A Blast from the Past

It’s been a while since my last post. Too long. And as it is with everything, it is taking me a while to get back into the rhythm of writing. We are currently in Nicaragua, traveling northwards, and i am so behind on my posts, it’s ridiculous.  I have been looking through my computer and came across this article that was written about my dad a couple of years ago and published in a local newspaper, The Borneo Post. So as an early father’s day greeting, and because i miss this man so much when i am away, i’m posting it in my blog.

My dad comes from a small village in Borneo and was one of the first from his village to travel out of the country. He says that from an early age, he always had a yearning to see the world, and he worked hard to fulfill that dream, at a time when the world was not as small as it  is today. Now, as i travel through Central America, and find that i am the first Malaysian that many locals here have met, i can sort of relate to how it must have been for my dad in the 60’s.  And as i learn more about myself, i realise how similar i am to this man who continues to be a source of inspiration for me and many others.

So here’s the article, which i am not editing and just reproducing here. Please excuse the mistakes, they are in the online version. For those of you who can read Bahasa Malaysia, i am also sharing another article that was written about dad in a local newspaper much earlier. Happy reading!

Ex-army man fulfills dream to see the world

by Peter Sibon. Posted on February 28, 2011, Monday

SIBU: The yearning to see the world has literally taken former British army staff sergeant Sahari bin Ubu, 70, around the globe.

SHARING EXPERIENCE: Sahari wearing his British Army uniform poses for BAT at his house in Kpg Nangka in Sibu. — Photo by Chimon Upon

He served in the British Army for 22 years from 1962 until his retirement in 1984.

He had served in various countries, including Germany, Singapore and Malta where he met his wife, Lucy Ludgarda deBatista, who passed away two years ago.

They got married in 1970 and the couple has three children – two sons and a daughter.

“I was also posted to Vietnam during the Vietnam War, from 1965 to 1967.

“But I was not involved in the war directly, but more of playing a supporting role in the Royal Signal Corps in the British Army,” recalled Sahari to BAT at his house in Kampung Nangka in Sibu.

While still in school, the young Sahari was already intrigued with the idea of travelling around the world.

After completing his Form Three education at Sacred Heart Secondary School here in 1957, he went to Brunei to hunt for jobs where he met a British engineer whom he confided to about his wild dream.

“He told me an opportunity on how to achieve my dream by joining the British army. He also assisted me to apply for a British passport through the British Embassy in Brunei,” Sahari reminisced.

After taking the initial step, he decided to return to Sibu to get the fund that he needed badly.

“I worked for a while with Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (Sesco) and did odd jobs such as repairing generator sets,” he recalled.

After getting enough funds, he bade farewell to his family and travelled to Singapore.

“From Singapore, we flew to England by Comet 4 plane owned by the British Air Overseas Corporation (BAOC).

“We landed in England and l was immediately sent to Catterick Camp in Yorkshire.

“I was trained for a year, specialising in signal,” he added. His first posting was in Germany and the second posting was in Singapore, and then to Malta.

He was back again to Germany, then to England and back again to Germany again until he retired in 1984.

“My most memorable experience while in the army was when I was deployed to the American base at Camp Long Nokta in Thailand. The camp was located near the border with Laos where bombings into Vietnam were carried out,” said Sahari.

And during the Falklands War, he assisted the British through their base camp in Germany.

“I never got involved in direct combat with the enemies as I was in the signal corps which provided information to other troops,” recalled Sahari.

Soon after his retirement, he was appointed as penghulu for the Melanau community of Kampung Nangka.

“I was appointed as a penghulu after the term of my predecessor Carol Abang Dris expired about seven years ago,” added Sahari.

As if to show that he was not kidding about his sojourn in various countries round the world, he called his son Michael who works as an air steward with Malaysia Airlines.

And indeed his son seems to have ‘exotic’ features which clearly showed that he is of mixed parentage.

Sahari was seemingly very glad that he finally broke his silence to tell the world of his wondering experiences of seeing the world.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2011/02/28/ex-army-man-fulfills-dream-to-see-the-world/#ixzz2TEc4eFU0

Another article written about my dad in a Bahasa Malaysia newspaper a few years ago.

Border Crossing: Nicaragua

We ended up leaving Tegucigalpa later than planned. We were pretty exhausted from the long bus journey the previous day and had not eaten anything for dinner so we crossed the road and had a local Honduran breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall just a few doors down from our hotel. It was there that we had some overly-sour sour cream in our baleadas, which upset our tummies. Not a good start to another long day of traveling.

