Namche Bazaar

I'm currently in Namche Bazaar, Nepal. I arrived here after a 7-day hike through the mountains. I'm taking two days here to rest and acclimatize before departing on a 10-day hike that will take me up to Everest Base Camp and back. I'll post about the whole experience upon my return to Kathmandu

Kuala Lumpur to Sri Lanka

Note: I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post...I got only one uploaded.  The rest wouldn't survive the unbelievably slow internet.  I'm about to take a long trek through the Himalayas and once I return, I'll put up a big post with the pictures that belonged on this blog post.  I'll also obviously upload another post about my Himalayan trek (complete with pictures!).




It's been a pretty wild few days.  I spent 5 days in Malaysia and somehow ended up in Sri Lanka.  The twists and turns the adventure takes is sometimes strange and always keeps you on your toes.  

I arrived at the airport in Sydney nice and early, two hours before my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  When I arrived I was notified that my flight would be delayed by 5 hours.  That meant that I had to kill seven hours at the airport.  I was so irritated.  The flight had already been given a 5-hour delay before I even arrived.  If I had been notified in any way I could have spent another day in Sydney, enjoying the city and possibly hanging out with a few of my friends.  Instead I had to kill seven hours in a terminal that you could walk from one end to another in about five minutes with very little to interest me in between.

That was only a minor inconvenience I suppose.  The real problem was that I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 2am rather than 8pm.  Moreover, the airport is a good hour plus away from the city center.  I landed at 2, it took an hour to get my bag (an hour which I spent nervously anticipating an "oops, we lost your luggage.  Sorry!  Enjoy your stay in Malaysia!"), and over an hour to get to the hotel.  I arrived at about 4:30am and promptly fell asleep and slept through much of my first day.  I awoke in the afternoon and had a good wander around, saw the famous Petronas Towers--formally the tallest buildings in the world--and got some 'authentic' Malaysian food.  That night, I went to meet a Belgian fellow named Wim, who I was put in contact with through my friend Colin who I met and traveled with in Peru/New Zealand.

Wim was staying down in Chinatown, which was a cool part of the city and one I had wanted to go see and explore.  I got more than I bargained for, as I spent a considerable amount of time trying to navigate the tiny crowded street markets and hawker stands while searching for this Hostel called the Bird's Nest or something like that.  Everyone I asked pointed in different directions and nobody seemed to have a clue or had even heard of a place called Bird's Nest.  I was lost; crouching under low awnings and squeezing past excited and drunk "gwai-los" (white devils) while searching for some unknown location and simultaneously warding off shop owners hounding me for my cash and intentionally misdirecting me rather than spend energy explaining the way to Bird's Nest gave me the distinct feeling that I was back in Bangkok.  I eventually made my way out of the market and found myself on a dark and deserted street.

I walked up to a one-toothed man leaning against his motorbike pleading, "please can you tell me where Bird's Nest hostel is?"

"I sorry.  No Engrish."  

Ah.  What a lovely and completely unexpected response.  Now What?  I'm lost in Chinatown on a dark and deserted street and I can't find this damn place.  Mr. Miagi over on his motorbike wasn't any help, and there wasn't a soul on that street.  I saw a street sign that confirmed I was in the right place, so I decided to brave the darkness and proceed down this street that appeared as though it had sheet-metal armor on every door and entrance, complete with the graffiti that seems to magically appear whenever a piece of sheet-metal goes up.  But, as luck would have it, I found Bird's Nest.

I met and got to know Wim and his Argentinean girlfriend, Crystal, while we went out for some food.  Crystal was pleased to meet someone that had traveled to her home country and she loved conversing in Spanish with me, as limited as my Spanish-speaking skills are.  Wim seemed like a very nice guy and decided to travel to Nepal with me and Colin (who I was meeting in Kathmandu in a few days time).  We enjoyed a fun outdoor meal of some kind of curry/rice/chili that was prepared in clay pots.

