Technically our second stop in China, Hong Kong is a separate administrative state within China, which lucky for us doesn’t require a visa.  The city is spread between an archipelago south of the Pearl River and is centered around Victoria Harbor.  The Harbor is essentially a strait between Hong Kong Island to the south and Kowloon to the north.  The city is very cosmopolitan with lots of cultural activities surrounded by beautiful vistas and lots of nature.  My impression of Hong Kong was basically China light; we were able to talk to people in English and it had a very western feel likely due to it’s history as a British colony ending with a return to China in 1997.  Of all the cities we have been to it reminds me of NYC the most, even though no city can really be compared to New York.

We rented another Airbnb, it was a little apartment in the Tin Hau neighborhood on the island of Hong Kong, we entered the apartment through this small stairs entry that was used by a young man selling toys during the day, every little space is used for commerce here.  The apartment had enough space for us to sleep and eat and do school, so it was perfect.  The kitchen was out the back door and into an unconditioned space. We assumed this was typical for China.

Our first day in Hong Kong we settled in to do some school, Maddy completed some work and then we went out to explore Victoria Park, which was two blocks from our apartment. It has a huge sports complex with swimming, tennis and a huge garden abutting the coast. We played on a few play grounds and exercise parks before heading home.  That night we went out to eat then took a ride on the Ferris wheel along the bay and stayed for ice cream and a laser light show that had lights coordinated between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.  The light show was less than impressive.

Our second day we completed school and visited a science museum and stopped by the Bruce Lee statue over near Kowloon Bay where Bruce Lee was raised.

The next day after finishing school we split up the girls and rode a tram up and down the island; Caroline and I toured hidden valley and counted Teslas (there are tons of them).  We got off at the western market.  It was a bit of a dud if you ask me except for the fabric level which my mother would have loved. Afterwards we walked to an antique souvenir street where Caroline and I had fun looking at all the touristy antiques, but we didn’t buy anything other than a replica 1950’s map of Hong Kong.

The next day we went out to Shek-O beach and met up with one of Maddy’s friends from business school and her family and another family with kids of similar ages. We played on the beach for a while then got dinner with the families before grabbing a taxi to the other side of the island.

The next day we headed to the “The Peak” the highest point in Hong Kong and of course had take the tram up to the top and attempt some hiking.  The views from the top were amazing.  We actually took a bus up to the top and then rode the tram down as was recommended by our friends.  The kids got some well deserved ice cream at the top but we didn’t get tickets for the 360 degree cantilevered outlook probably just as well.

Our last day before leaving Hong Kong we visited the Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha. We rode the subway out to Lantau Island before hoping on a gondola lift out to the monastery.  It was one of the most beautiful monasteries I have ever seen… sorry Uncle Paul, yours is pretty awesome too.

The day after Maddy’s birthday we set off from Oslob to the dive resort of Polaris on the island of Cabilao just off the coast of Bohol in the Philippines.  We hired a driver from the place we stayed in Oslob and drove about an hour and a half north to Argao where we were to meet the boat that took us to the island.

It took a few tries to find the right place where the Polaris boat docked but we finally found it.  We grabbed some lunch and waited for the boat to depart.  They were about to shove off when our friends Sharon and Scott showed up looking very tired.  They had told us about this resort so we were glad to see them, we had arranged to meet up when we were all in Koh Lanta, Thailand.  We found out from them that they had been up most the night flying to Cebu with sick kids and then got up early to get their daughter’s fever check for Dengue.  They were in Koh Lanta with us so they have a healthy appreciation for Dengue as well, but all was negative and all they needed was a couple nights rest.

We got to the resort and it was amazing; gorgeous palm trees, turquoise waters, a pool and a nice area for the kids to run wild.  It was a great spot to relax and unwind for a bit.  They also had great diving just off the coast, some of the best coral wall diving, I’ve ever done.

They advertise lots of micro sea-life, not too much big stuff is left in the waters, due to over fishing.  So we got lots of pictures of the smallest most interesting crabs and shrimp you have ever seen.

 

 

We did see a few turtles and we heard that some other friends that joined us later (Charlotte and Jasper) saw a whale shark during their dive, So jealous.  We ate at the resort restaurant for most of our meals and the kids enjoyed the food, chicken fingers and spaghetti mostly.  I’m sure the kitchen enjoyed all the special request from the kids.  Day in the life I guess.

