Ha Long Bay

HaLong Bay is one of the signature destinations in Vietnam: something everyone goes to see when they come to visit. This was one trip that wasn’t easy to do on our own, as you pretty much have to be out on the water to see anything. We heard a lot of mixed reviews regarding tours to see the bay, and as such we took some time researching all the options available to us in Hanoi. And there were a lot of options, let me tell you. There were 1 day tours, 2 day tours, and 3 day tours… available in an entire range of different boats, services, accommodations, and price points. Shopping for a tour was a bit overwhelming. It seemed that every tour operator repackaged and resold someone else’s boat or tour, so we were never sure what we were getting for our price quotes. Luckily we ran into a Scottish couple (Andrew and Charlotte) on the shuttle bus back from Sapa, and they gave us a good recommendation for a tour agency run by an Aussie expat. Turns out this agency (Kangaroo Cafe) runs all of it’s own buses and boats, so we wouldn’t be unexpectedly jammed into a small boat with 30 other people. Besides, our two newfound friends were already signed up for the tour themselves so we would at least know someone else on the boat.

Our 3 day / 2 night tour started off with an 8am bus ride from Hanoi to HaLong City, where we met up with our Vietnamese Junk (it’s a boat) that would take us cruising around for the next couple of days. Our midday cruise was very atmospheric, as a misty fog clinged gently to the steep limestone cliffs surrounding us. I imagined myself roaming within a set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow searching the craggy bays for hidden treasure! Or something like that… Our first stop was at a place called “surprising cave”: A name that inspires some pretty lofty expectations. Of course there wasn’t much that was terribly surprising about the cave. It was big, for sure, and had some nice stalactites and stalagmites… but it was no better than other caves that we have gone through. In fact, the only thing surprising about the cave was that parts of it were in pretty bad shape. Sadly, many of the stalagmites were fondled too much over the years by grimy hands… with many of the walls defaced by graffiti. Sad really. At least they had some cool lighting to spruce up my photos.

Later, we had the opportunity to do a bit of kayaking on the bay. I was a little disinterested at first, but after paddling around a bit I was glad that Ana talked me into going. The walls of the cliffs look that much more dramatic when up close at sea level… and we ended up finding a cool archway to paddle through, opening into a hidden lagoon that only kayakers could reach. At the edge of the lagoon, a troop of monkeys jumped amongst the tree branches for our entertainment: Nothing too exotic, but a nice diversion none the less. Back aboard the junk, we decided to brave the water, as a couple of our fellow passengers told us that the water wasn’t that bad… They Lied! After our initial plunge we both lasted about 15 seconds in the sea before scurrying back on the boat. January temperatures in Ha Long Bay: Ice cold!

Day 2 had us heading to a second cave, which was even less “surprising” than the first… after which we made a visit to Monkey Island: an island that (as most would guess) is inhabited by a troop of monkeys. Most tour groups come here not for the monkeys, but rather for the coarse sand beaches that align the shores. They’re not really spectacular, but are a bit of a rarity in this land of steep cliffs and muddy banks. This is supposed to be a good place to go swimming and cool off, but at this time of year the water was a tad chilly. We opted instead to walk around a bit and try to get some better views of the bay from a higher vantage point. Fortunately for us, our brief stay on the island was blessed with a rare bit of sunshine making the views quite appealing. Probably the most exciting part of our excursion was getting to and from the beach on the junk’s tiny rowboat. This thing’s seaworthiness was in serious question, as it almost capsized a few times and was leaking water like a sieve… understandable really when you consider that it was nothing more than a woven mat with some tar slapped over it.

Our 2nd night consisted of an uneventful stay on Cat Ba island, followed by the long journey back to Hanoi: basically an all day boat/bus travel day. Hanoi greeted us with some warm, dry, and pleasant weather… Soooo much better that the miserable cold / wet conditions we had when initially exploring the city. Too bad it came out only on the last night of our stay there. The people in town seemed to be enjoying it much more as well, as the streets seemed livelier and more energetic with hawkers and impromptu sidewalk cafes bustling around every corner. This must have been the Hanoi that Jason Beck experienced which he described to us with glowing recommendations… If only we had found it sooner!

