Hong Kong

It started the wrong way… Lesley and Bob advised us to take a taxi to their place as they are not directly on the public transport. Instead we did the stupid thing and decided to use the public transport (Nives’ idea really…). All would be fine (sort of) if we didn’t (foolishly!) listen to the guy from the tourist info office at the airport. We are not going to go into details here, but all it matters is that it took us three hours to get there. On a positive side, we ARE still married (it was touch and go a few times). Don’t think that a totally spooked Uber driver who drove the last part of the journey shares this opinion thou. Apparently, Asians are not good with couples having an open conflict. Yaiks!

But our lovely hosts brought us back to life with wonderfully cooked home food and copious amounts of red wine. And it did not end there. We actually got to see the really nice side of Hong-Kong that not many tourists do.

First, sailing. It was just amazing to sail just outside of bustling city center. There is so much more to Hong-Kong than you would think. Small villages, lush green islands, absolutely beautiful scenery. Top that with great company and some excellent food and wine and you have a winner!
Then, Chinese New Year’s Eve fireworks in the harbour. If we thought Singapore was big, than this was enormous. Gigantic! The whole bay was lit up. We had the best spot in the town as well – Hong-Kong Royal marina. Again, courtesy of Bob and Lesley. Don’t think they normally take our riff-ruff sort of traveling guests (remember Venice?).

We also went for a ride on a local tram on the Hong-Kong Island. It passes through old and new parts of the city, not to mention that markets part to let the tram trough. Covering our eyes the first time we soon realized this is how things are done here. And started to enjoy the views and the city pulse. And you do get a feel that Hong-Kong has either just completed a mountain marathon or is in a constant state of pre cardiac arrest. It is an absolute chaos, but of the organized way. Everything works.

After four days of pure indulgence it was time to move on to warmer climates: Thailand.

Few more pictures here.

Taiwan

Illiterate. And lost. That's our first impression of Taiwan as we struggle (and fail) to read the signs. We keep relying on people to write down our destination and show it to the bus drivers. Think this is the tricky part? Nope. That one comes when you try to do what you are supposed to in Taipei: eat, but eat at various night food markets. Without people speaking English and not being able to read anything we resort to pointing our finger(s) to what we think we want to eat. Great thing is that locals are used to it – a lot of nodding and smiling really does the trick in the end. Food, on the other hand, is a mixed success. Some things we like, some we don’t. Some are not what we thought they were. And we are very general here: is it sweet or savoury, meat or vegetables… In general, is Taipei the foodie capital of Asia? Not really… not for the two of us anyway. Although we did like few dishes in the end, we still think that more fragrant, spicy and nutty cuisines of India, Malaysia or Thailand are more our cup of tea.

One more thing is becoming a theme as we move further east from Europe. To our disappointment, beer and wine are getting more and more expensive (and containers smaller) while petrol is getting cheaper. Beginning to appreciate government taxation policies back home…

Few things will always stay with us about Taiwan thou:

• Public transport. Didn’t even realize it can be that good. Trains go every few minutes and the whole city is totally covered. Absolutely amazing. We kept using and admiring it.
• Internet. Everywhere it maxed out our speed-o-meter. And, last but not least, no stupid passwords all over the place. Respect!
• Cleanliness. Who ever said Singapore was clean? Taipei beats it in a hart-beat. Not as clean as Austrian Alps thou, still stealing the premium spot in our opinion. 

After five days in Taipei, we were on the move again. Next stop – Hong Kong to visit our friends Lesley and Bob and spend Chinese New Year there.

If you fancy looking at more foody pictures or trying to read  Chinese click here.

Palau

For divers, this place is a remote paradise, the way God intended the sea to look like. For non-divers, this is hell on Earth in the middle of nowhere, do not attempt! In geographical terms about three hour flight south east of Philippines. Slightly remote…

This time we did 17 days diving. Consecutive. Clocking at least 200 mins under water every day. Yup, we are a bit crazy… But there is also nothing else to do here (seriously!).

Feelings were mixed in the end. Even Palau is not what it used to be. Problem is way too many tourists. It is becoming a big holidays spot for Chinese and you can see it. It is more crowded under the water than ever! We even joined the marine life playing the game of staying away from divers. Not an easy task, take our word for it. You may find more solitude in Dundrum shopping mall during X-mass. This tiny island now even boasts a rush hour traffic – bizarre!

