot two Banded Pipefish in a little cave.

Of all these events I have no images, and neither do I have any images of any of my dives, as I was recently told that against previous expectations there was never a housing built for my new digital camera, the Canon ixux 970, so I had to come to one of the best dive sites in the world without a camera. Yet, in a way, this seemed to be a blessing. I had the feeling that the fish know that I have no camera, because at numerous occasions individuals or even entire schools swam right into me, staying only a few centimetres away from me. In short I had some amazing wildlife encounters with all sizes of fish that are firmly set in my memory, which seems a lot more valuable than the pictures that I might have taken. Still there are many more pictures of the trip on my photoblog.

The second day on the Celebes brought us to Sipadan Island. One of the major advantages to dive from the Celebes is that it guarantees 4 Sipidan dives per week, and as I stay only for 4D4N I will get to dive in Sipidan two full days, which is brilliant. The first day of diving at Barracuda Point, White Tip Avenue, Hanging Garden, and the Drop Off was spectacular. The landscape is amazing, and the place is teeming with schools of Trevally, Round Batfish, and Humphead Parrotfish, as well as large fish such as tuna, Napoleon Wrasse, Yellow-eyed Snapper, and Whitetip Reefshark, not to forget the uncountable number of large Green Turtles, which I was fortunate enough to record mating from the upper deck of our boat. On the other end of the scale I was fascinated by the Purple Firegoby, who have to be one of my most favourite fish in the world.

When we dropped into the ocean Barracuda Point for our second day diving at Sipidan Island we virtually jumped into a arge school of thousands of Yellow Banded Barracuda. And as is this was not enough the sight was followed by a huge group of maybe 100 Humphead Parrotfish right after. The overall effect was quite astounding. The rest of the dive saw us counting about 15 Whitetip Reefsharks and numerous Green and Hawkbill Turtles. Three drives at Lobster Lair, Staghorn Crest, and West Ridge followed which was crowned by three sightings of Grey Reefsharks. The grand finale of the day was the dusk dive at Mabul Paradie 1, where we saw five Crocodile Flatheadfish, a free roaming Banded Murray, and the ever so elusive White Ribbon Moray. I also spend a lot of time watching Mandarin Fish as they are yet another of my top loved species. And this time I not only saw two adults mate, but also a 1cm long juvenile. And as if all these were not enough we spotted a tiny Papuan Cuttlefish and a Ornate Ghostpipefish just before surfacing at the onset of night.

The next day was to be my last day on the Celebes, and it saw us diving in Siamil Island. On arrival at the island the sea was teeming with tiny fishing boats from the fishing community on the neighbouring Danawan Island. Under the surface the reef had suffered equally from El Nino as from illegal dynamite fishing. Surprisingly enough there was still a lot to see. The sandy slope intercepted by some rocks, sponges and coral appears to be a fishy kindergarden; we saw juvenile Harekin and Spotted Sweetlips, Shaded Batfish, Flamboyant Moray, and Longhorn Cowfish. On the adult and non-fishy side of things there was no less than a few Orang-Utan Crabs, Peacock Mantis Shrimp, Giant Frogfish, Reef Octopus, Broadclub Cuttlefish, Leaf Scorpionfish, and – taking care of the next generation - a Jawfish with eggs in its mouth. All in all not bad for a badly damaged reef, that, if protected might slowly grow back to its original beauty. Returning for the night to Mabul we went for another dusk dive which brought us face to face with a gigantic and potentially deadly Esturine Stonefish as well as the tiniest baby Crocodile Flatheadfish, and a free swimming White-eyed Moray, and a large school of Yellow Tail Barracuda.

Thursday morning I had to pack and leave the Celebes Explorer. One of the smaller boats brought the two of us that were leaving to Semporna while the others went diving to Kapalai. I had about 3 hours to kill in Semporna before my trip back to Tawau and I found the small town rather friendly and pleasant to hang out in. As I could not fly after all the Wednesday dives I had booked my flight on to Kota Kinabalu on Friday. For some reason there were no direct flights back to Singapore available, so I had to fly first to KK and then on Sunday from there back to Singapore, and arrangement which allowed me to plan for some shopping and a good deal of avocado shakes :)

And KK was pleasant as usual; the town has not the charm of Kuching as it is lacking any form of old buildings, but it is great for just hanging out, sipping drinks in a coffeeshop, squeezing through the crafts market and the many night markets, or sitting at the food stalls at the harbour front watching the sun set behind the fisherman boats.I just had wished that Hakim could be here with me, because lounging around in coffeeshops and hawker stalls is just not quite the same alone. My guesthouse, the Borneo Adventure Centre, was the cheapest I could find with an ensuite bathroom. The room was great, but the place is a bit noisy with a main road behind the building and a mosque across the road. So after I had stocked up on all my essentials in Malaysia, it was time for me to return to good old Singapore.

Biking the Straights - well more like from the youngest of the Straights settlements aka Singapore, to the oldest one, also known as Malacca or Melaka - could be the name of my last trip to Malacca with Christiane. As Chinese New Year saw us both off work for 4 days we decided to grab the chance and execute our long talked about motorbike trip to Malacca.