Here is a map of HaLong Bay in Vietnam: (Click Here)

…and here is a link to some of our Photos there: http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/HaLongBay 

Tags: Vietnam,Ha Long Bay,junk,Cat Ba,caves,kayaking

Sapa

We took a brief detour from Hanoi to check out some of Vietnam’s highland minority villages. Most of these villages are outside of Sapa: a small town that sits high in the mountains overlooking the more fertile valleys below. The views from Sapa would be pretty spectacular… that is if the thick pea-soup-like fog ever lifted. I suppose that’s just the luck of the draw for showing up in northern Vietnam during the winter monsoon. Oh well.

Besides visiting minority villages, most people come to this area to see the spectacular rice terraces that are carved into the sides of the valley hills. These rice paddies are quite a thing to behold, as the sheer scale of the terraforming is incredible. There is not a square meter of arable land that is wasted, as the terraces climb hundreds of meters from the valley floor. What’s most impressive about this is that all of this work, the enormous engineering task, was performed without the aid of bulldozers or machinery: all of the digging and earth moving was done by hand: the product of hard working and ingenuity by the local farmers. Serious “wow-factor” around every turn.

Check out the photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Sapa

And here is where Sapa is in Vietnam (Click Here)

Tags: Sapa,terraces,minority tribes,fog

Ha Noi

WARNING: piss and vinegar rant ahead! If you’d rather not read about my bitch session, just browse the highlights:

• Lots of rain: Man, the weather was miserable out here. I kind of knew that we were here in the off season, but I didn’t expect the deluge of water that fell upon us. Am I supposed to build an Ark or something?
• Lost on the streets: I nearly got pick-pocketed walking around the first night. Part of it was my fault as I didn’t have a comprehensive security scheme for the new backpack I got in Hoi An.
• Every street in the old quarter sells something specific: There’s a bag street, and a shoes street… There’s even a bamboo pole street. Oh, and there’s a scotch tape street. Seriously, every kind of clear packaging tape imaginable. This was a lively topic of conversation at the Bia Hoi corners: “Did you guys see the Scotch Tape street? Man, that’s crazy!”
• Beer corners: This was really surprising to me, but the Bia Hoi corners in Hanoi are kind of overrated. The beers are cheap, but not as cheap as in Saigon… and the beer wasn’t great. It has a kind of sour taste that reminded me of bad apple cider. It was barely palatable. I think that we were better off ordering $0.75 bottled Tiger beers rather than the $0.25 fresh beer.
• A friendly Aussie face: Joel, how you doing buddy? We saw on facebook that our Aussie friend from Saigon was hanging out in Hanoi… fresh from his high octane group tour of Vietnam. We had no way of directly getting a hold of him, but as luck would have it, Ana ran into him on the street in front of our hotel. Too funny. It sounded like he was having a hell of a good time in Vietnam. I’m going to be super impressed when I find out that he’s been able to party non-stop for 3 months straight! I think that we’re going to miss him in Laos… probably a good thing for my liver.
• Google Map of Hanoi (Click Here)
• Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Hanoi

Ok, Here’s my Rant:

Our time in Hanoi did not start out so auspiciously. We arrived in the midst of a torrential downpour, which sucked because I somehow managed to loose my umbrella the night before in Hue: too much beer and whiskey? You make the call. Our plan was to take the Vietnam Airlines shuttle from the airport because it was dirt cheap ($2 USD) and we have an ingrained distrust for taxi drivers. We negotiated with the driver, and he agreed to drop us off at our hotel if we paid an extra $1 each: a reasonable amount considering how miserable it was outside. Of course like every other mode of transportation in Vietnam, passenger space was not a finite commodity. Our driver somehow managed to pack 4 people per row… luggage and all. I think that there were 15 people in the van by the time that we finally left. Not 5 minutes from the airport, the Vietnamese woman next to me proceeds to get motion sick. Thank goodness she brought her own plastic bag with her. Seriously: can no one around here ride in an enclosed space without getting ill? I really need to start collecting air-sick bags from some of our flights.

