Where to start, how to start, what to start in this post? I need to get this written before the end of the year before I even started with my recent Koh Lipe trip. Procrastinating is never a good idea.
Well, my very 1st dive trip for 2011 was a 3D/2N getaway to Lang Tengah in conjunction to Derek’s (aka moobs) open water certification. As usual, we traveled from KL middle of the night in order to catch the early ferry to the island.
On ferry with our gears & drinks (Celine’s holding)
The island was kinda quiet during our arrival until the next day where a few families appeared and checked in. It’s still nevertheless a very peaceful island compare to the nearby famous Redang Island which has more resort and visitor. Lang Tengah reminds me of Redang 15 years back when I 1st visit. Let us see how long it takes to turn Lang Tengah into another Redang Island.
The resort, a rather simple jetty and the dining section in the evening (food sucks tho)
Diving was basically the main reason we were there and this was the place where we geared up. If you still uncertain if to take up diving and concern about the safety etc, check out the wall of the dive center.
“There was a time when sex was safe and diving is dangerous”
The very 1st dive was a shore dive where moobs performing the certification requirement. Mask clearing, take out the regulator, take out BCD etc with his fishman instructor, Edvin, who is also my instructor. The visibility was not exactly the ideal case or it was just caused by sand storm created by the newbie?
Moobs performing his certification requirement
Stereotyped my instructor pretty well isn’t it? Need to learn his breathing too
Remember I lost my camera at Pulau Aur? So this was my very 1st dive without a camera since my certification. Diving is never the same without a CAMERA!!!!
KY passed me his video console (I do not know what it’s called) so that I have something to play with on the subsequent dives. Most of the videos were too dark and noisy except one of it where I manage to capture a weird fish swam between us in lighting speed yet maneuver like and eel. None of us know the name of the fish. Even Ed who did few thousand dives never seen such a species.
Me with small ass video console and a torch
The best encounter of the trip was this leopard shark almost the size as big as me. That creature was resting on the sandy seabed until Terence created an earthquake to scare it away. However, because of this, KY managed to take a every nice shot of it taking off and swam away from us.
My first leopard shark (picture taken by KY)
I puked again (being something very normal when I dive) after my 4th dives and I couldn’t remember what’s wrong with me. Decided to skip my last dive to get some rest before the dinner.
On our way back to the island and ended my dive for this trip
We were told that there were filming on the island and the pink color hut was still there when we arrived. The movie was showing on all the cinema not too long ago and lucky it was not as good selling as Mo Mo Tea that basically commercialized Redang Island.
夏日乐悠悠》or Summer Love You You
Went under the jetty trying to be artistic (not very successful)
Some kids having fun on the beach and the wind was strong
Sunset view on the beach just in front of the resort
I was lying down on the sandy beach directly until thunderstorm approached
When the night comes, drinking seems to be the only activity available especially when thunderstorm was covering the entire place. We manage to make few friends and we finished the whole bottle of Jägermeister making Jäger bomb. Moobs got hyper from it and Joe was helping by giving moobs a deep throat. Result was effective. Puke immediately!!! LOL
Joe Deep Throat-ed Derek (aka Fooi aka Moobs)
Just checkout how big the mosquito is
Time to go back to reality
Ed | KY | Me | God | Dar | Moobs
Dive up to post : 31
1st deep dive on this trip.
Novemeber 2011, the month that I need to pay mysillycar‘s roadtax + insurance. My $$ tell me that they believe they can fly and of course, they did. The good thing was, it is also my birthday month. 2 years in a row, I was tricked on my birthday. Yes, I’m noob like that.
Last year they surprised me at Suanie’s pool side and this year, I was shocked to see BBQ pit setup at KY’s place when I came back from a full day training. Apparently, some of my colleagues involved in keeping me in the dark. Good job. I was fully unaware of this coming. Fully surprised!!!
I was welcome by a middle finger while walking into the house
With #BBQAddicts around, food is never lacking. Scallops, cod fish, superior cut steak, barcardi bacons (my birthday gift from Lance), pig in blankets, mushroom with cheese etc. You name it and they have it. Kim & Yuki did help to prepare some BBQ stuff and some salads too. Thanks guys.
Food & Beverage
As usual, Lance was the person in-charged for our food but this time, Mike and the rest did help a lot on the grilling stuff.
Obviously the very 1st steak was honored to me. Just check out how big it was. Simply CRAZY!!!
The epic part of the night was get rid of the tilapia occupying KY’s pond. We tried for the longest time catching this fish but unsuccessful because it’s damn fast. Surprisingly, Lance did catch it without any difficulty at all. Are you wondering why Ringo was holding the fish? She cheat 1 mar… need to pose a bit.
So eventually, ST helped to kill the fish and I slaughter it and returned it back to Lance once again to add spices and grill it. This must be the bloodiest birthday ever with freshest fish filling up our tummy.
