Azure Blogs

Photo's I Love

2006-09-21T18:27:00.000Z

Here are some Photo's that I have taken that I love.

Fond memories !

My Birthday (Fiji)

Paragliding in Turkey.

Penguins near Cape town in South Africa.

Pancake Rocks (New Zealand)

Someone elses Snowman (Canada (Whistler))

Sunset (South Island - New Zealand)

Peru

2006-09-21T15:42:00.000Z

Ice while going through a high pass (5000m+)

Thatched Boat on the highest fresh water lake in the world lake Tikikarka

Hot Volcano (Hence the lack of snow)

The truck

This is the boat that we travelled after it had had an engine fire. Hence the poll.

Machu Pichu

Local Peruvians

Other Peruvian constructions. Such as the fine wall construction. (Click on it to get closer).

Nasca lines. (Yes it really is a Space Man on the side of a hill that is thousands of years old).

Kenya and Tanzania

2006-09-21T12:44:00.000Z

This was the best moment. A cheeta had a kill and was eating it. A jackel cam along and then 20 vultures followed by a Loin that chased everyone else away.

Some Zebra at a watering hole with Flamingoos in the background.

Sun rise over Lake Victoria.

The Big Five that people used to have on their walls.

Are Lions

Buffalo

White Rhino

Black Rhino

Elephant

Hippo's (The most dangerous animal in Africa!)

A Baboon showing of its teeth (He was a bit tired).

A family outing for the giraffe.

Skiing

2006-09-15T14:15:00.000Z

I am going Skiing next year (3rd of March I think).

Plans seem to have been changing. But I now need to pay some money.

I had this picture of a deer I saw last year and thought it would look cute here.

At one point I was going to this resort. (This may have been changed now).

Oh and while I am at it I found this Frog at one point.

Its all a bit random.

he he

Philippines

2006-09-13T13:48:00.000Z

I saw this Dragon in the Philippines...... don't you just love him.

31/08/2006 The English contingent arrived in Manila and everyone travelled to Pila in the afternoon after stopping over in the MALL OF ASIA. It seems that malls are very popular in Malaysia and the Philippines and after discussing this with people it seems that the root cause of this is air con. Malls have it while the outside does not hence everyone likes to hang out in the Mall. The clothes were very reasonable and had a variety of products. Normally on the counter you would expect impulse purchase products. In the clothes shop these were silicone fillers for bras.

We then found an ATM that would take Visa. However the Bank of China only allowed £40 to be withdrawn at a time.

We then proceed to Pila where we were the only guests at RL and proceeded to eat a humungous amount of food while torturing the locals with appalling and rather loud karaoke (origin of this art form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke).

01/09/2006 The next day we tried on our Barongs and then proceeded to the Pagsanjan falls (I thought they had a different name but hopefully this is the correct one). The Jeepney are great fun and people kept on jumping on the back off our vehicle (I’ll have to find a photo of them). There basically customised long wheel based jeeps with a covered back.

We got to the falls and then on a shallow 4 person canoe travelled up the river. Initially we went in a convoy being tugged by a canoe with a motor and then the two guides started paddling. The gorge was beautiful and we passed people finishing with home made spear guns and then reached some rapids.

This is where it got rather exciting as the guys kept jumping out of the canoe to push us up the rapids. This continued for about 45 minutes until we got to a stop off point at the end of the gorge.

We departed from the canoes and went up to the falls via some pontoons made out of bamboo. There was a cave behind the waterfall and some of us spent a fair amount of time trying to get as close as possible to the waterfall without swallowing too much water. (The life vest helped).

After this we proceeded (soaking wet) back down the rapids (pic of a wet me at falls) and then on to Pila and Helens house for a feast and some more Karaoke (all Philippines are excellent at this, 99% of Europeans are useless. My secret is slow talkative songs which are generally nursery rhymes that also has the benefit of a, they are short. b, they have an added comedy value).

02/09/2006 Wedding Day

The wedding was excellent I need to get a picture of the candel bit in the ceremony as that was rather touching.

Discussions in the pub in the UK had given us a few concerns about the rainbow theme but it looked great. We are not used to the theme concept in the UK but it seems to be the thing to do in the Philippines.

03/09/2006 Travelled back to Manila for a flight to Tagbilaran in Bohol where we would spend 3 nights. This was with Cebu Air (The fun Airline).

04/09/2006 Bohol – Dolphin watching on the outrigger shown below, snorkelling and then mucking about in the pool.

The pictures below are two sisters Denise and Karen that helped out throughout the trip.