Anyway, It takes us an hour and a half to get through the city as the rush hour traffic is simply brutal… and apparently our driver had no interest in driving any further than the airline office. He proceeded to boot everyone off the van, including the people that he already collected extra money from. So much for hotel-side drop off. At least Ana was able to finagle our $2 back for getting dropped off short. Not that he voluntarily offered us a refund. I kind of had to refuse to leave the van (while sitting on someone else’s luggage) before he gave us back our money. So now it’s raining, and we are 1.5km away from where the map says our hotel is. Traffic is brutal so taking a cab is useless: we needed to bite the bullet and just huck it to our hotel. When we finally get to the spot on the map, we realize that our hotel is not there. It turns out that the Lonely Planet map was actually wrong! Not the first time that this has happened to us, but still pretty shitty considering that we walked over a kilometer in the pouring rain.

As luck would have it, our hotel was back 1km on the other side of the lake: annoyingly close to where we got dropped off in the first place! So we continue walking down the street, and I feel a slight tug on my backpack. I instinctively stop and take a step backwards (Lord knows why), and find myself immediately colliding with a small, very close Vietnamese man. WTF?!? He starts walking past me, and I quickly realize exactly what happened. I hand my bag to Ana and she tells me, “bag’s open… you should run.” Which I did. When I caught up with the guy, I grabbed him by the shoulder and walked him back to our stuff: “Hey buddy, you got my camera?” Luckily for everyone involved, my camera was still in my bag. I guess I startled him off before he could nab anything. My impression of people in Hanoi so far: not so good.

We finally make it to our hotel, which was not easy as there are about a half dozen hotels named “Espensen” around Hanoi. Apparently, once you’re listed in the Lonely Planet book, even your name get’s bootlegged like a knock-off “North Face” backpack. Classic. All said and done: nothing got stolen, no one got hurt, and we actually (after some time) made it to our hotel intact. If Chris Uhlik were here, he’d say that it was simply another adventure to tell.

Tags: Vietnam,Hanoi,pickpocket,beer corner,bia hoi

Hoi An

Hoi An: The custom made clothing capitol of Vietnam. Our wee adventure started off in predictably horrid fashion: aboard an overnight sleeper bus from Nha Trang. Obviously, the idea of a sleeper bus is a good one… The distances are long and getting some sleep for an 11 hour bus ride is probably a good idea. Like everything else around here though, the problem lay not in the idea but in the execution. First of all, the seats are designed for very small people. Ana seems to fit fine, but my legs either hang over the edge (preferable) or start bunching up around my knees. Ughh. Secondly, the bus operators all seem to run on the cheap Peruvian transport model: Stop at every street corner along the way until every seat is full, then cram a few more people in for good measure. Seriously, we were at capacity plus we had 6 people sleeping on the floor before we really got underway. Not that we really needed the aisle-ways to walk through, as there was no toilet on the bus. At all. For an 11 hour trip. At least we stopped every 2 hours or so.

Sorry… where was I? Oh yea: Hoi An… the tailor capitol of Vietnam. Hoi An is unique in that it is one of the few cities that was spared the bombing runs of the Vietnam/American War. There are buildings here that date back several centuries… some even before the time of Japan’s self-imposed isolation. This being so, the town has a very intimate old-world feel: especially at night when all the silk lanterns glow in shades of red, green, blue, and orange. Walking down the street, one spies Chinese pagodas sitting next to Vietnamese merchant houses. Stroll across the covered Japanese bridge and one can admire the fine French colonial buildings that now are home to lovely bistros, cafes, and colorful shops and art galleries. One thing that cannot be avoided while wandering the narrow streets are the myriad of cloth shops sprinkled about town. Seriously, there seems to be a tailor setting up shop on every other store front… And I gotta say: the dresses and suits that they have on display look pretty incredible. If Ana and I didn’t have a “no collecting new stuff” policy, I might have bought a few things myself. A new 3 piece suit made of the finest linens and silks will run you less than $100 USD… all custom designed, fitted, and delivered to you in 2 days. And that’s if you go with a reputable shop (far cheaper if you don’t). The women’s dresses were even more spectacular… cut to fit one’s body perfectly in the finest single-strand silk fabrics. It was funny to walk around town and look at other tourists, as it seemed that everyone was looking their best, decked out in new threads.

