Is this getting older?

Even as recently as two years ago it would never have occurred to me that she was doing anything other than her job. At a recent Yamazaki whisky event, I was approached by one of the promotional girls and from her demeanour, I couldn't stop from thinking "I've still got it!"

5 minutes later, the penny dropped and it dawned on me that she was paid to schmooze (the mostly male) crowd. Is this middle-age rapidly approaching? Is this why you so often see older mean taking up with much younger woman with an embarrassing misunderstanding of the relationship? In the years ahead, will there be more and more traps to make me feel like a fool?

Sipadan

Even from Singapore, Sipadan was a significant 12 hour trip. Taxi, plane, taxi to the other terminal, taxi back from the wrong terminal to the original terminal, plane, car, boat, buggy, hotel.  Scotch.

Blessed and relying too heavily on having such an iconic and premier dive site nearby, our resort was disappointing in itself but has the days passed, that faded into the background.

A recent typhoon had reduced visibility so our first actual dive at Sipadan was "shit," as we were told. Over 30 turtles, a dozen sharks, an immense school of jacks, a titanic school of barracuda, forests of hard coral, bumphead parrot fish ..... on one dive alone.  Mabul and Kapalai had equally as impressive muck-diving with leaf fish, scorpion fish, stone fish, giant moray, frog fish, giant cuttlefish, giant mantis, giant grouper, crocodile fish and my favourite, the Oriental Sweetlip.

And as the days passed, the weather and conditions improved to reach an acceptable grade as can be seen below.

Unfortunately my impression was that Sipadan solely represented a money-making opportunity to those in the tourism industry. There was no discernible connection between tourism and the local fishing villages and as they are therefore not stakeholders, being guardians of and maintaining conditions is of little importance. There was no culture of sustainability at the resort, no picking up of rubbish by dive masters during dives, no educating of us guests. I am worried about the future Mr Cousteau.

Pig on a spit

Some said that it may be the greatest thing that anyone has ever done but I don't want to blow it out of proportion. 

Amanda turned 37 and decided that I should celebrate by cooking a pig on a spit. 24 hours in a brine, trips to replenish the melting ice bath every 5 hours, 5 hours of roasting, 400 degrees on a small apartment balcony and I was as shocked as anyone that it was phenomenal. The logistics were such that I will never do this again, but I can't wait to do it again.

Conference-call- clashes

It seems that A and I only get a 30 min window for dinner these days. Each day we have to review our evening schedule of conference calls to try and find a slot for dinner. We each come to the table with the latest management speak however I can't compete with Amanda's company.

I have hard-stops and I had my first lens today however nothing resonates with me, nobody has a bi-lateral conversations and nobody is pinging me!

Burmese Cats

Over the Easter long weekend we took a trip to Yangon not really knowing what to expect. By-Elections had taken place the weekend before with Aung Sun Suu Kyi winning a seat in parliament and their party taking 43 of 45 contested seats.




What we found was a city seemingly little impacted by tourism and a window into what other South East Asian cities may have been like 30 years ago. As Yangon doesn't hold the major tourist sites of other areas in Myanmar, we would walk the streets and not see another tourist - an unusual and pleasant experience. There was no touting or hawking, prices seemed genuine with no tourist "premium," and market vendors didn't bat an eyelid at me speaking Mandarin (humph! I am special damn it!).




The people were extremely warm and quick to flash a big smile with a little encouragement. Beautiful children, a huge diversity of races and faces.




Shwedagon was an impressive a site as any religious building I have seen. Move over Catholics, the Buddhists can do it to.




The food was fantastic. A real mix of Asian flavours in the cuisine highlighted by seeing South-Asians cooking you tiao and East Asians cooking chappati!