All this is affecting the wild life. Sadly, manta rays are not as abundant as they used to be. So much so, that in the last week we did not see any (yes, Nives was in tears). We still did have some lovely dives with them, but not a place where you should go if your only agenda is to see these beautiful giants. Not all is bad thou. There are even more sharks and rest of wild-life than before. And they do come close – absolutely amazing (Dejan did have the time of his life). And to top that they now have resident eagle-rays on Blue Corner (at this stage, this dive spot cannot be better than it is, really). If you have one dive left in you, it should be this one – trust us.

Are we going to go back? Definitely! Palau is still amazing and unique place well worth the trouble of flying across the world to see.

Click here to see more of the good stuff (We have been good and even made an underwater movie about it...)

New Year’s Eve in Singapore

OK, to say hotels are expensive in Singa would be an understatement! So, we ended up in Airbnb. Kind of really… more like a giant hostel/hotel type of place. Not really sure about this concept. But who cares, we are here to party, party, party! Or so we thought… If hotels are expensive, alcohol is extortionate.  Costs more than in Kuala (unless you really hunt for bargains, which we did).  So, instead we walked a lot in unbearable heat and humidity. And had a lot of water. Seems all the local governments are really supporting our decision to drink less.

We were really wondering what this place was like when the first settlers came. That was answered quickly enough – after nine minutes and 11 mosquito bites (yes, Nives) in local park we retreated (read: ran for our lives) to a cool and safe harbour of Starbucks café to lick our wounds (read: scratch our legs). So much so for exploring nature. Back to food. And water.

One thing is for sure thou – Singaporeans know their business with fireworks. New Year’s one was absolutely amazing! Sky was on fire! It was a really great experience, we thought way better than one in Sidney. That three hour wait sitting on the ground in the marina, eating New Years’ dinner (if you are interested, we shared a char kway teow – fried noodles, so exotic) and toasting with water was totally worth it! Well, maybe more in eyes of some of us (yes, guessed right – Nives). But we did go for a beer afterwards. Not as quickly as we hoped thou. Singapore authorities have really weird notion of crowd management: streets were closed off (for pedestrians!!!) and big fences put in place. Gates would open only for a minute or so at the time to let people pass. We thought it was hilarious. For the first hour. Then at around 3am it became really annoying. All the same, locals were happy to wait. Maybe we are not cut out to live in Singapore?

We were not sad to leave Singapore, as the next stop was our favourite dive spot in the world: Palau.

Before we dive into the blue, click here for some city view pictures of Singapore.

xMas in Kuala Lumpur

Christmas in our favorite city in Asia. What else can one want in life?

Decorations were even bigger than the last time, but less party on the streets: weather didn’t co-operate and it was mostly raining in the afternoons. But that did not stop enjoying ourselves, as always. Some absolutely amazing food, cinemas and retail therapy.

We did have a hard task to do here this time. It was time to say good-bye to our old diving BCDs… well, temporarily really. We shipped them back to Cyprus (with about half the stock of local Crocks shop – they had a really good Christmas special).

But all is not bad – we bought new dive gear. It is amazing the progress producers did in the last 20 years! New dive jackets have pockets. And additional straps (that we are not using for diving really – old school). And you don’t have to kick as a lunatic to move ten meters with new fins. There is definitely something to replacing gear every now and then. We are thinking of being bold and actually reducing our normal time of never (well, it takes 20 years for plastic to start breaking) to about 18 or 19, but let’s see how it goes….

As Malaysia is predominantly Muslim, alcohol is pretty expensive and we decided to spend New Year Eve in Singapore. They are supposed to have the best fireworks in Asia anyway...

If you are missing xMas already just click here for some more festive feel pictures.