After cutting the fish, it’s time for cake cutting, the very usual thing we do during birthday. The unusual part was, it’s a home made cake by Kim. The caramelized mixed nut tiramitsu cake was delicious. I like it and thank you very much Kim.
Party will never happened without some awesome people attending and these people below are beyond awesome. Thank you so much for dropping by. Thanks for tricked me. Thanks for the food preparation. Thanks for eating and drinking. Thanks for laugher. Thanks for the pictures. Thanks for the SURPRISE! Thanks for being a friend of mine.
I understand that you guys were informed in short notice and yet you guys did make it happened. *HUGS*
Shaolintiger | Kimberlycun | Cheesie | Pauline | KY | Haze | Li Ling | Melissa | Mike | Lance | Ruby | Huai Bin | Zess | Suanie | Fireangel | Fresh | Charlie | Cendawan | Belimbing | Tembikai | Rambutan |
Last but not least, thank you very much my Yuki darling to organize and gather everyone for this surprise birthday party. I know its not easy to arrange all these in such a short notice and you managed to make it happened. Thank you so much and I really appreciate the effort.
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I traveled back to Penang on my birthday and managed to reach in time (slightly later than normal dinner time though) for dinner with my family at Chili’s Gurney Plaza. They even prepared a green tea cake from Ritz Pastry (one of the best pastry house in Penang)
Ritz Pastry Green Tea Cake
I never like Guinness until I tried it during the Merry Guinness invite by ST and Kim at Deutsches Gasthaus. From then onwards, I’m one of the small contributor to GAB’s profit. To be honest, not all the Guinness I drank is good. Some of them been watered down and some of them could be kinda bitter but there are some good one out there depends on which outlets you went to. I’m not sure if by lower down the alcohol % enhanced the whole Guinness experience but well, who cares as long as its good. Guinness is definitely one of my favour drink as for now.
If you wonder where to get the best Guinness in town, I believe the answer would be the place it has been brewed. Tavern, which access is only by invitation, a heavenly drinking place located inside GAB itself seems to be getting very good feedback from those who visited. After years of waiting, the moment has arise when Suanie asked me to join her for the Oktoberfest held in it. *Happy*
GAB Tavern and the liquid serves in it
The bar counter has only draught tabs and without any sort of cash registration machine. What does this means? Everything is FREE OF CHARGE. What could be more awesome right?
Bar Counter Can’t Find Cash Register
I got to understand that a good pint of Guinness doesn’t only rely on how it has been brewed but also how it is pour from the tab. The two-part of the surge and settle pour is important part of serving.
Filling the glass with black liquid
All the drink served in small glass instead of the full pint we usually served with in normal pub. I like it this way as it won’t get too warm for my final sip before getting a new drink. I’m not too sure if it’s because of the freshness that really lifted the sense of roasty sweetness from the Guinness I had there. It was really good.
No doubt the best Guinness in town
Even for a person like Eyeris who is really detail when comes to his drink (except Johnny Walker) loves the Guinness and Kilkenny here.
Sign Language showing “FUCKING Good”
On top of Guinness, the Kilkenny here is also top of the notch. In fact, I like the Kilkenny here more than the Guinness. The reason being, I’m still able to taste some really awesome Guinness during the Guinness event but I hardly come across any Kilkenny’s event invites so far.
Glowing Kilkenny
Last but not least, we were there for Oktoberfest remember? There were few Oktoberfest chicks around but they were not serving your beer. Get your own beer or tap your own beer if you want. The band played some original Oktoberfest songs and nothing beat Beyond’s 海阔天空 (Hai Kuo Tian Kong). I must said it’s weird to have this on Oktoberfest event but this is not a complaint. It was the highlight of the night actually when everyone went nuts singing along. Awesome experience. Thanks GAB and Thank you Suanie.
Interior and Mojito
We were greeted to 4 interesting combination of appetizer and a platter of cold cuts with various dipping and bread. If I need to introduce the appetizers we had, it will be ‘a range prosciutto wraps’.
Meat in prosciutto = Special pigs in special blankets (RM 24) – Meat lover will definitely love it.
Vegetable in prosciutto = Asparagus under prosciutto (RM 22) – Freshness is the word for it.
Seafood in prosciutto = Angels in parma (RM 32) – The combination of oyster with the ham with the sauce is very distinctive.
Fruits in prosciutto = Peaches ‘n’ parma (RM 22) – Very special fusion on this one. Fruity pair with salty from the parma ham.
Appetizers
The cold cuts platter (RM 54) provides a nice selection of hams with special home made mustard and jams. They goes extremely well with the slices of baked bread and of cause not to forget the thin slices of cheese as well. I personally prefer the mustard over the jam which is too sweet for my liking.
