I went to Perhentian over the weekend, it’s been a long time since I dived the island that changed me. Once upon a time, I used to call it home (underwater). There’s not much to shout about, the dive sites are still intact as they used to be and Batu Layar site at Teluk Pauh has improved, the Staghorns that used to be covered with algae from the construction at the village have recovered and growing healthily.
Tokong Laut. Bottom Time : 55mins
Tokong Laut is still very much the same, Bamboo sharks and White-eyed morays sharing the same tiny crevices, thick school of Fusiliers, hunting Trevalies and divers circling the pinnacle getting excited over ordinary thing like a pink anemone. Well, it’s actually rather interesting because I’ve never seen a bright fluorescent pink anemone before. Awesome discovery. The same species (Button anemone) at Batu Layar were also the same color but reddish a bit because it’s shallower. I think it’s a seasonal thing, from time to time it changes color.
Terumbu Tiga. Bottom Time : 63mins
Terumbu Tiga still has its charm, mysterious and relaxing to dive. I didn’t get the chance to check the crevice that’s full of Hingebeak shrimps and also the Boxer shrimp because I was low on air at the end of dive, maybe due to lack of sleep. The extra-large Titan Triggerfish was still at the cave’s entrance, after all these years she’s still there not allowing me to get into the cave. I guess now she’s the official guardian of T3′s cave. The Janns Pipefish is still there but this time not in pairs, either her buddy was hiding under the crevice or got eaten up by other fish. It’s been almost two years since I first saw them there, and it’s still there yesterday at the same crevice. The Bumpheads didn’t make any appearance though Harvey was sure that he heard them munching the corals. I didn’t see the usual Napoleon wrasse and the resident Loggerhead turtle. Maybe I was there at the wrong time, these larger inhabitants roam in further distance than a Pipefish or shrimps.
Sugar Wreck. Bottom Time : 60mins
Sugar Wreck was diveable, no current and visibility was average. Enough to see some pelagics such as Mackerel. The Chevron barracudas were shy, the sleeping sharks etcetera. There were quite a lot of large boxfish but with horns, I’m not sure of its name so I just called it Horny boxfish. Inside the wreck, there’s an airtrap which all of us ascend and took a group photo.
The trip was short, tiring and sleepless but worth every minute of it. Now, starting to plan for next trip… thinking of Na Trang in Vietnam, some place new and uncharted. Not sure if it’s possible but if there’s time, then why not.
I survived the long meeting yesterday and today, expected the worst but in the end it wasn’t so bad. I guess when I’ve invested almost every bits and pieces of me into something that I really believes in, I tend to be a bit edgy and paranoid.
For quite some time, I’ve been on my toes at least on three separate concurrent initiatives which consumed almost all of my time and energy from my loved ones and perhaps even from myself.
Some said, I’m very ambitious. A few said, I have too many things on my mind while there are some who said that I’m just the crazy guy who wouldn’t stop pushing the limits. But there are those who believe that I will make it, one day.
Will I make it? that’s something that I will find out in the near future.
Getting to know or learning about new places can be quite interesting, particularly when it involves foreign language. When I was walking around or on the bike I always try to read the signboards and remember their meanings, because one of the ways to get familiar with Vietnam’s culture and understand further is by being able to communicate better and learning their language would definitely help.
On the way to lunch today, I was reading the signboards and one particular sign says Pho To Copy and I thought it was rather funny that it sounds so familiar like an english word. Then after like a few seconds it occured to me that it is english and it’s a small shop servicing photocopier machines. Duh.
We ride a bit far out for our lunch but it’s worth it especially for the Cuon Diep (pronounced as Koon Yeep). It’s a bit difficult to explain of the stuff but think of a wasabi leaf poppiah, something like that except it tastes a lot better.
It’s a bit laid back today, didn’t spend much time outside other than for lunch. Izwar bought a bunch of DVDs and we’re just at home the whole day hogging his TV watching movies. Now, it’s dinner time and it’ll be another discovery session, hmm let’s see where we’ll end up for dinner later.
Since it’s Saturday today, Izwar and Ha My took us around town. We followed Rid around to settle some of the stuffs in his to-do list and I was just shooting-by-the-hip while experiencing the traffic madness. Today I wasn’t scared of the traffic as yesterday, maybe because I’m getting used to it. “You adapt very fast” says Izwar.
We went to another famous local restaurant called Co Ba Vung Tau in Cao Thang. Izwar knows the city very well and he keeps suggesting restaurants one after another, so far I’m loving each one of them. By now I’m starting to notice that there’s a lot of vegetables used in their cooking, not too many beefs or chicken and certainly not oily. Perhaps this explains why they are mostly slim and well-built. I’ve been observing them since yesterday and I hardly see anybody that’s oversized or in the obese category, well except the tourists lah :-)
Anyway, I’ve only been here for two days so it’s a bit too early to give food critics but up until today and what I’ve seen and tasted, I just love the food especially because I really like to eat ulam and even more if it is from the local plants or leaves that I had never tasted before. I couldn’t name all of them except a few that’s quite common such as Wasabi and Mints leaves but if I were in the food business, I would definitely be bringing back some of the Vietnamese recipes to KL.
