Kota Kinabalu, Mamutic & Manuken

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The morning of our flight to Kota Kinabalu was spent getting our luggage ready and just chilling out in the cool of the hostel. We had decided not to go out this morning as we had had such a busy day the day before and didn't really want to be flying all hot and bothered. A few people were watching a repeat of the closing ceremony of the Olympics in the common area so we sat and watched that for a while until our taxi came.

The journey to the airport took us about 30 minutes and it gave us a good opportunity to see more of the City. Taking the underground all of the time is very convenient but you don't always get a full appreciation of where everything is in relation to everything else. It turns out that we were much closer to Marina Bay than we originally thought, although walking there in the Singapore heat would have been a challenge! Once at the airport we went for a coffee as we have a couple of hours to kill before we could check our baggage in. We sat and read and just chilled out, which was a welcome change from the rushing around of the previous couple of days. Once checked in we had another couple of hours to kill before boarding so we had a look around the duty free shops and then went to the gate. We boarded and took off on time. This time the flight wasn't as smooth as previous flights had been with quite a lot of relatively severe turbulence. All of a sudden it got much darker and the turbulence continued. This continued on and off for most of the flight so we were quite pleased to touch down about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Our hotel was about a 20 minute ride from the airport and we were soon checked in. The room was lovely and it was nice to be able to claim some space and to be able to unpack everything after to constraints of the hostels.

After unpacking we wandered into the town looking for something eat. We came across a nice looking bar with reasonable meals so we took refuge from the heat and ordered a couple of drinks. I had a mohito and Neil ordered a hazelnut drink with coke. My Filipino meal came first so I dug in to my beef in soy sauce and boiled rice. It was lovely but by the time I'd finished Neil's meal still hadn't arrived. The staff were very sorry and eventually it arrived. The manager of the bar came to talk to us as we were the only 'western' people in there and he told us about different places we could visit whilst in KK. Once we had finished eating we went back to the hotel, this time we had the luxury of just us sharing the room.

Tuesday morning we got up around 8am and went straight down for breakfast with our 'breakfast' tokens. There was lots of different choice but we stuck to a pretty plain breakfast. After that we went back up to the room to get ready to hit the beach. We weren't really sure where we needed to be so we wandered towards the sea and then walked along the sea front passed all of the fruit, fish and meat markets that were just setting off and eventually came to a jetty where there were lots of boats taking people over to the islands. We agreed a price for 2 islands and off we went in a speed boat with a Chinese girl. We found out straight away that she had paid slightly less than us! The ride over to the first island Mamutic was quite bumpy and I got quite wet, it was great fun though. We were there within 10 mins or so and were soon on the beach catching some of the glorious sun. Soon after we got settled the sky in the distance became very dark and there were massive thunder claps around us. It started to rain but only a little bit so I went into the sea for a bit of snorkelling and Neil went for a wander round the island. I saw lots of different kinds of fish, parrot fish munching on the coral, clown fish, puffer fish, and lots of other ones than I'm not so sure of the names of. I swam quite a way out and a school of pipe fish surrounded me, swimming round and round. I just floated in the middle for a while before starting to slowly swim back towards the shore when they dispersed. After two hours (a little bit longer actually as our boatman was a bit late!) we were transferred a short distance to the island of Manuken. By the time we got there the sun was out and it was glorious. We set up camp on the beach and enjoyed the sun. Neil had a wander round but I laid and baked and enjoyed listening to some chill out music on my I-pod. Not very often I have the luxury of doing nothing else but listen to music so it was bliss. When we were watching the fountain display in Singapore one of the tracks that they played was 'What A Wonderful World' by Louis Armstrong and I really wished I had that track on my I-pod as it seemed to be very fitting for our adventure so far, and the perfect soundtrack for being laid in the sun, on an almost deserted beach with the sound of the waves and also the crickets in the trees behind the beach. What A Wonderful World!

All too soon it was time to go back to the jetty to catch our speedboat back to KK. He really did seem to speed his way towards the shore and we bumped our way over the sea, again, a great experience. We landed at the jetty and we made our way back onto dry land as some of the locals seemed a little too interested, shouting something about a photo etc. I think I should have tied my hair up out of the way! Anyway, we were soon headed for a lovely air-conditioned Starbucks for a welcome cool drink. After this we went back to the hotel and straight to the swimming pool for a lovely cooling swim. Neil went back up the room for a shower whilst I got more lengths in (trying to work off the muffin from SB!) and then I went back up to the room for a shower.

Tonight we decided to eat in the hotel. Only the buffet was available in the restaurant so we went for the A La Carte Menu for room service. This arrived pretty quickly and was lovely. We are just going to spend this evening in the hotel as its quite a walk into the centre of KK and there's nothing we really need there tonight. Anyway, I'm off for my first three dives at 8am so a reasonably early night is called for. Really looking forward to the dives and if the snorkelling is anything to go by, I should be in for a treat!

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Photos

Boat Ride between Manukan & Mamutik
(Buy your tickets from tour operator in KK or haggle hard!)