Sipadan and Mabul Islands, Malaysia

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

Mount Kinabalu Hike

The whole Mount Kinabalu hiking thing is controlled by the Malaysian government, so basically it’s a monopoly. Two days into my stay in Borneo, Malaysia, I decided that I should try to climb the mountain, despite all my reservations about it. After attempting to hike with Jula and Martin and crossing the jungle on the way back to Salang on the Tioman Island, I felt I may not have what it takes. The physical and mental challenges thus far are much greater than I expected. That said, I was told by numerous people that their moms hiked the mountain, so I figured I should try.

There are all kinds of rules and regulations with the hike. The first thing the government requires is proof of accommodation at Laban Rata, the half way point and the second thing is the hiking permit along with numerous miscellaneous fees that need to be paid. After comparing the prices with the ones of the all-inclusive packages, it made sense to just book through an agency rather than collecting all the documents and reservations myself.

Once I booked my scuba diving trip and had set dates, I was ready to book the hike as well. All of the 5 agencies that I visited told me that booking a day in advance is impossible and that the hotel at Laban Rata is all booked. I figured it was all BS. I returned to my hostel asking Betty, the lady that set me up w/a lucky trip to Sipadan for scuba diving if she could hook me up with the hike as well. She made a few calls and shortly after, I was all set to leave the following morning at 5:30am to Mount Kinabalu.

The following day I met the other 2 people that were doing hike as well. They were a Czech couple, the least friendly people I’ve met yet. Perhaps it was the fact that they didn’t speak English that they seemed unfriendly, but either way, no fun at all. I wanted to hire a porter and our guide, Tumas said that he can carry my 8kg bag for RM9/kg. Totally worth it! Tumas suggested we get hiking sticks and having read the Lonely Planet carefully, I remembered the book saying that the hiking stick is a must. I’ve never hiked with a stick before and this was a wooden staff, but hey, it was only RM3, I could just leave it somewhere if I didn’t like it. When the Czechs saw the wooden stick, they decided it was unnecessary, despite my telling them that my book highly recommended it.

The hike started as a small path in the jungle with a few rocks around. Shortly after, it became rock, the kind that definitely required the use of my ankle brace. I was told that it’s cold during the hike, but the air was fairly warm in the beginning. Usually, I’m tired after climbing 4 flights of stairs, but here, I just kept going slowly and everything was fine. I remembered Jule telling me that the trick about hiking is finding your pace, and I must have found it. Maybe it was the stick, maybe it was my expectations of an impossible hike or maybe the ability of doing the hike was all mental like some locals told me, but I was doing just fine. I was happy that Tumas was carrying my bag and that I had a stick to assist me.
Near km3, the vegetation started to change. The lower branches of trees were covered in thick moss and trees had large roots wrapper around rocks . Concerned that one might be a snake, I insisted on poking the suspicious objects with my stick.



The jungle seemed more moist with a few puddles between the rocks and the soil was starting to get slippery. Before we reached km4, fog rolled in quite suddenly.



The weather change was so sudden that it’s no wonder the local people believe the mountain is mystical. At km4, it started pouring. My raincoat from the 99 cent store worked surprisingly well. By km5, many of the tall trees were replaced and red leaves covered the ground. I saw this peculiar leaf, not sure what to make of it.



After a while, people started catching up us, but they weren’t hikers. The people were carrying gigantic packs on their backs made of wood with straps over the shoulders and across the forehead. They all must have been carrying at least 20 kilograms and were going at a pace double ours. It was amazing. As we later learned, there is no road that goes to Laban Rata Hotel , which runs a restaurant for the guests. This means that all supplies must be carried up the hill by people. No wonder it’s so expensive to stay up there. Many of these porters passed us on the trail, some had packs full of apples and oranges, some had a couple cases of coke attached on top of their packs. These porters were both men and women, crazy!





By km6, the thinning air was definitely evident as we were all gasping for air. Every step and every breath was work and short breaks became an absolute necessity. Finally, by 3pm, we completed the hike at the Laban Rata hotel only minutes before the wall of water came down on the mountain.
After dinner at 5pm, I was lucky to have witnessed an amazing sunset above the cloud line just outside my dorm room.





Due to numerous requests as to how my accommodations look, here's a picture of the dorm room.




