At about 2000m above sea level, climbers call it a day, camping right at the edge of the crater. Some on their way up to the summit while some on their way down the mountain, very often exchanging words of encouragement.

A lone hiker taking a break while the light from the sun broke into a dance routine with the fast moving clouds.

The lone porter along the crater of the Mount Rinjani. 

Without them, the climb would not even have made it past day 1. They are the miracle workers of Mount Rinjani. Each porter carries up to 30Kg worth of supplies on their shoulders up the mountains, very often reaching the check points way earlier than their city dwelling customers. They zipped up and down the mountain with such speed and ease it made me feel useless. By the time we caught up with them at our resting areas, they would  have already set up our tents, makeshift toilets and halfway through cooking our meals. I can’t help but feel amazed everytime a porter overtakes us (which happens all the time) effortlessly. While I struggle up some of the steeper parts of the trail in fours, they simply stepped up, hands free, in slippers and sometimes barefooted. The equally amazing guides started out as porters when they were younger too.

As we moved up and down the slopes around Mount Rinjani, scenes like that kept appearing around us everytime we looked back. Before the trek, Macho, our guide, told us that he will tell us a method to trek up the summit. During the course of the trek, we all forgot about it and didn’t ask. On our 3rd day down the mountains, I asked him, what was it that he was supposed to tell us. He said, ‘when you trek up, do not look up. Instead, look back.’ The whole idea was so that you look at what you have achieved to motivate yourself rather than look at the path in front, which I agree, did not do anything positive to my morale. It’s always so near yet so far. Simple theory, but so effective.

This week had been pretty awesome with great dives, great company and life pretty much unplugged. But like all awesome holidays, it comes with some unexpected and ‘memorable’ experiences as well. Got seasick once, puked like mad. Housing flooded twice (thankfully I surfaced before things got really bad and found out the culprit was a faulty dome port). Jellyfish stings (oh, those things are really beautiful… and as with beautiful things, keep a distance). Camera shutter kind of died, so I had to wait about 10-15 seconds between shots for the error message to clear. It’s a real pain but I learned to slow down and pick my shot instead of spraying. On some dives, at depths below 15m, some of the buttons on the camera refused to work for some reason. So it was like shooting manual on film because the playback button and focus button didn’t work. Despite all these, it was still an awesome trip.

For more images of the trip, you can follow me (feldberyl) on instragram.

I found this video on facebook and thought I would share it here. Not Man vs Wild, but Man + Wild. Beautiful isn’t it? I always found instances of man being able to connect with the wild amazing. You don’t have to share a common language to connect.

Just one of those Monday thoughts even though it’s early Tuesday now.

Here’s one my favourite Monday songs:D

Sunrise at Mount Batur, Bali.

Dolphin pod at Lovina beach, Bali

Halfway through my meal, an elderly couple came by and took the seat on the same table. I noticed the man seem to have difficulty moving, likely due to a stroke or something. Picture this, I was totally engrossed on reading and suddenly, a hand moved into my frame and pressed the edge of the paper which was flapping wildly. When I looked up, the elderly gentleman just gave me a reassuring look as if to tell me, ‘I got you there’. He continued doing that so that I could finish my meal. I thank him, put down my phone, finished my meal and said goodbye. Reading news on the phone during meals doesn’t seem so important after all.

Just a very nice experience that I thought I’d like to share.

Northern lights at the Norwegeian-Finnish border. It’s almost like a peep show. The clouds parted like a curtain. The lights appeared, did a really quick routine and retreated back into the skies. The clouds then closed in and the skies turned grey. Still pretty mind blowing.

]]> http://www.feldberyl.com/voices/20130301/light-lust/feed/ 1 http://www.feldberyl.com/voices/20120917/malapascua-in-and-out-of-water/ http://www.feldberyl.com/voices/20120917/malapascua-in-and-out-of-water/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2012 03:00:45 +0000 http://www.feldberyl.com/voices/?p=3546 So, this is it. From Malapascua.

When I first saw it underwater, I thought it look like a cathedral. I have another not so colorful print on my wall. Someone told me it looks like the earth breaking up or something.

