somosadictosaviajar

We left at 8:00am on September 28 from Semporna to Sepilok, a forest reserve near Sandakan.  We arrived at Sepilok Jungle Resort in the early afternoon, the place where we will be spending the next 4 nights, checked-in, had lunch and headed to the pool.  We met with Liam, Nadisha, Sara and Stace some friends we met in Mabul Island.

On September 29 we went to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, where we experienced the beautiful program the Sabah Wildlife Department is doing to protect and rehabilitate such beautiful animals.  One could spend weeks here watching them interact with each other, play, climb, swing and even act silly.  We spent some time by the feeding platform where the park places some food as a supplement for the wild orang-utans that might not be able to find enough food in the jungle; they can come back to the area for a free feed.

In the afternoon we went to the nursery where we saw around 11 youngsters play and interact with each other and the keepers.  On our way out we stopped by the feeding platform and found a female orang-utan with her youngster.

On September 30 we headed to the Sepilok Rainforest Discovery Centre.  This is another forest reserve with beautiful walks and a canopy walk.  We spent the whole day walking around, looking for birds and learning about Borneo in the visitor centre.

On October 1 we went back to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre… we cannot get enough of these beautiful animals.

On October 2 we visited the Sun Bear Conservation Centre.  This centre is dedicated to the conservation of the smallest bear of all, the sun bear.  This is a good example that a man with a vision and a good heart can make a difference.  Mr. Wong is dedicated to the protection and conservation of these little bears. He is involved not only on the operation of the centre but also in
explaining the visitors about the bears. The centre has around 44 bears, which are developing the skills to be released into Borneo’s jungle.

At 1:30pm we left Sepilok on our way to Kinabatangan River, an area well known for its biodiversity and the river cruises to watch wildlife.

After arrival at Sukau Greenview Bed & Breakfast we had the first cruise, however it was raining too much that we decided not to go and take another one later on instead.  We spent the afternoon by the river and having tea.

In the evening we went on the night cruise, we could see birds, sneaks, lizards and a crocodile.

On September 21 we took a bus from Kota Kinabalu to Semporna, it took us 11 hours to get there but the bus was very comfortable, it had USB charging station on every seat.  We spent the night in Semporna… nothing to see in this town, just a stop for divers going to the islands around here.

On September 22 we crossed the street and checked-in with Scuba Junkies the company we chose to go diving with in Mabul Island.  We got onto the boat at 8:30am and were transferred to Mabul Island where we got our diving equipment and sooner than we knew it we were in the water.  We went diving three times today, all the dives were nice but the visibility was not the greatest.  Let’s wait and see what other dive sites they have.

On September 23 we embarked on a challenge… find a diving shop that can take us to Sipadan, a famous island about 45 minutes from Mabul Island where the diving is supposed to be out of this world.  Diving in Sipadan is restricted to a certain amount of permits per day and like anything else in third world countries it is controlled by the powerful and well connected resorts (also the most expensive ones).  Scuba Junkie only gets 7 permits per day so you can understand the task at hand we have.  We walked around the island talking to almost everybody and leaving our phone number with all the diving shops around; however we were not lucky enough to find anybody that had available spots for the next few days.  We went to Sipadan Water Village and talked to the shop manager who said he might have a couple of spots for September 26 but he will confirm later.

During our walk through the village we talked to the locals, play with the kids and got a bit of a sense of people’s lives among the rich Asian tourists that flood this island in high season.

September 24 was another diving day, we went to 3 different spots around the island.  Lots of different marine life we had not seen before, like the giant
moray and the flamboyant cuttlefish.  Unfortunately the visibility is nowhere near what we experienced in the Philippines.

On September 25 we signed up for 3 more immersions.  The first 2 were at
the nearby Kapalai Island.  This “one resort island” offers lots of diving spots around it.  The diving was good but the visibility is still disappointing; athough it was a bit better does not compare to other diving sites.

When we came back for lunch from Kapalai we found a message from Alan from Sipadan Water Village letting us know that there were a couple of spots available to go diving in Sipadan on September 26.  Alan asked us to go there in the afternoon to finalize all the details… it looks like after all we will be diving in Sipadan.

In the afternoon we went diving at Seaventures Mabul, an old oil rig converted into a hotel.  The visibility at this site was very poor, however there was a lot of big fish around the columns of the oil rig.

Once we arrived after our last dive we headed to talk to Alan and sure enough we were going to Sipadan.  We selected our equipment, filled out all the paperwork required and got our new names… ah, yes, we will have to pretend to be somebody else because the permits are on someone else’s names, but that’s not a big deal!

Skuba Junkies has a sea turtle hatchery program, where the eggs from sea turtles that are laid around the island get transported to their beach so they can be protected from predators. We were very lucky because around 7:30pm we got a call to the beach to see the turtles hatched from one of the nests.

September 26 started quite early, we were on the boat by 7:00am on our way to Sipadan. We did 3 dives and they all lived up to the hype of Sipadan and what everybody talks about.  I have to say that Barracuda point was my favourite because it involved a good drift, lots of fish, sharks, barracudas and a bit of danger… I will save this story for another day!

September 27 is our last day in Mabul Island, it is sad to say goodbye to this beautiful paradise but we will be moving on to our next experience.  In the morning we went snorkelling around the resort.  We left on the 4:00pm boat back to Semporna.

On September 18 we took a bus at 10:30am from Bangar to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. Kota Kinabalu is the capital of the Sabah province is Borneo Malaysia. The bus has a long lay over in Lawas, where we arrived at 11:20am and did not leave until 1:00pm. We finally arrived in Kota Kinabalu at 4:30pm. One thing to note in the immigration process… we left Brunei without major delays; we then entered Malaysia to the province of Sarawak where we got a stamp in our passports acknowledging that we had entered Malaysia. After driving another 20 minutes or so, we hit another border control; this time it was the province of Sabah, which has an independent immigration process within Malaysia. This stop was the longest and we got another stamp on our passport… keep them coming! I am glad we have a 36 pages passport this time!

Upon arriving in Kota Kinabalu, also know as KK, we headed to the hotel and went for a walk. This is a full on city, with lots of malls, a waterfront with sophisticated restaurants, high end hotels and condominiums, very impressive and completely unexpected.

On September 19 we went to a travel agency to inquire about the trips offered in Sabah. Marilyn from Marudu Express travel Services gave us some bad news… there is a Chinese holiday coming up and almost everything is fully booked for the first week of October, so we are going to plan this part of the trip a bit more (we hate planning!). We went to a café and evaluated all the options so we will be back tomorrow to talk to Marilyn as it is now too late.

On September 20 we went back to the travel agency and talked to Marilyn who was extremely helpful. She helped us arrange the rest of the trip. It looks like we will have to take a bus to Semporna to go to Mabul Island to go diving before doing the rest of the trips. Mabul Island is also fully booked for the first week of October. We headed to Scuba Junkies and booked our diving trip and then went back to Marilyn to book the rest.

It looks like the next week or so is fully booked and set in stone, something we do not like but do not want to miss some of the activities we want to do in this area.