Our bus from Tegucigalpa to Choluteca.

We hopped onto the bus to Choluteca, one of Honduras’ southern towns just before the border crossing, right outside our hotel. The bus was slow and stopped to pick up and drop off people everywhere. It took us 3 hours, and at the Coluteca bus terminal, we found the colectivo vans to Guasaule, a tiny border town. We were not prepared for the commotion that greeted us as soon as the van stopped at the last point in Honduras before the border checkpoint though. A huge crowd of local pedicab/trishaw guys just descended on us, literally grabbing our backpacks  from the roof and loading them onto a pedicab before we had even exited the van. A fight broke out among them and we were in the middle of it all, which made us eventually feel coerced to pay 100 Lempiras (roughly 4 Euros) to one of the guys, just to get us out of this mess (which was a bit unnerving). We were first taken to the Honduran checkpoint to get our passports stamped before proceeding to cross a bridge over to the Nicaraguan immigration point.

Our full pedicab. Those two guys on the right took us over to Nicaragua.

The Honduras immigration checkpoint at the Guasaule crossing. Just a couple of tables.

Goodbye Honduras.

The river between Honduras and Nicaragua.

While we were crossing the bridge (quite a few border crossings have been over a river),  we were stopped by a couple of military personnel who thoroughly checked through our backpacks, and thankfully found nothing to stop us, so we continued to the other side. While Rick went into the Nicaraguan checkpoint to settle the entry fees and get our entry stamps (we paid 12 USD each), i waited outside with our bags. The pedicab guys, started asking for a tip ie. more money, which we were certainly not going to pay,having realised by that time that we had been conned (we could have walked across, it wasn’t as far as they had told us). At this point they were getting quite annoying, and the more they harped on about their “tip”, the more resolved we were not to give them a cent more than what we had agreed upon.

The end of the bridge and the entrance into Nicaragua.

The Nicaraguan immigration personnel told Rick that we had only 3 more days left to either extend our CA-4 visas in Nicaragua (CA-4 countries are Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – and you get a total of 90 days for all 4 countries) or quickly make our way to Costa Rica to exit and reenter. We were told that we could get an extension in Leon,the first place we had decided to stay in Nicaragua, so we decided to head to the immigration office there and see how much it would cost us when we were settled.

The pedicab guy then took us to the bus stop after the immigration point, where we got on a chicken bus to wait for the 2-hour ride to Leon. Before getting on the bus, Rick realised that his sunglasses were missing, so he ran after the disgruntled pedicab guys (they were unhappy that we had not tipped them), and when he confronted them, one of them said that they had, rather conveniently, “just found” the sunglasses. It was not a nice thing to have to deal with at all. At this point we were both pretty tired from the journey and the heat and still had upset stomachs.

Waiting for our bus to Leon to leave after getting Ricks sunglasses back.

On the bus to Leon, we met a South African couple who we eventually ended up sharing a cab with into Leon from the bus stop (20 Cordoba’s each). It was already dark and we were stopped literally at the side of the main road to Managua. The taxi driver dropped us at a reasonably-priced hostel (Hostel La Clinica), where we spent our first night in Leon, Nicaragua.

Leaving Utila

After spending almost 7 weeks in Utila it was time to leave. We had thoroughly enjoyed our time there.  An idyllic Caribbean island, friendly locals, home-cooked food in our fantastic apartment and best of all, we got to spend time and catch up with our friends Jesus and Begonia. It was a kind of holiday from traveling, a chance to just relax and take a break. We couldn’t have chosen a better place.

However, as always, good things have to come to an end. We had earlier found some very cheap flights back to Spain from Cancun, Mexico (the route we took to come to this part of the world), which were so cheap, we just couldn’t pass them by without purchasing them. After a few sessions on skyscanner.net, we found our flight for just 125 Euros each which was considerably less expensive than what we had paid to come. So now, we have a flight back to Spain at the end of June.

This has obviously changed the dynamics of our travels. We now have a deadline to make our way back up to Mexico and we have had to change our mindsets, and get moving! We quickly decided on our next destination, planned our route and packed up to leave as we have just under two months now to travel though Nicaragua and El Salvador before retracing our route back to Cancun, Mexico.

Jesus and Begonia decided to stay in Utila for a few more weeks, so we had to say our goodbyes for now.

Leaving Utila: loaded up and walking to the main jetty.

Our last look at Utila from the main jetty.

