Monday, May 17, 2010

Sipadan and Mabul Islands, Malaysia

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I left Kota Kinabalu on a 7:30pm overnight bus to Semporna.The bus was reserved for me by the agency that booked the Sipadan Scuba trip and was to cost RM75, but hey, it was a 10.5 hour bus, so it’s somewhat reasonable. I later found out that other people were able to bargain the prices down to RM40, which is what locals pay. Why didn’t I think of that? :(

A little information about Sipadan, which happens to be a world class diving site:
The island is located in the Celebs Sea, rising 600 meters above the seabed. Over 3000 species of fish and hundreds species of coral can be found on this island that is formed by coral growing on an atoll. It is considered one of the richest marine habitats in the world, therefore it’s no wonder it’s one of the best diving spots in the world according to a few scuba magazines. At the bottom of the column of the island, formed by a limestone cave with a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers lies a turtle tomb that contains many skeletal remains of turtles that got lost and drowned ☹


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When on the bus, I was hoping to get a row to myself, but it was fully booked, so I sat next to a young guy who spoke minimal English. He was nice enough to let me have the window seat. When the bus started moving, we got 3 items: a water bottle, a chocolate cookie bar and a plastic bag. I asked the guy next to me, is the bag for trash. He laughed and shook his head answering me with a gesture demonstration that it’s for vomiting. Funny, are they predicting that the passengers will get sick from water and chocolate? LOL, obviously not. The second gesture that my neighbor displayed was the wavy road through the mountains.



The bus ride was mostly fine, but very bumpy. We arrived an hour early, which didn’t thrill me because it was 4:30am. I was told that I can either go to a hostel and get a bed there for a few hours or hang out at the bus station. When I walked of the bus, I was rushed by a bunch of men asking me where I was going, what I wanted to do and claimed that they can help with anything that I need. I politely declined everything and sat down on the stone bench. Wow, 3 hours to kill, what do I do? People periodically approached me and offered to book me a hotel or a scuba diving trip in broken English, but I was able to convince them that everything was arranged and someone was meeting me in a few minutes. Of course, no one was meeting me, I need to walk across town to the Billabong office by 7:30am, but they didn’t need to know that. There was a woman with a small child sitting at the bus stop as well, so I figured I’d approach her for help. She spoke enough English to explain to me that the hostel is 2km away and that if I want to go there, I need to take one of the private taxis because that’s the only kind of a taxi that exists in the village. I opted for waiting at the bus stop because all the taxi drivers were just too eager to help, always a red flag in my book. The woman said that she’ll walk with me and help me find the billabong office. I had a drawn map of how to get there, but the map turned out to be useless until I was in front of the building. She told me that the reason why she was there waiting is because the office for national ids is located in that village and she had been waiting for 2 years to receive her card. Once she got her card at 8am, she would return back to KK on the next overnight bus. I asked why she couldn’t receive the card by mail and she told me that you have to travel to pick up your card in person. Messed up!

Once I found the office, I was rushed over to the boat that would take me to Mabul, and island on which my hotel/hostel was located. The boat was a decent size boat, partially covered with a cloth roof fitting 8 people comfortably. Shortly after leaving shore, it started to rain and the water got choppy and the wooden bench was no longer comfortable to my bottom. The rain drops hitting my face would hurt pretty bad so I managed to get my jacket on just right to protect my face. This brutal boat ride lasted about an hour and I was drenched by the time we got to the hotel. Once again, we were rushed to get gear and back onto the boat to dive at Sipadan.



I was told by the dive master that because my reservation was made so late, I had to register with someone else’s name. So on Monday, I was Rachel Carey from the UK and I didn’t remember my passport number. A short boat ride from Mabul was the famous Sipadan island, which didn’t look too impressive with dark grey clouds around and sprinkling rain. I registered as Rachel, as I was instructed and off we went for my first dive outside the Open Water course, South Point. The dive master said that we will dive to 30 meters, which is out of my certification but not to worry. He stuck with me throughout the entire dive, dragging me by the hand half the time to show me all kinds of neat things. As soon as we descended, we saw a few sharks both above and below us.





We hung around the sharks for a while so that everyone had a chance to get some pictures and then proceeded to look for turtles.



The underwater world was so colorful, with bright yellow, white and black angel fish, blue sea slugs, gigantic clams, hard and soft coral of all imaginable colors, sharks, turtles, frog fish, leaf fish, lion fish, anemones, clown fish (Nemo) and many many more.


















