On the move again

After a few days in the Gili Islands and a coastal road trip we're not quite ready to say goodbye to Bali.  The Gili Islands were absolutely beautiful, relaxing, and quiet.  There are three of them and we spent our time on Gili Meno at Meno Dream where the roof of our bungalow opened up so you could see all the stars at night!  It's known as the quieter island and is often referred to as deserted, which it is most defiantly not.  There were plenty of restaurants on the beach to eat at and overall the food was pretty good. It is easy to walk the full circumference of the island and especially a good idea if you stay on the side with the pier which was considerably more expensive than the side facing Gili Tra. I do not however recommend staying on Gili T where we had a short visit while waiting for our ferry back to the mainland.  Gili Tra was noisy, crowded, and reminded me of the party islands in Thailand except they have lots of horses instead of motorbikes.

There are only two dive shops on Gili Meno and we chose to dive with Divine Divers.  I would definitely recommend this shop, we did five dives with them and saw quite a few octopus and turtles! There are a lot of people getting their divemaster certification of the islands, who wouldn't want to spend a month in paradise diving everyday?

Next, we are headed to Malaysia for a few more days of relaxation before I head to Sri Lanka and Orlando to LA and Vegas!

The Visayas

Two weeks was just enough time to relax and dive in Cebu. We decided not to go to Bohol because it looked pretty expensive comparatively.

Our first destination was Malapacua island. After a long intercontinental flight from Paris to Bahrain to Manila we continued on to Cebu city and finally arrived in Maya around 11pm. As expected there were no public boats going to the island at that hour and when we saw two guys arranging an overpriced 'special trip' on a boat that looked like it might sink we chose to spend the night and go in the morning. Total saved: 1500 pesos plus the possibility of swimming if the boat didn't make it.

We only spent three nights in Malapascua, since we hadn't decided how many other places we would visit afterward. It was a quiet, laid back island and I wouldn't have minded staying another night.

The diving was our best yet - I saw a white tip shark that was sleeping under a rock and we were successful in seeing Thrusher sharks as well. (This is the main reason divers go to Malapascua) additionally, we had our first wreck dive which was awesome but I had terrible air consumption due to being overweighted and overexcited during the dive. Our dive shop was Evolution and I would highly recommend them. Great price and the guides were very thorough and experienced.

Moal Boal wasn't bad but there was way too much concrete for my liking. We did see a big manta ray at Pedcador Island and lots of sea turtles as well. Our last few days we rented a bike so we were able to get a but further from the town and drove along the coast which was beautiful.

Diving

The last two weekends I was down in Kenting completing my PADI Open Water Course for scuba diving.  It took three days and now I am officially certified to dive.  The first day we were in the pool so it wasn't that exciting but by the third day we were out in the ocean having a look around and I did not want to get out of the water! Probably sounds familiar to those who could never get me out of the water when I was younger ;)

We had great weather both weekends and the ocean isnt very cold here.  Im looking forward to the next diving adventure!

This was the first time I've really used my camera underwater, I had it in a waterproof bag so it took awhile to get the hang of taking clear pictures.