It’s a huge platter which is good for 3 – 4 person as a starter
Racks pulled pork & big BAD sandwiches (RM 26) gives you the satisfaction of meat munching if you do not like burger patty which doesn’t has the meaty textures remain. The pulled pork is slow-cooked before its place in between the burger buns. On the other hand, the big bad sandwiches present itself with grilled streaky bacon.
Pulled Pork Burger | Big Bad Sandwich
My favourite dish of the night was this ubiquitous Racks pork burger (RM 28). I love the patty. Do not deceived by its ordinary presentation. It tastes more than how it looks. Juicy and tenderness grilled patty with home made low temperature oven-baked tomatoes and bacon, what can you ask more?
Racks Pork Burger
Although the pork burger is sufficient for revisit, pork ribs is the highlight of the night. Most of the bloggers prefer the special Sweet & Sticky Pork Ribs (RM 52 full rack, RM 32 half rack). The marmalade slow braised ribs has its own speciality as the sweet marmalade sauce paired the ribs nicely. As for me, I personally favour the Hot & Spicy Pork Ribs (RM 52 full rack, RM 32 half rack). Spicy boost the appetite I guess.
Marmalade Sweet & Sticky Pork Ribs | Hot & Spicy Pork Ribs
Just check out the size of the full ribs compare to Kim’s arm
This place has more than enough pork to feed you. With those bottles on the racks, they do have some awesome beverages to enhance the atmosphere. The Molotov was the 1st rack to warm our stomach. This shooters consist of vodka, tequila, Jack Daniels and Tabasco sauce. This shooter is kinda strong. Be ready before order.
Next shooter has an awesome name, Test Tube Babies. This babies were made by vodka, peach schnapps and a dash of cranberry. This shooter was so much smoother with a taste of sweetness.
The final shooter, Illusion comes with happy fruity taste. The mixture of Midori melon, pineapple juice and vodka made some happy people.
These shooters comes in a rack of a dozen and cost only RM200.
Huai Bin happily holding the racks. Of course, downing some of it.
Drinking from the test tube feels like intake a dose of happy chemical
It has been months since my last update. It’s time to keep the blog up and running again (hopefully. *pray*)
Since I started diving, I promised myself to record all my diving experience here. However, it doesn’t seem to be the case as of now. Let me recall the trip happened almost a year back.
We drove from KL towards Mersing Jetty which took us almost 5 hours. We reached just before midnight to catch our boat ride to Pulau Aur. The Diver’s Lodge was the destination. The ride was really an unforgettable experience.
We occupied the upper layer deck which has really limited head room not even enough to sit straight. Lucky it’s air conditioned but unfortunately, there’s smell of diesel flows near where I was. Of course, it was not very pleasant but I was still able to get a good 4 hours sleep before we were waken up in the middle of the sea.
Just check out the head room on the upper deck where we were
We need to get of the boat onto a platform floating on the sea located approximately 150 meters away from the lodge. A smaller boat was used to transport all of us to the jetty which required some effort to climb up to due to low tide.
Pulau Aur’s Jetty
I was really tired caused by the journey as well as the lack of sleep but the excitement boost the endorphin level in the central nervous system and there goes my plan to catch some rest before the 1st dive. Instead of sleeping which most of the people did, Terence, KY and myself went for an early morning swim near the jetty once its bright enough to do so.
The view from the room during arrival was truly spectacular
The chalets on the island
The Canteen also can consider fishes feeding area
I must compliment the food served during our stay. Love each and every meal there. The BBQ buffet on the last night was superb. There’s a bar on the dining platform named Narcosis that will definitely create land narcosis with the variety it stocks.
The food we had on the island was surprisingly tasty
The 4D3N trip comes with 9 dives but I skipped 1 night dive and the very final dive. The DM kept leading us swim against the current. Damn tired OK. That’s not the worst part. The camera I was holding below sink like Titanic without my notice until it was all too late. Due to my recklessness, it’s now part of the coral formation at one of the dive site. That’s the main reason I skipped the very final dive. Too sad to fight the current.
The camera casing actually belongs to Shaolintiger. He has the casing but lost the camera and my Fujifilm F31d needs its underwater casing. It has accompanied me since my very 1st dive and now it’s history. I’m sorry Shaolintiger.
My camera turn into part of the underwater treasure
I was taking pictures of crabs after craps happened while the rest enjoying fighting the current on their final dive.
Crab after crap happened
I don’t regret withdrawn myself from the last dive as I was not in the mood at all and more importantly, I got to enjoy the beautiful sunset on the deck.
Pulau Aur’s Sunset
Scary walking platform on the island
As it was a season closing trip, this was how the lodge’s owner clearing his stock in Narcosis Bar. Terrifying!!!
Devil owner clearing his Narcosis Bar’s inventories
The Group. Top Gabriel, Irene, Rachel, Norman, Horng, KY and the cameraman, God
Dive up to post : 27