Scuba diving, Surfing and Snorkeling!

Hi all,

So at the end of the last post I'd just arrived in Semporna for scuba diving. On my first night there I went for drinks at the hostel bar with a guy in my room and some other people he knew. There was a band night on and it was a leaving do for one of the guys that worked there, so it was a good atmosphere. After the hostel bar shut we went onto this local kareoke place which was very strange! A good night though! After a few hours sleep I had to be up for the theory part of my diving course, I was not feeling great to say the least, but just about managed to get through all the videos and tests. The next couple of days I spent in the sea diving around Mabul island and it was really good, I saw turtles, eagle rays, an octopus, a massive grouper fish (Amy - like the ones we saw in the aquarium at vinpearl!) and loads of other fish. I've now got my diving qualifacation and can dive to 18m, so hopefully will do some more diving later on in my travels.

From Semporna I went back to Sandakan for my flight to Bali. I arrived in Bali at around 10pm and had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay as it was quite expensive (for Asia). Ended up settling for this place which was a bit of a dive, later on when I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth I saw 2 cockroaches on the back wall, I was not impressed! I decided against brushing my teeth! In the morning I woke up with lots of little red spots on my face, which later turned into big spots! Not entirely sure what was in my bed biting me as they weren't mosquito bites, but it wasn't pleasant! I got out of there as quickly as I could to find somewhere else to stay! Managed to find the place where Emma was staying, the girl I'd met at the mountain, so I checked in there.

We spent the day at the beach and I decided to give surfing a go. There are loads of locals on the beach offering surf lessons for cheap, Emma had done it the day before so we went and found the guy that taught her, who hadn't made her pay in the end as she didn't manage to stand up! So I went into the sea after a quick breifing of how to stand up on the board, tried to get on the board the wrong way round initially, which the guy found highly amusing. Anyway after a couple of attempts I managed to stand up, and continued for a while trying to master it! It was all going well until on one go I realised I was heading towards this guy who was lying on his board, also learning to surf, and I didn't really know how to steer myself away from him. I then fell off and my board went flying straight into the back of his head....oops. I think it was pretty painful for him, and after trying to apologise for a while I told my instructer than I didn't want to continue. There were lots of people in the sea learning at this point, and I was scared that I would hit someone again, or that someone would hit me. It all seemed a bit dangerous, I'm sure those boards could cause you quite a lot of damage! Anway my instructer persuaded me to get back on, so I kept on going for a while, but was a bit shaken up and had lost my confidence, so I didn't carry on for too long. So yeah surfing was fun but I think I'll stick to body boarding!

That night me and Emma went for a night out in Kuta, which is basically like Magaluf or somewhere for Aussies. After spending the next day hungover on the beach, I booked a boat to take me to the Gili Islands the following day. Arrived there that evening and it was a really beautiful island, very relaxing compared to Kuta, especially as there are no cars or motorbikes on the island, only horse drawn carriages. However there's still quite a lively nightlife there. The next day I went on a snorkerling boat trip around the islands, which was really nice, and I met some British girls who I went out with that evening. The next day I had to get back to Bali for my flight to Darwin, the boat trip was not ideal as it was very rocky and I was feeling a bit delicate! Apparently a few days ago a couple of boats doing the trip for gill islands to Bali sunk and people on board drowned, so lucky I didn't leave a few days later! When I arrived at the airport that evening my flight had been cancelled. Initially I was annoyed as I'd wanted to change my flight to a couple of days later, and had been rushing to make it back for. However we got put up for the night in a nice hotel right on the beach, and got free dinner and breakfast at the hotel. So it wasn't all bad! Last night in luxury before becoming very very poor in Oz!

So I got on the same flight the following evening after relaxing by the pool all day, and arrived in Darwin early the next morning - will fill you in on Darwin in the next post!

Bye for now,

Julia xxx