Pulau Dayang

Matt and I are very glad we are not and never were refugees that had to travel with too many people on a scary boat in the middle of the night.

Friday evening we met a bunch of people at the dive shop near Matt's office. Though Singapore is about 26 miles wide, and 12 miles long, and we were going from the south to the north, AND it takes less than a half hour to get anywhere in Singapore, it took us about two hours to get to the Malaysian border. Once you get close, you see hundreds of people getting off their buses and walking towards the border. It actually was pretty orderly, but it was funny to see so many people walking through - not exactly like the border in Detroit with Canada where everyone seems to be in cars and some people walk through.

A guy named Arkadi had sat next to us in the van, and we started talking to him. He said he had a Greek name, grew up in Georgia (not the bulldogs one), then Russia, but now he lives in Germany. Once we talked about how the border looked like something Matt and I had seen in the Middle East, he said he had been there too. Turns out he's a Russian Jew and has a brother who lives in Tiberias in Israel...

Back to our travels...We then drove on a scary windy road, through random Malaysia to a jetty (or a pier as I might call it). We got there around midnight (we started leaving the dive shop at 6:30 pm - and this was just NOT that far away!!). Unfortunately the tide had gone out, so the big boat we were supposed to take couldn't make it to the jetty. We piled on this little boat, crammed in there with our stuff and our dive gear, and we rode HUGE waves, with lightning off in the distance, into the darkness. Yeah, I was scared. Matt was excited. This was when I was first glad that we were never refugees on boats.

We transferred onto the bigger boat - with both moving up and down and all over the place. It was hard. We climbed up to the top deck and claimed some floor space. We were on this boat for five hours - until six am - and it was the rockiest thing I have ever been on. Our muscles were sore from trying to keep ourselves from sliding and moving with each rock. Thank goodness for sea-sickness medication. Saved my life. I would have puked the whole way.

We were told we were going to a resort - Dayang Resort. When we got to Pulau Dayang (Pulau means Island in Malay), we realized this was not the same definition we had for the word "resort." We slept 12 people in a room, with bunk beds (thank god I brought pajamas!), there were about 20 bathrooms which were stalls with toilets and a shower head on top, there were troughs for washing up, and there was one sheet on the mattress and one pillow. No cover and no towel. It was actually totally fine and did the job, but definitely not exactly what we were expecting.

We got to sleep for two hours, and then went diving. Saturday we ate, went for a dive, ate, went for a dive, ate and then went for another dive. These first three dives I was with my class of people getting certified and Matt went with the leisure divers (pronounced LEH-zure, obviously). Sunday we woke up, dove, ate, dove, ate and then left. Five dives and six meals in total.

The island was gorgeous. There was nothing on it other than our "resort," and it was exactly like what I have seen in pictures of South East Asian Islands - beautiful palms, rock jutting out, white sand, and clear, blue water. Matt said that the Indonesian islands look like this too.

The diving was above average but not outstanding, according to Matt. We definitely saw amazing, beautifully colorful fish, including clownfish, parrotfish, and super cool coral including Christmas Tree Worms, which are fun, because they sort of pop when you come near them on the coral. My final dive I was certified and could dive with Matt - it was a really neat thing to do with someone I love (though the rest of the dives with Arkadi were great too!).

We then hopped back on the "big" boat and took it back to the pier, then through the border, and then back to the dive shop. All together, getting to the island took about 11.5 hours. Getting back took eight hours. It was a huge difference.

The people on the trip were super interesting and wonderful. I really enjoyed listening to the Singaporeans speak English. It's hilarious. They don't really use "a" or "the" or sometimes "s's" on the end of words, and they throw in "las" all over the place. I really love it.

Arkadi will send us some pictures, so I will post those when I get them. We forgot our camera.

Other than diving - two pieces of news...

I got to see Sarah Goldfein last week, and it looks like I will see her again today. It was so wonderful to just talk live with her! Yay!

When Matt and I went to South Africa, we brought some clothes to trade for art. We brought a Michigan sweatshirt and traded it for a puzzle of the continent of Africa in a market in Cape Town. Our friends Laura and Seth just got back from South Africa, and Laura said, "it was so funny, we were in this market in Cape Town, and this one guy had a Michigan sweatshirt on!" That's just hilarious.

We're thinking about the Shiovitz/Hildebrandt family who is together to remember Matt's zaydie right now. We wish we were there with them. We're thinking about him from across the world...

Happy almost birthday to Wolf, Erin and others.