The Sleepy Hollow

Live Broadcast of RTM's 'Forum Perdana'

Lenggong Perak Darul Ridzuan

My association with RTM's islamic program Forum Perdana has been going on for the past 2 years,

only recently that i have decided on blogging on my work travels making this my 1st entry of the many villages we have travelled within Malaysia for the Live broadcast of this program. The forum is a religious talk show that air's some of the nation's most finest well learned religious scholars also knowned as Ustaz and Ustazah's giving talks and discussing on islamic affairs and culture. Aired every thursday night live on national tv from various locations within Malaysia, mainly outskirts and rural villages, and attended by the thousands of muslims from all around the districts surrounding the area, giving them a chance of meeting the scholars, listening to the discussions and even getting themselves on tele. This time we travel into yet another sleepy hollow town in the northern territory of Malaysia, This is LENGGONG, PERAK DARUL RIDZUAN.

Situated in the middle of the Lenggong Mountain Ranges also known as Banjaran Lenggong, a journey that requires a 4 hour travel by land up the north south expressway from Kuala Lumpur to the Kuala Kangsar exit in Perak Darul Ridzuan, and a further 45 minute journey in land passing beautiful landscapes, through the famous mountain ranges of Lenggong which is recently gazetted as a Unesco heritage sight due to the discovery of the Perak Man, a 10000 year old skeletal remains of Malaysia's pre historic man, evidence of human existence that dates back to the paleolithic era.

Besides the rich historical nature of Lenggong, and it's long deep trail in through the jungle, there is almost nothing else in this quite town that houses some of the finest boarding schools the country has to offer. After a long and scenic ride, we finally arrive at our destination, the sleepy hollow town of Lenggong.

With only one road leading in and out of this quite town, Lenggong was also famous during the early days of the communist insurgency, as they battled the Japanese occupation, much of the assistance came from the chinese villagers who were supplying communist with food and medical supplies to continue their onslaught on the Japanese army and in later years against the British army. Remarkably, with all this historical happenings, this town only hosts 1 Police station, 1 bus stand and 1 town hall, there are no hotels within the vaccinity, so the only place we got for ourselves is a sleezy resthouse, which if anywhere else in KL or any other city would be filled with cheap hookers and transvestites looking for business, but being in the kampung there was none of that sort around, Rumah Tumpangan Soon Lee, that's where we put up for our 3 nights in Lenggong, to our surprise it wasn't half bad,

 the A/C was working fine, the water heater was working fine, we had few tv's around, no cable and wifi though which was the only downside of it all, but was enough to get by for the duration and not more.
Our 1st day was a travel day, and there was no work involved, we checked in, chilled out and relaxed for the day, we only headed out in the evening for a simple dinner, and chit-chated for the rest of the night, topics included everything from women to football and more football, as most of the crew in our team were Manchester United fans, as usual i took all the stick for being the lonely Liverpool fan in the group, which to me was just normal, because whatever successes achieved by Manchester United in the last decade is still just not enough when it's compared to the success Liverpool has gotten in their lifetime, they will never accept the fact that however bad LFC plays we are still better then them overall, so it's just normal they can't seem to stop bitching about us

where ever they go, this is a FACT. So after a lot of food and a lot of drinks later, we went back to our hotel to call it a night and get rested for our early morning setup, but of course that wasn't the case, hours later we went out again for more food and drinks and more LFC bashing by the MUnkeys and finally ending our night out at 5am, so much for a sleepy hollow.
Up and about at 7am, couldn't sleep much, maybe the room feeling a wee bit foreign to me, so i went upstairs to catch the sunrise, couldn't see much due to us being blocked by the vast mountain ranges, but lots of things were happening in this quite town, as the town folk went on their daily routine. We all got ready for work and finally only headed out at about 11am, headed straight to the venue, there was a huge marquee tent all set up for the event, with an expected crowd of a few thousand to attend, a 2 meter stage was set up for the panelist's.

