little talks.

After trekking around the Long Pa'Sia jungle for 10 days, it was not time to go back into semi-civilisation. I say semi-civilisation because Long Pa'Sia is still ~4 hours away from the nearest town in a 4X4. Which sometimes sounds really long especially considering it being a very bumpy ride most of the way, but also doesn't sound that long when I think about all the 13hour journeys back and forth from the UK I have made.

So there we were with chairs that have a back, beds that we don't have to set up and toilets that we didn't have to dig. Only 10 days away from all of this and already we appreciated it that much more. Part of the trek phase is being able to spend one night in a homestay which meant that for one night and half a day, we had some delicious food which included fresh vegetables! and bananas and donuts. All seemingly simple things but definitely tasty nonetheless.

Lucy, Me, Stef and Bobbie.

That was us spending some time up on this hill overlooking the village. 

Lots of nice green leech free grass that we chilled on. 

Our guide Noor!

Can you see how grubby my shorts and shoes are.

Also I think my hair looks pretty good considering I bathed in the river and had no conditioner for the past 2 weeks. Just saying. 

Homestay may have been the shortest part of my whole 10 week experience, but it was also one of my best memories. 

We then set off at 7?am the next morning cause we were bound for KK. As the bus was driving through KK to drop us at the hostel (people who do trek/dive instead of dive/trek get to spend one night in KK! =D) looking out the window just seemed so surreal cause there were just so much going on that my past time in the jungle all seemed like a dream. 

Anyways, the hostel we got to was okay. It had a bed, a fan and showers so no complaints there seeing as we all knew we could survive with far far far less. Happy day for we got our dive bag! Basically since we had to pack as little as possible for trek we got to put anything else we wanted for the diving section of our phase in another bag. Woohoo for non-jungle smelling clothes and underwear!

That night we went to the Phillipino market in the city centre. It's basically one big pasar malam that sells food on one end and clothes/souvenirs/trinkets on the other end. Had a nice time browsing around and feeling like a normal person, not a crazy person who decided to spend 10 weeks in rural Sabah. 

Next morning we went to out classroom session for diving. Part of the Adventure phase is getting a diving certificate from PADI. So we spent most of that day going over all the theoretical stuff. After that we set off for Mamutik Island a.k.a Dive Island as Raleigh calls it. It is an island just off KK and also where Shangri-La takes their guests to so yeah, it's a pretty nice island with a clean beach and clean water. However, besides the houses for the people who work on the island there are actually no lodgings so it meant we were back in our hammocks. This time under one large tarp that is permanently there for Raleigh. 

We then spent the next 4 days learning all the basics of diving. It was all quite scary at first because honestly breathing under water is just such a foreign feeling. Most of the time my mind was just going "Am I breathing enough? Am I breathing too slowly? Too quickly?", so yeah breathing suddenly became something that required my concentration. Though by the the time I got my cert(Yup I passed!) breathing underwater came more naturally. We got a boat dive as the last thing we had to do to get a cert which was a super great experience. Got to go quite far down and while from the top it all looks dark and deep and scary, once I was down there it was really peaceful watching all the little fishys go by and sometimes it did feel like flying. 

We also did some underwater clean up on the last day as a way of giving back. You wouldn't believe how much rubbish just ends up at the bottom of the sea! We even found a shoe. Haha. 

All the following pics are from the Raleigh blog/Lucy because I didn't bother with any pics. 

Look at us all tanned and smiley!

Super heavy tanks. 

Getting ready to go under. 

Breakfast on the beach every morning. 

And that concludes my Adventure phase. Dive island was a great 'holiday' and all but I was getting a tad bored so was quite looking forward to the next phase. Back to basecamp for a whole new group and project!