Travelling around the city is not that tricky, the metro is properly translated everywhere, the buses are ok as long as you have a general clue as to which direction you’re supposed to go. Err, obviously I don’t, yet, but my flatmate and guide, Jussi, has a handy compass in his watch. Buying stuff in shops are also not too hard, point at something, give them your wallet and hope you don’t get scammed. Now, eating is bit harder! You go into a likely looking restaurant, you sit down and get a whole pile of menus, and if you’re lucky one of them will have a translated part. Lunch is usually taken care of around 2pm onwards and most places have a special tea-menu, a choice of a few dishes, maybe a soup and drink included. The tea-menu is certainly the cheapest option, but most of the time that one is not translated! Jussi is quite a bit braver than me, I’m particularly picky when it comes to lunch, the most important meal of the day! Anyway, Jussi just points at option 1 and smiles. And then you wait and see what you get. We call this game the Lunch Roulette. I haven’t played yet.

I have to confess that I’m loving the food here though, soup noodles, fried rice/noodles, lots of lovely vegetables, seafood, dumplings and what-have-you, fantastic! And tomorrow we’re going for proper dim sum for the first time, I can’t wait! Sorry Philippines, you haven’t got a finger on HK in the food department, you certainly win in the diving department though, so don’t cry.

One of the reasons I decided to come here was that Jussi is pretty active in this big group of adventurous people that go climbing, diving, hiking and similar things every week. The day after I arrived here I bought some climbing gear and shakily got back on a climbing wall again, around 17 years since I did it last time… I didn’t quite make it to the top that day but getting all the way up is my number one priority for tomorrow morning!

Last weekend we also went pretty far out in the HK archipelago and went camping! Jussi bought a whole load of camping gear and somehow I ended up with the only tent in the whole group… aaaaaand it started raining halfway through the night! I did get some looks when I climbed out of the tent next morning, all dry and comfortable. We also went diving out there, no the most amazing dives I’ve done but we still saw some pretty cool stuff down there in the murk. Some of the divers are going to do a few tech courses over winter and I’m going to join in, more mixed gases and additional tanks, very exciting! Deeper and longer!

Once again I’ve been lucky and managed to get a three-month freelance contract, if I behave and don’t spend all the money in HK I should be able to make the earnings last for quite some time in Indonesia or Philippines just goofing around. I seriously need to figure out what I want to do in the long run now, and I can’t see a better way to do that than by doing sweet FA for a nice long time…

About a month ago I went back to Sweden to attend my cousins wedding, it was an absolutely stunning event in the Stockholm archipelago, something I would happily base my own wedding upon if I ever get to that day… A beautiful setting by a lake and perfect weather, perfect. Also a good opportunity to meet all the family again! The only problem I could see was the great selection of alcohol offered, it was impossible to chose! My brother went over to make a drink but came back after 10 minutes with a beer instead… All in all a very nice day. And a big thank you to Annika and Pelle for letting me stay at your place!

I also spent some time with my brother which we haven’t done for a while, always something I look forward to! He’s slowly restoring his house to a level it has never seen before, and it’s looking great. He just needs to speed things up a bit so he can come and visit me soon!

I also managed to go and visit some old and new friends during my brief time in Sweden… Linn, say hi to your dad and Eva from me. Hanna, scratch Signe’s tummy from me! Roland and the rest of the ‘punks’, just keep doing what you’re doing.

After my brief visit to Sweden I managed to swing past London as well to visit even more friends and sort out some bits and pieces to do with my flat and meet up with IG to arrange this contract. Thank you to Liz and Damian for your very comfortable naughty room, Damian, I hope you’re happy with your new 3GS! Also big thank you to the Curry Crew; Sarah & Jon, Charlie & Allan, Ben & Lucy (in spirit), always true to the Standard!

The strangest thing with this Euro-trip was coming back to Cebu, it was like I hadn’t been away at all, but my brain was going ‘Hold on, we were in Europe just now, right?’. I arrived back at Kasai around ten past two and 20 minutes later I was on the diveboat going out for the afternoon dive. I backrolled into the water with an empty bcd and luckily I had remembered to stick my reg in my mouth! Just a touch too confident perhaps…

See, I spend a lot of time in front of the computer, and lately it’s been a laptop on not so userfriendly and ergonomic tables and chairs, so I’ve developed an amazing array of knots and other bad things in my back that I decided to get rid of once and for all. I also managed to slip on a wet floor and smack my left elbow hard which messed up my shoulder a bit so I’m now getting a pretty serious massage two-three times a week. That also helps for the seriously knackered arms and shoulders you get from surfing…