We were there for 10 days and it was really gorgeous weather the whole time, the sunsets were incredible almost every night.  We did venture out and go on a tour on the neighboring island of Bohol to visit the Chocolate Hills that was recommended by my friend Jen Dyen.  The hills were a mostly green (they look brown during the dry season) but other than that they were beautiful.  They are a limestone formation that eroding in a very interesting way.

We visited a butterfly museum, a hanging bridge and a tarsier sanctuary.  The kids loved visiting the tarsiers, they are really tiny nocturnal primates that have huge eyes.  There were only a few for us to see on the path in the preserve but we were able to see 6 of them.  They were so tiny and cute, one even woke up to show us his eyes.

They rest of the time we enjoyed swimming, school, scuba and sunsets at Polaris.  It was a perfect spot for the kids to run free and collect hermit crabs, have treasure hunt or play chess (on the huge chess board).  We were certainly sad to leave the island and our friends there but Hong Kong awaits.  So long to southeast Asia, only one month left on our journey.

We grabbed a taxi outside our apartment and headed to the airport in KK and met a very interesting American in line at the airport.  He was an older gentleman by the name of Johnny who went from island to island in South East Asia spreading his Christian ideals.  He showed us pictures of his boat and how it got destroyed in a Typhoon and that he was on his way to the Philippines to get a flying boat.   It turns out he was trying to purchase a very small one prop/one wing boat for his travels.  It sounded like a recipe for disaster to me, but to each their own.  We chatted with him on the plane and said farewell once we got to Manila.  We heard later that he was not able to purchase his plane.  Just as well.

We passed through customs no problem and actually they stamped my passport on the first page, meaning that they didn’t take up any of the last few spot in my passport.  I only have ten, maybe twelve spots left in my passport and we have at least three countries to go (six more stamps) so this was the break I needed just in case we ran into a customs agent having a bad day and decided not to let me into a country because of my limited pages.  We exited the international gates and took a bus around to domestic but after having no trouble getting tickets or passing through security we got delayed getting to our Cebu flight.  At one point they told us we were delayed 4 hours but it ended up only being delayed 2 hours.  We had fun with the crazy bus in the airport and had a crappy pizza dinner, ah travel.

Once we arrived in on the island of Cebu in Cebu city we hopped a taxi and checked into our hotel for the night above a seven-eleven.  This seven-eleven just happened to be the party spot in the neighborhood, after putting the kids to bed and arranged our car for the next day I popped down for some breakfast supplies and I found a party going on.  There was about 20-30 young people drinking and chatting and buy stuff from the store.  They were well behaved, and you couldn’t hear them from our room so…. carry on.

The next day our driver was very prompt, actually he was two hours early.  We finished our breakfast and packed up our stuff and then took off an hour ahead of schedule, and sat in traffic on our way to Oslob a town near the southern tip of Cebu island.  Once we fully got out of Cebu City the traffic eased up and we began to see the beauty of the Philippines.  Lots of palm trees, green hills, turquoise waters and white sandy beaches.   We were back on the ring of fire after a quick pit stop in Borneo, bringing us more volcano vistas.

We checked into Saschas Resort near the town of Oslob, we booked the place because it had a pool with a slide where the kids could play and the adults could sit and enjoy the ocean.  The place was great except that it was half under renovations, but in our usual laid back style we didn’t let it bother us.  We were only there for 4 nights anyway.

Our second day there was filled with finishing school and lots of relaxing and pool time after the last couple days of travel.  I also was making last minute preparations for Maddy’s birthday.  We had dinner in the small town of Oslob, there was only a few places to eat or at least only a few that would suit us.  It looked like most of the locals ate from the barbecues that were set up on the main road.  The girls took a look at the grills and decided against all the varieties of fish and meat that were on offer, so we ended up with pizza.

The next day we went on a tour of the local water fall, which was a few miles down the road.  We took one of the ever present motorcycles with a large metal side car.  The five of us piled in and then had to transfer to two single motor bike to make it up the hill to the water fall, we then had a ½ mile hike into the jungle.  It was worth the effort, the water fall was amazing, very cold water but the blue hues and streams of tumbling water was mesmerizing.  The girls got a bit cold because we were in the shade the entire time so we didn’t stay more than ½ hour.  We had dinner at our resort and reserved our car for the swimming with whale sharks the next morning.