After dinner we went to a bar and had a few beers and talked about what to do in Kuala Lumpur, as they had been there for a few days time.  We had fun for a few hours and then split ways and went home.  I woke up the next morning and my t-shirt that had been so fresh and clean the day before reeked of cigarettes.  That'll happen in a bar with a ton of second-hand smoke, I guess.  The upsetting part was the t-shirt only got one day of use before it got rotated to the laundry bag.  Such a shame.  It could have been reused several times.  You never know when you're gonna be able to do laundry when you're traveling, and now I was prematurely down a t-shirt.  

My time in KL was unfortunately a bit frantic and I didn't really get the full experience.  My plans went haywire and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what to do.  I had originally planned to fly to Borneo and meet up with some friends to do a jungle trek and some diving.  After that I was going to go back to KL and then fly from there to Kathmandu.

First, my cheap and direct flight KL > Kathmandu disappeared.  What was left in its place were limited options, all of which were miserable and usually entailed long layovers in multiple countries.  I found a flight that would have only one stop, in New Delhi, but that would be a 21-hour layover.  I figured I could do that, drive the 4 or so hours from Delhi to see the famous Taj Mahal, drive back, then catch my flight to Kathmandu.  NOPE, you need a visa to enter India, which I did not have.

I looked into flights to what seemed like dozens of cities, all of which were too expensive or else required long layovers in Delhi or Chennai, layovers which I'd have to sit out at the airport.  At the same time, my plans to go to Borneo were falling through.  My friends in Kota Kinabalu said it was constant monsoon-like rains, and they had sped up their itinerary to get out of the storm areas.  I was looking into all kinds of alternatives to try to get to Borneo: fly to K. Kinabalu and bus transfer a few hours somewhere, fly into any other Borneo airports and bus transfer or take a turboprop somewhere, blah, blah blah.  At the end of it all, it was just too much of a hassle.  I was upset I wouldn't get to see Borneo, but I had to figure out some kind of solution for my current predicament.

I pulled up google maps to see if there was anything I was missing.  Embarrassingly, I don't think I could have pointed out Sri Lanka on a map before last week.  It was a war-torn country that I knew little about.  But hey, it was on the map in my neck of the woods.  Found a flight to Colombo, the capital.  Hey, it's cheap!  Found a connecting flight from Colombo to Kathmandu two days later…I think I have something going here.

I knew the civil war in Sri Lanka had ended in 2009, but knew little else.  I did some basic research and decided I'd rather book my ticket to Sri Lanka and chill on the beach for two days rather than spend over 24 hours flying to Kathmandu, the majority of it spent sitting in a Delhi airport.

Sri Lanka it is!

I emailed Colin to tell him of my change of plans and to inform him that I'd be arriving in Kathmandu at 2:45pm on April 14th.  Just as I was about to take off, I got an email back:

"Haha I'm in Sri Lanka!  Come to Kandy, get a train.  Me and Meredith can meet you there."

Well this was a surprise.  Here I was traveling to this small island nation on the other side of the planet and not only was Colin there, Meredith (who I had met in New Zealand and had joined us for three weeks in our Homer van) was there as well.  

Still, I had one night left in KL.  On my last night there I got a chance to have dinner with Florence Sloan's sister Winnie and husband, Joe.  I got in touch with them on my last day and they very generously offered to take me out to dinner for some authentic Malaysian food.  It was absolutely delicious.  I can't remember what any of it was called (and probably couldn't spell it anyway), but there was a chicken curry dish, a dish of I believe fish tails, and a dish with some kind of bright-green colored veggie that was supposed to be very good for you.  I ate it all and loved it.  It was a real privilege to eat a proper meal and I really appreciated the time Florence, Winnie, and Joe all took to make me feel welcome in this foreign part of the world.

The next day, I took the short flight to Colombo, got off the plane, and got a transfer to Kandy, which was about three hours away.  I went to the hotel Colin and Meredith had advised me to meet them at and got some food and some advice on Kandy from the exceptionally sweet woman running the hostel.

