Quebec, Canada (2): Summer 2010 - Around Montreal

The greatest summer activities for us are always to go to swim in the lake or go camping. Since Victoire is too young to do camping at that time, we went for swim. Lac (lac means lake in french) Bromont is the place where she took her first swim in the lake.

Not too far from Montreal

Bromont Lake



Bromont is more well known with its ski resort than the lake, obviously there must be a reason! The lake was affected by blue algaes at a time and there are quite a bit of the plants growing on the small beach. It is really not the best place to swim. However, as small as the beach, there are still 3 life guards on duty at the time that we were there.

Venice-en-Quebec



The name of the place sounds good, but the beach is really so so. First of all, ALL the beaches are private or owned by some companies. So there is a whole day parking or access fees of $12, even though you plan to stay just 2 hours. The lake is big, but you will be swimming with the birds feathers and some water plants.

Further from Montreal

Breeches Lake



It takes more than 3 hours to get here. The land surrounding the lake is privately owned. Including the membership fees to the club and taxes to the council, expected to pay more than one thousand per year for just having a chalet by this lake. A big parts of the land around this lake have the status as 'reserve'. The water is very clear and warm enough to swim during summer.



The same place, but in autumn, there is a different look. Nothing much to do at this time of the year.



Just for comparison. During winter, the snow is so thick that the foot path to the chalet was totally disappeared. It is so icy cold that the water tap got frozen, so no water supply. Luckily there is a spring water near by. The lake is also totally frozen and covered by the snow.

August-September 2009: Southampton and Around

"Soton" - Home of the Titanic

We came to Southampton twice to visit friends and finally, at the third time, we moved here. This is our last destination in UK/Europe, time to end the journey and to go back home.
Stay in the studio apartment above of my friends' restaurant, we are well taken care of with constant free and discounted meals. :P With their care and helps, we will leave this country with warmth hearts.



Titanic left from Southampton to New York. There were many people from Southampton were working on the ship at the time it sank. So there is a Southampton Maritime Museum that people generally called Titanic Museum.



Southampton is a port without beach. The nearest and better beach to swim is Bournemouth, which is at least one hour from here. So Bournemouth is always crowded when the sky 'unusually' blue or when the weather is a bit warmer.



We found this small beach at Hill Head. It is nearer to Southampton (20-30 min), but the beach is pebble beach, a bit muddy and smell seaweed strongly.
The water wasn't as clear as in Bournemouth and the strong wind here attracted many people for wind ski.
Not as good to swim.



The beach at Lee-on-the-Solent is our nearest favourite beach. It is just next to Hill Head, but the water is clearer and deeper for swim.
It is equally windy, but during sunny day (eventhough is sacred), it is still nice to be here and swim.



Stonehenge stands unperturbed by 80km/hr whipping winds and legions of people who have visited for over 5000 year.
For centuries, religious devotees have come to Stonehenge for its mystical karmic energies.
The most famous Stonehenge legend holds that the circle was built of Irish stones magically transported by Merlin.



The monument was once a complete circle of 7m high stones weighting up to 45 tons - dates from about 1500 BC.
The labourers' technological capabilities were more advanced than we can imagine.

Anjuna-Bombay: 6 June 07

Goa Beaches

The famous Anjuna flea market was small due to the off season. There was nothing much to shop around and for the rest of the day, we just hang around the beach area and chit chatting. The weather was very hot and humid that we got really sticky and dirty well before the bus ride to Bombay.

The private bus (which looks like the Malaysian "bus kilang" - factory bus) was definitely better than the previous bus that we took from Hospect to Goa. But it was also as hot (no air con) and whenever the bus stopped to pick up other passengers, i just felt that i am going to die from suffocation. Due to the smelly and sticky conditions of mine, i wasn't able to catch a sleep. But keeping awake in a bus like this was even more disasterious, so somehow i managed to put myself to slumber.

Cost: 466 Rs



The famous Baga beach of Goa. Loaded with many sun beds but due to off season, strong tide, there are not many tourist.



Palolem beach, hemmed in at either end by rocky crags. At least this is a quieter beach with nobody trying to sell us drug.