Mozambique

When we planned the trip, the idea was that as we are in SA it just makes sense to quickly hop over to Mozambique to do some diving. Now we know it would be the same to say, if you are in Paris it would be nice see Moscow as well, right? It is a LONG, LONG way! Especially as Mozambique national air carrier LAM (Late and Maybe in local terms) is unreliable, a bit dodgy and blacklisted by European authorities. So, bus it is…

All in all, to answer your question: 3 days. That is how long it finally takes to get from Cape Town to Tofo beach in Mozambique. But let’s start from the beginning…

Cape Town to Joburg was absolutely fab: plane – train combo to bus station. Works like magic. Topped with dinner in Irish pub (getting desperate here…). Johannesburg to Maputo part was fine as well. Modern(ish) bus, filled with people only. But not to forget we are after all in Africa, we had to wait for border to open, get off the bus, cross the border on-foot (about 2km walk) and wait for the bus to pick us up. Yup, we are in the real travelling business again.

One night in Maputo passed quickly. Town is nice, but nothing really to write home about. What makes this country special is people – happy and so warm and hospitable. You have a feeling that whatever life throws at them they take it in the stride. And life was pretty cruel to this African country – they are just recovering after 13 years of civil war. 

Maputo to Tofo travel was a bit more entertaining experience. Local mini-van starting at 5 am and taking anything between 8 and 12 hours (depending on how it goes). Story is following: bus will not start until it’s full (and that means 31 souls (people, animals and every sort of luggage you can think of) in a tiny van – we counted. And stopping at every corner to pick up new customers. But it was actually nice, we enjoyed it (in a sort of masochistic way, I suppose).  Our van was full of kids travelling for holidays (hey, it’s Christmas here as well!). They were absolutely cute, looking at us and smiling and waving all the time. And it took us “only” nine hours in the end. And this is counting police checkpoint stop (read: Christmas bonus to local police force) every 20km, flat tyres (seems like people in Africa know their business around tire changing!), shi-shi breaks (when local toilets allow it, some of us preferred dehydration)… Not bad, hey?

Tofo beach was what we expected really – a proper paradise… once you get there! Diving, however started as a completely different experience. When we arrived we had a cold shower – almost literally: some weird local current shift dropped water temperature from doable 26C to arctic 19C. Visibility is realistically abut 10-15m and water is not really blue (damn underwater camera filters!). Add to all that statement from local dive guides that they haven't seen much of a larger marine life (remember, this is why we are here in the first place!!!) in weeks combined with self-inflicted alco detox and we felt like crying ourselves unconscious. And we did. And then we woke up and cried some more. Our nice Egyptian sheets (on a positive, B&B was really nice) were completely drowned in our tears…

Pretty desperate we jumped into the sea the next day. Water indeed was cold (although it got a bit warmer during our trip to drop again in the last two days), visibility pretty poor and we didn’t see any mantas on the first day. Another thing added to our misery – we brought our 20 years old dive gear with us based on don't fix it if it ain't broken mantra, only to have it all fully break apart in middle of Africa. Guessing already? Yes, more tears on crisp, white Egyptian sheets… Add total existential crisis of missing Ireland, friends and work already (it is December, best month ever!) and life was not looking that good. Thank god for lovely cakes in the B&B (told you it was really nice) – we drowned our sorrows in sugar. Not as good as alcohol thou.

But our luck changed – we really liked the dive center and people there and had a jolly time with them. Also, after first day and initial manta-less dives we saw these beautiful creatures almost on every dive! Even the guys in the dive center could not believe our luck (for a change). It was amazing experience topped with our last dive that was really special – we saw a school of mobila rays (or devil rays) that stayed with us for quite a while. Rays are only half the story. With whale sharks just waiting around to be harassed by hordes of snorkelers life was definitely improving. So we joined the masses to see the beasts, but also to test our swimming stamina as these guys don't really stop much. Or so we thought... With nutrient rich water the whale sharks didn't mind us that much swimming with them. To everybody's tired limbs endless delight they even stop at times to just such the water. Absolutely amazing!!! 

Tofo in the end: great dives, met some amazing people in a really great diving center, had some fab food. And the place has a perfect post-card beach. Even Nives didn't moan as much about the sand here. Ten days passed quickly (all good things don’t last) and we were on our way to Maputo again. This time with semi-private transport. Yes, we are wusses indeed. Are we planning to go back? DEFINITELY!

Next stop Kuala Lumpur. Nives cannot wipe the grin off her face.

This time we even got a video among the pictures.