While I was a bit stand-offish when I first arrived (I didn't know the culture or how likely I was to get conned or robbed), I quickly discovered two things:  Sri Lanka is awesome and Sri Lankans are some of the nicest people I've met in my travels.  Sri Lanka had a type of tropical jungle/mountain mystique that fit my preconceptions of what Vietnam would look like more than Vietnam did, if that makes sense.  It was like being on the set of Apocalypse Now.  All I needed was a couple of Hueys, Valkyrie blasting through a speaker, and Robert Duvall with his surfboard to complete the picture.

Monkeys, giant lizards, chameleons, elephants, geckos, all manner of bird life, and giant beetle-like insects are some of the incredible wildlife I saw in only a day and a half in Sri Lanka.  It was one of those places where you arrive and like it so much that you want to stay.  One general thing I've tried to avoid in traveling is making strict plans; it always messes things up.  I would have spent two weeks in Sri Lanka easily, but I had a flight to catch and only had one full day there.  Such a shame.  I don't think I'll probably ever return.  I know people say, "well why not?  If you liked it you can go back."  Duh, it's possible.  But let's be reasonable here.  What were the odds of me ending up in Sri Lanka in the first place, let alone going back?

I awoke my first morning in Sri Lanka because my father called me at 6am not realizing the time difference.  He and I needed to discuss law school plans in the event I didn't hear back from GW before the deposit deadline for AU.  While on the phone, I figured I'd check my email one more time and lo and behold there was the subject line "Congratulations!" right there in the inbox.  I was so excited about my acceptance to GW I couldn't go back to sleep.

I went upstairs instead where there was a common area and spent some time enjoying the view.  The entire valley was covered in a thick mist that slowly burned off over the course of the morning.

The woman running the hostel made me some eggs, toast, and tea, and I relaxed in the warm morning air reading my book, All Elevations Unknown, which was given to me by my aunt.  It's about a jungle trek in Borneo so naturally I was again disappointed I never made it there, but it's still a good book.

Eventually I got tired of sitting around and woke Colin and Meredith up.  We wandered into the city and met a very nice Sri Lankan tuktuk driver who called himself Laxman.  He made us a very good deal and he spent the day giving us a tour of Kandy.

We saw tea fields and factories (they produce 12 million pounds per month for export), a temple supposedly containing one of Buddha's teeth, and all sorts of beautiful scenery.

At the end of the day he dropped us off and we signed his book so other travelers could read it and know that he's a nice guy and a good tour guide and not one of those people you meet who are simply trying to con you out of a few dollars.

We had some dinner and enjoyed an absolutely incredible sunset.  It was one of those kinds that seems to  keep getting better and better before the sun finally disappears over the horizon.

Early the next morning (3am), one of the owners of the hostel very generously offered to drive us the 3 hours back to Colombo airport (he got a biiiiiiiig tip).  Colin and I boarded our plane and took off for Kathmandu as Meredith caught her flight to Australia.

More from Kathmandu...

The Great Barrier Reef

The Reef was absolutely one of the things I was looking forward to most about Australia.  It's one of those places you've always heard about and always wanted to go see.  I got to Cairns expecting to take a few days and figure out which dive company I was going to go with.  At my hostel, the very nice Swedish receptionist suggested I go with Pro Dive.  She also mentioned that she worked there part-time, so initially I was pretty skeptical.  But even despite my skepticism, Pro Dive had this deal that I just couldn't walk away from.  I was to go on 'Standby,' where they'd call me when they didn't have a full boat, and I'd get to join for a price that was a few hundred dollars less than advertised.