The sunset of Anjuna beach.



This was really funny but yet dangerous. The people was standing on the rock to take picture and they knew that, when the tide comes in, the water is going to splash on them. A big wave came indeed... :P

Anjuna,Goa: 5June07

They took care of me!

Probably because of the season was not right, the beaches have very very strong wave. We went to a few beaches by scooter (3 of us on a scooter!), but all beaches were just equally dissapointing. The water is murky, strong tide, some not even with any sand or coconut trees. This place is really nothing if compare with the nice beaches in Thailand or Malaysia.

The beach itself wasn't great to me at all. But with good companions, i kind of started to enjoy the trip now. The whole trip was now relaxing to me, with both Matt and Vivien taking care of almost all logistics. They took care of me in every way to make sure that i am comfortable. i think i started to have some luck now.

Cost: 340 Rs



The yellow structure is part of a restaurant by Anjuna beach. The wave was too strong that the water kept splashing into the restaurant. So they put on the yellow canvas.



The tribe women selling their handmade handicraft by Anjuna beach, near to the bus station.

Nha Trang, Vietnam - 29Apr07

Sorry, Julian ...

This was a diving day. The first dive was sucked! We went to 30meter and i lost my bouyancy and shot up to the surface with my partner (Julian, a French dive master). I event kicked off his regulator because i was too panicked! It was dangerous and i really felt bad for him. i always have some kind of problem when i do my first dive. Next time, i would never do a deep dive in my trip first dive!

The second dive was good then. Shallow dive at around 15 meter. Many hard corals but not as many soft corals. The usual fishes like parrot fish, angel fish, moray... The bouyancy was ok and i dived for 57 minutes! This was considered as long.

The water clearity in Nha Trang is basically so so. Marine life is not as great as in Malaysia too. Diving is not a popular sport in Vietnam, so basically no local divers. However it was nice to have someone who i can speak in English without thinking, how am i supposed to make him/her understand me?

One of the dive instructor, Larry is from New York. It was really interesting to talk with him. He said he left America because he felt disspointed with the country. He has been living in Vietnam for 6 years. According to him, at least living in a foreign country with a kind of culture which he could never understand is easier.

On my way to go back to the guest house after the dive, i met Joy (the Isreali guy) on the street again! He was supposed to leave around 2pm, so i was quite surprised to see him. He basically shouted my name for 2 streets! i thought it was some tout shouting at me, so i just ignored him. Until after 2 streets, i decided that i have never met such a persistant tout and i should really look at him. Then, well, it was him. It was really funny.

So actually the hotel mother and daughter are sleeping in the living room of the hotel! They set up a bed of me and i shared that 'room' with them. Everyone passing by or in out of the hotel could see me sleeping there. i was half a slept when i overheard someone asked a for a room. Basically there were 2 female asking for a room first but they refused to pay for such a simple room at 15 USD. They probably met this guy who was willing to share the room with them. Then 3 of them walked back. The hotel mama refused to let 2 of them to share a room, saying either 2 girls or 2 boys only. Then out of sudden, they guy said, "i am a gay, so this is not a problem!" i don't believe this at all and i was laughing like hell then. Such a night.



The water look blueist and clear but in fact the visibility of water was not as great. Likely to be 10meter.
The boat ride to this dive site took around 45 minutes from Nha Trang town.



Nha Trang beach in the evening.



The town at night. A lot of alcohol.


MONEY MATTER:
1.) Food: 51000 D
2.) Accommodation: USD 7
3.) Others: 39000 D

Dalat-Nha Trang, Vietnam - 28Apr07

"Do you have a room?"

i got to Nha Trang in the afternoon. Every hotel and guest house telling me that "full". i refused to pay USD 20 for a room which normally costs USD 10, so i just walked along the street from one end to the other.