And I just can’t get enough of the surfing, it’s just so insanely pleasing to catch a nice break! Surfing is weird though, I only have the energy to surf for like two hours at a time, and most days only once per day. You want to catch the middle-to-high tide for the best surf and thus have to schedule your day around whenever that happens. Like going up at 4.30am and hobbling out to the breaks while rubbing the salt from your eyes… and going out at 4.30pm and enjoying some night surfing trying to catch that very last break before it goes completely dark and you can’t even the sea the whitewater of the waves… Today it’s a more decent 11am high-tide and the second high-tide happens after sunset. But the afternoon low-tide is a very high one so you can surf all afternoon! It’s all very complicated and there’s a lot of science behind all this to do with the moon and tides and out-at-sea-weather and all that jazz, so of course instead we use a website like Magicseaweed to keep track of it all for us.

Back on track, surfing VS work schedule. So you know you have to get up early tomorrow to surf so you lock yourself in your room and turn the lights off so no-one will come and drag you down to the bar. Get up really early, surf until you basically can’t lift your arms over waist-height and go get breakfast. Now, this is the point where I should be starting to work. What do you think happens? I go back to bed, read my book and fall asleep again. Wake up mid-afternoon and wonder what happened. Rest of the day is a write-off of course and then the beer-drinking starts again to forget that nothing has been done today either.

Cheers!

Sitting just outside of the point where the waves start breaking, looking out over the sea for the next wave that will either carry you gracefully, albeit with a silly grin on your face, all the way to the shore, or plant said face under the surface of the water and roll it around like the deathroll of a giant croc. One of those two things. In my case, mostly the latter. But the count is swinging, ever so slowly, but swinging it is.

Today I caught my ever first proper wave, not just riding in the whitewater after the wave has broken but actually on the top of the wave, even doing small turns back and forth!

Anyway, the topic for today isn’t really supposed to be about surfing at all, instead we’ll be talking about my journey to get here. For some odd reason I decided to bring my motorbike with me which meant that I would travel by ferry instead of flying. The journey itself was not really that tricky; ride the bike to Cebu City, catch a ferry to Surigao del Norte and then another ferry to Siargao Island. No biggie.

To start with I’m not really that keen on riding the motorbike longer stretches in ‘high’ speed, I’m very much aware that I’m wearing WAY less protection than needed and also very much aware that the added surprise factor caused by chickens/dogs/goats/pigs/children running across the roads in this country is not a great combination with low protection. Mother, just to confirm, top speed around here is around 60-70km/h due to bad roads and your son being very sensible. Pretty much never higher than 80. Ok, maybe 90 sometimes but it’s very rare! Still, fall off the bike at 60 and you almost certainly wont die, you probably wont break anything, but you will for sure lose a remarkable portion of skin since you’re only wearing shorts and flip-flops. Which is why I was wearing hiking shoes. For that extra 2% protection.

Anyway! The ride was actually quite pleasant, it had been raining a lot just before my planned departure, a typhoon named Jolina was passing by in the vicinity, and in the morning of my actual departure it was literally tipping it down but an hour or so before I left the rain stopped! Luckily the chickens/dogs/goats/pigs/children were not convinced about the drought and mostly stayed indoors. Fine with me.

I had been in touch with the resort where I’m now staying, Ocean 101, and they had given me all the ferry info I needed and it was now time to get my tickets for the first crossing. I knew the name of the company and a rough timetable; leaving 7pm and arriving around 5am next morning. Off I went to their main offices and it turns out to be a proper shipping company, not really a ferry dealio at all. So I had to stand in line to have the all the paperwork for the motorbike to be shipped and during the continued almost comical conversation the staff behind the counter took pity on my non-knowledge about these matters and also sorted my personal ticket for me so I didn’t have to stand in line for that as well.

And now we start with the real topic; paper. I left that office with one ticket in four copies for the motorbike, and one ticket in 3 copies for me. And receipts and gate-passes and taxes and whatnot for each set of tickets.

Then I went to the actual port and had to go to two different windows to pay several odd port-related fees, I have no clue what they were, maybe rope-wear-and-tear… or water-displacement tax… and received two or three receipts and copies from each window. I think one of them also kept back one of the ticket copies but all this was already getting quite complicated…

Now on to get the motorbike and myself onto the actual ship, where several bits of paper were passed back and forth and I think they kept a few pieces again and I was given a confirmation about said transfer.