Our setup was fairly simple, 3 pairs of RCF speakers, Fresnel lights on soundking stands, Floor monitors, tv monitors and sound and lighting consoles, intergrated to RTM's OB for recording's and live broadcast, of course under the haze, which was lighter then what we had in KL, IPU was only at the 70's to 80's which was way better than in the city, which was, when we left was clocked at 180 to 200 IPU, enough to give one a cardiac arrest, the sun was shinning way bright and a very hot day at that. We were done by 3pm, soundchecked and light checked and ready for lunch, all thats left was to soundcheck with OB, which as usual would only happen in the morning of the day of the broadcast itself. So after a well deserved lunch we were done for the day, where we chose to drive all the way to Penang later in the evening for dinner, followed by more discussions of women, football, and the best of them all an argument about Bruce Lee coming to Indonesia and having a sparring match with a local silat exponent, which later let to his death, an argument i couldn't accept happen because of the lack of proof, but according to some that lived through that era believed really happened and Bruce Lee's lost to the Indo let to his death.. fiction? I dunno...

Day 3, and we were all ready to go, again our call time was at 11am, we didn't need to be out too early Because we've already done most of the setting up the day before, we had a nice kampung roti canai breakfast at the food court before the arrival of RTM's OB and live broadcast unit. We proceeded with our soundchecks and mic checks, light checks etc, and finalising our intergration with the OB unit which finally arrived, They proceeded with their camera setup's, visual balancing, etc. And again we were done a few hours after lunch, and headed back to the hotel for some more R&R, and came back only later in the evening for more final touch up's and check's, and to standby for broadcast. At this time the place started filling up with people, buses were a plenty and thing's started to get exciting.

At 9pm we started as per schedule, with no on toward incident's taking place, everything went as planned, with the town's folk filling the place up by the thousand's, and were done with the live broadcast by 10pm, and continuing with one more pre recorded episode. Everything was completed by 11pm, where we started packing, which took us about 2 hours, which is always faster then setting up, maybe because of being excited with the fact that we will be finally heading home and out of the jungle. Forum Perdana has always taken us into places we might never enter in our lifetime, so i cherish every experience i get from the trips, however bad the situation or conditions we are in, i cherish every moment of it, to be able to see and experience all this remote places my country has to offer is amazing, i look forward to our next trip, where ever it may be, till then, This is Lenggong.

Zak Zebra Does Korea Part 2

Zak Zebra Malaysian Safari the Musical

Day 1 (after arrival)

After a good night's sleep in our hostel, one of the best iv'e experienced so far in terms of dormitory style accommodations, everything was perfect. Most of us were up early, those that didn't go for night caps that is, stayed back and made sure we were well rested for our early morning bump in, had our self made breakfast at our pantry which was well equipped with everything, stoves, ovens, eggs, bread, tea, coffee etc. We gathered together bitching about what a shitty network party that was hosted for us the night before, the only food that was served were 4 types of fried chicken, which the Koreans think they have perfected over the years but these ones we had were not even close to the quality of fried chicken the Koreans are well known for, these tasted like it was ordered from Dominoes or Pizza Hut, When we arrived there were no more drinks available, thank god none of us choked on our chickens. Every production team that attended the network party had to entertain

everyone by performing something as a team or individually, we just couldn't be bothered, looking at the fact that we just arrived, we just paid no attention to it, well we weren't the only once, seemed like the Singaporean team too did not bother performing themselves. The party was well over by 8.30pm,  did not leave much time for any form of networking really, the building lights just went off and everyone just left, so without a word all of us left too, some of us as mentioned earlier adjourned somewhere else but the rest of us just headed back to the hostel for a well deserved rest. And here we are all up at 8am, well rested and all ready for a heavy bump in. All set and ready to go, our journey to the venue daily was a 15 minute walk through a very quite housing area, the weather was nicely cool yet warm, in the morning a long sleeved shirt will suffice as it was a little bit chilly, but by afternoon shirts off once the sun hits the roof.

As we arrived at the venue, we were greeted by our friendly Korean stage manager Big John, by the name you can imagine a huge 6 footer, wide, military trained Korean, but very friendly and very huggable, i for one did not do much hugging but some how everyone else did, and so i was told that he was teddy bearrishly huggable, he joked and laughed most of the day, and tried his utter best to communicate with us in english but as we would call it back home "bagai ayam dengan itik." That aside we had 3 translators with us who spoke perfect english to help us get by, i was lucky to have 1 for myself as she took me around town makan-makan and all that, and truly helped me with my Korean sound counterpart who couldn't speak a word of english whatsoever, when my translator was not around all i was able to do to communicate with him was by using sign language and if any of us could converse with braille, i swear to god we would have done that too.

