Underwater, cool!

During the long Labour/Wesak holiday, I was in Pulau Tenggol, a small island not far away from Kuala Dungun. I was there to "buy" my Open Water diving cert. I feel more like buying the cert than taking a test for it. Anyway, getting the cert is nothing difficult, just need a few practice dive and some theory classes and you'll be on your way to become a certified diver.

2 weeks before that, the bus ticket to the east coast were already sold out, thanks to the Installation of the King on Thu, and Wesak day and Labour day on Tues. Tried flying there but FireFly were so extremely expensive we ditched that plan. So I said, "Why not we drive to Dungun?" I've always wanted to drive to the east coast of peninsular, but no one would agree with me whenever I suggested it out during my Uni years. Maybe they feel insecure of my driving skills.

This is a 4-day event, thus I'm not going to bored you with the details. What you need to do is just exercise your fingers scrolling through the pictures :)

On Friday early morning, when everyone else was on their way to work, Daniel, my sister and I were driving south towards Kuala Kangsar. From Kuala Kangsar, we exited the highway to be heading to Gerik.

Tasik Temenggor - The largest man-man lake in Perak

And then from Gerik, drive through the hilly winding road to Jeli, from Jeli to Machang passing Tanah Merah, then to Pasir Puteh, Jerteh and finally Kuala Terengganu. No no, Kuala Terengganu is not our final destination yet, it's just a stopping point as we think there won't be anything we can do in Dungun, so just leave for Dungun later in the evening. Believe it or not, we were in 4 states in 7 and a half hours!! Great achievement :)

Basically, none of us know how to get around in KT or where is the interesting places. We were just simply going round and round looking at signboards and choosing whichever road I like to go. Took a few photos of KT which is similar to Sue Cing's posted photos in her blog.

Look at the sky, heavy rain coming - Dataran Shahbandar

Me at Istana Maziah

Istana Maziah as a whole - I wonder if it has signboard inside the building, I might be lost in there

The tower that terrorize ppl early in the morning

The symbol of Terengganu, in a park beside the istana

Museum in K. Terengganu - The biggest museum in Malaysia

It cost RM2 to enter the biggest museum in Malaysia. We were not allowed to bring cameras into the museum. Thus, no picture of the inside of the museum.

Museum with a mini park

Stomach growling after the muzeum walk -> saw Kg. Cina signboard -> head to Kg. Cina hoping that it's a real chinese village with chinese food -> BINGO! CORRECT INDEED! Chinese food

Street in Kg. Cina

Chinese temple in Kg. Cina

After dinner, we leave KT and drive to Kuala Dungun. It was a one hour 20 mins drive, it was raining cats and dogs, and the sky is getting dark. Reached Kuala Dungun around 7.30pm.

We stayed in a hotel for RM11 per person, you can imagine how 'good' the room is.

My sis lazying in bed

Waiting for our boat

Reaching the beach

Diving lessons begin. Learn on the various diving equipment, how to assemble them into useable breathing equipment.

Our breathing apparatus

Do you know that SCUBA is actually an acronym? S-C-U-B-A : Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

I get very kan-cheong when I'm underwater. There's so many things to do when I'm down there. Breathing is no longer a second nature (things you do without noticing), I'm concious of my every breath. And then there's the neutral buoyancy I need to take care of, then the pressure, avoiding coral, clearing the mask when water went into it and etc etc, so many things to take care. It's not like when something happen, you can just head to the surface to save yourselves. During the dive, when I looked up, I was so far away from the surface, 60ft (18m). It will be life threatening if there was a sudden re-surface from 60ft. It would be a long science story to tell, I'd prefer to skip that part.

Anyway, by the fourth dive, I'm confident enough to bring along my camera during the dive.

Me in 60ft water, behind me is my sis

All the dive site around Pulau Tenggol

Remember this flag, when you see this flag on a boat, means there are divers in the water below

A group photo - all of them are advance divers except us 3 newbies :(

Instructor and students

On our way back, the boat was stranded in the middle of the sea when the engine compartment smoked up, luckily the captain fixed it in within half and hour.

Fixing the boat

Started our journey back to Penang around 1.30pm. The rain was on and off along the way. By 8.30pm, we reached Sauk, a Chinese kampung in between Gerik and Kuala Kangsar. Meet my parents there for dinner. After dinner, drive all the way back to Penang. Reached Penang home around 11.30pm.

I still had to work before unpacking, as my boss called on my hp earlier when I was driving, somewhere in Gerik to ask me to do something. Finished work by 2.30am and straight away I was in dreamland.

It was a tired trip, but nevertheless, I'm a happy girl. I got to achieve 2 of the top wishes in my most-wanted-list: 1. Drive to and fro East coast 2. Get a diving license

I am going to share the underwater photos in my next entry, hopefully soon.