The Trip of a Lifetime

Over 59,000km covered in 312 days; 83 cities and towns; 23 countries; 18 currencies; countless hostels, new friends, awesome dishes of food and beer consumed!

Two things I can say with pride are that during my time away I never once got food poisoning, despite never using hand sanitizer and eating all the street food I could find, and never had anything (of significance) stolen or lost! I can almost say I never missed a plane, bus, boat or train, if it weren't for that last night in Berlin partying until 7am before a 11am bus to Copenhagen...

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Now, watch this.

Scuba Diving South East Asia 2015 from Jason Dunsford on Vimeo.

One activity that I really never thought would appeal to me as much as it did was scuba diving. The feeling of being underwater and seemingly floating cannot be matched. Now that I have my own dive computer and mask I really just want to get more and more use out of them and dive everywhere that I can! However I do feel as though I was immensely spoilt by South East Asia.

Secondly, motorbikes.

Given my thrill-seeker nature, being on a motorbike is an immeasurably awesome way to get about. At home, my dad never let me get a motorbike, so when faced with the opportunity to buy one in Vietnam I jumped on it! You should have seen the massive smile on my face as I rode it for the first time on an open highway in Vietnam!

Travelling South East Asia by bike is also an awesome way to get off the beaten track and into areas where tourists do not usually venture, and you can be greeted by situations like these below!

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People say that travelling changes you. While the changes may often be subtle, I do tend to agree with it.

I started this trip with fears of my ability to walk into a hostel alone and make friends; while not always easy depending on the hostel, I have become much more adept at it! With this knowledge, I feel like the entire world has opened up to me - I do not have to rely on convincing another friend to travel with me, I can simply go it alone and go with the flow! On the other side of the same coin, I am also a lot more likely to go exploring or eating alone than ever before ... I even went to the cinema alone in Bangkok!

I've also started to care less about material things and things purely for show, and more about spending money on valuable experiences. Brand name clothing now does nothing for me as it did before. Things like ziplining at the Gibbon Experience, learning to scuba dive and diving throughout the Philippines came before staying in the fanciest hostel or hotels, eating at expensive restaurants, or buying new clothes to replace the worn out, same old tee I had been wearing for ten months straight!

I also learnt that, generally speaking, people are good. Those that stay in hostels often have similar mindsets to each other. People are easily approachable and are interested to hear what you have done, where you've been and where you're going. They also respect each other's property - leaving a phone out on charge on your bed does not mean it's going to get nicked!

I often get asked "so what next, where will you go?". After seven months in Asia and three in Europe the highest on my to-do list is actually more of Europe! Three months is no where near enough time to experience the culture that Europe has to offer - I missed out on Italy, Croatia and Greece; countries that I really wish I made it to. Next trip will be 4-6 months in these and Eastern Europe. Central and South America is high on the list also, but we'll see how that one pans out.

One piece of advice I can offer to anyone planning an extended trip such as mine - know that travel is exhausting. Although I had so many highs while away, there were definitely lows - saying goodbye to new friends never gets easy, for example. Changing hostels every few days, catching 10+ hour buses, meeting new people, unpacking and repacking your backpack, walking around a new city in search of food for the first time - it can all wear thin! 

I rarely missed home while on the road: I missed having a place to call home. The longest time I spent in one place was the week in London. Over the course of the trip I spent an average of 3.75 nights in each city - that's a LOT of moving about. I really loved staying with my American buddy Nelson's sister in Lisbon, it was the first time I had a couch to chill on in months! 

Unfortunately, I also occasionally fell into the trap of making comparisons - I got jaded by awesomeness. To many, the cable car ride in Hong Kong would offer amazing views - I couldn't help but compare it to the Gibbon Experience and thought "eh, its alright". It was a case of "Oh? Another stunning mountain-scape/waterfall/beach/church/temple/shrine/green curry" .. it became somewhat dulled. Breaking it up and taking time away from the hustle and bustle of adventure, to relax and reflect, is a valuable part of extended travel.

All said and done, it really was the trip of a lifetime - 2015 will forever be cherished as the year I had of pure, unadulterated, freedom. The fact that I spent a good portion of my house deposit, what I'd been saving for for four years prior since breaking into the workforce, doesn't phase me. I wouldn't trade last year for anything. Money comes and money goes, it's what you spend it on that matters.

Safe travels.

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If you haven't already, check out my summary posts after Asia and Europe.

Busting Bali

Better late than never.

After leaving Manila I jet setted over to the notorious Bali, Indonesia - the final stop on my adventure before home. The only reason I even bothered to go was that it was cheaper to fly Manila -> Bali -> Adelaide than Manila -> Adelaide, by a pretty considerable amount! Says something about Bali travel...