So we were off with our bump in, unloading our gears, props, costumes etc, much work was needed to complete most of the props, costumes and headgears, so the whole team was at work trying to complete as fast as we can, because all we had for bump in, tech rehearsal's and full dress was one day, and our opening show would be the next morning at 10am, so everybody got to work. I was given the mics i had to work with, initially they were going to hire DPA's for me and i was excited when i found out about it, i even published it on my FB status bragging about how important the Korean's thought i was by giving me the Lamborghini of audio microphones for a children's production, but to no surprise that wasn't to be, instead, all i got was some Shure wireless mics, which were not even headworn, they were lapel mics used for interviews and film shoots, so a massive amount of tapes were used just to have it rigged to the casts faces, poor guys, they were lucky i had surgical tapes orelse i would be forced to use gaffer tapes on them.

But being the engineer that i am, i just work with whatever that's been given to me regardless of the condition of the equipment, ill try my bestest to make it happen, but thank god everything went fine, mixers and speakers were good and that was enough for me to proceed without complain. Everyone else including the casts were busy outside installing the set and props while i was sound checking all mics and equipments and getting ready for the sound checks with the casts, technical and full dress rehearsals happening once everyone was ready.
Once all was done we walked out for a quick lunch, i was introduced to gimbab by our host, a long sushi thing wrapped in seaweed filled with glutinose rice, veggie and some meat, it was a filling meal for one and very cheap and affordable for us Malaysian's struggling with currency exchange issue's, halalness is always a problem everywhere in the world so nothing new in South Korea, i guess we just have to order anything you want and request that it is served without pork, if we were to go find halal restaurant's throughout Korea we might just end up not eating at all. Done with lunch we headed back to the venue and proceeded with our rehearsal's. We completed whatever we could for the day, tech run and blocking took a long time, we didn't have enough time for a full dress rehearsal as we ran out of time for the day, we had to pack up and leave by midnight, everything was fairly simple, so it didn't really matter whether we had a full dress or not, but would have been great to be able to.

Opening day! Our call time was at 8am at the venue, approximately 2 hours to get dressed, miked up, sound checked, and warmed up. The doors were opened at 10am sharp, suprisingly to a sold out crowd of little Korean children and their parents and guardians, most of the event organisers were there to catch the opening show. We were all afraid of whether they would be able to understand the show since it was fully written in english, and whether by reading the subtitles on the side of the stage would throw them off their focus on stage, there was not much we could do about it, so the guys performed to the best of their abilities and hoped for the best, only to be greeted and appreciated by a standing ovation at the end, which came to a surprise to us, Maybe the song's and the dances spoke by itself transcending all barrier's of language, age and culture.

To our delight our first show was over and done with without having to go through a full dress rehearsal, to some that would have been a nightmare if anything was to go wrong, thank the god's everything went on as planned and nothing on toward happened during the performance. We were done 1pm, and it was time for lunch, relax for a little bit and then to get ready for the next run which was at 4pm sharp, with all the checks, dress up's and warm up's for the next run, we had to be back at the theatre by 2pm. The 2nd show, also sold out by Korean children and their parent's, mostly recommended to watch the show by their friends who attended the earlier show, also celebrated us with a standing ovation while singing and dancing along to the cast and having a good time, all and all it was a very good first day for all of us and a very well deserved rest to look forward to the next day, as a dark night was prepared for us to go see the sights Gwangju had to offer. We were done by 6pm and the cast were asked to hold photo sessions and also an acting workshop which was to be done in Korean, of course with the help of a group of local translators that is, the cast thought the children how to react and move like the animals that were portrayed in the musical and played simple games with their given characters.

To no surprise, nobody went home early that night, everyone went back to wash up and got changed and immediately out for dinner, drinks and a night out around town. Fried Chicken and beer or popularly known as 'Chimak' by the locals lasted for hours and hours, with varieties of differently grilled, barbecued or fried chicken. The night ended late with a walkabout through town, bright light's, Kpop and Chimak pubs, with nothing to wake up early to the next morning, we explored the nightlife of this not so little Korean town and took ton's of pictures, too many to post all in this chapter but hopefully will do n the next.

