5 Gu+ 5 kim's 30th Anniversary weekend celebration

Lee Sze Qi, Shannon Lee, Nicole Chia, Kai Yang (A different kinda Fantastic 4!)
5 gu + 5 kim with ah kim, 5 yi & 4 kim
Karaoke session - 5 gu
The old time buddies with wives + kids

HK visit 2010

Kheng Chong go-go's wedding

Animals near Thatch Caye

Here we were... stayed at this private island called Thatch Caye (Pronounced as "Key"). We were here for 4 days/3nights. We saw lots of various animals on this island, but they are all not from local... all are brought onto this island.

First, there is a peccary named Pumba. Certainly our favorite of all. When we walked by Pumba's home, he would look for us as he heard our noise. If you call his name, he will look at you and come towards you waiting to be fed. Very cute indeed!

Here is the coati. These are racoon like animals. We saw them in Tikal. There are probably a couple dozen of these things on Thatch Caye. They come around in herds. Very cute and friendly animals. A bit edgy...

Then there is the mouse looking animal and a bird. Both I don't know what they are called. They are definitely super friendly and they would come up to me for some pineapple... and allowed us to pet them. Even the bird!! We heard from other guests saying that this bird keep following them hoping to be fed... He walked so closed to their feet that they nearly kicked the bird. Definitely not afraid of people. :)

This magnificent fish is a type of sting-ray called Spotted Eagle Ray. They are probably the most majestic sea creatures that we saw in our trip. They swim so elegantly near us. We saw 14 of these rays in a single snorkeling trip near Tobacco Caye, which is about 15min boat ride from Thatch Caye. The snorkeling on that day was truly amazing!

On the last day of our stay in this island, we went for a 2 tank dive near South Water Caye. The quality of the dive is better than San Pedro although still not as good as Half Moon Caye in Lighthouse Reef. There were some sea turtles during that dive. We saw a big loggerhead turtle and a hawksbill turtle. Love to see them swimming... very cute! :)

Thatch Caye Resort

This is our last destination in Belize trip. It's called Thatch Caye, 8 mi off the coast of Dangriga. Beautiful little private island. This is an ecolodge where water are locally collected and treated and electricity powered by solar panels. A storm was impending when we first arrived. So we didn't do much for the first 2 days that we are here. Just walk around the island, checking out the animals here and enjoy the scenary. We stayed in this 2-story Casita. The cool thing about them is that there are hammock on the 2nd floor where we get to enjoy the view of the entire island while catching the seabreeze.

San Ignacio to Dangriga journey

New year day, we have to travel from inland to coastal Belize. Usually there is an express bus, but not today because it's a holiday. So we took the local bus to Belmopan, then transfer to another to Dangriga. Because of the lack of bus during the holiday, the buses were more crowded than usual.

We met a Canadian couple who also wanted to head south to Hopkins, but they had bad experience the last time as the bus got too full and they didn't make it onto the bus. So the wife was really keen to share a cab with us. But that's going to cost US$40 instead of US$6. We declined the cab idea and decided to brave the bus experience. And yes it was full. The bus was an hour late. I had no choice but to do what the local does. I had to push myself through the crowd to the entrance door. Before the door is open the bus driver told us there are only 15 spots. When the door opens the gatekeeper only let 5 people through. I managed to go through but not peisun. I tried to get her, but they wouldn't let her out. I was told to find her a seat first.

So I figured, 15 spots should be easy. But not, there were no more seats when I get into the bus. People have placed their bags to reserve their spots. So I just took a random spots and placed my bag in another random seat. Then I waved to the gatekeeper to let pei sun come aboard to join me. Later the people came back from break and returned to their seats. Peisun's seat already had 2 people. Fortunaely they are willing to share the seat. And it is a 2 hour bus ride.

After lots of commotion , someone was kicked out of the bus and i don't know why. Something to do with not paying, then peisun got her seat. Awesome! Finally, our bus was cleared and ready to depart. After that I knew we were safe. I am glad the Canadian couple didn't come with us to the bus, I am sure they won't make it.

The bus driver was trying to be accomodating and told the overflow passenger to wait outside the terminal. But the authority was there checking, so he had to drive on without picking up those guys whom he told them to wait in front of gas station across the bus terminal. I am glad we didn't do that. Some smarter passengers walked further so that the authority won't see before hopping onto the bus. It was quite a journey and experience.

Christmas in Meadville 2009

Welcome to Tikal

We signed up for ATM(Actun Tunichil Muknal) tour. But it got cancelled because of the rain and the river is too high to swim across to the cave entrance. Instead we ventured into Tikal, Guatemala. Tikal is a huge Maya ruin in the middle of the jungle. It's awesome!! Pictures may not do its justice. We will have to post detailed description later.

Happy 2010

Happy new year! We spent our new year in San Ignacio. We could hear lots of fireworks from our room. It's like Chinese new year!

