Holiday from the Holiday: Stop-over in Kota Kinabalu

After six days of doing nothing but diving, eating and sleeping, it was time to take a break from the stresses of it all and unwind at a nice resort. We checked in at the Shangri-la Tanjung Aru Resort to relax and wash our gear. Yes, you saw it right, we like to unwind in a place where we can wash and dry our gear in peace so that we don’t have to deal with it when we get home. It’s nice to really chill out and do nothing while waiting for our wet suits to dry. Here’s the lovely view of the bay from our room.

We had very decent weather the whole time, with hot, clear days (ideal for drying our stuff) and clouds rolling in only in the evenings. It was lovely how a rainbow hovered over the resort just as we were strolling round checking out places to eat.

There were two casual dining places at the resort, one was al fresco and only served barbecues, and the other was the cafe where the sumptuous buffet breakfast was served. Lunch here was pretty decent too, with a good selection of western and local favourites. My Sarawak laksa was very decent. Not having been to Sarawak, I wouldn’t know whether it was authentic or not, but I enjoyed what tasted like a cross between curry and mee soto. A winner in my books!

Sunset here was very beautiful. The resort was built on a shallow bay and the curves dotted with coconut trees looked lovely silhouetted against the evening sun…

… as did this wader looking out for fish.

We sat under some coconut trees for happy hour drinks, waiting for sunset to arrive.

It was lovely to put up our feet and sip our cocktails.

Post-cocktail shishas and more drinks didn’t hurt either! It was fun messing about blowing out vanilla-scented smoke through our nostrils. No incriminating pictures here though, sorry!

What a lovely end to our holiday.

Layang Layang: First Approach

We flew to Layang Layang via Kota Kinabalu by chartered plane. It was a cute little propeller plane and in much better condition than the ones I flew in The Philippines and Indonesia. Nonetheless, we still had to go a bit snap-happy!

We could see the pilots very clearly through the open cabin and were very amused watching them go through their pre-flight checks and put on their own seat belts.

We flew over the beautiful outlying islands off KK…

… flying low enough to see our own shadow in the pretty turquoise waters below.

It was then followed by nothing but blue water for a while, until the pilots announced that we’d reached Layang Layang and that they would bank the plane to let us have a good view of the atoll island. It was great flying a chartered plane! Not only were they patient enough to wait for us to finish the touristy photo-taking before takeoff, they also gave us a good few turns of the island to take pictures to our hearts content.

You can just about see the shape of the atoll in this picture, together with the lagoon formed in the middle.

The resort is on this thick bit of the atoll that has definitely been reclaimed. There’s the air strip, the resort and the Malaysian air base and nothing else.

The rest of the atoll isn’t really much of an island, with quite a lot of it underwater most times of the day.

It was a lovely place smack in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but sea and sky stretching out as far as the eye could see.

It was especially beautiful at sunset with wide panaromas of coloured sky throwing their colours onto white clouds…

… as well as casuarinas and hardy tropical pines silhouetted beautifully against the setting sun.

We went on sunset walks before dinner when we weren’t completely knackered from the diving to take in as much as we could.

Inside the very charming resort, we found different sea creatures in the room. Some days we had angelfish, other days a turtle, and on one special day, we had a pair of manta rays come visit!

And on the last day of diving, a hammerhead came to visit us. It was so sweet of the resort staff to put in special touches like these to make our day even better.

More to come soon on the diving!

The Black Manta: Pulau Aur

We continued on into Malaysian waters to Pulau Aur. DC made it for the night dive but I was just too knackered. He had fun taking pictures with my camera. The next morning, we did two more dives before heading back to Singapore. Here’s a selection of highlights from all three dives.

DC spotted a cuttlefish on the first dive. The moment we spotted it, it knew straightaway that its cover was blown and it changed colour and markings  in a blink of the eye.

As I got a bit closer, it went into a defensive posture with one tentacle raised, all ready to scoot off on a jet of water. We decided to leave it alone at this point.

There were quite a few cute shrimp spotted in the dives. Here’s one DC saw on the night dive. It’s amazing how delicate it looks, yet its job is probably as a fish cleaner. It eats dead skin and parasites off fish.