More on our day off and final days in Gwangju, before i eventually end my Gwangju experience and head off to Seoul city on my 1 nighter solo trip in part 3. Till then Ahnyeonghaseyo..

Zak Zebra does Korea Part 1

Zak Zebra Malaysian Safari the musical

This time my work brings me to South Korea with the cast and crew of a Malaysian children's theater musical called Zak the Zebra. An arts festival held in Gwangju South Korea to mark the opening of their new Arts facility. My job as the main Sound Engineer for the tour is to make use of all audio equipment provided by the venue to make this production a success. Hence our journey begins.

As we boarded our midnight flight in KLIA, welcomed by the greetings of "Annyeonghaseyo" by the Korean Airlines staff, i did not know what to expect from South Korea whatsoever. The truth is that, i had no idea what South Korea was all about, Being a fan of Japan, it's food, it's culture, music and arts, Korea was in fact Alien to me in every way. I liked nothing Korean, food, language, music, kpop and lifestyle, oh how i wish we were headed to Japan instead. With a cast & crew of 14 Malaysians, headed to Gwangju Soth Korea for the opening of their Asian Cultural Centre, an arts centre so big, one could get lost just by looking for the theatre venue you were going to watch. Performers from all over the world were invited to perform for the one month long opening festival of the arts village. Performing Zak Zebra the musical which was 1st performed at the Pentas 2 of the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre KLPAC. Now with a twist in the tale and a slight change of casts we were going to perform to an audience of non English speaking Koreans.  

But this wasn't a problem we were all worried about during this tour, this time, a member of our cast,

not just an ensemble member or an extra, it was our main character Zak the Zebra herself who is suffering from Tourette's syndrome, for those who do not know what it is, this syndrome which is by birth, forces it's patients to scream or shout uncontrollably at random which means how frequently and what comes out from the mouth too cannot be controlled, there is no known cure for this syndrome, so patients who suffer from it will have to live with it all throughout their lives, to make things worst is that at times these outbursts of verbal emotions are followed with violent actions of slaps or punches to the faces or bodies of anyone within reach, i myself have taken a few hits here and there, but for the love of my friend i consider it friendly fire and accept all of it however much it hurts with open arms (more like closed arms cause sometimes the hits can get below the belt). With her on board the flight we new we were in for a long and rough journey, we new what we were getting into, so we were prepared, 

we printed out google translated documents in Korean which were properly checked of it's contents, explaining what Tourette's syndrome is all about, just in case we were confronted on the matter. And true enough an hour past on board our flight, many screams and shouts later, the many Korean passengers on board started getting hostile, they stood up in numbers, those seated from back rows got up and came forward wondering what the commotion was all about, some thought she was struggling and fighting with someone on board or being sexually harassed, some just thought she was purposely being annoying and disturbing people of their sleep. Most of the air crew  were already informed of her condition, but they themselves were clueless and wasn't expecting such a violent and uncontrollable behaviour by a patient with such a disorder, they too found it hard to control the bombardment thrown by the Korean passengers, they tried their best to explain about her condition and to try to calm everyone down, but to no avail, as the hostile Korean passengers came and started shouting and hurling abuses at her as though she was doing it on purpose.

Slowly the flight staff went from seat to seat to explain to everyone regarding the matter and calmed the situation down. After awhile things started to get better and more under control, soon after she fell asleep after swallowing 2 Xanax's during the commotion, Sleeping pills she brought along just in case such a things happened, and only waking up again after we landed at Incheon International airport South Korea. 

As we were met by our hospitality guide Ms. Yong Jong at the arrival hall, she split us up into 2 groups which were split into 2 public busses, to be driven to our destination which was a 5 hour journey south of Seoul. Our cast of 10 took the 1st bus, and the rest of the crew including myself took the 2nd bus which was 2 hours later. Why the wait was because we were asked to wait for the arrival of our most dearest Singaporean neighbours who were arriving only 2 hours after us. 

 

All in all our journey took 6 hours from Kuala Lumpur, 2 hours at Incheon and 5 hours to Gwangju.

