Streamyx

Diving in Malaysia is probably one of the most well known tourist attractions for foreigners visiting. This doesn't mean Malaysia has little else to offer, on the contrary. Malaysia is a colorful country but diving is an important part of the tourist industry.

Although I have been traveling for many years, mostly by bicycle, see my www.bicycle-adventures.com for some details, it wasn't until I settled in Sitiawan that I learned to dive.

Sitiawan is a little town not far from Lumut, which is the gateway to Pangkor Island, a little tourist paradise in Malaysia. Few foreigners know Pangkor, and even fewer know there's a good dive site nearby.

At the time, now already 3 years ago, a new dive shop opened in Lumut. The owners, a nice German couple asked me to do some promotion for them. But what do I promote if I don't know what "it" is. Thus I started the basic dive courses, joined on dive trips and ... got hooked.

Some people claim the best dive sites are on the east coast, Redang, Tioman, Perhentian and many other island. Other claim Sabah, east Malaysia has even better dive sites. This may all be true but Pangkor, or to be precise, Sembilan islands should not be dismissed.

After I learned diving in the Sembilan waters I traveled to other dive sites and it was an astonishing experience to find out many sites had the same problem as Pulau Sembilan: you can't expect all the time excellent visibility and spectacular fishes.

Take Sembilan as an example. It's a great series of islands with plenty of good dive sites but.... because of the tides it's not always great to dive here. About 10 days a months the waters here are murky. 10 other days the water is OK and 10 days it is usually excellent.

So what did I start to see? When I was for the first time down I saw a world I knew from television. However, being down was different. I felt clumsy, I still feel clumsy if I look how elegant the fishes go around. Although nowadays I am a much better diver then in the beginning I still feel clumsy.

Look at the barracuda's when they hunt. Look at the parrotfish or garupas. They are so gracious. Turtles and stingrays fly in the water. A leopard shark passes by and you wish you could be him for a moment. And then you look at the sea floor and see seahorses. These small little creatures go almost unnoticed around.

Scorpion- and lionfish are so wonderfully disguised you easily miss them out. And we divers have no more then the time the air in the tank lasts. depending on the depth 30 to 60 minutes. In amazement you go up to the surface with the only wish to go down again and join the fish in their search for food and protection. Diving is a life changing experience.

Here in Pangkor island, only snorkeling is possible but 40 minutes out of the coast is Pulau Sembilan, 9 uninhabited little island where eagles in the air, insects and small mamals and reptiles on the island and the fish in the sea still rule. And with diving, you can get a glimpse of the beauty down under. If you have never been diving, give yourself this present. It's magic.

Peter van der Lans is a Dutchman who lives these days in Sitiawan Malaysia. After years of traveling, he cycled from Holland to Malaysia, stayed a months in the Middle East, a year on the Indian Subcontinent and 2 years in China plus a year in the UK, he settled himself in Malaysia.

Sitiawan was the perfect place to write a website about Pulau Pangkor. Later he wrote http://www.bicycle-adventures.com, an ongoing project about his journeys on bicycles. A third website: http://www.yangshuo-travel-guide.com he recently build. In the years in China, he lived in Yangshuo and he thinks he can tell the story about this pretty little town in China.