The beach outside Exotic Resort where we stayed. Dive resorts line the beach along the island. Exotic is one of the more established ones in the area. The food at the restaurant was simply spectacular. We spent most of our non-diving hours sitting at the restaurant pigging out and wifi-ing:D

Catching waves at the beach. You can also find souvenir peddlers along the beach. They sell some pretty nice woodwork. I got my wooden Manta and Thresher shark there. Pricing wise, it’s considered expensive there, but you probably won’t get it at that price in Singapore provided you can even find it.

Loading up for the next dive. Resort staff loading equipments up the smaller boats which will ferry them to the bigger dive boats.

Every morning, we gather around 5am in the morning for the dawn dive to wait for the Thresher Sharks at Monad Shoal. Whether or not the shark shows up, we still get to see the beautiful sunrise. During the 20 min ride to Monad Shoal, we just stone or have coffee onboard.

Taking the giant leap off the boat. Amos giving a positive demonstration:D

Kelvin checking out the strange looking jellyfish. While we were there, the seas were filled with tiny jellyfishes or their dismembered parts. It’s not uncommon to get stung, but nothing too serious.

A lone batfish patroling Monad Shoal.

A lone Thresher shark appeared on the first dive of our second trip. Unfortunately, that was our only Thresher sighting that trip.

A flatworm during the night dives.

Whip coral shrimp.

It’s the same one, just a silhouette. It’s interesting that part of the body seem to glow in green.

Bubble coral shrimp. That’s one of my favorite subjects.

Sometimes the mornings can get rather cold. On this day, the waves were pretty bad and we had a bit of difficulty getting up the boat using that narrow plank, especially with the heavy camera. Good thing the guides are always there to assist. The guide for my first trip was Paul and the second one was Wilmar.

Getting your morning facewash at the bow of the boat.

At some sites, the current can be extremely strong. We took a trip to Dona wreck and were swept left right center by the current. I left my camera onboard after the first dive. It’s just not worth fighting the current with the camera. Tien Beng holding the rope during the surface interval. The bubbles were going sideways here.

While descending, I spotted this jellyfish and decided to take “a few” pictures of it, forgetting that the current was pretty strong. Within seconds, I lost the party but descended anyway. Got to 30m and did not see a single soul and the surrounding didn’t match the ones mentioned during the dive brief. I was thinking “where the hell is the plateau? what coral garden?! all I’m seeing is SAND!” So I ascended and found the boat more than 100m away.

So here’s the boat on it’s way to pick me up. Sorry guys, my bad.

The ‘feeder’ boats ferrying stuff to the bigger dive boats during low tide.

An approaching storm.

Swimming around this school of tiny fish while trying to get a decent shot. It’s fun to see how the flash lights up the water from beneath.

While waiting for the Thresher shark, I stayed relatively motionless and this lionfish was so attracted by it’s reflection off the dome port of my camera. It literally stuck it’s face on the port and looked left and right. Just like how you do in front of the mirror.

Probably the first time it saw it’s own reflection.

The Thresher shark doing it’s rounds while Andrew took the videos.

A headshot of the Thresher shark.

Sometimes they get rather close.

The tail is just amazingly beautiful.

The pregnant (?) nurse shark at Gato Island. That’s quite an incredible dive site. You also get to swim through a mini cave which was kind of fun.

Squid protecting it’s eggs nearby.

Frogfish looking devilish here. This was at the Exotic Resort’s house reef. which is pretty darn amazing for a house reef.

Juvenile Lionfish.

And finally, the mantas decide to make an appearance. These are huge, probably in the range of 5m.

Wave. This one’s good for facebook covers:D

Outriggers outside Wilmar’s house. He invited us for dinner and also to watch some cockfighting as there were some festival going on.

The last night on the island.

Outrigger.

The spotlights from the resort lighting up the outrigger.

Finally, on the second trip I managed to blow perfect bubble rings. All thanks to Paul, who was very patient despite me pestering him every now and then to teach me.

I spent a considerable amount of time under the hot afternoon sun getting the image of the wave I wanted during our surface intervals. During then, I found a dead bamboo shark and got ‘hit’ by a juvenile mantis shrimp.

Our last night at Exotic Resort.

A lone outrigger on the beach.