Blue hole and Lighthouse Atoll

5:30am!!! The boat picked us up to go out to Blue Hole. We had half a papaya each for breakfast, so we had to get up at 4:30am. We went out with Aqua Diver instead of our regular Ecologic Diver. We were told that they have 17 last night. But by the time our boat picked up all the guest in Caye Caulker, we had 30 on board. As soon as we got outside the barrier reef, we entered the open ocean, and thing became rough very quickly. Some swells were probably 6-8ft. The boat rocks left and right and we had to climb the waves one at a time for 2.5 hours. It was treacherous! We came prepared with seasickness pills. Peisun took 1 before we got onto the boat. But it already expired in 2006. Turned out the papaya that we took didn't help. Peisun had to puke during the journey. And I did not do that much better. It felt like the papaya was almost coming out a few times. We drove passed Turneffe Reef on our way there, that offered us some shelter for 30min before rough sea was upon us again.

The first dive wass the Blue Hole. It's 130ft deep. We decided to skip this dive as we are beginner. Instead we just did some snorkeling around around here; nothing really to brag about here. Heard from some divers that the blue hole dive was very cool, people enjoyed it.

The next stop was Half Moon Wall. This is a dive which starts at 40ft on a sandy patch. While we swim outward through some coral canyon, we came across this steep wall that plunges into the ocean floor beyond the visibility allows us to see. There are huge sponges here, and many other type of corals. We could dive down as far as one can see, but we stayed at most at 60ft. It definitely beats the diving of Ambergris Caye.

Then we stopped at Half Moon Caye for lunch. Lovely little island, there is some bird sanctuary that we got too lazy to walk. After lunch we dove in a place near Half Moon Caye called Eagle Ray Wall. Somebody saw 2 eagle rays, we didn't. It was a fun dive too but visibility wasn't as good as the earlier dive. Probably 60ft. This was the last dive for the day. Long day, we came back around 6:30pm. Took a shower, went for dinner , and wrote this post.

A few thoughts, I think this journey was long, diving was great. Is it worth it, I think that depends on how hardcore you are. For snorkeling, definitely not worth it, some places are just too deep. Another dive shop called Amigos Del Mar, has a bigger faster boat which might be more comfortable, we never tried them so don't know.

Best meal so far

Lobster kebab and lobster with coconut cream! Usd16 each!

Pass

Yipee, we passed our scuba lesson. On our 3rd and 4 dive, we went outside of the reef where it is deeper... We start at around 50ft and gradually swim deeper. It was pretty scary at the beginning as the ocean floor seemed so far away, but gradually we made it down to the bottom. the formation is pretty cool, it is made out of canyon that formed by rock and Corals, between the canyon are sandy area. That's where we do our skill tests. At the beginning it is harder to concentrate on the surrounding, instead just focus on scuba diving and where the divemaster and buddy is... On the subsequent dive, we got better at the bouyancy and more comfortable.

After that we signed up for our 1st dive after we pass the class. Because of the peak season, many dives are booked so we sign up for a night dive. I think it's the octupius that sold us.

Since it's a night dive, we got some time to checkout the island, we rented a golf cart to drive up and down ambergris caye. Drove south to checkout a bunch of resorts there. Our favorite is called Victoria house. It's the nicest down south of san Pedro. Then we venture north cross a bridge. The road became much worse with deep puddles. And the golf cart don't have the beat suspension. To put it lightly it is a bumpy ride. It's more like pei sun cursing at my driving the whole way up. We wanted to checkout a resort recommended by lonely planet called Capricorn. But we didn't make it! Our cart couldn't start after I stopped to check out an iguana by the road. Eventually it started after I use the choke. Scared by the pptential of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and puddles are turning onto pool, we abandoned the mission and returned to San Pedro. Bought ourselves some fruits and then return to the motel for a bit of rest before the night dive....

When Madonna sang about San Pedro in the 80's, we could see why she calls it la Isla Bonita. Although there is plenty of facility these days, the coral reef is still in decent shape... Better than Pulau Payar! The people over here very Eco conscious.

In general Belize is still a pretty poor country. The so call highway is just a regular 2-lane road. Another surprising thing is the Chinese writing on shop fronts... Not sure if it is because of Taiwanese influence or what?

Then there is the food... I think the classic dish is rice and bean with chicken or fish. It actually tastes pretty yummy. The rice is cooked with some bean and coconut milk. Stewed chicken tastes a bit like curry, fish is red snapper, yummy!! We also had other seafood here like shrimp, lobster, and conch fritters. All are very well prepared, either the Jamaican jerk style or some local Belizian style. The only gripe is we have to pay American prices... :(

Speaking of American, we are probably the majority here. And within that 70% that we met are from sf!

Well, time to go scuba, gotto go!

Raining

It has been raining like cats and dogs since the night, so it became a
lazy day and enjoy some pineapple
juice...

Going for our scuba diving class in the afternoon... After that we
graduate, yeah!!!

Merry Xmas from la isla Bonita

Merry Xmas to all! Took our first scuba class, was great! Saw 2
stingrays and some fan corals