While out here (on the bus actually) we met a sweet girl from Moscow named Nadia, who was travelling by herself on a quick holiday. She was looking to share some costs for a car out of town, and we were happy to help her out by tagging along. Our destination was an ancient set of ruins named My Son (pronounced Mee-Son) that lay about 40 km outside of town. The location of this site is really rather unfortunate, as the Viet Cong used it as a staging area during the Vietnam/American War. Coincidentally (or not), the Americans bombed the crap out of the place and only now are archeologists starting to put the pieces back together again. A sad situation… but I digress. Better to leave the political commentary to our resident expert Ana Liu. We showed up at the sight, and the rain was coming down by the bucketload. Not entirely a bad situation as the fog and mist created a mystical backdrop to these crumbling Cham Empire buildings. In a way the complex felt a lot like some of the more dilapidated ruins near Angkor Wat in Cambodia: a little bit of Indiana Jones mixed in with some Tomb Raider… but without the bad dialogue and storyline. Maybe not quite as impressive as some other places we’ve seen, but you get the idea.

Check out some of our pictures over on Picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/HoiAn

…and here is a link to Google Maps to show where Hoi An is in Vietnam.

Tags: Hoi An,Vietnam,My Son,Tailor,bus

Dalat to Nha Trang

Just spent the past few days ditching the 4 wheeled transportation and exploring the central highland countryside (Dalat) by motorbike. To those of you who know us well, this wasn’t the typical moto-rally adventure that we occasionally partake in. No, we actually hired some professionals this time around to drive while we lazed about on the back seats. Ana had heard about these “easyriders” from another traveler in Saigon, and the trip was supposed to be a blast. We decided to sign up with a couple of local guys as we were still a bit nervous about driving around in Vietnam traffic. Besides, at $20 bucks the full day tour was pretty cheap.

The riding itself was entertaining as Vietnam’s crazy traffic feels even more hectic when you are scooting around in the middle of it. We stopped at a few locations that weren’t super memorable: some Pagodas, a rice wine factory, some flower farms… but did see a couple of places that are worth mentioning. First was a silk factory, where silkworm cocoons are spun in to silk thread and woven into fabric. I had never seen one of these before, and it was pretty amazing watching the whole process in action. The silk gets de-spun from individual cocoons (with the larvae still in it!) before getting spun back into spindles: one individual strand at a time. No wonder silk is so expensive. I can only imagine how painstaking the process must have been before the invention of industrial machinery. Second up, we saw a very Gaudi-like building in town appropriately named “Crazy House”. This place was designed by an architect who happened to be the Vietnamese Communist Party leader’s daughter… so you can only imagine what people thought when she was allowed to build such an unusual set of buildings. Everything seems like you are walking in a treehouse… with small bridges connecting rooms at different levels. At points I fancied myself a hobbit: walking amongst oversized mushrooms while opening circular doors.

Our two motorcycle guides made a big sale of it: trying to convince us that we should ditch the busses and motorcycle with them all the way to Hoi An. This sounded romantic at first, but upon further reflection was a bit impractical. If it rained on us, we would be miserable. And the trip would take us around 6 days of riding. We had a fair amount of time in Vietnam, but not so much that we could burn through around 4 extra days. We thanked them for their tour and proceeded to book a bus to Nha Trang which was on the way to Hoi An. Not 5 minutes after we left, we saw a horrible, horrible accident down the road involving about 3 motor-scooters. One of the bikes was so badly hit that the front wheel completely tore off, shattering the front forks. In the carnage, a guy laid motionless on the road… his friend trying to pick him up like a lead weighted rag doll. Such a gut wrenching thing to behold: but none-the-less affirming to us that ditching the bikes was a good decision.