Here’s another shrimp, this time one that eats carcasses of dead creatures. If you put your hand close enough to a bold specimen, it’d quite happily hop onto your finger and pick away at the dead bits of hangnail, thinking that it must be some kind of weird dead sea creature.

There are also the famously shy gobies which are a total bitch to snap pictures of. After far too many unsuccessful attempts, I finally caught these two shots.

I still haven’t figured out exactly what kind of gobies these are. Drop me a message if you know!

Another cute fish we found was the brown-banded pipefish. These were at first hard to spot, but once you found one it was often easy to locate the rest in the area.

These relatives of seahorses had such comically serious expressions I could spend ages staring at them glide about the coral.

Other fish were far bigger, like this  map puffer fish cruising around waiting for a little cleaner fish to get on with its job.

Then there was this scorpionfish, most likely a tasseled or papuan one as it doesn’t have prominent eye cirri. Hard to tell though. It was probably a little bit annoyed that its cover was blown as the flash really showed up its pinks, reds and oranges.

Then there was this blue spotted stingray that just couldn’t hide away enough. I think I caught in the act of burying itself in the sand for camouflage.

Then there’s also the typical clownfish shot. Here’s a very grumpy specimen: it’s an orange-finned anemonefish and it’s not as  cute as the Nemo in the cartoon.

And here’s a common lionfish that was so upset that it was just a commoner that it constantly looked down and tried to hide in the coral.

See if you can spot this master of camouflage. It’s a hermit crab. Hint: look for its eye stalks.

I got some lovely macro shots, the first of a flabellina, a kind of sea slug.

Sea slugs have such a bad sounding name, so it’s nice that we call them nudibranchs most of the them. Here’s a really pretty one: it’s a pink dorid and I love how the pink and yellow-orange complement so nicely.

And last of all, here’s a lovely fat little joruna nudibranch.

And the icing on the cake, two joruna in very close proximity… mating?

The Black Manta: Anambas Islands

DC and I needed a break, so we jumped at the chance when the waitlist cleared for the Black Manta. That weekend, it went to the Anambas Islands, Seven Skies Wreck and ended at Pulau Aur. It was a very relaxing weekend as the boat left on Friday evening and returned on Sunday evening from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. There was no long bus ride nor jostling with the crowds at the causeway. It was very chill as we could relax on deck or in the cabin and there were even cheap massages available, albeit not very good ones.

The boat travelled all night and delivered us to Pulau Damar, one of the southernmost of the Anambas Islands for our checkout dive. It was a nice relaxed, very easy dive with only a little current here and there. It was fun trying to catch a bit of current while trying out my brand new bright red Jetfin Revos. (Verdict? Not bad!)

There wasn’t a whole lot of life down there. We found a giant moray eel in a hole and I was glad that I didn’t have to get too close to snap this photo.

I got a little bored, so started taking pictures of feather starfish, which look quite dramatic perched at the top of a lump of hard coral, especially when coupled with some cute Christmas tree worms to balance out the picture somewhat.

DC had quite a bit of fun checking out his new gear and testing his buoyancy in different positions. Too bad I couldn’t signal for him to get closer to the coral for a better picture.

Now this picture isn’t that bad. I really like how blue the sea looks behind it.

There was also some really bizarre maze coral that I’ve not really seen much before. This is quite a cool texture shot.

To top things off, we saw a pretty lionfish. This one is rather special as it’s not the usual common lionfish. It’s called the spotfin lionfish, from the pretty spots on its pectoral fins. Such a pity that I was for some reason distracted and couldn’t get a good close up shot of this fella.

Jazz at a Smoky Bar

Thanks to anti-smoking laws, we don’t get smoky bars in Singapore anymore. While it’s great that we get to pickle our livers and avoid the risk of lung cancer at the same time, jazz bars lose a certain sense of romance without the cigar smoke. (Not that our jazz bars had much cigar smoke in the first place.)

Now in KL, there are lively, just smoky enough jazz bars. Perhaps because most of the smokers were on cigars and cigarillos, Alexis Ampang was such a place. I wish I could post the photos of the revelry but my friends would probably kill me first. Sorry!