A max total of 13 hours journey from point A to point B. To make matters worst, as soon as we arrived in Gwangju we had to wait for our pick up from the bus stand which lasted another hour and a long walk around the bus stand just to locate our van. Soon we were on our way but this time, one more stop, our Singaporean friends get's to check into their hotel 1st as we were not rooming together, thank god for that. But suddenly, we were left waiting in the van by the side of the road for quite awhile, curious we started speaking to the driver, not understanding a word, after translations from some Korean website's, he manages to explain to us that we will have to wait for the Singaporeans to freshen up and change and then join us to the theater venue for a meet and greet network party with all the participants, how convenient as we miserable Malaysians who had to wait all morning for these bastards, have to wait some more so that they can freshen up while we stink up the van, Muther TOOT!! The things we have to do for these guys, as though we owe them years and years of lost history or something, we were up to our balls with them from day 1, although we didn't have nice things to say to them or about them, the van remained silent the rest of the journey back to our hotel.

Gwangju Bus Terminal

On the other hand, out other team who left 2 hours before us, got themselves into the same problem we got on the plane, we received whatsapp messages from them telling us about how the whole bus just stopped by the side of the highway just to resolve the Tourette's matter. It seems the locals, again, just couldn't accept the existence of Tourette's in the world. The bus was stopped by the passengers and a heated exchange of verbal abuse happened on board and believe it or not they tried to throw them out the bus, our cast not speaking a word of Korean, only armed with the google translated explanation of Tourette's couldn't do much to control the situation. Then soon enough, just like what happened on the flight, the heat just cooled itself down, she soon fell asleep and that was it, back to normal again.

Having Tourette's is not at all easy, travelling with Tourette's or with someone suffering from Tourette's is hard as it is, but being in a country that doesn't understand Tourette's is the worst thing of all one has to go through. All hell can break loose and there is nothing whatsoever that can be used to calm things down during commotions. If you were someone suffering with Tourette's, my advice would be to travel in big groups of friends that understands you and love you enough to protect you under any circumstances and be by your side at all times, the screaming in the ears, hitting & bitting when it happened, i accepted it all without complain, and i hope you would too.

This is part 1 Zak does Korea, Part 2 will be out real soon. Cheers and Annyeaonghaseyo.

Bombs of Mantanani Island

Locating The Sabah Fish Bomber

Pulau Mantanani of the coast of Kota Kinabalu Sabah, A 1 hour journey by speed boat through the South China Sea to one of Sabah's beautiful yet mysterious islands. Filled with adventure and suspense from the word go, this is a chronicle of my stay with the locals locating what is famously known as the Sabahan Fish Bomber.

Once again my association with the production of 'The Bomb Listener' has brought me to Sabah, but this time to yet another island located at the north tip of Borneo called Pulau Mantanani. Travel starts by land via a van transfer from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Abai south of KK which will take approximately 1 and half hours,  at the jetty as we wait for the boats with busloads of chinese tourists from mainland China, most headed for day trips, something you will expect all year round in beautiful Sabah where your tests of patience will come in very handy in times of need. 

Be prepared for a rough ride as the waters and weather throughout the journey to Mantanani is quite unpredictable, this is caused by the location of the island and it's water ways which is open to the South China Sea and prone to the Southern Philipine storms. I would recommend some medication to ward of the sea sickness if you are one of those that are prone to such conditions, Puking is part of the journey so be prepared with the necessary. The boat ride will take about 45mins depending on water conditions more if weather is bad, if it is too dangerous for travel the operators will cancel the journey and everyone will be requested to return to KK and are refunded accordingly. 

After a gruesome journey, and feeling like everything i had from sahur was going to come back out with a vengence (due to my fasting i was unable to take any form of medication before the journey). Upon arrival we were greeted by clear blue skies emerald blue sea and white sandy beaches, one you would only see in travel advertisements where colour was enhanced to attract viewers, but this my friends was no enhancement or CGI of any sort, this was the real deal, this is Mantanani. A gem at the northern most tip of Borneo.

Here as we were dropped of by the shore we were met by our liason Encik. Mohammed who is the manager of the local homestays owned and operated by the village folks of the island as a alternate form of income besides their normal income from fishing. 95% of the inhabitants are local fisherman and the remainding 5% are teachers, police, boat builders and resort operators. There are mutiple choices of homestays if you wish to be close to the villagers, of course living conditions vary from home to home, live as they do eat as they do, this might not be comfortable to those with families and little children, but it is a cheaper alternative to the high priced resorts, and also for those seeking a bit of differnce in their visit and to experience something they have not, then this would be perfect for you. Each homestay takes turns to host a visitor on the island and rotates among the other homestays to keep a fair income average for all operators, so we do not have the power to decide which homestay we would like to be in, instead we will be given one based on rotation.