The next day, we got up at 1:45am and breakfast was served at 2am. All the Chinese tourists were wearing ski jackets, pants and face masks. It was chilly outside, but I didn’t think it was that cold. I heard that it can get down to 0C and winds can reach 120km/hr, but ski gear seemed like an overkill. I thought that maybe they knew something I didn’t and opted for a RM10 jacket.

The hike began near our cabin and the difficulty level was high. I was sandwiched in line between the Czechs and Chinese, slowly moving up really steep stairs, illuminating the way with a flashlight on my head. The line was moving slowly, but I was glad. The last thing I’d want is to be the turtle up front and a long line of people behind me. After the first kilometer, which was probably the hardest kilometer of my entire life, people were starting to give up. I was shocked that I was passing people. I found my pace yet again and didn’t want to stop for a break because it’d be so difficult to start again. I lost the Czechs, probably because the girl kept having to stop to throw up due to altitude sickness. I just kept moving. I knew that I should stop to have some water though, so I did, which killed my pace. After that, short breaks were frequent, but I’d try to keep them under 30 seconds. Then the stairs ended and the ropes started. The rocks were so steep that it was too dangerous to walk. At first, I liked the ropes. It appeared to be so much easier to use all 4 limbs to get up the mountain, but it wasn’t long before my arms got tired and I used rope as an emergency railing and slowly walked upwards.
The rocks were so steep that turning around seemed terrifying. It would have been really easy to lose balance. At some point, I found a somewhat flat spot to sit down and look back. The moon was illuminating the clouds below and the entire sky lit up with lightning every 15 seconds or so. I could see the trail of lights snaking up the mountain, going kilometers back. Of course, I couldn’t help myself, I set up my tripod.



Another kilometer passed and it was starting to get light. The sun was rising and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful sunrise. The air got cold very quickly in the last kilometer, but my jackets remained tied around my waist because I was just way too overheated from the strenuous climb. Slowly, the stars were replaced by the beams of light peeking through the clouds and the sun was up. I was still about 400 meters from the top, so I quickly found a good place to set up my tripod and snapped a few shots and headed to the top.



After a photography break, I got all my last strength and climbed to Low’s peak. Wow, I couldn’t believe I made it.





More pictures can be seen here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/mount-kinabalu/

Mobile recovery fail! Monky 1 Olya 0

The biggest problem with finding my cell phone is the fact that the monkey bay has no cell signal. The other problem was that I didn’t know my phone number, so even if there was reception, Ni couldn’t call it. During dinner back in Salang, I realized that the phone has an alarm set for 7:55am. I returned to the pier asking for a boat back the following morning. I was told that it’s possible, but it’s going to cost RM80. Sadly, that was a bit too expensive, so I returned to my hotel where I complained to the owner about the monkey. Her husband had a small boat that he’d use to go out to fish daily. I asked him to come on the phone search mission with me and he agreed to do it for RM20. We decided to meet at 7:25am, perfect! The next morning, I step outside and I’m horrified to see how low the tide is. It’s not just low, it’s so far out, I was worried a Tsunami might be coming. Ella, the hotel owner assured me that everything was fine, but there was no way we can get the boat in the water at that point. With the time ticking, I rushed over to the green boat at the pier that Ella recommended. All on one breath, I explained to man that may not have even spoken English that a monkey stole my phone and the alarm is to go off in a few minutes and that he must come to the jungle with me to search for the phone. Luckily, the man spoke enough English to understand and asked for RM40. Not that I had time to bargain, but I brought the price down to RM35 and off we went. In about 5 minutes, we arrived in his speed boat to the monkey bay. The tide was low there too, of course. The closest he could bring his boat to shore was half a kilometer. While he was dealing with the anchor, I jumped out and ran towards the shore. Yeah, running in water, not easy! It was already 8 minutes into the alarm and I was pretty sure it’ll keep ringing for 7 more. I ran into the jungle only to be surprised by the huge amount of noise from all the insects and animals. The cacophony of sound was so overwhelming that I had to pause to remember why I was there. Oh, right, phone. Even if the phone was somewhere close by, distinguishing the sound of the alarm from the repetitive insect choir. I searched around for a bit in the different parts of jungle along the beach, nothing. I came out to the shore to see the boat driver coming onto shore. He said “what’s the phone number, I’ll call it.” Oops, I didn’t bring my phone number with me. Despite his phone not working on the beach, he was convinced that my phone would ring if he called it. We returned back to my hotel where I got the number and back to the beach we went. Terry, the boat driver stood ankle deep in water calling my phone over and over while I searched around in the jungle. After 10 minutes, I gave up, but Terry was determined. He gave me his phone and said dial and disappeared in the jungle. I stood in the water dialing for so long that by the time Terry returned, I was knee deep in water. Had I moved closer to the beach, the phone would stop working. Dialing my phone one last time, I heard a bunch of monkey noises down the beach. I could make out a few monkies quite far down the beach.. I thought “Hmmm… maybe my phone is ringing and they’re arguing who’s going to answer it.” I handed Terry his phone, grabbed a stick and ran towards the monkies screaming “which one of you bastards has my phone.” No, really, I did. They scattered and hid in the trees, no phone in sight. I turned around and headed back to the boat. The tide was high now and now I was walking thigh high in water, no fun! Terry made some jokes saying that the phone keeps ringing in the hands of the thief monkey and it’s probably dancing with its monkey friends to the tune. Grrr…. Stupid monkey. I can’t believe I underestimated monkey intelligence. I was thinking it’s equivalent to a 2 year old, but as it turned out, it’s more like a 10 year old. So, the monkey has my phone and it has RM2.5 to call its monkey friends. This is how I should have protected my bag :(

