Luca's adventures in Sarawak

Ello! This is the ramblings of Luca Grossi (me), while on student exchange in Sarawak Malaysia. Feel free to check it out!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Well, 3 exams over one more left. I finish my last exam on the 29th of June only to leave that afternoon for KL. Not much been happening during the last few weeks with exams. On Saturday we went out to complete my last open water dive at a different island off the west tip of Sarawak close to the Indonesia board. The island is surrounded by a coral reef so we anchored on a sand bed just before the reef started. Did a few exercises and then we start looking around the reef ( fantastic experience).



Because my exams got pushed a day forward from the 28th to the 29th I won’t be staying in KL for a night with all the other guys ( which leave on the 28th). Instead I’m leaving on the 29th only to get a connecting flight at KL to Kota Bharu and staying there for a night. I’ll need a boat to get to the perhentian island but because I’m arriving too late so I’ll have to stay in town until the morning. I think we have 5 days before we have to catch a flight from kota bharu back to KL. That will give us enough time to do whatever we want and maybe visit neighboring islands if we want.


posted by Luca @ 3:14 pm   1 comments

Monday, June 04, 2007






Ello everyone, how’s things going ? Been a busy week over here with only one more week left of uni everything happens at the last minute. Can’t believe it’s already half way through the year with only one more semester until I finish uni. Anyways last week kicked off with me heading to sabah, to a city called Kota Kinibalu on the Sunday night. After having a few drags of Sam’s shisha and then rushing to the airport. Manage to get a massive migraine on the plane so didn’t really have a chance to go out that night but luckily felt fine the next day. The following day we got up early to find out way to mount kinabalu( http://www.climbmtkinabalu.com/park.html). Manage to get a taxi for the one and a half hour drive with the taxi driver insisting that we watch his 60’s karaoke music. After me being semi paranoid he was up to something and taking us the wrong way I could eventually get a glimpse of the mountain









(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kinabalu) in the distance ( bloody amazing , such a strange mountain how it sticks out). I was there until Tuesday night so we ( dave and I) for two days. We arrived in the Monday morning at the base of the national park, after travelling from the city . Meet up to two Holland girls at the base so we group up into 4. We had our guide to come up with all four of us. We started climbing the mount at 11:00am that Monday morning and got to the hostel around 6:00ish. Just enough time to get a meal and watch sunset. Talked to a few people before going to sleep ( found it a bit difficult to breath so what do I do ,, have a smoke with this stranger ,, umm thats another thing) , mostly people from around Asia, including Japanese and west Malaysian's, Singaporian .Went to sleep around 8:30 to wake up and 2:00 o’clock to finish the remaining bit of the mount for sunrise. Amazing sight just walking with a group of people up this mount with torches, pitch black and everyone encouraging each other.. Sounds stupid but I don’t know,, that’s what I felt ( just telling as it is ) Words can’t really explain so check out the pictures and either can they really. Anyways reached the top for sunrise and headed back down to the base office. Took us until 2:00pm to reach the bottom. My legs were completely hammed. As I said to a few people , that morning while climbing the mount if I could see how much walking was needed to get to the top it would have definitely been mentally exhausting. Also the people we met while going up the mount at the start, if I knew what they did gezz . ANways thoroughly enjoyed it an glad I could experience it ,, man it was tough ,, like really a week later and my legs or still feeling the after effects :)






Had an all nighter last night with an assignment due today ,, also later this afternoon I finished the remaining chapters in the scuba manual. Had my test and passed it, so now it’s into the fun part ! This Friday we have a session in the pool to complete our confine diving then go out and practice in the ocean another 2 days before we get our open diving license. Also apparently me , Dave and Laura got our photo’s in the local newspaper ,, I’ll try and get a copy of it. Normally if there are international people visiting the university they get us to come along to the gig, normally you chat to somebody about our experiences then check out the food situations and sit with somebody interesting. The occasion was the Australian representative in Sarawak was checking out the university and the building progress. Seems like a massive construction yard but apparently it should be completed early next year and seriously be comparable to something similar back at home :) Anyways take care !

posted by Luca @ 9:56 pm   6 comments