Days 14-15 in tropical paradise

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The following day was my only day of rest for the whole trip, I had no snorkelling trips planned and would be spending it lazing round the resort. My plans were changed somewhat as I did intend to do some snorkelling on my own around the reef that borders the island of Mabul but it rained virtually all day so spent the time just chilling.<span><span><span><span> Mabul Island is full of contrasts at one end is the local village which consists of shacks on stilts and little electricity or plumbing to speak of.<span> At the opposite end is the Mabul Beach resorts which are luxury chalets on stilts again but this time over the coral reef itself.<span> Then in the middle are the Uncle Chan’s, scuba junkies and the homestays / longhouses. I couldn’t fault scuba junkies ad would definitely recommend it. <span>Later that night I met up with my Swedish and Danish chums in the bar.

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Today was going to be a busy day and it started with breakfast where I joined Karolina from Sweden (I’m too much of a gentleman to allow anybody to sit on their own:-) and after we got chatting we realised that we would be going on the snorkelling trip together so she turned out to be my new chum for the day. Diminutive Karolina has numerous tattoos and several piercings here there and everywhere and it didn’t surprise me when she said that people often said that she reminded them of Salander from the girl with the dragon tattoo. I would later realise that the similarities didn’t end there!!

The snorkelling trip was to the same places that I visited on the first day so this was far from ideal. Kapalai again didn’t have very good visibility. However Mabul itself was much better, we saw a couple of crocodile fish, a lionfish, several huge schools of something or other, one huge turtle (looked like the same one I saw on the first day) and two smaller, younger turtles with clear markings.

After our last dive I had to collect all my stuff in order to get to the jetty to catch the boat back to Semporna. I was lucky enough to catch a ride with a Malaysian couple who had booked ride to Tawau where they were staying the night. The journey was terribly boring and depressing, for the whole hour and a half we passed through miles and miles of palm tree plantations, basically the whole journey, how much fauna and animals had been destroyed by this? We did the same in UK hundreds of years previously but we didn’t know any better then……..

I was the only whitey on the flight and eventually made it to my hostel in Kota Kinabalu at around 23:00.

Boring bits

Lonely Planet says the last bus from Semporna to Tawau airport is 16:00 (not sure how accurate this is though)

ScubaJunkies can arrange a private transfer from Semporna to Taway airport for 90RM and usually there are other people travelling which reduces the amount you have to pay individually.

Accommodation – Masada Backpackers – very nice hostel, would recommend it, I especially liked the tea/coffee machine and the free biscuits throughout the day- very civilised.

Taxi service is the only form of public transport from the new Terminal 1.

Fixed rate from the airport to the town centre is RM30 per taxi (up to 4 people);

Buy a coupon from the Airport Taxi counter in the middle of Arrivals (Level 1).

Proceed to the taxi rank outside and hand your coupon to the taxi drive

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