We left Utila bright and early on a Monday morning on the 6.20am catamaran to La Ceiba. The one hour boat trip was over in a flash as i dozed off several times on the boat! When we arrived, we were ushered to a corner to wait for enough people to  fill a taxi. It was sort of done colectivo-style. Some tourists jumped ahead into taxis of their own, but we were going for the budget option as we were not in any rush. In the end, we saw a side of La Ceiba that many tourists do not get to see, when we dropped off the other two Honduran passengers on our way to the Transportes Cristina bus terminal. Again, we chose the cheaper local buses and not the expensive air-conditioned ones.

We had to wait for an hour for our bus to Tegucigalpa (the capital city of Honduras, notoriously dangerous), and perhaps onwards to Choluteca if we could make it before dark. While we were waiting at the bus station, a man came in and pulled out a gun, emptied out the magazine and loaded bullets and left it with security while he purchased his ticket for the same bus as us! That was a bit unnerving, seeing it for the first time, even though you read about it, hear stories and see signs asking people to surrender firearms before entering an establishment.

The bus to Tegucigalpa took us a long and tiring 8 hours, so by the time we arrived at around 6pm, we were too tired and it was too late to go onwards to Choluteca. We shared a taxi to Comayaguela, one of Tegucigalpa’s notorious neighbourhoods (which the Lonely Planet says is highly dangerous to be walking around in, even in broad daylight) with a Chilean couple we had met on the bus and as soon as we arrived, it started pouring down with rain. We quickly found a place to stay that was convenient to catch the bus the next day (Hotel Pinares – the bus to Choluteca stops right in front of the hotel) and settled in for the night. Our plan was to wake up and take the bus to Choluteca then cross the border to Nicaragua at Guasale.

Hotel Pinares. Reasonable, friendly, clean and well located.

View from Hotel Pinares. This lady had a heavy burden on her way to the market.

Comayaguela neighbourhood, Tegucigalpa. We hopped onto the bus to Choluteca from this street outside our hotel.

Muerte En Hawaii (Dead in Hawaii)

No, it’s not another narrative of mine, nor is Hawaii on our travel itinerary. Here’s another song by Puerto Rican band, Calle 13, “Muerte En Hawaii” (or “dead in Hawaii”). Another catchy soundtrack to this journey of ours. No lyrics this time. Just enjoy this weird video shot on a beautiful beach!

Ps. If you can’t see the video here, just click on the underlined and watch it on Youtube 🙂

Calle 13 “Muerte En Hawaii”

Water Cay

One Sunday, we visited Water Cay, one of the many small uninhabited islands off Utila, Honduras. A friend had arranged for Zorro, a local fishermen, to bring us over to the island in the morning and pick us up later in the evening.

Starting our journey. Beachfront houses on Utila island.

Deserted beach, Utila.

On the way there, we passed by many tiny islets, some of which are connected by bridge and heavily built-up with some houses on the water. Others had only one house or were completely devoid of all buildings, such as Water Cay.

Bridge across islets.

Some areas were really packed with houses.

Others had an island to themselves.

The amazing Caribbean water. Breathtaking shades of blue.

As soon as we arrived, we jumped into the sea to cool off, and that set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. We had a BBQ literally next to the beach, so when we weren’t eating, we were sitting in the clear, turquoise Carribean waters. Shane joined us for the trip and snorkeled around the whole cay, while Jesus and Ricardo saw an octopus, and lots of colourful reef fish.

Our destination, Water Cay.

Zorro, preparing some fish for our BBQ.

You really can’t beat a view like this.

Clear, clear water.

Our spot on the beach.

Preparing a salad. I’m really going to miss the avocados here.

Food galore.

The boys!

Friendly dogs.

The day passed by too fast and before we knew it, Zorro had come back for us. The journey back was pretty bumpy on our small fishing boat, and we all got soaked to the bone (except Zorro, who cleverly had a raincoat shield), but we all had smiles on our faces!

Loading up the boat.

One last look. Goodbye Water Cay!

When we got back to Utila, we bought some fresh tuna that Zorro had caught earlier in the day. He showed us the cuts on his fingers from the nylon fishing lines that he uses, war scars from fighting with these massive fish on a daily basis. I don’t need to tell you how delicious that fish was when prepared simply. It was good enough to eat raw!

Rick with some of Zorro’s catch of the day.

The Day We Met

On a small island off the east coast of Malaysia, we first met, exactly 4 years ago today. We talked and swam, then let fate take its course. And here we are now, on another island half way around the world, still letting life lead us in the direction that we are meant to walk together. A journey that continues..

Happy Anniversary!

Rick and i in 2009, just starting our journey together.