My Favourite South East Asia Dive Sites

I took my open water certification at Pulau Dayang near Tioman and follow up by advance diver certification at Redang Island at 2007. I had only dive a few great dive sites around South East Asia (SEA), which is Sipadan, Similan, Tulamben, Tioman and Bunaken, that I will describe the geographical site and also the highlight of each dive experience.

My first introduction dive site would be Tioman Island. This was my first dive after my OWD and also my recent dive logged at Tioman. I believe this was the best dive sites that I love most that I can find at Peninsula Malaysia. The first dive was at Labas Rock and Sea Fan Garden that I like most. A little adventure dive through the rock and later amaze with the magnificent sea fan garden and many beautiful fishes.

After I complete my advance diver certification, then I visited Bali with some diving trip which is my second dive site introduction, Tulamben wreck dive. The wreck dive is a majestic view of the USS Liberty warship that stores a huge bio diversity of corals and fishes. Even though I only make 2 dives but I really didn’t manage to see everything but even the 30% coverage of the wreck was already worth a diving. I will definitely going back Bali for my second Tulamben and Nusa Penida diving.

My advance diving actually make me active with diving recently. On the same year after visiting Bali, then here come my third introduction dive site, which is my favorite dive site and I consider it the best so far, “Sipadan Island”. Beside Sipadan, there are 2 beautiful island Mabul and Kapalai that shore beautiful site as well that make the whole dive trip a wonderful experience. Even though Mabul is a dive sites that actually saw many beautiful macro sea creatures but the highlight was Sipadan Island wall dive. The first dive site ‘Drop off’ that make me amaze with shark and green turtles, then diving towards ‘Barracuda point’ which later saw a school of barracuda fish swim round the site.

After 3 months from Sipadan, I took a long break during Chinese New Year to visit Thailand to dive at Similan Island. Similan comprise of an archipelago of small islands that make many of its dive site strategic too. It was a dive on board and I stay on the boat for 2 nights.

My last introduction dive sites would be Bunaken Island at Manado situated at Sulawesi Indonesia. Manado is a great places for wall and muck diving (muck mean volcanic black sand) but I only manage to do few wall dive at Bunaken but not Lembeh Straits for muck diving. It was a waste but doing the wall dive at Bunaken is a great experience too.

Visiting Penang, George Town World Heritage Site

I haven’t visit Penang after both Melaka and George Town was declare UNESCO world heritage sites for its historic cities at straits of Malacca on 2008. I planned a trip to Penang or Pulau Pinang from 30th May to 1st June to attend a good friend beautiful baby Iris 1 month old birthday party at Bukit Mentajam and it is a good time for me to bring my family as well to visit this special heritage site at George Town.

Before Penang declared the world heritage site, I never really walk George Town after visiting Penang several times. This time I will take my time to capture some heritage building at George Town with my own design walking tour after so many good reference sites from Penang blogger and observer. I will name this tour “Jo’s George Town Core Heritage Walking” tour (separate into 4 section Esplanade section, Commercial Section, Clan Section and MKK Section) which take approximately 3 hour by foot that covers Esplanade Cornwallis, commercial building at Beach rd, historic religious places and some traditional houses.



My walking tour is mainly focus on building architecture and religious places without entrance fee. Anyway I visit the heritage sites on Sunday where many places like Fort Cornwallis, Lim Kongsi, Dr. Sun Yat Sen base are closed. Some places like Khoo Kongsi, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Historical houses need to pay for entrance which I am not interested. So this is the places that I am interested and worth a visit according to my preference where I would be introducing.



I started my first section of the walking tour from Esplanade section along Light Rd where my first attraction would be the Logan’s memorial sitting in front of the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi). This is a beautiful statue that captures my attention.





That’s another structure that captures my attention which is the Great Eastern old building. Then we walk towards Esplanade to look for Town hall, City Hall Building and Cenotaph War Memorial. The next destination would be Fort Cornwallis that I would recommend but I did not really visit as it was close on Sunday.















Then come the second section of Commercial building, where I started from the Queen Victoria clock tower, follow by the stretch of commercial building of Standard & Charted building, RBS building,





Malayan Railway Building that I love most and capture my attention.





After beach rd, then I turn into Chulia Rd where my third section of Clan started with my first attraction which is the little mosque of Nagore Shine.




Then by pass Madrasah Hamid Arabi & Lim Kongsi, visiting Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple and Yap Clan Temples.




Then we walked along Armenian Rd to visit Dr. Sun Yat Sen base and Islamic Museum, former residence of Syed Alatas Mansion before ending at Khoo Kongsi and Acheen mosque.











We had our early vegetarian lunch along the Masjid Kapitan Keling Rd next to a temple. After the lunch then we start our final section of the MKK section that comprise of penang oldest temple Kapitan Keling Mosque,




Teochew Ancestral Temple,









Mahamariamman Temple,








Kuan Yin Teng (Kong Hock Keong),








and St George Church.