Click Here to see a map of Dalat (and Nha Trang)…

Here are our photos of our stay:
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Dalat
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/NhaTrang

Tags: Vietnam,Motorbike

Saigon

Just a quick recap here, as I’m still fighting off the flu and feel a bit out of it. After a brief stop in Bangkok to arrange our entry visas, we were on our merry way to Saigon (now named Ho Chi Minh City) to start our Vietnam leg of the trip. Our plan was to start in the South and head North, since Vietnam is a long and narrow country… and since Saigon lies in the far South, it seemed as good a place as any to start.

Some Quirks, Smirks (and the Works):

• This place has some crazy traffic: …especially motorbike traffic. Everyone here seems to own a scooter of some sort, and it’s amazing that more people don’t get seriously hurt. From what I can tell there are very few rules to the road, and even these aren’t really followed closely. For the most part the right of way is determined by the rule of the jungle: pedestrians yield to motorbikes, motorbikes yield to cars, cars yield to vans, vans yield to buses, and buses yield to no one. Yikes! Still, not everyone can afford their own bus to drive around, so most of the vehicles are some sort of motorized scooter type of thing. One of the most interesting things to do here is to just sit and watch traffic go by at an intersection. Everyone is going in their own direction, and amazingly no accidents occur (well, not too many). Somehow all the bikes know exactly when to stop, swerve, or speed up away from oncoming danger. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has written a doctoral thesis and come up with an algorithm on why this works. Kind of like birds flocking….
• How much can you fit on a motorbike: Turns out, it’s a LOT. We’ve seen anywhere from 2 to 5 people sitting on these scooters zipping through traffic. Sometimes with kids… sometimes with kids on a high chair… sometimes with mom on the back, sitting side-saddle while feeding the kids. Cargo can range anywhere from groceries, to livestock, to two 5-foot marble columns… made of plastic of coarse: one carried in each arm of the guy riding shotgun.
• Pho-Sure!: I was really looking forward to eating real authentic Pho (beef noodle soup) out here, and we sure got our fill of it. It’s funny though: The beef that they use here is different… More beef brisket than beef sirloin. It’s still good, I just think I prefer the Americanized version better. By the way, some of the cafe names out here are pretty priceless: Our dining choices usually looked something like this: Pho 24 Cafe or Pho 2000 Cafe or Pho 33 Cafe, etc. They couldn’t come up with better names than that?
• Mekong Delta: We booked a 2 day / 1 night tour through the Mekong Delta, and it was pretty cool for 1/2 of the trip and pretty horrid for the other 1/2. It turns out that all tour agencies in Saigon will resell you pretty much the same trip because there is only one operator that actually runs a bus or boat between Saigon and the Delta… and that company has the absolute worst reputation. Our “guide” on the 1st day kept telling sexist jokes the whole time, and took us through the most touristy areas where every kid walking down the street would ask for “tip-money”. Not surprisingly he didn’t even have a tour operator license, so a few times we would have to circle through various docks on the islands to avoid officials checking for credentials. Thank god we signed up for 2 days and got handed over to a local guide company on the 2nd day. Worlds better. For the night we stayed in the delta, we slept at a homestay, where there were only 6 of us spending time with the family. We even helped cut up the food and cook! …A great experience.
• An American, an Aussie, and a Dutchman sit at a bar: Oh my god. Never, ever, try to match drinks with an Aussie and a Dutchman. Especially if you are 15 years their senior. Your next morning will punish your exploits with a wrathful vengeance. It was fun while the night lasted though. Thanks Joel and Daam for the laughs and good times at the Bia Hoi (fresh beer) outside our hotel. Less than $1USD for a liter of beer… pretty dangerous. Joel: let me know how your 10-day group tour went… Daam: Go buy that Russian Minsk bike! I think I saw the matching yellow star cap at the night market the other day.

