We had four dives by 12:30 - with a minor run-in with the coral. I think our boat driver had never been to Sipadan, since he didn't seem to know his way, and now the coral scabs on my ankle are living to tell the stories. We pulled the boat over coral for about a half hour...not normal. Anyways - it was unbelievable.
All nights at Kapalai, our DM, whom we think had the hots for Tenley, took us out at night - totally not part of his job - to see the mandarin fish and also to watch him feed an eel. We saw two little tiny cuttlefish mating. The night dives were particularly cool.
After three and a half days of diving in that area (and a tough Hildebrandt ping-pong tournament - whoever had the good paddle and good side won), we hopped back on the boat and went back to the Tawau airport to fly back to KL and say bye to Tenley.
After another shady hotel by the KL airport (still haven't found one we would stay in again), we flew to Medan, where we were "cleaned" upon entering. I'm sure that got rid of all "swine flu" (see photo). We had a surprisingly good nasi goreng lunch and then had a wonderfully Indonesian experience. When entering the Medan airport/gate area, the security guy got especially excited to see American passports. "My brother lives in New York!" he says to Matt in bahasa. "Maybe it's New Jersey?" He goes on for a few minutes, and while he's talking, about ten people enter the gate area with no security at all. Hmmm.
Our flight from Medan was a local, Indonesian airlines (see photo). We weren't sure we would survive. Actually, the plane was so old, we felt like we were on an American airline, but it made it. Flying over Banda Aceh was interesting. It was nearly completely devastated in the tsunami in December 2004, so saw a ton of new, colorful housing projects, and a LOT of construction. If you're interested to see what it looked like after the tsunami, do a google image search for "Banda Aceh tsunami" - truly unbelievable.
We had another wonderfully Indonesian experience in the Banda Aceh airport. I asked the policeman if there are legitimate/legal taxis, and he said, "None of the taxis are legal, so you can take any of them."
We took a "fast ferry" over to Pulau Weh - just north of Banda Aceh, on the tip of Sumatra. The island has very little going on - a few villages, a small city, and a lot of trees, mountains, and it seemed like a lot of monkeys.
We stayed on a beach about 45 minutes from the ferry, and all there was was a few "cafes," a few dive shops, and a beach - oh and our "hotel."
We had an extremely relaxing four days there - though I was stuffy for most of it, so I only made it down for two dives. Matt was mildly underwhelmed by the diving, but I think that was just because we had come from such amazing places. We made friends with a few dogs, a goat or two and some people. We didn't love the feel of the place - seemed like there was a bit of politics or something going on among the dive masters. Not such a welcoming feeling, but overall, it was fine, and it was BEAUTIFUL.
Finally - after two amazing weeks, we got back to Singapore last night, to our totally empty apartment. We have a chair, a bed, and a book shelf, and our poor Kitty was here for two weeks without us. She seems to be fine, though, and she was very happy to sleep in our legs last night.
Here are the 500 photos we took cut down to something like 80 or maybe a bit more :)
Land stuff, Manado Diving, Rest of the Diving.
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