Then i went inside a guest house (probably my number 20th time to ask "Do you have a room?") run by a mother and 2 teacher daughters. i told them that i am a student and i am solo and really need a room. Then they offered me their room at the back of the hotel (not a hotel room) at USD 7 (after my bargain), but i need to check out tomorrow at 6am because even this tiny room will be rented out! USD 7 at this festive time, so i just took it! They said if i don't feel like to move then, i could stay in the room of the mother and a daughter the next day! i treated this as some kind of home stay and was happy to enough to have a place to stay.

i started to walk around the town to look for dive centre. One of the main purpose i came to Nha Trang is to dive! Then i met this very cute and interesting young guy from Isreal, Joy, while having my dinner at an Italian restaurant. After that, we hang out for a while to have a drink near to the beach and took street dessert. It was fun to have someone to come out with at night!



The bus was approaching Nha Trang. Nha Trang is said to be the place to come and party.



Nha Trang Beach. The town area is built along the long beach line.



The street food stall. This one sells a kind of coconut milk desert served with sago ball, peanut and baked banana. It is extremely sweet and Joy loved it!


MONEY MATTER:
1.) Transport: 20000D
2.) Food: 102000 D
3.) Dive: 35 USD 2 dives including lunch
4.) Accommodation: 7 USD

Tekek, Tioman (Day 3) - 12 Apr 2007

i graduated!
i am now a NAUI Advanced Scuba Diver.

* Sorry to Abect, my dive instructor, though. i put his photo here without consent. But i really wanted to have my graduation photos here!



The seaview looking from the dive centre.



Tekek Jetty. People were busying loading and unloading the goods from the ferry.



This is one of the resort/dive centre/restaurant at ABC village.



Salang Village. The chalets on the hill really looked nice in the picture.



Renggis Island. This was where i did my last dive before i left and saw the sharks. Last time, we saw turtles here.



My dive mate is very kind to send me some underwater photos for the dive at Renggis.
So, this is me with fishes swimming around.
More of the underwater photos can be seen at his blog:
http://sun.ap.teacup.com/alamshah/
http://www.geocities.jp/kuantannih/



We saw this blue spotted sting ray.



You won't miss to see clown fish! This is something 'die-die-sure-can-see" for every dive trips.



i was taking picture for whatever... (i couldn't recall now).
i brought a manual underwater camera.



Mersing street, near to the jetty.



EXTRACTED FROM MY DIARY

Time to leave.
i woke up late at 8.30am due to the late night yesterday. i took a quick breakfast and then started to have my photo sessions with staff in the dive centre.
One last dive before i am off and completed my course. The certification card will be sent to my address later and i guess i need to photocopy my dive certificate for my up coming dive at Vietnam then. (i planned to dive at Nha Trang)
The last dive at Renggis was good. A beautiful closing to my trip with the sighting of 3 blacktip sharks and a giant groupe. The visibility was the best in the past 3 days but no current, too bad. I was looking forward to a drift dive. A Japanese who dived with me offered to send me some underwater photos, so at least i would get other than the 'dried' photos.

i hope i will see more Asian single traveler like me, but it was really unfortunate that, i did not even see one Japanese single traveler. Probably this is why i always end up to hang out with some foreigners, as there are not many crazy Asian woman would do what i am doing.

Initially, i planned to leave at 2pm. But Akemi said, there is no ferry at this time, so i better leave with the ferry at 12.30pm. It was almost 12pm by then, so i took a quick lunch, bid farewell with them and Akemi sent me to the jetty using her motorbike.

As usual, the ferry was delayed. It was there at Tekek Jetty at 1.30pm. Then went here and there to drop and pick up passengers, so by only 3pm then we really headed to Mersing. With this, we got to Mersing at almost 4 hours later by 4.15pm.

It was embarrased that, i somehow put my ferry ticket in my pocket and i couldn't find it later. i almost emptied my pockets and sling bag, but couldn't find it. The ferry staff was waiting for me while everyone were staring at me. Then finally someone saw my ticket on the floor. Phew... Or else i would need to buy another one. Lesson learnt, always keep whatever ticket or receipt properly.

i learnt another lesson from this mini trip. i really should avoid wearing short or small T shirt during my long trip. This small shirt was barely covered my money belt so i had to wear my money belt inside of my pant! It could be really inconvenient if i wanted to ge something like my passport from there.

