The Thousand Kilometre Journey

Yahooo..... today is the last day of school for this first half of this second semester. I need a break but this break does not means a lot since I have bundles of exam papers to mark. How I wish I just could teach the kids and don't have to mark any exam papers. Keep on dreaming babe.

I would like to share what happen last week, starting from Wednesday. When I first woke up that morning I could see my eyes were red but ignored it as it is something normal for me early in the morning. As the clock strike 9, the redness in my eyes gotten worst and I could feel the pain in it. I went straight to the office asking permission to go to the clinic. It was confirmed that I have sore eyes which I 'inherited' from the family. It started from the doctor in the house hehhehehehe. I got 3 days MC for that.

I went directly home just to make sure none of my students will 'inherit' it from me later. They were sitting for their SPM trial exams at that time. I dozed off for awhile and when I woke up both of my eyes were flaming red. The pain were unbearable, my eyes were with tears all the time and it started to swollen. Despite of my swollen and teary eyes, I pack up my stuff and started driving to KL. It was the most torturing drive I had ever experienced. I stopped at every single RnR, just to clean my eyes and put some eye drops to it. I managed to arrived KL after nearly four hours drive. Went straight to my apartment, clean up and took a nap.

It was nearly 9.30pm when my Dive Buddy finally finished working and drove to pick me up for dinner. We had yong tau foo at Damansara Uptown. Then we drove around town just to kill the time, chatting and exchanging stories. I finally arrived home 3.30am and went straight to bed. 'Dive Buddy' woke me up that morning at 6.30am so I can be prepared for the interview. The interview was held at Institut Perguruan Bahasa Antarabangsa (IPBA), Lembah Pantai. I arrived on time just to find out they were still preparing the interview room. It started with two simple test, one is about general knowledge about Japan while the second test was about Japanese words (characters). Having basic knowledge in Japanese did help me a lot for the second test. The interview went well, I do think I had done quite a good job so just pray to Allah I will get the spot. My eyes were still flaming red and swollen. It was something to remember the rest of my life.

After done with the interview thing I rang my Dive Buddy for lunch. I picked him from his place and he drove us to Midvalley for lunch. It was nearly four when I started driving back to Kuantan. I arrived Kuantan around 7pm, clean up and try to sleep as I will start moving from Kuantan to Mersing around 3.30am. Dive Buddy woke me up around 3am where I slowly and quietly pack everything to start my journey. It was my first journey alone at that particular time. I did not have any problems along the way as it was the same route to my village. But the quietness did bother me. Luckily Dive Buddy's smses did accompany my morning ride. I arrived at Mersing few minutes before six where everyone else where already there. Everyone would be Halimi, Muzie, Shah, Razi, Azmi and Hafiz.

Me and Shah... Could you see my swollen eyes... ooouucchhh it hurts

We took the 7.30am ferry to Tioman. The ferry was full with passenger and the water was choppy, less then 30 minutes on the ferry I could hear sounds of people vomiting. Well, me and vomits will never befriends. I couldn't stand everything about vomit, the sound, the smell and the look of it. I tried to cool myself up even though I had the feeling of vomiting myself. Luckily I did not ate anything before the ride or not I will join the vomit party. The ferry was damn cold till our mineral waters turn to cold mineral waters.

We arrived at Kampung Salang just to realize there is no Maxis reception. Wuuuaaarrrrggghhhhh!!!! Ermm I had been through the time where I don't even care if I have a cell phone with me but... I do really need my cell phone now!! Help me!! I really need it. Not this time.

Ok... Back to the main story. I was in Tioman for my AOWD (Advance Open Water Diver). It is the second level in diving after Open Water Diver (OWD). For AOWD, we need to take 5 specialties which had been list out by PADI, which from the five, there are two compulsory specialties - deep dive and navigation dive. The other three we can choose from a wide range of selection offered by PADI. For this particular trip, Halimi (my instructor) had chosen Peak Performance Buoyancy, Night Dive, Wreck Dive and Nitrox. Nitrox is another type of air which the percentage of Oxygen in it is not 21% like normal air, it can be either 32% or 36%. With bigger percentage of oxygen, the decompression time will be longer so we can dive longer with it.

My first dive was at Pulau Soyak for navigation dive. It was cool when we need to navigate under water with the visibility less then 10m. The second dive was at the House Reef - my first taste of shore dive and this time for Peak Performance Bouyancy (PPB). It was fun playing underwater and I had the first taste of laughing under water. Really laughing under my regulator. The third dive was night dive, again at the House Reef. Night dive was superb, it is as if we were flying outer space. The darkness, playing with the torch, watching the fishes sleeping and the nocturnal under water creatures alive. It was just great, would love to do it again soon. For the record, I was still unwell because of the bumpy ride earlier so I vomit twice, after the first and second dive but I was quite upset it is not in my regulator hehehehehe...

After the first dive. On the boat with Hafiz

On the second day, the first dive was at Sea Fan, it was for the deep dive. For OWD, the maximum depth is 18 meters while for AOWD it will be 40 meters. So we did a deep dive around 24 meters that day. Going deeper is something very cool - both literally and not literally hehehehehe. The second dive is diving at the Marine Park where 12 boats had been sunk for wreck dive. This is where we use our EANx32 tank, love the experience of breathing 32% of oxygen while hovering around wrecks. I still found it very uncomfortable for me to dive at wrecks, I don't know why. The fifth dive was the last dive as I was certified as an Advance Open Water Diver. The last dive was the fun dive errmmm I can't really remember the name of the site and I am to lazy to take out my dive log to check it out. The fun dive was fun, felt better than the five dives where you were supervise all the time.

My EANx32 tank... cool

I decided not to do the extra dives, why you may ask.. Frankly I don't have my heart during the dives.. It was... errmm... just somewhere else... Anyhow I was grateful as this trip really had helped me make an important decision where I had given a chance to my heart, yupp I listened to my heart where I had neglected it for quite some time.

We had another bumpy ride on the way back where we took 3 hours to reach mainland. It was raining all the way through. Lucky I was so damn tired so I slept most of the time. After having dinner with the whole gang, I started my journey home where I arrived about 12pm where my car meter shows that I had driven 989km.