If Sarawak is renowned for its jungles (or lack of as we found), Sabah is known for its beaches! And that is exactly what we were looking for!
It seems everywhere on the coast of Sabah has a dive site and proclaims itself to be the best in the world. After crossing by boat from Brunei to the small and duty free island of Pulau Labuan we were surprised to hear that dirty, polluted, floating plastic bag infested Labuan, also, proclaimed to have amazing diving! Not eager to dive through plastic, we did some crazy cheap duty free shopping ($5 for a litre of scotch/vodka/rum – 50c for a can of beer) in preparation for our alcohol fuelled reunion with Yui and Nathan and boarded another boat bound for Kota Kinabalu.
KK as it is known is the capital of Sabah and is famous for it's seafood, nearby islands, more seafood and as the base for people wanting to climb the mountain of the same name. The nearby islands were the only part that interested us so we jumped on a little boat and headed off to explore the nearby Abdul Rahman National Park. There are 5 islands in the park and you buy a boat ticket depending on how many islands you want to see. We decided on 2 that apparently had the better snorkelling. The first - was nice, almost like a resort and had some okay snorkelling but nothing amazing. The second island though was much nicer for both snorkelling and for the relative lack of tourists and we ended up changing our boat and staying for longer. Although neither were the most amazing snorkelling we have seen, it was pretty impressive considering how close to such a big city they were.
After a couple of days in KK, and after saying goodbye to Yui (who had to go back to work) we headed east to Sandarkan. Sandarkan was a small city but clean, cute and friendly. It has an awesome boardwalk full of cafes and restaurants right on the oceanfront where we spent most of our time. From Sandarkan most tourists head to either the Orang-utan rehabilitation centre in Sepilok or to spot wild Proboscis monkeys at Uncle Tan's jungle experience along the Kinabatangan river in Sukau. Having already seen wild Orang-utans in Sumatra, and not being able to afford to go to Uncle Tan's, we decided to just go to Sukau and try to organise something ourselves. Being a Friday (the Islamic holy day) we had already missed all the local buses to Sukau so ended up having to charter a van – which with 4 people ended up being pretty much the same price anyway. In Sukau we found a good B&B that also did river cruises and joined their afternoon tour.
The Kinabatangan river is also known as “the window of life” as it is a strip of secondary jungle left on either side of the river for the animals to live in. It is only a couple of kilometres wide but stretches for much of the river's length and is surrounded by palm oil plantations on either side. The animals really have nowhere to go and so viewing them is relatively easy.
We didn’t really see much at the beginning – a snake in a tree, lots of jungle, some crazy-coloured birds, lots of other tourist boats etc, but on the way back there were Proboscis monkeys pretty much everywhere! We saw some when we were in Sarawak as well, but not this close and definitely not this many! There was definitely no shortage of their famous long noses or erections here. We sat in the boat for maybe half an hour and watched them groom, build beds, eat, we watched babies play and try to knock each other off the tree-tops, and we listened to them talk in the strangest sound i've ever heard.
After a night in the peaceful surrounds of Sukau we headed back to Sandarkan – only to be told that we had already missed the only bus of the day. We were told to walk to the junction about 1km away and get a shared van from there. And so we walked, and walked and walked abou5 km with still no sign of a junction. Dripping in sweat, tired and running out of water we decided to hitch and were lucky to get a lift in an out of service bus! About 45 mins later we were dropped off at the junction – definitely more than 1 km away! From there we took a shared van to a different junction – from where we took a different shared van and eventually made it back to Sandakan in about the same amount of time it took us to get there in the first place! It was a great reminder that travelling really is about the journey and not necessarily the destination.
Our next port of call was Semporna, diving mecca of Borneo! After a 7 hour palm-oil plantation filled bus ride through what used to be the jungles of Sabah we arrived and checked into our “floating hotel.” Built on stilts above the water, the pictures on the internet make the dragon inn look amazing! It was however, musty, stinking, mosquito infested (no mosquito nets or fly-screens on a building floating on water!?!?) and just really not very nice. After a mostly sleepless night (Nathan and MK literally slept on the floor!) we moved to a much nicer place the next day.
Semporna overall was not exactly what we were expecting. Diving costs a lot of money and as such, for a city who's only claim to fame is diving and snorkelling, we were expecting the water to be at least clean! It was probably one of the dirtiest and plastic-bag infested harbours we have seen. There was hardly any choice for decent accommodation, there were virtually no restaurants selling anything except fried rice, instant noodles or roti canai and there wasn’t a single shop selling dive equipment! It certainly has a lot of dive shops though and it pays to shop around, however with the permit regulations for diving the sipadans being so restricted, if you wish to dive there, then you really have no choice but to book in advance. Which in my opinion is really dangerous! Diving is a very risky sport and I truly believe that you should be able to shop around for a dive shop that has equipment and standards that meet your expectations, and not to be forced into choosing one based purely on their webpage. We were lucky though that the dive shop we had booked with was a decent shop, because some others did not look very good at all.