The whole journey from Tioman to Singapore took me 9 hours! i left for Tekek Jetty at 12.30pm and arrived at home only at 9.30pm. I was very tired, so when i got a call from my friend, i basically just told her that, "we will talk next time!" Sorry to her, but i had really no more energy to talk. Remember, i slept at around 3am last night.

i met two girls on the same bus from Tioman to Johor Bahru. When we alighted from the bus, a tout approached them for trip to Singapore. Out of good will, i told them that i am taking bus to go back to Singapore, so they could follow me if they want to. i think, they were likely to pay much for a trip to take a cab to the town then from there to Singapore. It would be better if they just take bus to Singapore and then take a cab in Singapore to wherever they wanted to go. They followed me to the bus 170 platform, but later decided to take a cab though. i think this is because their bags were really heavy and they did not want the hassle to on/off the bus and custom with their bags.

The encounterment with them made me think about, what will i do if a local girl told me that i could follow her? i think, i am likely to just follow the local despite of the hassle. In a way, this will definitely be cheaper and should be safer to follow to someone who knows. It reminded me also, don't bring more than i am able to carry with ease.



MONEY MATTER AND LOGISTICS:

1.) Food - RM 12

2.) Transport -
* Speed Ferry from Tioman to Mersing: RM 35
* Express bus: S & S International from Mersing to Larkin - RM 8.80
- The last bus is at 5.30pm and they don't go to Singapore directly now.

Tekek, Tioman (Day 2) - 11 Apr 2007

This is the dive centre, Tioman Reef Divers.



Some corners of the dive shops are pasted with many photos of the divers and students. Two of Mei Siang, Brad and my photos are still here.



The dive boat. However, i did not use this one as most of the time, i dived with the intructor, Abect, only. So we used a small speed boat.



The newly built Tioman Marina and Katie and Mathew's yatch, El Sea. (Should be, the yatch they are bringing or working in.)

* I don't think it is right for me to put either Katie, Mathew or Chris pictures on the web without their consents.





Mathew was pumping air into the small rubber boat that we later took to see sunset and to ABC Village.



This is the yatch, El Sea.



EXTRACTED FROM MY DIARY:

i woke up at 6.30am, i think i was just get used to my working hour. i slept at 10pm last night, tired from my previous days of late night sleep.

The weather was not good today. It was raining a bit when i walked to the shore. i remember there were this intertidal areas some where near to the dive centre. i wanted to go and see what could i still find there. (Last time, i saw rock sea star and many corals.) i saw many onch (a kind of slug without shell), oyster, limpet (a kind of snail) and abundance of mermaid fans. The tide was not low enough to expose the coral reef. There was another patch of intertidal area, but it started to rain heavier, so i headed back to the dive centre. In the end, it started to rain cats and dogs. So Reeno played a DVD of his friend dived at Coco's Island at Columbia while waiting for the rain to stop so that we could off for boat dive.



Onch



Black Sea Cucumber



Clam



Limpet



Oyster



The weather is strange now. It is supposed to be hot season and yet it just rains most of the time. It looked like it is going to rain for this whole day.

When the rain got not as heavier, we proceed to the deep dive (30 meter). i should practise decompression stop and basically we would explore a wreck and stay longer so that we needed a decompressions stop. The different between training and recreasion dive is, seeing things during training is just a plus as the main objective is to learn the techniques.

i think i am still not as good in my buoyancy. At least sometimes, i need to hold on to something to just stay at certain depth. The dive instructor basicallly didn't baby sit me anymore. It was different to when i was in Scuba Diver Course that the dive instruction will constantly look after me/Mei Siang to make sure that we did not shoot up to the surface. This time, i got a one to one coaching and yet the dive instructor with his 'expectations' on me, did not pay particular attention to me. Later, he said my buoyancy was good enough and i am not likely to have problem to get in control.

Someone from the dive centre asked me about my ring at my left hand. i told them that, it was an engagement ring. But the fact was, someone suggested that, wearing a ring would save me a lot of troubles when i travel to the remote areas in Asia, such as India. People got less interested with you when you said you are married. In my case, i think i looked younger than my actual age, so engaged will do me better. With my previous relationship fresh in my mind, i found it particularly easy and 'fluence' to make up a story of my fiancee and others. So this was my 'practical' before my long trip.