Thus we booked ourselves into the Riverview Guesthouse right in the historic centre of town, packed our few things and went on the road. First landmark of the trip was the Tuas Checkpoint where I had to wait for Christiane, who was late, and as the friendly custom officer told me, waiting is not permitted, even though there was hardly anybody there on the first day of Chinese New Year at 8:30 in the morning. He was kind enough to let me wait behind the custom's clearing, and once Christiane arrived we headed across the bridge to the Malaysian side, where our next challenge was to pass the toll booth. It turned out that since I last sat in any vehicle in Malaysia they had "fully automated" the tollbooth, meaning that one cannot pay cash anymore, instead one has to buy a "touch-and-go" card. The confusing part is that each cubicle is still manned with a member of staff who can sell you the cards, which left us wondering why they cannot just take the money for the toll fare? Nevertheless a friendly Singaporean biker explained the details to us, where the Malaysian staff had failed and so we were on our way with our newly purchased card, which we did not need apart from this once, as we were leaving the motorway at exit 307 heading along the national road number 5 to Pontian Kechil and from there always along the coast and via Muar directly to Melacca.

The way lasted 500m and ended at the rest stop where we had a tea, and got ourselves mentally prepared for the road. Yet, against all my expectations the ride turned out to be rather civilised. The major problem seemed to be to find open coffeeshops on the first day of Chinese New Year. Despite the fact that the majority of Malaysians are non-Chinese, this rule seems not reflected in the demographic distribution of coffeeshops. Anyway, we finally managed to find a place that served us fried rice, which was good enough to strengthen us for the second leg of the journey.

The next major problem only hit us once we arrive at the outskirts of Malacca. For some odd reason the local Government does not seem to see the need for putting even one English sign, or even any indicator what so ever that directs the non-locals from the newly build route 5 to the historic town centre. Therefore we had to follow any sign that we thought would lead us to the right place, only to find out that Melaka Central as indicated on the directional sign was not only the name of the bus terminal which is right next to the historic town centre, but also the name of a new shopping mall in the outskirts, which is where we ended up at. The very helpful guy at the petrol station where we asked for directions then got the address wrong and even though he sent us generally in the right direction we ended up at the wrong side of the river and in the worst traffic jam known to mankind. It is amazing that nobody, especially the local administration has not thought about pedestrianising the core of the historic town centre, when it takes maximum 10min to walk from one end to the next. Despite the short distances from one end to the next people, that is to say tourists, end up DRIVING through the narrow one-way lanes to park right in front of a restaurant or shop. This is absolutely pathetic and spoils the atmosphere of the place completely. The traffic is so bad that the local Melakans never use their car unless the go out of town. Unfortunately we had to go through all of this in order to find our hostel, which we finally did after only about an hour of going stop and go through town!!!

Yet once we got there is was brilliant, the hostel is cosy, the beds huge, the owners super friendly and helpful, and we simply enjoyed our shower, north Indian meal and beer before falling super tired into bed. The next two days simply saw us walking through the old part of town, interlaced with some shopping at the nearby mall, and terminating with a late afternoon river cruise and a sunset view from St Paul's.

Our guesthouse was in Jalan Kampong Pentai, which is right at the river and runs parallel to the Tatong, Jonker and Heeren Street, which together with the Fort Famosa area on the other side of the river constitute the Malacca Unesco World Heritage site. Malacca and Penang got the World Heritage status together a couple of years ago, and even though the former has a lot more well preserved heritage buildings I personally prefer the more authentically Malaysian and less tourist overrun atmosphere of Penang (where Hakim and I travelled to again last December to meet Mario, Marie and Pascal).

The way back was even more easy, because most of the country still seemed to have been in holiday mood, thus there was neither weekend nor rush-hour traffic. Only the sky was threatening with rain so we kept on riding all the way to Pontian before we had the first drizzle. Just on time we found a great little coffeeshop that served vegetarian soup and wanton mee, over which we watched the downpour, before going on the last leg of the journey back to Tuas Checkpoint and good old Singapore, that seemed awfully busy in comparison with rural Malaysia. All in all it was a fun trip, which left me keen to go more often on longer trips, even when it means that at the end of the day your bum and your legs hurt a lot :P

i am just back from kuching where christiane, hakim and i went to visit the rainforest world music festival last weekend. christiane and i had meant to visit that festival for years, but for some reasons we always missed it. it wasn't so bad as long as we had WOMAD in singapore, but for some reason this stopped last year, despite its increasing popularity. with the best music event missing in our own yard we made a huge effort to go this year, and remembered to book plane tickets early, which was easy since airasia is flying directly to kuching from singapore.

kuching was great, as always, and the setting for the RWMF in the cultural village about an hours drive from town, at the edge of the jungle is fantastic, but the choice of bands was lacking well behind the one we are used to from WOMAD. the bands were great, and most of them were really traditional, which i love, but the set up made it very difficult to enjoy the performances. there were two stages right next to each other on which the artists played alternately throughout the night. this left the audience in a limbo, because on the bigger stage large, often very energetic bands played, but as soon as the 45min performance was over the next act was due on the small stage. yet these bands were of the very traditional small and low key type, meaning that as soon as the audience was in the mood to party they were supposed to sit down and chill, which in turns was impossible to do, as the area in front of the stage was a mud field after the previous night's rain.

so we were all on a mood yoyo run, leaving us rather disappointed about the entire affair. to me the most memorable act was a workshop aka jamming session called from the north to the south of africa, in which a band from morocco and one from tanzania performed together. the energy that the dancers from both bands had was mesmerising and contagious, and nothing that we saw at night during the concerts was at a par with that.

the set up was doubly flabbergasting as the cultural village is huge, and there would have been ample opportunities to set up the two stages apart from each other, leaving one for big energetic shows and one for the people who prefer to chill. if they had set up the smaller stage at the lawn by the lake where people can listen, eat, drink and relax it would have been perfect, but sadly enough the organisers missed that point BIG TIME.

anyway, it was still a great trip and i am glad we went, as it meant we could go for all the yummy food in kuching... fern fern fern and more... jungle food gallore :P