It was very odd thinking that my 30 meter depth under water was like the height of a 10 floor building, because when looking up, the surface looked so close. After a 40 minute dive, we ascended to the surface and it was quite a bit of a shock. The first thing I felt were heavy cold raindrops hitting me on top of the head. When I looked around, it looked like a scene from a Hollywood movie where a ship wrecked. We were all floating in dark grey water with minimal visibility, hard rain coming down and gigantic waves rocking us up and down, waiting for our boat to come find us. The boat couldn’t have arrived sooner because this shipwreck feeling was quite unpleasant.



The second and third dives had much better weather, After short breaks for food on the island, we did a 47minute dive in the Hanging Gardens and a 47 minute dive at the Barracuda Point.













After resting from the dives at the hotel, I went for a walk through the village. I was shocked at the number of children running around. It seemed like there must have been 10 children for each adult on the island, a really crazy ratio. They came running after me, screaming “halo, halo.” When they saw my camera, they pulled me in all sorts of directions begging me to take a picture, trying to do all kinds of things to get my attention.



Continuing that the town, the adults displayed similar behavior, but on a different level. They would all say “halo” with big smiles and ask if I wanted to take a picture. Was very hard to decline. I found an older couple running a small shop, who didn’t ask me to take their picture and instead I asked them. They gladly agreed.

[insert a picture of the old couple]


The village itself seemed incredibly poor. The building were simple wooden shacks with no furniture inside. People just had mattresses on the floor and lots of creativity was used for common western luxuries. The plant pots were old used paint containers and clothes were hung to dry on a barbed wire fence, which may come as a shock to the western travelers. However, the people seemed happy, they appeared satisfied with their lifestyle.






The next morning, I went out for 3 more dives. A Russian guy who had just arrived in the morning joined the dive group and it was nice to speak Russian for once. He was an experienced diver and pointed out many cool things underwater along w/the dive master. The first dive was at Kapalai House Reef. Other than the fact that this used to be an island 200 years ago and was eroded, I really don't have much history on what the underwater structures are unfortunately :( The other two dives were at Water Bungalows and at the Eel Garden.
















Travel Info:
I booked my trip from the Summer Lodge Hostel in KK. One of the ladies running the hostel, Betty, always came to the rescue to make a successful booking when everyone else in town said there was no availability and that I should have thought about booking weeks ago.

A taxi from the center to the Inanam bus station should cost about RM20. The bus from the Inanam bus station to Simporna should take around 10 hours and the cost can be bargained down to RM40.

When in Simporna, wait for the sunrise before trying to find your way to the reservation office as the town can be a little sketchy. From what I heard, Uncle Chang’s is one of the nicer agencies to book with. The hotel is nice and clean with wonderful and helpful staff. Uncle Chang's, as well as Scuba Jeff, Scuba Junkie and Billabong all sell all inclusive packages which include diving, hotel, 3 meals/day and to/from island transportation. My trip with 6 dives (3 Sipadan/3 Mabul) cost around RM800, but it can be done for cheaper if booking ahead.

I dove with Billabong which was fine, but it wasn’t as nice as some of the other places. The hotel itself wasn’t super nice, everything was very poorly organized, no one had their Padi license to show and an instructor by the name of Keri, a rude, bitchy, unpleasant girl from South Africa are all good reasons not to book with them. That said, if there is no other option, book through them because Sipadan is absolutely amazing and should not be missed because of the above reasons.

If traveling during the rainy season, be sure to bring a windbreaker and a rain coat as the boat drive can be very cold and unpleasant during rain on the way to and from the island. There are no ATMs on the island, so if you’re planning on buying any snacks or supplies, withdraw in Simporna. All scuba, snorkeling and underwater photography gear can be rented on the island, so you’re not expected to have your own. Cell phones do work on the island and wifi can be found at a few hotels. Uncle Chang’s charges RM6/hour for the internet.

Here are some pictures of the Billabong hotel/dive shop





And here's a shot from the deck of Uncle Chang's hotel which I should have stayed in.


More pictures: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/sipadan-and-mabul-i/
More videos: http://www.youtube.com/fiercekttn

5 comments:

  1. Lovely pics!

    You know, you americans have been spoilt by these "id card per mail" thing :) It doesn't work that way even in some countries we consider civilized. Nevermind Malaysia or Russia...

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's time to introduce yourself to the Discovery Channel. Maybe you can get some good gigs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alesha.. what's with the name calling... american... ;)

    Vanessa, I'm working on it... I actually may have some connections with a travel show in Shanghai... Ni, if you can read this, that'd be you ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. does "people who have lived a long time in the northern part of the american continent" sound more politically correct? ;)

    ReplyDelete

 
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