Flying, Diving, Cruising, and RVing!

Our next destination after Pahrump was Las Vegas, NV to see some shows. While in Las Vegas we saw Cirque du Soleil show ‘Love’ and the Donnie and Marie show and we spent a week at Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort which is a very nice resort, but expensive and noisy from being next to I-15 and in the flight path of the airport.

When Ocean Extreme Dive and Travel Center booked their first Pacific scuba dive trip for Oct 3-11, 2009 I jumped on the chance to do a dive trip with my good friends from Arkansas. We met up with them at the Cebu airport on October 3, 2009 and the group then took a three hour bus trip to Kasai Village Beach Resort located close to Moalboal, Cebu Philippines. The resort is very nice and the rooms are large. Our eleven night package included three meals and three boat dives a day. The Arkansas group was there seven nights and while they were there our meals were buffet style and when they left, Joe and I ordered from the menu. The food was wonderful, but with all the diving, I did not gain any weight. I probably could have lost some weight if I hadn’t eaten so much mango everyday.

The diving was very good, although we did not care for getting on and off the local boats, especially when the seas were rough. While out on the boat one day we even saw a whale shark, which is very rare for this time of year, but there was a typhoon north of us and it may have drove him south, plus there was lot of plankton in the water, which may have attracted him. Lots of stuff in the water meant our underwater photography was limited to macro images.

We enjoyed our dive trip to Cebu, Philippines diving with our friends from Ocean Extreme and Kasai Village is a very good value for a dive destination, but Wakatobi is still our favorite dive destination.

Joe had never been to Hong Kong and we had to stop there on our way to the Philippines, so we decided to spend a few nights there to get over the jet lag from the time difference before heading on to the Philippines. My last trip to Hong Kong was in 1996 when I traveled to Sipidan to dive. In 1996 HK was still under British control and I was curious to see the difference under Chinese control. We stayed three nights at the Kowloon Renaissance for $103 a night, which was a bargain in HK, especially since China was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China during our stay.

We traveled to and from the airport on HK’s express train, then took the express hotel bus to the hotel. Taking the Airport Express train and bus to and from the airport worked out very well even with four large checked bags and four carry-ons.

The first day we rested some and then walked around the Nathan road area, which is the shopping district in Kowloon. Being retired and living in 400 sq. feet, we don’t need work clothes or ‘stuff’ so we just walked around. The second day we traveled to Victoria Peak by walking to the Star Ferry then taking the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong and then walking several blocks to the Victoria Peak tram station and road the tram to the peak. At Victoria Peak we looked around, had lunch and then took the tram back down to the station. At the station we took the local bus to the central bus station and walked back to the ferry terminal and took the ferry back to Kowloon and then walked back to the hotel. The third day we walked to the MTR station and took the MTR to HK then took a local bus to Aberdeen. We had lunch at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant in Aberdeen Harbor then took the local bus back to HK’s central station and then took the ferry back to Kowloon.

When possible, we enjoy touring an area using local transportation rather than buying an organized tour package where you’re not in control of where you’re taken or how long you’ll be at each point. We may not get to see as many sights that way, but we experience the local culture much more.

We’ll return to Hong Kong sometime in the future and will tour more of Kowloon when we return.

Our next destination was Sand Hollow State Park near Hurricane, UT for two nights to tour Zion National Park. Instead of touring Zion NP, I decided I needed the extra day to get ready for our trip to the Philippines, so Zion was put on hold until after the Philippines. We then traveled to our friend Doug’s home in Pahrump, NV. Doug graciously offered to watch over our RV while we were traveling out of the country. Doug’s home has a full RV hook-up and a very large concrete pad on the side of his house, so it worked out very well. After returning from our trip we spent a few more days there to rest, wash dive gear and do many, many loads of laundry.

After we returned from our trip, Joe went with Doug on one of his aerial assignments. The aerial photo is courtesy of Doug.

Our next destination was Bryce Canyon National Park. We stayed at Circleville RV in Circleville, UT which was about fifty miles from Bryce, because all the RV parks closer to Bryce, which would meet our requirements were full. Bryce Canyon was amazing and beautiful!