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Sipadan Turtle
One of many, many, many turtles.(Clover)
After ambling our way through Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Loas we have found our selves back down in Malaysia again. This time in Borneo Malaysia. And this time a tad bit more seasoned. Nothing seemed as daunting as it had been before when we first got to S.E. Asia. Asia can be a bit over whelming. Everything about it is sensory over load. This time Malaysia was common ground. We arrived at the airport with nothing planned and only a desired location with out a clue as to how to get there. But as chaotic as everything is in Asia somehow things have a way a working out. We found a cheap taxi to the town of Semporna at the tick of 10 p.m. with only a few minutes to spare before we wouldn't have been able to check into a guest house or get anything to eat. See 😊 all is well...
The bed was a bit musty but I was exhausted and didn't care I was happy to be laying down. The only thing that made me sad was the thought of having to wake up early for the second night in a row. We came
to Borneo Malaysia to scuba dive the Sipadans. A world re-known dive mecca. And the diving outfit we wanted to go with opened at 6 a.m. and they didn't know we wanted to dive with them yet.
So up and early we mumbled and groaned when the alarm on our camera went off. Like zombies we dressed and trudged down to the shop only to find it closed! Bugger. So we went to find an ATM since we were all out of money, only to find the ATM was out of money as well! Grrr...never mess with grumpy coffee depraved gringos in the morning. Up runs a little kid yelling "HELLO!" into my bleary eyed face. The next word out of his mouth was "money!" I am pretty sure of two things. He wasn't hungry and he only knew those two words. Oh where...oh where is my caffeine! Is what I wanted to yell back.
Everything worked out in the end though. Well we didn't get our coffee, but we did catch our boat to the tiny island of Mabul from Semporna.
The place we stayed at on Mabul was a crap hole to put it bluntly.
Coolest Drum Set.
To bad they couldn't play worth a dam. These things are always hit and miss but I am always stunned by businesses that don't even try to improve. Our mattress was foam and the bed had slats that kept sliding apart so we would fall through while sleeping. Really I am not so picky but don't even get me started on the bathrooms. Bleh! All I will say is at least they flushed...most of the time. With out a doubt I new they were making enough money from divers to improve things even by a tad.
To add to the discomfort of our stay with Uncle Changs Divers was that after all diving was done and your belly was full instead of kicking back and enjoying the sunset with a cool beer. We were subject to some of the worst and loudest live music I have ever heard. Granted their moto was "we never let our guests get bored" but it was my belief that it should have been changed to "we never let our guests sleep." The vocals consisted of a man who was tone def, didn't speak english fluently and was singing american songs. You know, all the ones you are sick of because at
Morray Eel.
Friendly feller saying hello. any given time you only get to hear three at a time on home radio 24/7(meaning the mainstream popular crap songs). I am pretty sure the guitarist only had about three strings, none of which were tuned. And the drum kit was a stack of different size buckets and barrels held together with rebar. The drums sounded the best. All of this and they were all drunk, which gave they rock star stamina into the wee hours of the morning 😞
We came to dive and dive we did. The diving wasn't the best we had done before but it was still quite very good. If anyone asked me about diving at Sipidan I would say don't go there expecting to see amazing coral because it doesn't really have that much but prepared to see so much marine life that it makes up for the lack of coral. We saw so many turtles that I am not sure how many we saw. They were everywhere. It was pretty amazing. Among my favorite things that we saw was a small eel garden, two pipefish(very cool, they sort of look like an elonged seahorse), nudibranches, flatworms and one of the biggest
Flat worm
Love the colors on these. moray eels I have seen yet. Its head was as big as humans(most are the size of an adults clenched fist). I can only imagine how long the body was. All you ever see is just the head. It is pretty special when you can see them out of their hidy holes. I have seen many moray eel now but have only seen one swimming around. They are nocturnal so they only come out at night, which is when I saw it. We of course also saw many white tip reef sharks. No need to worry though, they are the nice ones 😊 Very shy. The island of Mabul wasn't very nice but Sipadan island was gorgous however. Lovely white beaches. You had to wear glasses because the sand was so vibrant.
After diving, we bee-lined it back to the main land of Borneo and headed up towards the Orangutan Sanctuary and Probiscus Monkey Sanctuary. Borneo is very pretty but is has the same problem as many growing countries. A new economy that is willing to do anything to it's resources to get ahead. Millions of acres of virgin forest and jungle have been logged and then replanted with
vast palm oil plantations. As we drove along to ur destination the plantations spread out as far as the eye could go and further. Topography didn't hinder its progress. They would just terrace the sides of the hills all the way to their peaks. As a result most of their very unique wild life is in dire straights. Hence the need for sanctuaries. There are sanctuaries for the endangered Sumatran Wooly Rhino as well. They are threatend by poachers as well wanting to sell their horn on the black market. One article i read noted that the horn was worth its weight in gold. The horn is tiny compared to the African Rhinos we are all used to seeing. It couldn't weigh anymore than a few ounces at the most.
Generally I am leary of places called sanctuaries. Especially when they are in third world countries. They have a habit of turning out to be very in-humane. Little tiny zoo like enclosures that are filthy. The monkey sanctuaries were very nice though. Supposedly they were recieving funding from Britain and and a close eye focused on its conditions. The sanctuaries had platfroms where people could view the monkies at
feeding time. That was the only thing zoo like about it though. Outside of that they were not held in any enclosures and they had free roam of everything. They had the run of a swath of green lush jungle. The sad part was knowing that not that far away was just more plantations surrounding thier haven.
I enjoyed watching the Orangutangs but my favorite was the Probiscus Monkies with their huge proguberance of a nose. Actually only the males had the huge nose. The females had a cute little turned up nose. They were so different looking. Apparently the reason they are not popular with real zoos is that the males sport a permanant erection. Aside from that oddity they were fascinating to watch. Thier whole bodies were covered with orangish/ tan fur and their skin was a healthy pink. The males coloring was slightly varied by the white that was only on their bottoms. It reminded me of a pair of tightly whities.
After visiting the sanctuaries we went on a boat tour on the Kinabatangan River to view the monkies out in the wild. Some were unhappy that they didn't get to see more monkies
but it seemed as if we were seeing quite a bit. Normally wildlife doesn't want to be seen at all. Most of the river's shores were lined with untouched jungle but you could tell it was a lining. Often you could see oil palms right through the jungle. In some places the palms cut right through the jungle to the shore. it was my belief we were seeing so much wildlife because it had no where to hide. It had been pushed right up to the river. The jungle lined the river like a thin vanity shroud just for visitors. It was also evident from all the wood debris in the river that they were still logging extensivey further up the river.
From Borneo Malaysia we flew back to Kuala Lumpur in Pennisular Malaysia for our remaining few days in S.E. Asia. Being back in KL meant that we were about to enter the last part of our journey and depart for Europe. Asia has been amazing. Where else can you get away with throwing trash out your window or peeing out your front door yet get leared at for being indecent for wearing a shirt with no sleaves...hmmm...well
that would be Asia. Of course we didn't trash anywhere and we definatley didn't go peeing out of any door ways onto the street. But I did make sure to where my long sleeve shirts everywhere. And even though my brain was boiling from the humid heat I even got used to it 😊
S.E. Asia was a constant challenge but no where as difficult as I imagined it would be. Some how we had a way of flowing from one moment to another. Sometimes what we wanted to do seemed out of reach and then we found ourselves doing it. It just brings to mind that if you choose to do something the sky is the limit and you have only yourself to fault if you find yourself idle in one place or frame of mind.
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