We got up at 5:30am on Maddy’s birthday, not much after dawn and roused the kids, we threw on our clothes, ate a bit of banana bread and headed 5 miles south where lots of people began converging.  Our driver helped us to navigate through the lines people.  We acquired a mask and snorkel, signed in and then started looking for our assigned boat.  We also got a bit of instruction about staying outside of a 3 meter buffer zone with the sharks and that we were not allowed to apply sunscreen, because the chemicals bother the whale sharks.

We finally boarded our boat and paddled out to the viewing area, our boat was part of a “U” shape with 5-6 other boats in a stationary formation and then several other boats feeding the sharks started moving on the outside of the “U” and we began to see the sharks.  We jumped into the water and got our first view of the largest non-mammal vertebrates in the world.  Even the babies were 15-20 feet long and the biggest was 30-35 feet.  It was hard not to image them just swimming over and swallowing you, but of course they are very gentile creatures and only eat tiny krill.  The kids all jumped in and got a view, and were surprisingly brave, and were gushing about how amazing it was once we were done.

Even though the limited 30 minute experience was incredible, both Maddy and I were left with a bit of an empty feeling with the staged nature of the shark viewing.  We both agreed that we would love to have a spontaneous encounter with one of the whale sharks on a dive.  The whale sharks are only allowed to be fed in this manor for half the day and then find food for themselves in the afternoon to allow for natural behavior.  Once we finished we bought some donuts from a little stand with Nutella filling, a tasty cherry to our shark Sunday.

We were finished and back to our hotel by 7am, and felt we had a whole day adventure and didn’t know what to do with ourselves.  So we had breakfast, more pool time and gave Maddy some birthday love.  We lounged around, until around 11am then went out to lunch at a restaurant in the town and walked around the local basilica.  After we had our fill of walking and sun we headed back to our pool, by this time the cake that I had ordered had arrived and we drank a bit of bubbly to celebrate Maddy and gave her a few presents.  We finally ate our cake by the ocean and relaxed around the pool and enjoyed an amazing day of sun and sea.

The next day we packed up our things to travel to the island of Cabilao just across the channel from Cebu toward Bohol.  This is where we were to meet our friends Sharon and Scott and enjoy 10 days of relaxing and diving.

Borneo was not even on our itinerary on the trip but after recommendation and research we decieded to head there after Bali.  We chose Kota Kinabalu to fly into and decided we would explore from there.  We wanted to see Sandikan and visit orangutans in the wild but we decided the kids needed a break from fast travel and stayed in KK for our entire 10 days on Borneo.  This happened last year when we slowed down our travel the last two months staying in each place for no less than 10 days to 2 weeks.  We also were happy to have a kitchen and a proper refrigerator and freezer for the first time in months.  We cooked our own food for most of the time while in Borneo.

After relaxing the first two days in KK and getting lots of school done we decided to explore.  The city is wedged along the coast stretching along the coast with mountains and jungle as you go inland.  Except for any buildings that were brand new construction, all the building were of the 1940’s-50 era because the city was heavy bombed by the Japanese during WWII.  It has a nice waterfront although there was whiff of sewer at certain points evidently they still dump their sewage water into the bay.

On our second day in KK we visited the local mosque, we were able to tour the inside and take pictures but Maddy had to wear a veil to cover her head in accordance with Muslim tradition.  Made for some funny pictures, the kids wanted to try it too.

The next days after that I scheduled my hiking trip to Mt. Kinabalu so Maddy finished school during the day and a half that I was gone.  They went to a fancy hotel pool to go swimming with some water slides.

Maddy and the kids rented a car and came up the next day and toured the botanical garden and museum before I lumbered down the trail. We proceeded to the hot springs located in the park, which was kind of a dud, it had a few hot pools bath tubs and a cold pool but the larger pool was closed.  It had begun to rain so we left after a hour.  It took us 3 hours to get down off the mountain in a raging rain storm.  Maddy drove the whole way down and did a great job driving, it was a pretty white knuckle ride.