Other than the food, I also love their fruit juice cocktails. There’s one drink that I really like, it’s called Sinh To (icle-blended fruit) and my favorite so far are the Sampoche (Ciku) and Mangcau (Soursop). It’s a mix of fruit, sugar and ice but it has bits of other tastes as well and according to Izwar, it’s because the blender was also used to make other drinks; don’t ask me what and I don’t want to find out either but it surely tastes really, really good. I had it everyday and later for dinner, I’ll definitely be asking for it again. Move away Starbucks, here comes Vietbucks.
Okay, this will be it for today’s blogging and I’m now all ready to check out Saigon’s Saturday night life.
I reached Ho Chi Minh City this morning, with no expectations and carried with me my good old Nikon D200 everywhere I go. I’m thinking of doing some street photojournal shots because it’s such an interesting place, lots of subjects that would produce interesting shots. But it’s my first day here and I’m still a bit cautious on being snappy-happy, so I’ll take my time to know the city first.
Izwar was very kind to host me during this trip, so will be staying at his place instead of the hotel. He took me around and we had a really good vegetarian lunch. After our meeting I stroll around the city center, on foot. We walked around until it was time to head back home. It was a hot day, I sweat like mad.
We went for dinner at a famous beef noodle restaurant, it was really good food. I was a pillion on Izwar’s classic Acma 1948 Vespa while Rid was with My, making our way through the thick traffic with innumerable and unpredictable motorbikes. But the motorbike ride was fun, it was the most interesting and challenging biking experience I’ve ever had. I survived the traffic madness. Statistically, there’s supposed to be 12 million motorbikes in HCMC but it really was like the roads were filled with a billion motorbikes. There were hardly any traffic lights and I think the traffic rules for Right-of-Way is that there’s no Right-of-Way, there’s only My-Way. Anyway, I survived… until tonight that is. I’m still thinking if I should go ahead on my plan to rent a bike tomorrow so that my photo excursion could cover a wider range. I’ll see how things turns out tomorrow.
We went lepaking like Vietnamese for our late night drinks and continuing our discussion. Well, like the saying “When in Rome we do what the Romans do”, so I guess when in Vietnam, we do what the Vietnamese do; lepak by the roadside and keep ordering fresh fruit juice while watching the traffic and passers-by.
I don’t usually be bothered to sit and listen or watch the American Idol, but today while I was typing away on the codes it was on TV and the contestants happens to be singing my favorite songs… there’s one guy I think his name was Lee and IMO he was really good especially on the duet with Crystal, another female singer. I switched the TV audio to my amplified surround system and enjoyed every minute of the show. Casey and Mike’s duet singing the song “do you really ever loved a woman” and before that, he sang Mrs Robinson, were really good… it was fantastic, the guitar play was superb.
Ok, the show’s over… back to coding.
After careful consideration and a moment of thought, I decided to just grab myself a unit and try compiling the codes on the actual device instead of simulating it through the SDK. Apple’s official launch in this part of the world would be end of May but even that, it covers only Singapore as the nearest store and I’m very confident that the queue will as long and crazy as in the US when it was first launched.
I got mine from LowYatt Plaza, the place where we Malaysians finds almost anything computers and sometimes at better prices than its authorized sources. It’s a parallel imported unit so there’s no support whatsoever from Apple, at least not until July this year because that’s when Apple is supposed to officially support iPad in Malaysia. I have this suspicion that the 3G version will be tied with Maxis data plans and it won’t be cheap or easy to get. I’ll get the 3G version when it’s available, whenever that may be. For the time being, I’m okay with the WiFi version for research and development purposes.
It’s an impressive hardware and software, the battery life lasted about 10 hours of usage with Internet connection. The screen and everything else is just the way I’ve always imagined it and to a certain extent it actually surpassed my expectations. I’m a fulltime iPad geek and believer now :-)
Aldin and Aliff were excited about it too, playing the games that is. I downloaded a GUI game toolkit app for iPhone and showed Aldin how to create simple shooting games. Kids picked up things pretty fast, today he started sketching his own objects and used them to create games on the iPhone. Just now, we discovered that we could use the same app on the iPad and this time Aliff joined in to create more games with it.
Of course it would be better if Aldin write codes in creating the games instead of using the GUI toolkit but I guess it’s a good start for him (and me too). As for me, enough fooling around and getting back to tinkering the codes I got from Github and Apple’s libraries to come up with something useful soon. Not having anyone to teach me how to do things can be quite taxing and stressful at times. Cookbooks and sample codes are my friends now.
Finally, after many hours of frustrating attempts I managed to renew my iPhone Developer Program membership. I guess it must have been Apple’s recent announcement on iPad’s availability from their online stores that caused the traffic congestion. I had to wait till midnight for the online store to start responding to my purchase without dropping the connection immediately after clicking the Purchase button.
And now, I can continue browsing its online library for the sample codes.
Scubadive | leafy May 31, 2010 | 
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