Diving in the Philippines is EPIC. But that doesn’t mean the SCUBA sites around Asia aren’t worth visiting. In fact, they’re fantastic. South East Asia is coral triangle territory so if I did have a bit more money I’d love to go on trips to the following places:
Indonesia
Indonesia is an amazing place for SCUBA for three reasons: (1) sightings of the mysterious Mola-Mola in Indonesian waters, great macro diving at Lembeh Strait and exploring the topside and underwater life around Komodo Island.
Although Anilao in Batangas has been hailed the macro capital of the world, Lembeh Strait in Indonesia has the best critter life embedded in muck. NO corals here. Just sand and the oddest critters of the sea.
Thailand
I dove Phi Phi’s docks some time last year and although I wasn’t too impressed, it’s really because the site itself was just around the corner of the dock where most of the boat activity happens. So I was surrounded by trash, intro divers and a couple of reef fish. Though Thailand’s underwater life is still in the process of recovering from massive tsunami destruction from many years ago, there are still a lot of amazing dive sites that reflect Palawan. I’d honestly want to spend a week diving Phuket and the surrounding islands of Phi Phi.
China’s Great Wall
The Great Wall of China is a must see for everyone. But only a few people know that you can actually go SCUBA diving in a certain area of the Great Wall that’s submerged by water. Yes, the Mongolian invading forces had invented some form of submarine to invade China back several thousands of years ago. But really, documentation of this type of historical dive is quite rare compared to the other more common dives in coral waters. In fact this is the only footage I found:
So yes, an update to the Internet on this eerie place would be great to do.
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You might have heard of the recent PAL “All Asia Pass” promo. I’d most probably build my itinerary around these three Asian countries, adding a sportsman’s luggage package to my already heavy dive gear. My gear alone, without the camera equipment weighs 30 lbs. SO that’s already 45 lbs with just my dive equipment alone. Good luck to me!