We dived 3 dives at each of Sibuan, Mantabuan, Mabul and Sipadan. Sipadan island is the diving mecca here and people come from all over the world to dive it. The whole island and its surrounds is a fully protected zone and only 120 people are allowed in the water each day (including snorkellers). Because of that, it was like everything was on steroids! Fish that are usually small were huge, fish that you usually see 1 or 2 of were in schools of hundreds, the visibility was great and the coral was pristine! Roh unfortunately was sick and missed out on the Sipadan experience but Nathan and I saw more sharks, turtles, jacks, barracuda etc than we could count! It was pretty crazy. Even the snorkelling was impressive and I saw a shark, turtle, bump head maori wrasse etc in the first 5 minutes!
Whilst the Sipadans were amazing, I also had some really nice dives at the other sites as well. Each of the islands (except dirty and overpopulated Mabul) were idyllic with little fishing villages set amongst palm tree fringed beaches and water so clear you could see the reef and fish swimming below. The diving was nice, a lot more macro based, but we did see lots and lots of turtles (both greens and hawksbills), schools of fish and some unique to the area nudibranchs which was pretty cool.
Unfortunately Roh was sick for pretty much most of the time we were in Semporna and so we stayed for a little longer than we had expected. We had planned to visit some other places around Sabah but only had enough time to head back to Sandarkan for a day to chill out with MK and Nathan before leaving them there and heading back to KK to fly out to Manila.
Overall, we were not overly impressed with Borneo. Yes the diving was nice, and yes we had some fun experiences but overall it was just not very stimulating. We found that the cities were very lacking in things to do or sights to see, and yet there weren’t really even places to sit and just chill out and people-watch. Most afternoons we found ourselves sitting in the hotel, bored. It was also a lot more expensive than we had expected. In comparison to the rest of Asia and even with Mainland Malaysia, accommodation is expensive and you don’t get very much for your ringgit and there wasn’t the variety of food that you find in the rest of Malaysia. I am glad we have been, and I am glad we have seen some of what is left of the jungle, but I am also glad we have left.
It seems everywhere on the coast of Sabah has a dive site and proclaims itself to be the best in the world. After crossing by boat from Brunei to the small and duty free island of Pulau Labuan we were surprised to hear that dirty, polluted, floating plastic bag infested Labuan, also, proclaimed to have amazing diving! Not eager to dive through plastic, we did some crazy cheap duty free shopping ($5 for a litre of scotch/vodka/rum – 50c for a can of beer) in preparation for our alcohol fuelled reunion with Yui and Nathan and boarded another boat bound for Kota Kinabalu.
KK as it is known is the capital of Sabah and is famous for it's seafood, nearby islands, more seafood and as the base for people wanting to climb the mountain of the same name. The nearby islands were the only part that interested us so we jumped on a little boat and headed off to explore the nearby Abdul Rahman National Park. There are 5 islands in the park and you buy a boat ticket depending on how many islands you want to see. We decided on 2 that apparently had the better snorkelling. The first - was nice, almost like a resort and had some okay snorkelling but nothing amazing. The second island though was much nicer for both snorkelling and for the relative lack of tourists and we ended up changing our boat and staying for longer. Although neither were the most amazing snorkelling we have seen, it was pretty impressive considering how close to such a big city they were.
After a couple of days in KK, and after saying goodbye to Yui (who had to go back to work) we headed east to Sandarkan. Sandarkan was a small city but clean, cute and friendly. It has an awesome boardwalk full of cafes and restaurants right on the oceanfront where we spent most of our time. From Sandarkan most tourists head to either the Orang-utan rehabilitation centre in Sepilok or to spot wild Proboscis monkeys at Uncle Tan's jungle experience along the Kinabatangan river in Sukau. Having already seen wild Orang-utans in Sumatra, and not being able to afford to go to Uncle Tan's, we decided to just go to Sukau and try to organise something ourselves. Being a Friday (the Islamic holy day) we had already missed all the local buses to Sukau so ended up having to charter a van – which with 4 people ended up being pretty much the same price anyway. In Sukau we found a good B&B that also did river cruises and joined their afternoon tour.
The Kinabatangan river is also known as “the window of life” as it is a strip of secondary jungle left on either side of the river for the animals to live in. It is only a couple of kilometres wide but stretches for much of the river's length and is surrounded by palm oil plantations on either side. The animals really have nowhere to go and so viewing them is relatively easy.
