Blogs from Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 128

This is our third day on Pulau Mabul and tomorrow we leave this island and Sabah for Sarawak. A very experienced (scuba) diver here said that I was either brave or foolish to attempt diving at Pulau Sipadan (half an hour's boat trip from here) after not having dived for 8 years. In case you didn't know Pulau Sipadan is one of the greatest diving sites in the world. But such is the allure of Sipadan that I bravely, foolishly, attempted the dives. Yes I had several bouyancy problems and had to be pulled down by Sean back down into the water. It's strange that all the excessive eating during this holiday has not added sufficient weight to keep me underwater. The reward for diving at Sipadan: sharks, turtles, lots of corals and big fish, small ... read more

We have entered the second half of our trip and with it brings a new continent: Asia. We flew into Singapore and the first day we were extremely jet legged. Singapore The city completely lives up to its reputation of being this eerily utopian city. Everything is squeeky clean, modern and efficient. It is true that littering is a huge offense, you cannot eat or drink on the metro and you cannot smoke on public streets. A friend we met on our Africa trip was from Singapore and he liked to call his hometown a "fine" city because it seems you can get fined for pretty much anything. There are no beggars, no stray dogs, no garbage.... We were really interested to visit Singapore because my brother, Steve is doing an exchange there in January and ... read more

Up at the ridiculous time of 2am for a trek in the dark to the summit of the mountain for sunrise. Quite tricky in places, having to haul ourselves up ropes on the steep cliff face. Louisa slipped behind to a slower group. After 2.7 km finally made it to the summit just in time for a fantastic sunrise and an even more amazing view back down the mountain to the valleys below. Then, even harder than the climb, we had to descend 8.7 km back down the whole mountain. Started off ok but it became increasingly hard on the legs and we slowed down. Louisa only just made it before collapsing with exhaustion due to lack of sleep, food and probably oxygen at the top as breathing was a bit laboured at 4095.2 metres! But ... read more

Mark & Lynn got up early to check the tourist office who pointed us to a booking agent for the mountain lodges at Mount Kinabalu which we intended to climb the next day. It appeared to be all booked up, but after some waiting and pressuring for the agent to ring around the tour companies we managed to secure 4 places which had not been confirmed. Unfortunately they were in 2 different lodges, one with heating and one without. I volunteered that the girls go in the heated lodge and it was agreed. We checked out of cockroach hotel and checked into the Pantai Inn, very nice but more expensive for 2 rooms so we shared a quad room for just RM108. Did some shopping, Lou bought bigger rucksack for the mountain trip, I bought an ... read more

Ferry terminal for 8:30am, ferry left at 11:30! Useless tourist info. Breakfast at terminal, me and mark chatted to a guy who had climbed Mount Kinabalu twice. 2 hours on ferry to Lawas where we were hounded so much by a woman trying to get us on an express bus to Beaufort that we just wouldn't take notice of her when she said there was no road to Tenom where we wanted to go. So the bus left and guess what, there was no road! Oops! Managed to get a local bus to Merapok on the border between Sarawak and Sabah, where in the middle of nowhere we hopped straight onto a minivan to Sipitang where with perfect timing an express bus was leaving to Beaufort. The total journey cost us RM11.50, cheaper than the original ... read more