For this we were placed with Pak Alfa at ALpha's Homestay, 30 meters away from the sea, in the middle of the village. A double story kampung house where Pak Alfa his wife, children and grandkids live in the bottom level of the house and guests use the top part of the house. Being there in the fasting month of Ramadan, there is not much food around but just in case there were those among you that is not fasting, in my case was my producer and our NGO guide Natalie, arrangements can be made so that Pak Alfa's wife will cook and serve some lunch. But for me the host prepared meals for the  breaking of my fast and sahur at 3am everynight. 

view from homestay window

Owner of homestay Pakcik Alfa & wife

In this house we spent most of the 10 days we were on the island, surrounded by kampung folks, which majority of them were Bajau Ubiyan, fisherman, muslim (apparently, why i say this is because they admit they are muslim but know nothing about being one, hence not fasting, not praying, gambling, drugs etc).This at most part was perfect for what we were doing, which is to infiltrate the village folk and discover the true meaning of fish bombing. Although having some help from the local NGO's who already identified an ex fish bomber for us, it doesn't mean that our jobs were done, we still wanted to know more about the subject and it's history and how it evolved till this day and age and where it was heading to. So we met up with the village chief, met the local authorities and schools, spoke with the local imams joined the terawih prayers at the mosque, spoke with the people played with the children and blended in as much as we could.

Pakcik Alfa's family

Most of the children here do not go to school, this is because most of them are undocumented, where their parents are outsiders, either from the Philipines or Indonesia. The Bajau Ubiyan are the descendants of Philipine origins, who have lived a nomadic lifestyle migrating from island to island and have entered Malaysian waters legally or mostly by illegal means. Not identified as Malaysians nor Phillipinos they are left with no legal rights whatsoever but free to stay and move around Sabah waters as they please. This sort of major migration have allowed for the smuggling in of many illegal substances from the Phil's like drugs guns and in our case

ready made fish bombs.This form of migration have proven difficult for the M'sian authorities to curb, hence leading to kidnapping's of tourists and holiday goers for the funding of filipino militias, and the open attack of Sabah by their Suluk neighbours recently, are also caused by this open migration. Most of this so called enemies are either already living on M'sian soil or being protected by their local relatives and counterparts and are ever ready to pounce when ordered to, making them a very difficult enemy to cope with. But here in Mantanani is a safe zone due to military bases situated at nearby islands making any assault towards Mantanani a dangerous mission.

Imam of Mantanani

On Mantanani itself the reports for illegal fish bombing are at almost 30 blasts per day, killing of approximately close to 1000kg of fishes, this amount can fetch to almost Rm9000 per day, which is shared among the crew which can range to about 4-8pax per trip, and minus the capital used on purchasing the said bombs. Compared to most indeginious and safer ways of fishing, the income by bombing appears to be way superior and very lucrative. The bombs which are made from bottled fertiliser attached to a water proof fuse are being imported in via the philipines by sea, fisherman would meet the sellers half way mostly on international waters to avoid persecution and to buy them by the bulk load, this would cost them about Rm800 for a box of 20pcs of water proof fuses and another Rm800 for the pre bottled fertiliser, this is then split among the many fisherman who have shared the cost for the said bombs. 

Of course fishing can only be done during clear weather which is a rare sight in Mantanani due to unpredictable weather brought in by the storms from the South China Sea and also the Phillipino monsoon, the storms can last a few days at least putting all activities on Mantanani to a halt.

Once bombs have been fused, bombers will then locate areas with mass fish colonies before throwing the said bombs into the water. They will have roughly 5 minutes to leave the area before the explosion and return to collect the bombed fish after the explosions. They would dive in with a water hose attached to a compressor on the boat to allow them to breathe underwater as they make their rounds for collection of the fishes, they would carry a sack where they would collect the so called fish. Mishaps have occured during the bombing process, many have been hurt, lost of limbs etc.
But of course these are work hazards, and might not be enough to stop them with their activities.