The jazz was decent and the wine accompanying the music was even better. I started off with a Nicolas Potel Bourgogne Cuvee Gerard Potel (2006) from France. It was pale yellow with a gentle bouquet of honeysuckle, apricot and peach. Lots of soft fruit in the medium dry wine, well-balanced by slight acid on the tongue and had a long mineral finish. I liked it very much. Incidentally, Jancis Robinson gives a stamp of approval of sorts: she counts Nicolas Potel as a quality-conscious négociant. It would pair very well with seafood. Something quite restrained like seafood risotto. Rating: 5/5

For my second glass, I stayed with the whites and ordered a South African KNW Chenin Blanc (2007). It was the palest yellow you can imagine, with a lovely lime nose. It was medium dry, had a rather chewy sort of flavour, and had the mineral finish I like so much. Rating: 4/5

One of my friends had a Brightwater Nelson Sauvignon Blanc (2008.) from New Zealand. It was pale straw and had a big fruit nose. Lots of fresh lychee, peaches and honey in there. It was sweet, well-balanced with a pleasing floral finish. One of those flamboyant, straight forward, in your face wines. Rating 3.5/5

Damage done for two glasses of wine and a great night of jazz and chatter: RM 55

Alexis Bistro Ampang
Great Eastern Mall
303 Jalan Ampang
Kuala Lumpur

Key to ratings

0  Wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole
1  I’d rather drink beer
2  If there’s nothing better
3  Just one glass is fine
4  More, please!
5  Where can I get a case?

Klang Valley BKT and more

Bah kut teh literally translates from Hokkien as meat bone tea. There are many versions throughout Singapore and the Malaysian Peninsula but it is generally pork ribs in clear broth with either Chinese herbs or lots of pepper and garlic, never both together. The chicken version is fittingly known as chick kut teh.

My KL friend was shocked that I’d not tried the famous Klang Valley Bah Kut Teh before. He promised that he’d take me there and give this ignorant Singaporean a taste of the dry version of bah kut teh. When I went up to KL last month, we spent almost an hour driving from KL to Klang. He takes any excuse to trek out there for his BKT fix.

Lai Choon Bah Kut Teh

We’ll start with the wet version. This one is pretty standard fare, with herbal soup and the option to add more ingredients like taukee (tofu sheets) and taupok (deep fried tofu cubes). I liked the aromatic broth and the ribs were pretty succulent even though I was tricked by a piece of bone masquerading as meaty pork rib.

The wet version

Next up was the dry version of the bah kut teh. It’s actually described as “stewed meat” on the menu and technically isn’t bah kut teh considering there’s no soup in it. It comes piping hot in the claypot, check out the steam escaping. Thick chunks of belly pork are braised in heaps of dark sweet soy sauce and the killer ingredient, dried squid. Topped off at the last moment with lettuce leaves, the combination of tender savoury meat and squidy goodness makes it totally worth the long drive out. I slurped up every last bit of gravy in the pot.

The famous dry bah kut teh

Even though we were pretty full by then, brunch is brunch, so we had to seek out the breakfast portion of it. We also had the flimsy excuse of getting some kopi to stave off post-food coma for the drive back. Kopi peng (iced local coffee) is really famous at one of the stalls in the area, so we each had one. My friend asked for his to be gao (extra thick). The coffee was rich and strong, sweetened just-so with condensed milk. Reminded me of a toned down version of Vietnamese ca phe sua da. It went down smooth and was just the thing after lunch.

rich and satisfying kopi peng

Well, you can’t just have kopi and nothing else right? Of course we ordered kaya toast. It’s quite different from the Singapore version. This one comes in a charcoal-toasted bun and has butter spread carefully so that the whole layer melts unctuously into the kaya. And the kaya! It’s more caramel than coconut and has this intense, almost molasses flavour that isn’t over-sweet. It is so excellent I could give up my Ya Kun kaya toast for it.

Best kaya toast in Malaysia

Having thoroughly fortified ourselves with Klang delights, we headed back to spend the afternoon playing wii.