05/09/2006 Bohol – Tour of the island which included the bridge shown above. I wish someone had told me that only one person was supposed to be on the bridge at a time. As part of the tour we also saw the worlds smallest primate. (Its body is smaller than a coke can).

06/09/2006 Bohol – The following day it was Nicholes birthday (the boy in the picture below, with his sister Kyla and mother Ellis). In the morning I went diving and then on to Cebu by boat. Unfortunately no pirates were sited just really cold aircon with a movie. When we arrived in Cebu it was raining. We went out for food which included some dinky little crabs and then followed this with a live band and drinks. Which were then followed by more drinks in Jonathan’s room and a rather late night.

07/09/2006 Muggins here the had been silly enough to have a wake up call booked so that he could go for breakfast alone after having 150 minutes sleep. Everyone else got up hours later. We then toured the local market and went to Manila by plane from Cebu.

08/09/2006 Manila

09/09/2006 In the morning we travelled from Manila to Pila and in the afternoon Mark and I went out on Jet Ski's this was fun but expensive. We got quite good but I pushed the envelope a few times and lost my googles. Boo Hoo. In the evening we traveled to Tagaytay.

10/09/2006 We got up to leave at 5 (or 6) to walk up the Taal Volcano. This was a good idea and we celebrated Marks birthday on the top (hence the hat and balloons). At 9 o'clock some of use decided to walk down into the crater for a swim. Some of us made it and I had a swim. We were all exhausted, cut up and I turned pink and am now peeling. It was great fun and I have now been swimming in an active volcano... I'll get a hot and sticky photo of me to go in here. Then it was back to Pila.

11/09/2006 Manila – I departed back to Malaysia and then the UK for work on the 12th.

Malaysia

2006-09-12T11:21:00.000Z

As I spend each day using computers I guess that I should have a blog. It seems the thing to do and looks like a good way to show what I have been up to and will save me filling up office emails with pictures and general witterings.

So here is the new home for my thoughts. (Well only a small percentage as my thoughts tend to be pretty much non stop).

Well I have just been on holiday and had lots of fun. Its been a bit strange recently as I was on leave a few weeks before and then went away on a second holiday. I may post another update on the first holiday afterwards. So here we go on Malaysia and the Philippines.

I packed my bags and headed off to the airport from work on the Thursday and took the overnight flight to KL which due to the time difference took the whole day which allowed me to arrive just in time for an evening meal in what I now understand is the best transit hotel in the world (I can vouch for the quality of there buffet dinner, I tried all the dishes and every one was great). The following morning I headed off to Sandakan in Borneo.

I had booked some rather nice accommodation there in the Sepliok Nature Resort which was right next to the oragnutan sanctuary. I could wander out from my accommodation and go and see them in the afternoon and also did a night walk where I saw scorpions, snakes, flying squirrels and other creepy crawlies.

The following day I was picked up and I spent three days seeing some of the Borneo wildlife first stop was turtle island which is a boat ride heading east towards the Philippines. Here I did a bit of snorkeling and stubbed my toe. Later on in the day I got to see a turtle laying eggs and see some baby turtles before they were released into the sea.

This was very special for me as I love seeing them under water and an interesting fact is that the temperature of the soil affects the gender of the eggs. On the island they control the temperature to ensure a balance of male and female offspring.

They don't allow tourists to go on the beach in the evening as it will disturb the turtles. I the morning I went for a stroll and saw all of the tracks that had been left overnight and got to see a mother going back into the sea. Magic.

Later on that day I was taken back to the mainland and was taken up the river.

I managed to catch some orangutans in the wild and also saw eagles and other bird life overnight I would stay in another lodge but before then was taken on an evening boat trip up a small tributary to see the proboscis monkeys getting ready to roost for the evening. Watching troops of monkeys jump from tree to tree was another special moment well worth the trip.

The following day headed done river and saw a few crocodiles and then went to a Buddhist monastery and then back to the Nature Resort to catch a final visitation of the orangutans. The way that the sanctuary works is that if the orangutans are orphaned or need to be relocated due to man cutting down all of the jungle to make way for palm oil plantations then they are brought there.

Once there they are fed and looked after some are subsequently relocated to a new jungle others wander off into the local jungle. The staff feed them the same food stuffs so that they eventually get board and look for other food sources. I went to see what happened on three occasions and different ones came and went. The staff say that this depends on the weather and what is currently ripe in the nearby plants.

I then returned to KL and went to the towers and did some shopping.

Malls are a big thing over there and it was also there independence day celebrations. I went to the towers and saw the fire works in the evening. The exciting bit though was all of the people gathered together on their mopeds and motor bikes. There was even a group of younger people with bikes.

The noise and fumes were a site to see. The next day I headed off to the Philippines....