Many times these fisherman have been cornered
by the authorities, mainly the Fisheries department, The Royal Malaysian Police etc, but they would then dispose of all bombs and fishes into the ocean before they arrive dispossing of all evidences that would get them prosecuted for fish bombing, and losing all their collections for the day. But that is not much of a problem for them as they can still return the day after to continue their bombings and fishing activities, non the less damage has already been done to the ocean bottom and its inhabitants, and authorities have been finding it very hard to stop all bomb activities. After collection of all their catches of the day,  these fishes are then brought back to the island for final processing and cleaning, this is to wash away all evidence on the fish that makes it look as though it has been bombed. The only way to sell these fishes without having any evidence of bombing on it is by processing and repackaging them into fermented Salted Fish which are sold openly throughout Sabah and it's islands. The damaged bones and internal organs of the fish are washed and cleaned, dispossing of all evidence. Maybe if we stop the demand of Salted Fish in the market, this could lead to the decline of fish bombing, but then again Salted Fish is a favourite delicacy among the people of Malaysia and it's Asean neighbours, making it a hard habit to stop. Of course not all Salted Fish in the market are bombed, many are also fished by legal ways, but this particular breed by the island of Mantanani have been a favourite to many, hence creating a very lucrative market, and the amount of fishes able to be retrieved by just one bomb is enough to convince them that this is the only way to go.

Mantanani is also home to a vast range of beautiful corals and sealife, hence making the diving and snorkelling industry very popular, majority of visitors are from mainland China and Taiwan, not much Europeans due to warnings from their governments to avoid Sabah at all costs because of the kidnappings and security uncertainties within the islands. Visitors usually make day trips and seldom stay on the island due to high costs charged by resort operators. There are eleven dive sites all around Mantanani with prices ranging from about Rm100 to about Rm170 per dive, prices can still be negotiated once on the island itself.

I did manage to get myself a few dives on our last few days on the island, i was brought to the police gate, they still had beautiful corals unharmed by the bombings, i got to see barracudas, turtle's, lobsters and abalone's, we even came across some local fisherman free diving for lobsters and abalone's to be sold to the Chinese tourist's.

Beautiful as it may seem, while under water at about 16 meters depth and 15 minutes into our dive, suddenly we heard this loud boom from a distance, whereabouts and distance we could not determine, but what was for sure it rattled me as i felt the vibration of the impact, My Dive Master Daniel instantly look at me and pointed signalling to me "did you hear that?" hear? i felt the thing, it felt close. We continued on our dive exploring the vacinity and suddenly, boom, once again, same distance same loudness, looks like they threw in another bomb, again, me & DM gave each other the stare, and we went on our way.

Altogether we heard about 6 bomb blasts within 2 days of diving,  enough to convince me that Mantanani is indeed the home of the Fish Bomber, and the activities that are being practiced are the actual procedures of fish bombings that have been practiced since even before the second world war. Still unsure who brought in the method to this region, but some have said that it might have been brought in by the American marines during WW2 when they use to throw hand grenades into the ocean as a means to catch fish when they were based in the Pillipines, locals saw this as a 100% success method of fishing and adopted it into their daily lifestyle, spreaded throughout the region by the migration of the indeginious people and survived till this day to be a 60 year old tradition.  

Being a tradition passed down by generations, this method of fishing seems to be the only way for them to continue their way of life and to survive in this day and age, anything less, for them, would mean poverty and the lost of tradition and culture. NGO's have been trying their best to put a stop to this by creating awareness on the destruction of corals and sea life that would harm their way of living in the future, but to no avail, as the locals excuse is that they would only bomb outside of coral gardens hence not endangering any corals or sea life. The government too have been trying to convince the locals but will have to go through strong opposition, and are forced to offer them an alternative form of income but still not as lucrative as bombings, hence putting everything at a stalemate.

As a fellow diver and sea lover, hearing those bombs explode in the water was enough to rattle me for life, not knowing the distance or where the next blast would occur, i felt scared, and i started to tremble underwater. If i was a beginner diver or just a mere snorkelling enthusiast, holiday goer, with my family and kids, i would be scared for life, and would instantly be paranoid with the water. In certain ways, this MUST STOP, but alternatives have to be given so that the locals can find other means of survival. How this is to be done beats me, for i am just a small fish in a big big pond. This is MANTANANI.