Click here to see a map locating Saigon in Vietnam.

And here are some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Bangkok
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Saigon

Tags: Vietnam,Saigon,motorbike,Mekong Delta

Coron

On the western frontier of the Philippines there is an island called Busuanga: the site of our next port of call. Our destination was a small town called Coron, where some 65 years ago the US Navy 3rd Fleet sank 12 Imperial Japanese supply ships anchored in what they thought was safe harbor in Coron Bay. What is now left of the carnage is some world class shipwreck diving: another first time adventure for us.

Kogyo Maru
Our first dive was to the Kogyo Maru: a Japanese freighter ship that was carrying construction materials and aircraft spare parts to build an airstrip somewhere in the South Pacific. This 6353 Ton ship was 129 meters long and 18 meters wide, and now lays on its starboard side in 34 meters of water. Descending down the mooring line to top of the ship is an eerie experience: The water is murky with low visibility, so you can’t really see the ship until you are about 15 feet away from it. It’s hard not to subconsciously feel the weight of the water above you… no doubt aided by the knowledge that 39 seamen lost their lives at this very spot. Following our divemaster Toto (yes that’s his name), we found a large cargo door to swim through and access cargo hold 2. Here we were able to make out a lot of the construction materials including cement bags (now stone), rolls of chain-link fencing, and a fully intact bulldozer sitting on its side. Swimming back up to the top (port side), the ship is hardly recognizable as corals and schools of angel fish have made themselves at home here. One cool phenomenon is the air volcanoes that are punctuated amongst the corals… continuously erupting bubbles left behind by the divers that swim through the ship!

Tangat
Later in the afternoon we visited our 2nd site called Tangat, named after the nearby island where this ship was sunk. This was another freighter, 122 meters long sitting in 30 meters of water. She’s sitting pretty much upright, so it’s a bit easier to see and recognize the different parts of the ship. Swimming through the holds, this time we saw other cargo items like oil drums and rolls of electrical wire… all a bit more recognizable as there seemed to be more light penetrating the ship.

Akitsushima
The next morning we headed to our 3rd wreck dive site: the Akitsushima. This is one of the few actual war ships that sunk in the area, and is classified as a sea-plane tender ship. This 4724 ton ship was 118 meters long and 16 meters wide and is now sitting on her port side in roughly 35 meters of water. This dive was great in that water visibility that day was actually fairly good, so we could get a better sense of the scale of the ship. Swimming around the exterior of the ship, there is quite a bit to see: anti-aircraft guns still pointed skyward, empty gun turret mounts, unexploded(!) bomb shells, bullets, and the enormous crane structure that still juts out sideways from the ship (the actual sea plane that it serviced was blown to smithereens). Swimming through the ship is amazing, as you can pretty much swim the entire length of the ship with little obstruction. Here, we encountered the larger-than-life Andrew for the first time (more below). While swimming through one of the central holds, I see this guy pop up below me… obviously lost. He looks left, then right, then up-down - basically all around… proceeds to give me the shrugging shoulders gesture, then heads off for the nearest porthole out of the ship. The funny part was seeing the divemasters shrugging their shoulders at each other trying to figure out who’s group he was with. Ahh Andrew… always going his own way.

