What’s a goal you have? To snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef? To study abroad? To work for an international company?
Each person has different goals. Whether you’ve written them down or not, you’re bound to have some ambitions in mind for life. For AUIP’s Eleanor, she aspired to visit all seven continents. Such a task may seem unachievable or maybe just ludicrous (Who would want to do a polar plunge in Antarctica?!), but to Eleanor, this has been an objective for some time.
Recently back from a trip to Malaysia, Eleanor reports on her travels and having visited her last continent:
By way of international flight schedules, I started and finished the trip in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital and largest city with an urban area population of 7.2 million. KL, as it’s called by locals, offers an eclectic mix of cultures, history and development that proved interesting to say the least.
Picture a five-star hotel adjacent to a collapsing building that was abandoned during construction, and you have a snapshot of many streets. However, signature sights, such as the Petronas Twin Towers, the world’s tallest twin buildings, couldn’t be diminished by such eyesores. I spent time sightseeing, haggling very successfully for bargains and tasting exotic food with prayers for no food poisoning. 
The highlight of the trip wasn’t KL though. A three-hour flight east to the island of Borneo followed by an hour car transfer and a 45-minute speedboat ride took me to paradise, otherwise known as Kapalai Island. Kapalai isn’t an island in the way you’re likely imagining. Hundreds of years of erosion has reduced the island to sea level thus leaving the resort built on stilts atop the shallow sandbanks and water of the Ligitan Reefs’ edge. Pictured right, the chalets extend over the ocean. And pictured below left, I’m enjoying a chalet’s deck view.
Each day I completed at least three dives on Kapalai or nearby islands of Siamil, Mabul and the famous Sipadan. On the last day of diving, I completed four dives at Sipadan that rank as some of the best in my over 80 dives worldwide. The diversity and sheer numbers of species present created an almost unreal experience. As if swimming in the world’s best fully-stocked aquarium, I saw schools of over 40 enormous bumphead parrotfish, lost count of white tip and black tip reef sharks after 30 and likewise lost count of sea turtles after 30. Possibly the most awe-inspiring moment was having a school of over 2,000 barracuda swimming above our dive group at Barracuda Point.
Fellow divers on their third and fourth trips to Sipadan said the diversity and numbers have decreased significantly since the early 1990s when the island originally received its rating as one of the world’s top five dive sites. While saddened to hear their perspective, I knew no differently and maintained a high regard for the underwater life.
This trip accomplished my last continent remaining to visit. Each continent left me with unique memories and experiences altogether different from those on other continents. I’m quite proud, as you can imagine, to have visited all seven continents!
Are you planning to visit all seven as well? Or what’s your latest goal? Post a comment and let us know.
