Borneo and Lankayan Island

We’ll fly into Kota Kinabalu, and then take a little puddle jumper over to Sandakan. From Sandakan we jump on a small boat for the 90 minute ride to Lankayan Island. (worldatlas)

Tomorrow morning I’m off for a new adventure. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that diving has become a big part of my life and has recently started dictating where I travel. Back in the fall some friends invited me to go diving with them off the coast of Borneo at Lankayan Island Dive Resort. Unfortunately there isn’t much else to do on the island except roll out of bed into your dive gear and then do a back roll into the water, so Laura will be staying home taking care of three needy little girls named Pixie, Millie and Lucy.

It’s a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.  (borneo.com)

A morning stroll around the island shouldn’t be too hard.  (caradonna.com)

Lankayan Island is a very small island with only a few small buildings on it. It’s about 90 minutes, by boat, off the east coast of Borneo. Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is divided up between Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. It sits on the equator east of Sumatra and north of Java.

I’ve read that we have a good chance of diving with sea turtles, whale sharks and black tipped reef sharks.  Even if we only see one of those creatures it will be good diving.  I don’t think there’s internet access so I’ll have to update our blog when I get back.

An Unexpected Trip Home

It’s finally check-out time

After a surprise visit home a couple months ago I assumed that I wouldn’t be making a trip back until next Christmas, but there were other things in the works that would bring me back home a lot sooner. Unfortunately my dad was suddenly admitted to the hospital for double bypass open-heart surgery. Fortunately, he made it through the surgery and is making a very quick recovery.

Sister, sister and brother

We bought the tickets while we were on our HK weekend trip and I headed out the day after we got back to Taipei. It was a relief to see my dad awake and recovering from such a big operation. This trip home turned out to be one of the most relaxing trips in a long time. Of course the hospital visits were frequent, but it was sad to see my dad in pain and tethered to instruments with tubes everywhere.

Hanging out with dad

The trip was also a little different, because it was more focused on staying home and taking care of my dad. There weren’t the daily trips to U-village and miscellaneous errands to pick up things we are missing in Taipei. That said, we capped off the visit with a trip up to Osteria da Primo.  If you want Italian you must go see these guys.  (btw – thanks for the ride to the airport)

When Laura and I decided to take teaching positions in Taipei one of the biggest factors was that we were nearly half way closer to home compared to when we lived in Singapore. With two quick trips home in three months I guess it’s been a good choice.

Perfect Hong Kong

We’re on the other side of the island near Stanley Market.

It’s confirmed; we love Hong Kong. Laura and I went to HK a little over a year ago for a birthday present and we came home with a new favorite city. We were only there for a few days, but it was enough to make a very lasting impression. The crime is that HK is only a 1h20m flight from Taipei and we hadn’t been back in over a year.

One of our favorite spots. Taco Loco is a Mexican restaurant in Hong Kong. Since moving overseas we miss Mexican food so we look forward to a visits to Taco Loco. In the background you can see the escalators and walkway that go up through the central part of HK. The escalators are a covered, moving sidewalk that make their way up the hill to apartments and shops. In the morning they head down into the city so that residents can commute to work and around 2pm they are reversed to carry the commuters back up the hill.

You have to be ok with crowds when getting around the city.

One of the reasons we love this city so much is that we’ve been introduced to it the proper way. On our first trip we met some friends that knew the city very well and they introduced us to some fun spots. On our second visit we went with some friends who used to live there.

Our friends and guides. Thanks!

Visiting a new city from the perspective of tourist that only knows the city from guidebooks and Internet research is fun, but visiting a city with a long time resident is something completely different. We were introduced to spots that would have normally gone unseen without our ‘guides’ there to show us around.

Roasted goose and pork with rice.

What makes HK such a fun city? I think it’s the vibe the city gives off morning, noon and night. Regardless of the time you step out into the city there is somewhere to go, something to do and always something great to eat. Coffee shops, food stalls, restaurants you’ve heard of and restaurants you’ve never heard of, all of them look inviting. You can eat Western, Middle Eastern, Latin, European and of course Asian food any time of day or night.

The Stanley Market area has a nice boardwalk with plenty of good restaurants to choose from.

(Laura will have to write the caption for this one. She went wild here.)

Shopping has been perfected in HK. Whatever you are looking for, you’ll find it in HK.  In fact there will probably be a whole section of the city dedicated to selling that product and every possible variant of that product, fake and genuine, cheap and expensive.

More of the Stanley Market area and beach.

Hong Kong Weekend

 

We are kicking ourselves for not taking advantage of HK more often.  Cathay Pacific has flights every 40 minutes and the flight is only 1h20m.

Laura and I are headed out to one of our favorite cities tonight.  We’ve only been there once, but it left a big impression on us.  This time we’re going with friends that used to live there so I’m sure we’ll get to see a whole new side of the city, sort of a local’s perspective.

We get plenty of fried rice, sweet-n-sour chicken, dumplings, etc, so sometimes we have cravings for other types of food.  HK has one of the best Mexican food places we’ve found outside of the states.  Taco Loco is a chain that’s found throughout HK and has one small restaurant just off the escalators.  (There’s a set of escelators that run through central HK for maybe a mile or so.  I’ll post some photos of the escalators later)