Taiei Maru
Second dive of the day and 4th wreck dive in the area was the Taiei Maru: an oil tanker ship. This was definitely the biggest ship that we saw at 10,000 tons and 137 meters of length. She sits on her starboard side in around 25-30 meters of water. This dive was a bit of a nail biter, as we had some equipment issues plague us for most of the dive. We started off at the stern of the ship where there is a very small entrance hole through what used to be the propeller shaft. Ana and I were the last ones to try and enter the hole, and by the time we tried to go through, the divers in front of us had kicked up a lot of sediment within the passage: zero visibility. To make matters worse, Ana’s flashlight had decided to go out at that very moment leaving her in a bit of a panicked state. Trying to make my own way into the propeller shaft, all I saw was Ana backing out and swimming far away from the ship… she wanted nothing to do with that entry. So now I was in a bit of a pickle… Ana was slowly drifting away from me in the current, and the visibility wasn’t great so I was about to loose sight of her. I looked into the shaft, but already couldn’t see the divemaster or group’s lights ahead. I looked at my watch to see how long we had been down, but immediately realized that I had forgotten to set the timer. I looked at my depth gauge and saw it pegged at 20 meters which was definitely wrong… I was much deeper than that. So I was loosing Ana, had already lost the divemaster, and had no idea how deep I was and how long I had been underwater. Yikes! I was beginning to get in a bit of a panicked state myself. Fortunately, we were still outside of the ship. First step: don’t loose Ana! I got her attention, motioned her to swim back to me, and told her she was ok. She looked a bit uneasy still, but seemed to be doing just fine. Next I went back to the entry shaft and began to signal with my (still working) flashlight the side-to-side not ok signal. With any luck the divemaster would notice the two of us missing and come back to see what’s up. Which thankfully he did. He led us back to about mid-ship where the other two divers were waiting for us and we continued our dive… this time to a larger entryway and hold of the ship. This hold was way cool as it was about 3 stories high. Floating in the middle of this had a vertigo effect as you couldn’t really see the bottom or sides of the hull without a strong flashlight. As I exited the hold through a top porthole, I saw that Ana and the divemaster were having an energetic back and forth discussion pointing and looking at her air gauge. The next thing I know, they start swimming rather quickly back to the mooring line of the ship. When I catch up with them (a bit out of breath from swimming up current), I see that Ana’s air supply is below 50 bar… below the point that is considered out of air! I guess that she had been breathing rapidly the whole time after her initial scare, and had consumed much more air than normal. Now, running low on air is dangerous, but not unrecoverable. There are a couple of minutes of air left at 50 bar, and many backup safety mechanisms in place including my own secondary air supply. This did not stop me from full fledged panic anyway and soon I found myself hyperventilating: it took all of my focus just to control my own breathing. Not good. Back on the boat I think that Ana was even more calm than I was.

Not being satisfied with missing part of the dive and having my own little panic attack, I decided to go on this dive for a second time: this time on my own. My conditions on my own were not much better than Ana’s as I gave my working flashlight to my dive buddy… but at least all of my other gear was set and ready. Swimming through the propeller shaft was pretty scary as I could barely see my dive buddy’s light in front of me. Most of my swimming was by feel: reaching my hands out in front of me and feeling for obstacles ahead. After about 5 meters the tunnel opened up into a small hold in the middle of the ship: the engine room I think. You could still see some of the machine parts laying around. Below us was a small man-sized hole that led to an extremely dark chamber that I had no intention of going to: better left to divers with more bravado than me. Exiting the chamber was pretty exciting because the way out was actually up through a series of cargo holds that were blown apart by bomb blasts.

The Peeps
It’s amazing just how many people we met on our stay out here. There’s Tom and Mel from Australia, who we went diving with and met on the bus ride from the airport… There’s Rich and Christine from Virginia, who we we also went diving with… Aya, Arata: our friends from Japan who we spent New Years Eve with. Andrew, the talkative US expat now running a newspaper in Hong Kong, his wife Phoenix and his good friend Vincent who could bargain the dentures away from an old toothless woman… There’s Romain, the crazy base-jumping Frenchman and his Filipina companion Lois who met him couchsurfing in France. And that’s just the names I can remember: there were many, many more friendly faces that we encountered and met up with for drinks. All in all, Coron might have been the best stop that we had on this entire trip because of it’s laid back demeanor, great scenery, and cool people that we met along the way: locals and travelers alike. Plus, we finally found some lumpia from a woman selling them on the street. Man, I love lumpia!

Here is a map link to Coron in the Philippines: Click Here.

…and here are the photos (and videos) of our stay:
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Coron
http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Manila

Tags: Coron,Philippines,diving,shipwreck