The next day I woke up really sore, but not that sore I said to my self, except I kept getting more sore for like two days!!!!  The down hills on anything were the worst, just a slightly down hill driveway I was screaming in pain.  After lots of relaxing and a mostly chill day with the kids we took our rental car to the Lok Kawi animal wildlife sanctuary where we saw some of the worlds most endangered primates.  The Borneo Orangutans!!!!  The park had many other animals including birds, bears and other primates including the Proboscis Monkeys and the Mountain Baboon, which looked a lot like a very small Big Foot from America.  We loved it, all the animals were incredible and although we didn’t see the Orangutans in their natural environment they were still really cool.

 

That night we went to the incomparable Hard Rock Café – Kota Kinabalu… who knew there were 188 HR café’s still operating in the world.

Our last day in KK we spent on one of the nearby islands, that were highly rated.  We went to Pulau Mamutik and played in the gentle waves and laid on the beach.  The Philippines and Maddy’s birthday await.

A long thin yellow burst of light was just beginning to peak over the horizon as I began my final accent to Low’s peak the highest point on Mt. Kinabalu.  My timing was perfect to hit the summit at sunrise and despite my fatigue and fleeting regrets for even under taking this climb, I was only several hundred meters from the summit.  The final climb was a tricky scramble up granite boulders, although not a very technical climb there was the familiar white rope to assist that followed most of the way up the climb.  I labored in the thin air as the last few meters past, my mantra “slow but steady” served me well.  Finally reaching the top it was too dark to really take good pictures of the sunrise or the peak but I flashed a photo of the sign at the top and congratulated some of my fellow climbers.

My hands were cold in the 10 degree temperature, the rain from the night before had not helped keep my gloves dry.  Even though there was very little wind, I was keen to get off the summit and down to some place warmer.  The sunrise was getting brighter, as new climbers made it to the summit and engulfing the entire sky with sunlight.  The final peak was a 45 degree climb on one side while the other was a sheer drop so a fence had been erected to prevent any of the tired climbers from falling.  Not many people could congregate at the summit at any one time so most people backed down the slope to find a better spot to photograph the sunrise.  We were lucky to have a sunrise to photograph at all, the rains had stopped only hours before.

I started my adventure about 24 hours earlier catching a van with 11 other climbers, as far as I could tell I was the oldest by at least 10 years.  We had a 2 hour ride west in the state of Sahba, Borneo to enter the Kinabalu National Park.  We got fleeting views of the top of Mt. Kinabalu all the way up the road adding to the anticipation. Once at the park we registered and met our guides and headed to the trail.  The first 0.5 km was a sloppy wet mess due damage to the normal trail, I grumbled as I descended in the valley knowing I would have to climb even higher.

After the first valley it was all uphill and the first 4 kilometer were exhausting but were quite enjoyable and very warm as I passed through several ecosystems including jungle, woodlands and up into alpine taiga.  The trail was sometime fairly difficult to navigate due to loose rocks and boulder strewn trails.

There was quite interesting rock as I made my way up the path the first day gaining elevation up the mountain closer to the granite peak.  There were deep sea sedimentary rocks, conglomerates, turbidities then meta-sedimentary rock such as Serpentine and slate indicative of contact metamorphism as you got closer to the granite.  The final kilometer of the first day ended up being one of the toughest, I must have not been drinking enough water as I got quad cramps and had to guzzle water and push through until I arrived at the hostel for the night.

It took me about 4 hours to hike the 6 kilometers, it was a good thing it didn’t take longer because it started to rain and didn’t let up until around midnight.  The rest of our group and about thirty others ate dinner in a festive atmosphere in the dining room.  There was an anticipation of the summit the next day but everyone was in bed by 7pm or earlier.

Everyone was awake by 2am and we were allowed to begin hiking at 2:30 and headlamps were requisite.  The hike took about 3 hours, and I reached the summit by 5:30.  It was an amazing hike but I was cold and wanted to get off the mountain  .  I bonded with a few of the people in my group and hiked with them on the way down.  We stopped at the hostel on our way down and had breakfast and a well-deserved rest before completing the final 6 kilometers down the hill to the park headquarters.

My knees were extremely sore by the time I was on the last kilometer and really my whole body was spent by the time I got to the end of the trail.  It was amazing to see the kids and Maddy at the park headquarters as they had driven up to meet me.  Overall it was an incredible hike but not one for the faint of heart.  There were a few folks who didn’t make it up the hill but there were also some older folks in other groups who made it up.  Maddy took me and the kids to a nearby hot springs for some well deserved soaking.  My legs are still sore 4 days later but I am sure that will fade in time.