Ok, do you all remember I mentioned a typhoon a bit earlier? Scroll up to the section about the actual departure and you’ll find it, don’t worry, I’ll be right here until you’re back. Well, as I was getting on the ship I texted my mate Lee to say that this ship was pretty crazy and he quickly managed to slip in that he’d checked the weather and something about me being a braver man… Denial is not only a river in Egypt, it’s also a very strong feature in my personality.

The crossing was no problems at all, I did wake up a few times in my impressively small bunk and at first not really remembering where I was and what the hell I was doing there, but I guess the several beers had something to do with that. A trick my dear brother taught me to make flying that much more enjoyable; get pissed before take-off. Also works for rough ferry-crossings.

Upon arrival in Surigao I knew I’d have a good few hours to slay before the next ferry took off so I was in no hurry at all but I still managed to get quite fed up with the incredibly lazy people working in that port! First they neglected to tell me that I had to go and pay some bogus fee, then they informed me that I had to actually pay two separate bogus fees in two separate windows that just happened to be quite far between. Many many bits of paper ensued. After finally managing to convince the porters to release my motorbike the guard at the exit of the port almost managed to make me upset when he said that the very first window I’d been to pay the first bogus fee had completely forgotten to let me pay a third bogus fee that would let me leave the premises! After I had a minor explosion the guard realised that I was actually just leaving to go buy a new ticket to leave just a few hours and let me get out without paying. Nice man. Saved him from being assaulted.

More tickets, more receipts, more bogus fees and then I was on the ferry to Siargao, a four hour crossing. All in all I must have held on to at least 30 pieces of paper for this journey, most of which I’ve handed back to different officials, I only have two or three left! The total cost for this one way travel is just under the return fare for the flight. A flight that takes about 50 minutes compared to a total of about 22 hours of rough seas and uncompromising handlers of small bits of paper.

At least I’m sure a whole bunch of unlucky office-workers will have to sort through all these bits of paper and have to arrange them and then re-arrange them, staple them together, remove staples and arrange again to finally be filed in a folder somewhere. A good few days work all in all! So I’ve been helping the economy along the way! Or maybe they just burn the lot and really couldn’t care less…

Next time I’m flying, damn it.

So with a slight headache we went out for the last dive on the housereef this morning. If I just wouldn’t have been so nauseous it would have been just great, a nice send-off. I kind of just wanted to get back on land and have a big greasy breakfast…

How about some stats? Well, in 7 months in Kasai I’ve done 219 dives in total, 83 on the housereef and 53 on Pescador Island, managing to spot a whaleshark, a nice proper look at a few whitetip reefsharks, uncountable turtles, robust ghost pipefish, leaf ghost pipefish, shrimps and crabs of all kinds, fantastic nudibranchs and finally a sea pen! Not too bad, but I was hoping for more dives… My total is a bit over 800 now, the goal was definitely to break the 1000 limit during my stay here… but hey, it’s been great!

I haven’t done nearly enough freediving though, but I’m bringing my fins and I’m hoping to freedive regularly in Siargao, the goal there is to see a dugong!

So long Kasai, see you around!

The restaurant here has been the weakest link for a while and we’ve now had the Filipino version of Gordon Ramsay around (same result, just way less swearing and no firing of people yet) and he’s done quite a few changes and has been holding training sessions in all kinds of subjects. One was cocktail making and I managed to wander in just as it finished and got all the leftovers. Nice, shame all I wanted was dinner… Oh well, you take what you get, eh?

Had a chat with Filipino-Gordon the other day and he was saying that they would be using all the tricks to make the food service a memory the guests would take with them home. Literally. The plan is that every guest should gain around 2kg during a one week stay! So we’ve now got all this nice food served in massive buffets, and we’re encouraged to eat with the guests, being social and all that jazz and I’m absolutely stuffing myself…

One thing I’ve been really missing here in the Philippines is proper bread, the local population doesn’t really eat that much bread on a general basis and if we don’t have European or American guests we don’t have nice bread here. Usually I’m eating pancakes for breakfast, which is actually a rather small breakfast, at least compared to what I’m wolfing down right now… Now we’ve got the absolutely fantastic German Bread, a quite thick whole-wheat jobbie that works a treat with fried eggs, bacon and ham on it.