I called them, got put on Standby, and within 15 minutes they called to say, "Hey, James.  We have an opening for the 3 day/2 night trip leaving tomorrow morning."  It was Saturday night, and I had been looking forward to going out in Cairns.  Unfortunately, the pickup for the boat trip was at 6:15am Sunday morning, so going out Saturday night would be virtually impossible.  I went out for an hour or so, but crashed early so I would be able to wake up for the diving trip.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as my research in the company only showed me that it was reputable, had good equipment, went to good diving spots, and that I would get "a few dives per day along with a night dive."  As it turned out, I got 11 total dives, including two night dives.  Amazing.  All this plus a private room on the boat and 3 square meals a day for less money than what I got my diving license for in Thailand (and that was only 4 dives...).

We all boarded the boat and headed out for open water.  The weather was a bit drizzly and overcast, but we were all hoping it would clear up once we got out to the reef (it didn't, and only got worse, but that didn't really matter).  The sea was incredibly choppy, and over the course of the 3-hour trip out to Milln Reef where we were going to do our diving, I'd say more than 50% of the 30 passengers got sea sick and puked on the way out.  The guy running the PADI open water course on the boat even lost it and puked.  I don't really get motion sick, so I was fine as long as I stayed away from the stern where 20 people were all puking over the sides of the ship.

The 30 passengers on the ship were comprised of the following groups: Team Deutschland (12 or so Germans who were all on board together getting their PADI open water certificates from a German-speaking instructor), another group of about 10 people (one Canadian, 2 Swiss, one American, a handful of Germans that weren't on Team Deutschland, and 2 from the UK all getting their open water certificates from an english-speaking instructor), a group of 4 people all getting their PADI Advanced Open Water certificates, and then 5 of us who were certified and just there to go diving.  It made for a bit of an anti-social environment because everyone was always separated into their groups.

My group (those already certified) was myself, a mid-aged American named Steve who became my diving buddy for the trip, one Bulgarian who had a diving certification but didn't have a clue once she was underwater, and two mid-aged Swiss people that were very nice but generally kept to themselves.

The really cool thing about Pro Dive that made the trip all the more enjoyable for me was that they were very hands-off.  All the other diving I've done has been with a guide who is kind of acting like a babysitter the whole time.  When we were in New Zealand (before I got certified), our friend Colin got lectured for separating from the main diving lady, even though he was certified and diving with a buddy. These Pro Dive guys I was with were very much "you're certified...so go dive on your own and have fun.

Each dive started the same way.  All the people in the classes were downstairs on the boat in classroom areas learning the basics of diving and going over what skills they would be practicing underwater.  Steve and I (my dive buddy) would go upstairs with the boat supervisor, who would lay out a map of the reefs and give us directions on how to get out there and back while underwater.

This is the dive plan for one of our dives on Flynn Reef

 Then the trick was to get suited up and get underwater before the classes headed down.  If we got the head-start, there was usually more fish and marine life for us to see before it got mobbed with 25 dive students.  Also we all had to get in the water one at a time and be checked out as 'off the boat' for safety (so they always knew if people were on board or not), so when the classes had to do it, it was usually a long wait.

We got out to Milln Reef a little late because of the rough seas, but jumped in the water for our first dive at 11:03 am.  The rain was really coming down, along with a very strong wind.  My rig was set up far at the stern, completely exposed to the weather.  Almost everyone else had their gear set up under cover from the rain or at least with some kind of protection from the beating wind.  I just sat there, freezing in the wind and the rain, getting pelted in the face by huge tropical raindrops as I set up my first stage, BCD, and wetsuit.  Actually it wasn't even a wetsuit.  It provided no warmth whatsoever.  It was a lycra suit which functioned as jellyfish proofing, because April is still 'stinger' season in northern Australia and a Box Jellyfish can easily kill a human.  As it turned out, I never even saw a jelly and (according to my dive computer) the water was always between 82-84 Degrees, nice n' warm.  It was always much more pleasant underwater than at the surface where the rain and wind made us shiver as we donned the water-saturated lycra suits.

Photo taken on the last day when we got about 2 hours sunshine before more bad weather settled in.  That's me on the right and Steve my dive buddy on the left.