Rather than stay in Kuta, the home of drunk Australian tourists, I headed for the more chill Sanur on the East coast, and as soon as I arrived, I booked in diving for the next day!

I had read and wanted to check out Manta Point, often home to Manta ray, by the nearby island of Nusa Penida. I was not disappointed!

The dive boat was easily the flashiest I have been on, semi-enclosed fiberglass hulled speed boat that made the journey across to Nusa Penida faster than any other dive boat I'd been on! This was also the most expensive dive I'd done on my travels.

The second dive was nothing special - there was a small chance we would see the giant Mola Mola sunfish, but strong currents and poor visibility made this impossible. The third was a very relaxing 45 minute drift dive. It was seriously like being on an underwater rollercoaster - following the strong current in a floating position and watching the schools of fish and coral pass by!

Following the dive, I decided to rent a motorbike and cruise up to Ubud, home of the Monkey Forest. It was a rather fun ride up through the mountains to the hill town.

While there, I checked out a local temple and later caught a traditional performance show with a Canadian solo-traveller I started talking to at the Monkey Temple.

I returned the bike and decided to see what all the fuss was about, spending a night in a 4-star hotel in Kuta for a mere $40. It was easily the best accommodation I had on my 310 days of travel and a good send off for the trip. 

My last day I had an hour long $12 massage before catching my Jetstar flight home that night.

Cruising around Cebu

After arriving late in Cebu I checked into a hostel and posted up for the night. I had booked a hostel in Malapascua Island for the next day. Malapascua is a tiny little island off the northern tip of Cebu island, and is known for its thresher shark diving!

To get to Malapascua from Cebu, you catch a (non-airconditioned) local bus to the northern tip of Cebu taking about 6 hours, to a town called Maya, and jump on a ferry across to the island, another 45 minutes.

I arrived at the hostel I booked, Villa Sandra, and was instantly welcomed by some of the other backpackers that called this place their home. It turned out to be a very social hostel - it was very small, so everyone hung out together in a big group ... and almost all were solo travellers like myself.

One of the guys that was living at the hostel was a dive instructor at a school on the island, so I was showed by a few of the girls where the shop was on their way to the beach and locked in some dives for the next day!

As mentioned earlier, Malapascua is the best place in the world to see Thresher Shark. These sharks usually live at around 200m in the depths, but one dive site here, Monad Shoal, is a cleaning station for the sharks. What this means is that most mornings the sharks venture up to around 30m depths and have other fish and shrimp eat any parasites inside and outside the sharks body - a crazy symbiotic relationship!

This cleaning starts very early in the morning - the dives are scheduled for around a 5am departure!

The first dive I went out, descended to the rope line to watch the sharks at 30m ... and nothing. Not one diver from any of the shops spotted a shark that day!

I did two more dives that day at different sites, spotting the usual clownfish, lion fish and puffer fish. One of the more unique creatures spotted on this dive is the frog fish - a rather unimpressive looking creature but apparently is one of the fastest moving creatures in the world!

Also saw a decent sized moray eel hiding out under one of the corals...

The final dive of the day was rather uninteresting. The site had been used for dynamite fishing in the past, so the area is like a graveyard, scattered with dead fish!

The following day I did the thresher shark dive again at Monad Shoal and was lucky enough to see one!

That day a bunch of people from the hostel I had been hanging out with decided they were leaving Malapascua to travel down to Moalboal and go canyoning - similar to what I had done in Dalat, Vietnam months earlier. After talking to the dive shop. the dives I wanted to do didn't have enough numbers so I made the decision to go with everyone else down to Moalboal.

We hired a private minibus to take us there - arriving around 8 hours later, sore and cramped!

Rather than describe the experience, watch the video below made by the resident Dutch guy in the group, Niels Kok. 

We ended the day in Moalboal with a few drinks down one of the nicer restaurants in the area - it has a quite of bit of tourism so choices are ample. 

The next day the six of us caught another bus to the southern tip of Cebu island where the others headed by ferry to another island, while I went up to Oslob to swim with whale sharks!

While I would have preferred to come across a whale shark diving in the wild, Oslob is a place where it is all but guarenteed to witness these beasts. Just off the shore in Oslob is an area where every day the whale sharks are fed, and every day they come to eat - not following their usual migration patterns!

After the whale shark experience I headed back up to Cebu City where I spent a few days relaxing - eating, shopping, watching movies etc. Every now and again I got into moods where I wanted to forgo site-seeing and relax, and given there isnt much to do in Cebu this was achievable!

