Holland

More brief 'Alice Style' posts.

We spent a week in Holland visiting my family and out and about on a couple of day trips - quite an experience for Richard, he says it was educational. Haven't had time to upload photos from Amsterdam - Richard will post them later with some educational reading.

Typical view down a canal (Leiden)

Tulips

Free beanbags to laze around on in the middle of a park! (hang on - we had to pay to get into the park)

Educational: Giving Richard new meaning to 'a boot up the arse'

Biking in the National Park

A morning out with Jolanda and Nico in the National Park. Ranger (the horse) wasn't too impressed towing four people in the soft sand
(the park rangers have started ripping out all the American Oaks to restore the park to its native flora).

KL, Malaysia

We were hoping to shop, shop, shop. However, it turns out you can't really buy clothes for tall people in a country full of relatively shorter people. So we took in the sights instead.

Petronas Twin Towers (Tallest Twin Towers in the World)

KL looks like it's made out of lego from KL Tower Restaurant

The glasses they give you to wear while they brainwash you about Petronas
(you could almost mistake Richard for Filip!)

Lankayan, Malaysia

We really enjoyed our stay on Lankayan, a tiny (really tiny – 10 minute walk round tiny) island in the middle of the Sulu sea. The sand is white, the water is bright blue, and the food is, mercifully, great. There are no leeches. The temperature is about 30 degrees. The water however, is only a chilly 28.

We have seen lots of colourful and bizarre fish and coral during our mammoth 14 dives. Parrot fish, Giant Jawfish, Tuna, Leopard Sharks, Reef Sharks, Rays, Nudibranchs, Clownfish, Seahorses, Lionfish, Octopi, moray and ribbon eels. The life down there is amazing. We also saw a sea turtle, but funnily only while snorkeling in the lagoon.

We were woken one night to witness the hatching and releasing of baby Hawksbill Sea Turtles into the sea. There were 91 tiny, wriggling, flapping turtles, carried in a bucket to the beach, then shepherded into the sea. Only two or three of these will survive to adulthood. The rest will make an easy and tasty snack for the small sharks that patrol the lagoon. There must have been something about that night because we then witnessed a big Green Sea Turtle drag itself up the beach and laboriously dig a hole with it’s flippers to lay eggs. Progress was halted however by some spectators who got too close; sending the poor creature back, slowly, to the sea, leaving tracks a meter wide.

Our experience was made more interesting that the island is occupied by the Malaysian Army, Navy and police. The guys with AK47s are very friendly. This tiny Island is obviously of immense strategic importance to the Malay Government, or maybe there are Communist rebels poised to declare the Democratic Republic of Lankayan, or perhaps they have nothing else to do.

View from our 1st room - across the lagoon to the jetty and dive centre

View down the beach at our second room

Sunset

Sandakan, Malaysia

We’re having a really good time in Malaysia, the people are very friendly and it’s a beautiful country – plus no mozzies or sandflies (it’s the wrong time of year).

However, Richard did get properly leeched. A ground leech crawled up his shoe, down his sock and found a nice fat blood vessel on his ankle. The leech was very fat when he found it. We got it off and Alice flushed it down the toilet – but it started crawling back up the bowl. Do not flush a leech down the toilet if you don’t want to be paranoid about using the facility! Fortunately, leeches don’t hurt you and don’t leave an itchy bite – but you do bleed for a while. And it’s pretty gross having what looks like a slug sucking your blood. We don’t like leeches.

Prior to the leeches we went to see the Orang Utans at the rehab centre and the Proboscis Monkeys.

Orang Utan

Infront of Orang Utan feeding platform

Proboscis Monkey

We had our first taste of Malaysian food when we sneaked off during the city and war memorial tour and got roti and satay – very nice. The nature resort has the worst food EVER. They are trying to cook ‘western’ food to make us feel at home – we definitely did not expect mashed spuds and sausage at a fancy Malaysian resort.

Death March map at Sandakan at the remains of a WWII POW camp. Of 2500 POWs at the camp during WWII (Mainly Australians) only 6 survived - because they escaped.

Wedding

Had a few people ask whether anyone else was at the wedding aside from Richard, me, David, Michelle and the celebrant! YES there were, and here's some proof:

Guests waiting (but not for long because Alice wasn't late)

van den Hout family

Alach/Deane-Freeman family