I think I’m going to ban myself from the restaurant, and just eat rice and dried fish with the local staff. Hmm, maybe I’ll just swap the fish for a bunch of bacon. And some deep fried chicken legs. And…

I’ve been a very quick reader my whole life, mainly because of the fact that I don’t actually read all the words but skim quite a bit when the upcoming block of text looks too dense and lacking in the interesting department. (I think that is also one reason why I always write in relatively short paragraphs, to not let anyone else skim whatever I’ve written!) Whenever the storyline just doesn’t make sense anymore I just go back and reread the too heavily skimmed parts… This also means that I can read a book several times and still enjoy it every time!

One of my favorite childhood authors was Roald Dahl, I read several of his fantastic books but todays entry is obviously about the BFG, the Big Friendly Giant. So I’m 184 centimeters tall, I would say that’s kind of average northern European. Well, I’m absolutely freaking huge here in the Philippines! And sometimes it really feels like being the monkey in the cage with people looking as you wander past.

But the people here are absolutely lovely, and I feel very relaxed and comfortable here, so I’m usually walking around with a big silly grin on my face, thus the connection to todays entry.

So my time in Kasai Village is drawing to an end, I’m working until the end of this month and then I’m going surfing in Siargao for six weeks. To top things off we are going to have a pretty full house here the last two weeks before I leave, one group of 12 divers for one week followed by a group of 9 divers the week after.

It turned out that Rolieta, another staff here in Kasai, had the same birthday as me so we managed to shake up most of the staff here and roll down to White Beach for some beers and music. Obviously it was raining but still quite enjoyable!

I’m typing this entry, together with all other online activities over the last few days on my iPod Touch, possibly the best gadget I’ve ever owned. The basic music playing features on it are the best I’ve come across but what really makes clever little piece of gadgetry a master in it’s class is when you start adding small additional applications to it that you can download from the Internet, most of the great ones you have to pay a dollar or so for but there’s loads of fun and practical ones for free as well. All this isn’t really new but as usual I’m a rather slow starter with all this and this little excursion is the first time I’ve really used it to it’s full potential. I guess the fact I usually have my laptop with me has a lot to do with it…

So I’ve now got Facebook and, more importantly for this entry, Wordpress installed on it. Wordpress is the software I use to write this blog… So I’m in this hammock, tapping away, and when I wander over to the restaurant, where there’s wifi Internet, it will upload the entry to my blog. Ta-daa!

In the beginning I wasn’t sure about the rather small keyboard, which is a bit fiddly to use even for my rather normal-sized fingers, but with the very clever auto-correction and just a bit of practice you’re soon up to comfortable typing speed again.

So I’ve got the iPod version and Apple has just announced the new iPhone 3GS, which apart from the obvious phone functionality has quite a few more useful features that makes it very interesting for me, specially being able to use it to make Skype calls for free whenever I’m connected to the Internet. As long as I don’t need to do any actual development work I can do everything I need to do online on it!

iPhone here I come!

Almost all the breaks here are reef breaks and previously I’ve only surfed beach breaks, which is sandy bottom. This place has several nicknames; The Cheesegrater, Madness and so on, so of course we were a touch apprehensive when we first went out but it was actually not that bad. I guess the fact that the waves were fairly small and coming at a relatively slow interval had quite a bit to do with it!

There’s a long wooden jetty with a observation deck on the end that serves as judges lookout for the annual international surfing competition that’s held in late September each year. So you walk out this jetty, down some really flimsy steps into the water and then paddle a few hundred meters out to where the breaks start. You spend a lot of time lying down on your board paddling, and already this morning the bottom of my ribs were absolutely killing me , and that was after just an hour of surfing yesterday! Right now I’ve actually got bruises over my ribs…

Quite a bit of time is also spent sitting on your board on the outside of the breaking point gazing out at sea looking for that promising swell. When you see a wave you like the look of you quickly, ahem, turn your board around, lie down and start paddling as hard as you can, let the wave catch you and then push yourself up and then try to stand up. If you manage to get up and ride it you’ll be grinning from ear to ear, otherwise you just try to hide your shame, get back on your board and paddle out again.

On the subject of ‘quickly turning’ your board, and also about getting out of the way when someone else is hurtling towards you at rather high speed on top of a wave, well, let’s just say I’m learning, and saying sorry a lot to the more experienced guys whose ride I just screwed up…

If you manage to get out really early you can beat the crowd but at around 10 it’s starting to get rather crowded, easily 30 or more people hassling each other for the same wave. The area with decent waves is only about a hundred meters or so wide so sometimes it gets a bit hectic. This morning some guy just managed to dive under this little kid who didn’t manage or possibly wasn’t trying to get out of the way.

During the next two days I’m going out there as many hours as I can manage, aching ribs or not!