From Cebu I flew back to Manila for a couple days for more time-wasting before flying over to Bali, Indonesia, my final stop before heading home!

Perusing Palawan

From Hong Kong I flew into Manila for a couple nights before jetting over to Coron on a little prop-plane, on the northern tip of Palawan island (the Western-most island of the Philippines).

Coron itself, while a relatively popular tourist destination, is just a tiny little port town without much to offer. It's streets are few, and hostel life is almost non-existent. Seahorse, where I stayed however, had a spectacular view from the rooftop.

It is known for its island hopping and shipwreck diving... and the diving did not disappoint!

Home to a bunch of WWII Japanese vessels, there is a lot of underwater history going on here. 

To get myself back into the swing of diving, I chose to do three reef dives before tackling the wrecks. The first dive was to Barracuda Lake, a thermocline'd lake made up of 30% salt and 70% fresh water. As you descend down into the water, at about the 20m mark, the water temperature changes from 29c on the surface to a bath-water-like 38c below!

The dive site gets its name from a lonely barracuda that hangs out here. I managed to observe him cruising past, as if to check us out, before a few minutes later swam right through the dive master's legs!

The other two reef dives yielded the usual suspects - colourful corals, angel fish, clown fish and good visibility.

The next day I began my wreck diving with Irako and Kogyo Maru.

Being an SSI Advanced Open Water diver I am certified to depths of 30m and have done the shipwreck diving speciality, allowing me to explore these vessels. They push that to the limit in Philippines ...

... penetrating the ship to depths of 38 metres!

Outside the ship you can see the surrounding marine-life and coral growing on the seventy year old wreck...

... while the inside is darkness requiring a torch, save for the various portholes and windows scattered around the hull. 

Kogyo Maru was my favourite of the wreck dives I did, for the fact that it had very impressive coral growth across its portside. Huge cabbage coral and schools of yellowtail snapper cruising about. 

The next day we headed across to the other side of Coron via bus to dive the Kyokozan Maru wreck - the biggest ship in Coron. In the region of 180m long, the wreck requires two dives to explore it!

The dive was a fun test of buoyancy, featuring a few rather narrow doorways and spaces we had to swim through!

Inside the ship you could see old remnants of wartime transport... (if you look closely you can see the wheels and engine block of a car)

While the ships humongous masts had some beautiful marine life hanging around, like the lethal lion fish below.

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After these dives it was time to leave Coron and head over to El Nido. I was accompanied by an American couple I met in Manila, Alex and Jaime, on the six hour ferry across, along with an Aussie guy we met at the hostel the night before. Luckily the waters were relatively calm, but the boat sure made a hell of a noise!

After finding a place to crash, the four of us jumped in a tricycle and headed to Las Cabanas beach...

... to have a couple beers and watch the sunset.

Later on I found a dive shop to continue my diving holiday that is the Philippines!

The dive sites in El Nido easily had the most spectacular visibility of anywhere I have dived to date. Easy 20-30m, clear blue water. 

The highlight of any of my dives in El Nido was seeing my first sea turtle! The way they move through the water so gracefully was amazing to see.

But the incredible diving didn't stop with the turtle. Another cool creature I can add to my list was the cuttle fish we spotted!

As well as another massive school of snapper...

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I took a break after the days diving to go stay at Nacpan Beach, a small town 45 minutes ride away from the main El Nido centre. It was just a quiet beach with not many people around, and a small hill that offered some nice photo opportunities!

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After Nacpan I headed back into town for my last day, and more diving.

This dive we spotted an octopus hiding in a crack in the corals...

And even more huge schools of fish!

Swimming right up close to this school made me realise how much attention the fish pay to divers. Depending on how you act around them, they will either let you get really close, or just turn as one pack and swim away from you. Very calm and steady movement and controlled exhalation meant that you can get much closer than I'd been before. One quick exhale and they'd react immediately, it was very interesting!

After the diving I checked into my new hostel, one of the more social hostels in El Nido called Hakuna Matata. There I met a bunch of people and we ended up going out for dinner together to a local restaurant that served fresh seafood!

The place had a huge tray of ice and fresh fish of all different varieties. I ended up sharing a huge tuna with one of the girls - this thing would have had at least two kilos of meat on it and only cost $20AUD! 

To accompany the fish, we got a few plates of fresh mussels (14 for a mere $5AUD) which were beyond incredible. Melted cheese and garlic sauce baked mussels. 

This meal more than rounded off my last night in El Nido and Palawan, a much needed dose of meat! We later went out to the only bar in town and partied well into the night.

The next morning I jumped on the six hour minibus to Puerto Princesa to fly over to Cebu, ending my time in Palawan - and what a time it was!