So I jumped in the water with my dive buddy Steve and we made our way over to the buoy line, choking all the way through the 2-3 foot swells.  The current at the surface was strong and we had to fight against it.  We didn't want to use our regulators (because we wanted to conserve as much air as possible), so we kind of snorkeled over to the line, all the while getting tossed around in the waves and current.  We popped in the regulators and descended along the line to 18m/60ft, where we checked our compasses and headed out toward the coral bommies.  I instantly knew this was going to be an epic diving experience.  We saw one stingray, a pair of Giant Clams (the larger of the two being ~ 5-6ft across), and a couple of marine creatures I could have only hoped for: sharks and turtles.

Photo taken on day 2--this clam is considerably smaller than the clam on day 1, which is pretty remarkable because it's still huge.

That's me on the left, you can kinda see the turtle on the right

We saw a big Green Turtle first, and it completely caught us off-guard.  We were moving around, exploring the coral, and almost in passing we noticed this turtle looking for some food among the staghorn corals.  We paused, suspended in the water, as this turtle (3.5 ft from head to tail) looked up at us and started swimming directly at us.  He moved slowly and deliberately, as you'd expect a turtle to move, and swam right past me as if I wasn't even there.  He was almost close enough to touch.  It was incredible.  He swam right up to the surface where we watched him take a couple gulps of fresh air before descending again and disappearing into the distance.

A few minutes later we were circling around this pillar of corals, Steve leading, when all of a sudden he stopped and froze.  I pulled up next to him and saw what he was looking at: a 4-5ft long white-tip reef shark.  It was laying right there on the sandy bottom, seeming to stare right at us.  Until that point, I had absolutely ZERO experience diving with sharks.  It's not like we had a spear or a dive knife or anything, and I had no clue if these guys were aggressive or not.  Turns out they're not.  We watched him for a minute or two before heading off.  Eventually our air started running low and we decided to surface.  The dive lasted only 38 minutes; clearly both Steve and I were both a little out of practice.  My air consumption got much better as the trip progressed.

Our second dive was at 2:40pm; a solid surface interval and plenty of time for us to decompress after our 18m dive.  The Bulgarian lady asked if she could join Steve and I on the dive.  We, of course, said yes.  I don't know what her deal was, if she had a fake dive certificate or what (it wasn't PADI), but she was clueless under the water.  She didn't have enough weight on her belt and couldn't stay under.  She kept popping to the surface like a balloon.  I swam over to her, trying to get her farther down where I figured the pressure would compensate for the lack of weight on her belt and kind of hold her down.  I realized at that point that she was inflating her BCD rather than deflating it, so I showed her the proper way to do it but she still couldn't get down.  Steve and I had her by the hand and took her down 5m or so, at which point we let go and she floated topside like one of those plastic scuba divers people put in their fish tanks without so much as a kick of her flippers in an attempt to stay submerged.  Very annoying.  We surfaced, told her to go back to the boat, and continued the dive.  Didn't see much, but a lot of cool coral.  37 minute dive.

By now the storm had upgraded to almost a full-blown cyclone.  The skipper came downstairs and told us it was too dangerous to try to move the boat, so we'd have to stay put.  Since we couldn't go anywhere, let's go diving!  We geared up again and got ready to jump in the water.  As we were standing at the stern about to jump in, the skipper came down and told us to wait.  He brought us each a glowstick to keep in our pockets "in case you guys surface and we can't see you in this weather."  Well that made me feel all nice and comfortable…

As unpleasant as life on the surface was, underwater was warm and calm.  We did much better on this dive and got to see another Giant Clam, another large turtle, and one black-tip reef shark (3.5 footer).  Stayed down for 48 minutes as well; very solid dive.

That night, after dinner, it was time for a night dive.  None of the other certified divers were going, including my dive buddy.  The advanced class (3 people) was going down to practice underwater navigation at night.  I was invited to join; I'd just have to wait for a few minutes while they practiced a navigation drill.  It was absolutely incredible.  Diving at night was extremely disorienting.  It was tough to get the hang of the navigation when your vision is limited to how far your flashlight penetrates the darkness.  We saw 3 sharks on that dive, each of the 3 main types of reef sharks: white-tip, black-tip, and grey.  They're attracted to the light from the flashlights, and will suddenly appear in your beam as you scan the darkness around you.  It's pretty creepy to see them appear out of nowhere, gliding silently through the water.  