A monkey stole my cell phone

After a busy 4 day Scuba Open Water Certification course, I finally had a day on the island to just relax. Hearing about the monkey bay from several people, it seemed like a good place to visit. There are two ways of getting there, a 45 minute jungle hike or a RM20 boat ride. (RM3.3 to US$) I decided to take a boat there and return through the jungle. Just as I was about to book the ride there, I saw Ni, a guy that I met at the B&J diving school on the island wandering around on the beach so I invited him to come along. Five minute boat ride and we were on an empty white sand beach with no promised monkeys in sight. I was warned that the monkeys are quite clever and can steal bags, so I attached both of our backpacks to a log with a cable, locking the bottom section of my backpack that contains my SLR. The top section of my bag had my point and shoot camera, along with a cell phone and some potato chips. I bet the monkey was watching me fiddle around with the bag at this point. I zipped up the top section of my bag, tucking the zippers in all the way down on one side of that back to make it harder to get into. Ni said he wasn't going to swim and could keep an eye on the bags, so I went for a far swim to look for a good spot to snorkel. I swam quite far off shore, at least half a mile but I couldn't find the corals. During my search, I spotted a boat that had scuba tanks which meant that they'd know where the coral is. I swam to the boat which turned out to belong to my scuba school, so I climbed up to take a break. I hung out relaxing on the boat for a bit, drinking orange juice and chatting with the instructors. They pointed out the good snorkel spots, so I hopped off the boat and swam around observing all kinds of marine life.
Maybe an hour or so into my swim, I decided to return to shore to get my camera. When I got out on the beach, Ni told me that a monkey stole my potato chips. It sounded like a joke, I didn't believe him. He assured me he was serious. While Ni was only knee deep in water, a monkey did indeed come off a tree and went right for my bag. Ni tried shouting and throwing rocks at it, but the monkey wasn't phased. It probably was laughing, thinking "Ha, silly tourist will never be able to hit me with a rock." By the time Ni made it to my bag, the monkey already disappeared in the jungle. I examined the contents of my bag and my cell phone appeared to be missing. After a long search in all the numerous pockets, we came to a realization that the monkey grabbed the phone along with the chips. Ugh! Spending a few minutes looking for the phone, I realized that it's silly. I went for another swim, this time with my camera and hiked back to Salang Bay, the town we were staying in. I snapped a few pictures of the jungle and this iguana lizard animal thing that I suspect might have been poisonous because it had no fear of me.


I wonder if the scuba rules of underwater creatures apply in this case; if something is really pretty, really ugly or isn't afraid of you, DON"T touch it. :-/ I continued thinking about how to recover my phone and realized that the phone has an alarm set for 7:55am. I figured that if I can make it out there by the time the alarm goes off, I can still recover the phone. (To be continued...)

P.S. I haven't had a chance to say happy birthday to my aunt Frida and my sister in law Lena. Happy Birthday!!! Sorry I couldn't call :(