We didn’t really see much at the beginning – a snake in a tree, lots of jungle, some crazy-coloured birds, lots of other tourist boats etc, but on the way back there were Proboscis monkeys pretty much everywhere! We saw some when we were in Sarawak as well, but not this close and definitely not this many! There was definitely no shortage of their famous long noses or erections here. We sat in the boat for maybe half an hour and watched them groom, build beds, eat, we watched babies play and try to knock each other off the tree-tops, and we listened to them talk in the strangest sound i've ever heard.
After a night in the peaceful surrounds of Sukau we headed back to Sandarkan – only to be told that we had already missed the only bus of the day. We were told to walk to the junction about 1km away and get a shared van from there. And so we walked, and walked and walked abou5 km with still no sign of a junction. Dripping in sweat, tired and running out of water we decided to hitch and were lucky to get a lift in an out of service bus! About 45 mins later we were dropped off at the junction – definitely more than 1 km away! From there we took a shared van to a different junction – from where we took a different shared van and eventually made it back to Sandakan in about the same amount of time it took us to get there in the first place! It was a great reminder that travelling really is about the journey and not necessarily the destination.
Our next port of call was Semporna, diving mecca of Borneo! After a 7 hour palm-oil plantation filled bus ride through what used to be the jungles of Sabah we arrived and checked into our “floating hotel.” Built on stilts above the water, the pictures on the internet make the dragon inn look amazing! It was however, musty, stinking, mosquito infested (no mosquito nets or fly-screens on a building floating on water!?!?) and just really not very nice. After a mostly sleepless night (Nathan and MK literally slept on the floor!) we moved to a much nicer place the next day.
Semporna overall was not exactly what we were expecting. Diving costs a lot of money and as such, for a city who's only claim to fame is diving and snorkelling, we were expecting the water to be at least clean! It was probably one of the dirtiest and plastic-bag infested harbours we have seen. There was hardly any choice for decent accommodation, there were virtually no restaurants selling anything except fried rice, instant noodles or roti canai and there wasn’t a single shop selling dive equipment! It certainly has a lot of dive shops though and it pays to shop around, however with the permit regulations for diving the sipadans being so restricted, if you wish to dive there, then you really have no choice but to book in advance. Which in my opinion is really dangerous! Diving is a very risky sport and I truly believe that you should be able to shop around for a dive shop that has equipment and standards that meet your expectations, and not to be forced into choosing one based purely on their webpage. We were lucky though that the dive shop we had booked with was a decent shop, because some others did not look very good at all.
We dived 3 dives at each of Sibuan, Mantabuan, Mabul and Sipadan. Sipadan island is the diving mecca here and people come from all over the world to dive it. The whole island and its surrounds is a fully protected zone and only 120 people are allowed in the water each day (including snorkellers). Because of that, it was like everything was on steroids! Fish that are usually small were huge, fish that you usually see 1 or 2 of were in schools of hundreds, the visibility was great and the coral was pristine! Roh unfortunately was sick and missed out on the Sipadan experience but Nathan and I saw more sharks, turtles, jacks, barracuda etc than we could count! It was pretty crazy. Even the snorkelling was impressive and I saw a shark, turtle, bump head maori wrasse etc in the first 5 minutes!
Whilst the Sipadans were amazing, I also had some really nice dives at the other sites as well. Each of the islands (except dirty and overpopulated Mabul) were idyllic with little fishing villages set amongst palm tree fringed beaches and water so clear you could see the reef and fish swimming below. The diving was nice, a lot more macro based, but we did see lots and lots of turtles (both greens and hawksbills), schools of fish and some unique to the area nudibranchs which was pretty cool.
Unfortunately Roh was sick for pretty much most of the time we were in Semporna and so we stayed for a little longer than we had expected. We had planned to visit some other places around Sabah but only had enough time to head back to Sandarkan for a day to chill out with MK and Nathan before leaving them there and heading back to KK to fly out to Manila.
Overall, we were not overly impressed with Borneo. Yes the diving was nice, and yes we had some fun experiences but overall it was just not very stimulating. We found that the cities were very lacking in things to do or sights to see, and yet there weren’t really even places to sit and just chill out and people-watch. Most afternoons we found ourselves sitting in the hotel, bored. It was also a lot more expensive than we had expected. In comparison to the rest of Asia and even with Mainland Malaysia, accommodation is expensive and you don’t get very much for your ringgit and there wasn’t the variety of food that you find in the rest of Malaysia. I am glad we have been, and I am glad we have seen some of what is left of the jungle, but I am also glad we have left.
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