At one point, the advanced instructor stopped and had us all gather around.  I didn't realize it at the time, but he was trying to get his bearings to the boat.  We all turned off our flashlights so we could see the glow from the boat and know our way back.  But as soon as all those flashlights turned off it was a disconcerting feeling to be suddenly enveloped in darkness, seeing only the pink haze of the glowsticks attached to our tanks.  

We started making our way back to the boat, and I realized that as my flashlight scanned the coral all around me, there were hundreds of tiny little eyes peering back at me.  Turned out they were little crustaceans, but it was really cool seeing them all like that.

The next day we were able to move to new dive sites and we went to another area of Milln Reef.  Our morning dive was at 7:41.  Only got 34 minutes of dive time, but saw a big blue butterfly fish that was easily the size of my head, 3 rays, and one shark.  I think the shark was a white-tip, but I only caught a glimpse of him.  The visibility underwater had deteriorated to only about 7 meters.

With the sea constantly churning because of the weather and the 24-hour downpours mixing with the salty seawater, the visibility wasn't that great.  Normally we'd get a few more meters visibility, along with the sun shining through the water, illuminating all the different colors of the coral and fish.  But it was ok, there was absolutely no reason to complain; this was easily still the best dive experience I'd ever had.

Second dive was at 11:06, lasted 41 minutes, and I saw 4 Green Turtles, 3 rays, 1 Giant Clam, 1 Trumpetfish.  This dive was notable also because Steve and I became a bit disoriented and eventually realized we were completely lost.  We surfaced with 50 Bar in the tank and realized we had to kick a good 250 meters back to the boat.  Very tiring.

For the third dive on day 2, we moved to another reef altogether, called Flynn Reef.  Dive started at 3:31 and lasted 46 minutes.  I saw 2 Giant Clams, 1 ray, 3 green turtles, 1 black tip reef shark, 2 pufferfish, and one giant Maori Wrasse.  The Maori Wrasse is absolutely enormous.

Obviously not my photo...but this is the size of the Maori Wrasse

That third dive was absolutely amazing.  The location on Flynn Reef was like an underwater jungle gym.  Mazes of coral, caves, huge crevices, columns that reached to the surface, the works.  We headed out, got lost, and ended up in some really shallow coral areas--which is dangerous because the current can smash you against the sharp coral.  We turned back, found some caves and massive crevices, ducking and diving around coral outgrowths, and suddenly wound up at the bottom of the buoy line.  Very fortunate.  We ascended along the line back to the boat.

The night dive on day 2 was very interesting as well.  For some reason, all the certified divers looked to me to lead them and navigate the reef.  They all walked up and said, "we're not really comfortable navigating by ourselves at night...can we come with you?"  I made clear that the only night dive I'd ever been on was yesterday, but they all seemed to think I knew what I was doing, which I didn't.  I had my whole rig on and was preparing to jump in the water when I realized there was a large grey reef shark right below me, circling under the boat.  I just kind of prayed, "please don't let me jump on a shark right now..." and stepped off the boat into the water.  2 of the other 4 people following me joined me and we fought the current over to the buoy line.

The other two jumped in but were unable to fight the current to get to us.  So there I was, stranded on the buoy line with two other people getting trashed around in the surf and attempting to hold ourselves in place.  I didn't want to separate from the other people that were struggling with the current so I swam back to them, helped them get back to the boat safely (they were slowly getting swept off the reef), where they decided they weren't gonna join us.

I swam back to my two amigos stranded on the buoy line and we finally descended.  That whole trek against the current trying to help out those people cost me half my air supply and our jump start on Team Deutschland, who were also going on the night dive with their instructor.