South Africa

This part of trip was less travelling and more reuniting with our good friends Caroline and Ewart (think we may now be on the way to pronounce his name kind of right every tenth time or so…). It was great to be together after a long time! Guys have also proved to be perfect hosts, they planned so many great things to see and do, so that this was our best SA trip ever!

So, first Cape Town. Such a lovely place – has everything: mountains, sea, city life, history… Definitely our favourite city on this continent. Obviously, we did what the tourist do – walked the sea-front, Long Street, city centre… Living in Ireland for the last decade or so, we thought we knew what strong winds are, but boy were we surprised. It can blow here is all we are saying!

Table Mountain is a must and since we missed it on previous occasions it was definitely on the list this time. It was really a special experience doing it with Ewart, who is a mountain rescue volunteer. And this is not just a posh name people, his phone keeps bleeping! Even had to go on a mission to rescue somebody in practically middle of the night. Anyways, we learned about all the nooks and crannies and best climbs as well as all the stories and history. After all this, lazy as we are, we took a cable car. And it was all concluded by a majestic sunset… Yup, life does not get much better than this… Ah sorry, it does – with a nice glass of red and braai (that would be a bbq for non-initiated) to conclude the day later on… 

They must have confused imperial and metric measurements here is the only explanation for food size (2kg steak is the norm) and, as expected we averaged 2kg weight gain per week per person (same as on all our previous visits really – nice to be consistent).

Next stop was wine touring in Franshoek and Stellenbosh. Reached via one of the most beautiful roads in the world on a perfect sunny day. On a motor bike! Yes, baby… We were there in no time with slightly numb butts (are we losing touch here?).

Can you even pronounce Franschhoek? We couldn’t neither before sampling the good stuff in this gourmet South African village / wine region. The place is littered with 5 star retreat lookalike wineries (we figured it’s a lot like a retreat – you leave happy and relaxed – and that’s the point, right?). Try as much as you can, but short of having AA on speed dial, there are just too many to visit them all… but you know us, tried our best. With six months of Asia and scarce wine availability at the very least ahead of us, we imitated a camel before heading into the desert. And yes, all stored in fat (hey, same as camels with water!). We truly believe that we made a serious dent of local stock. And they even have trains and buses to take you from one winery to another starting at 10 am and finishing at 5 pm! No we haven't died and gone to heaven - this place does exist! Town is lovely as well, although we cannot really say we remember everything crystal clear. Not to mention the food – some of best steaks ever! Thank god we planned only four days or we would have needed a new wardrobe!

Final place we had on the list was totally something else – Tankwa Karoo. Bet you never heard of it? Well, we didn't either. Remote is the name of the game in this part of the world – took about 200km of dirt roads and 2 tyre punctures to even reach the gate of the park. You better come here with friends who know how to fix tyres, as there is a very sketchy mobile reception as well. We wouldn't be writing these word without Ewart‘s off-road know how.

Idea of Tankwa Karoo is to try and live like the early settlers did… well sort of (our first panic was when Nives realized that she forgot the mosquito repellent – so much so for early settlers state of mind). We indeed did not have the electricity, but did have a solar heated hot water, fridge, pool, braai (and if you are wondering, Dejan did burn a small forest in those few days)… kind of roughing it, if you catch our drift? Park is on the north-west of SA, not that far from Namibia (well, this would be in African terms, we are sure you could put a few Slovenias in-between). It is basically a desert, with some bush vegetation and quite a bit of life. And this would include snakes and such. So, no electricity and snakes in one place at the same time. Let’s put it this way, Nives was not the most enthusiastic about this idea from the start. But the promise of some of the best star-gazing in the world (and it really was!) we were on the way. Such a good decision! This was one of those experiences you just never forget, absolutely amazing scenery, views, and really unbelievable stars at night (we were on schedule here – either staying late or waking up early in the morning). So special!

Very quickly, it seemed, our SA time came to end. Caroline even prepared a Christmas dinner (start of December) for us when we were leaving – with decorations and all! Neighbours probably thought we really lost it with all those empty bottles of wine in the bin…

For us, time to move to Mozambique and finally do some diving!

To build up some wine thirst and rest your eyes on beautiful landscape click here.