Little did i expect that, my simply kind act of friendliness will bring me such a wonderful evening and to know these wonderful people. i got so bored eating alone that, during my lunch, i simply approach Chris who was eating alone too and asked whether i could join him. Of course, it is unlikely that people will say no to girl, so we started to chat. Chris is from France and his English is not as good. So when i talked to him, i need to speak really slow and choose some simple words and basically forgot all about the grammars (if you are thinking that my English is not great too, then i ensure you that, he is not even achieve 1/10 of my level). He was a nice guy, working as a computer engineer in Franch and will in Malaysia for a month.

i got 3 dives for today and it merely involved different kinds of trainings. After my last dive, i walked from the beach of the resort to the newly built Marina. While eating my ice cream on the way to walk back to the resort, i met Chris again. I called him to just said hello and he said he is going to meet some of his new french friends and invited me. Since i have nothing to do, so i just followed him.

That was how i met Katie and Mathew. I was still wondering whether last night was a dream. Watching sunset in the middle of a sea on a small rubber boat (i am not a romantic person), took a boat ride in the middle of the night to go to a bar (from Tekek to ABC) and i heard the most words of French in my whole life. It was just kind of crazy but yet wonderful.

Katie and Mathew sailed from France to Langkawi, they are skippers. From Langkawi, they went to Singapore and supposed to get the yatch/boat to Hainan, China. Unfortunately, the boat has some serious water leaking problem, so they have to stop here and later get the boat back to Singapore, Raffles Marina for repair. They said they are likely to just leave the boat in Singapore for the owner to decide what he wanted to do and they would off to Cannes, Australia, for another job and to practise their English there.

Katie is a year senior than me and she speaks the better English compares with Mathew and Chris. She is just not that kind of French woman that i watched from TV, wearing heavy make up, high heel and a LV handbag. But you couldn't expect a boat captain to be meeked right? She is cheerful, humourous but tough women. I really like her. Matthew in the other way was shy in the beginning. He is 22 and i think he is very good looking! They both knew from a sailing school in France and since then, enjoying time with each other.

3 of them were chatting in French, but in time, Katie or Mathew would translate. They were really thoughtful to me. They knew i am a vegetarian and i won't take alcoholic drinks, so they would check to make sure that, i got something to eat/drink. With such a great language barrier, i amazingly had a great time with them. We talked about animals, women in different careers, some French and English jokes.... Katie said, English called French frog because they eat frog and Frech called English pale beef because they are very fair and they eat a lot of beef! I found this particularly funny as to Asian, they just look kind of equally fair! We talked until the bar was closed and then again, took the rubber boat to return to Tekek at around 2am. i gave Katie my contact in Singapore and asked them to contact me if possible. She gave me her email and said she and Mathew are very sincerely invited me to visit them in Australia. She would cook me French meals! In fact, she repeated this "sincerely inviting me" for a few times during our conversation. Normally, i won't take any invitation from people i met during my trip seriously. But somehow i really believed that, she meant it.

When i parted with Chris at the resort (coincidentally, we were just staying next door), he hold me at my arms and looked straight into my eyes. We bid fare well , as he will leave to Kapas tomorrow and said good night. At that time, i was really thinking that, whether he is going to kiss me?? Then how would i react? I have never know any French in my life and i seriously do not know how to react if he does so as a kind of French courtesy. Well, i am glad that he didn't do anything and i suspected that this is because i got a 'fiancee'!

It was such a wonderful night with them that i started to believe that, i would have some kind of wonderful trip for the rest of my journey. The other reasons that i think we had such a nice chat was because we are all around the same age group, at least they are not some kind of party animals. i enjoyed the time with them so much that i even could ignore the second had smoke from Katie and Mathew, which i normally won't tolerate. :)



MONEY MATTER & LOGISTICS

1.) Food, including non-alcoholic drinks at bar - RM 29

2.) Others:
Peladang Mini Mart near to the Marina recylcle the 1.5 little mineral water bottle to use for selling petrol to motorcycle. If you don't want to just through away your plastic bottle, then it is good to give to them.