My group reached the bottom and proceeded out along our dive plan.  At a certain point I was having trouble seeing ahead of me, as I was being cast in shadow.  I turned around and there was all of Team Deutschland shining their flashlights at me.  To make things even more confusing, they all were using green glowsticks, the same color my group and I were using.  I couldn't recognize anyone.  It's hard enough recognizing a diver underwater.  Add no light to the mix and, yeah, bad situation.

I stopped to let Team Deutschland pass and the two in my group stopped as well.  We wanted to separate from them, because they were obnoxious and taking up a big area, so we diverted to the left.  Mistake number 1.  Don't change your dive plan, especially at night.  We got completely lost.  Eventually we couldn't even find some of the coral bommies and all we saw was sand.  I knew this wasn't good.  I checked my depth and realized I was at 17m.  Mistake number 2.  It was my 4th dive of the day, to be at 17m is completely unsafe.  Irresponsible.  We quickly realized the mistake and leveled off at 10m.  

Since we were hopelessly lost and I was beginning to get low on air, we stopped to try to get our bearings.  Then my flashlight malfunctioned.  Stopped working.  I whacked it a few times and it turned back on, but it cast a very dim light.  I asked the other divers to turn out their flashlights so I could find the glow of the lights on the boat.  When I found it, I decided to head straight for it.  That ended up being the best decision I made.

We reached the boat and stayed underneath it at 5m.  Then the sharks started circling.  I can't tell you how many sharks there were because I honestly don't know.  It was a lot.  Maybe 7-10 of them.  One big sucker--6 footer at least--kept circling us and got a little closer each pass.  You'd be shining your flashlight into the abyss and all of a sudden you'd see these green eyes flash in the distance and then the fins and body of the shark would appear.  Very freaky.  Completely awesome.  We got several minutes just watching the sharks until Team Deutschland showed up.  The crowd was too dense so we surfaced and got back on the boat.

The last day of the trip I had 3 dives and saw 1 white-tip reef shark, 1 trumpetfish, 4 Maori Wrasse, 4 Barracudas (scary lookin fish, 4 footers), 3 rays, and a school of at least 30 parrotfish.

Parrotfish.  Not my photo, but you get the idea.

After our dives we took the 3-hour chug back to Cairns.  That night everyone got together at a fun pub called Rattle and Hum for some dinner and drinks.  I had a great night and we all had a lot of fun messing around with some of the instructors and crew in a place were they weren't working.

The next day I flew to Sydney, where I spent the night.  Today I'm heading to Malaysia, although my flight got delayed by 5 hours, which is kind of a drag.

More photos from the trip:

My room on the boat

We got two hours of sunshine the entire trip, so I took advantage of it

Main deck where everyone hung out or got lessons in between dives

Haaaangin' out

Cairns

When I arrived in Cairns, I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting.  It's hot.  It's humid.  It's in a rainforest.  I broke out in a sweat just walking on the jetway from the plane to the terminal.

The hostel I'm staying in is cool.  It has a decent vibe to it, but isn't at all very social, which is too bad.

I've spent most of my time here wandering, and you can walk around in the city in a short amount of time.  They've got this public man-made lagoon at the end of town, right near the water, so people can swim without worrying about getting stung by the jellies (including the deadly box jellyfish) that surround this area.

It rains a LOT here (in a rainforest...go figure).  It's rained for hours each of the two days I've been here.  It's rain, really hot sunshine, drizzle, rain, rain, sunshine, downpour, etc.  Also the hostel was very tricky...they claimed on the internet that each room is equipped with A/C.  Upon arrival, the A/C is coin operated and only lasts for 3 hours at a time.  If you don't like it, you get to sweat through the night.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm headed out to the Great Barrier Reef.  I'll be on a boat and out of contact for three days, returning Tuesday (Monday for all you people back home, a day behind Aussieland).

When I get back, expect a post about my diving adventure on the reef (sharks, rays, night diving, the works), complete with a bunch of pictures.