Back from Turtle Island and plan was to hire a car.We had previously spoken with staff at the rental company and they had informed us that all we needed to do was walk in off the street and a car would be available day or night. Today however it seemed that absolutely none of the cars that we wanted were available which meant that we had three options (a) pay the price of getting a more expensive car (b) negotiate (c) walk out in a huff and go to the car rental agency at the airport......jumped up and down and banged our heads on their desk a few times and eventually negotiated a good price and ended up with 1.2L proton 5 Speed
manual with A/C.Sounds gutless I know but it was actually a reasonably economical (17km/L) and gutsy little car.
I once read that that an orangutan could swing from tree to tree from
one side of Borneo to the other without touching the ground. Sadly this
is no longer the case, The drive through Sabah hightlights the fact
that like many tropical areas around the world, the natural forests of
Sabah are being cleared for commercial uses and in Sabah´s case it is
palm oil plantations . The oil palm plantations are one of the biggest
threats for the remaining rainforests in Borneo and the
species that inhabit them and very little seems to be being done to
curb the destruction and it is an extremely depressing sight.
Day 1. Dropped in to Gomantong cave to find out that the bats
leave the
cave in the evening. Drove to Sukau on the Kinabatagan river but found
out that all
accommodation except a ridiculous overpriced eco
resort was booked out so we had to push on.Travel plan is not going
well for day 1! Ended up
in Lahad Datu worn out and rather annoyed . We found a hotel and I just
took the room
without looking. It was a mistake as the room was really crappy, smelt
musty and had no windows it did however have internet and as we managed
to download two movies so hopefully they only have limited bandwidth
and it slows them down for the month as punishment. I thought it felt
like a storage area and the
iron burn on the floor probably indicated it wasn't far from the truth.
It was an ugly town and it felt a bit seedy so we didn't venture out
after dark.
Day 2. Headed to Semporna. Arrived early. Initially had trouble finding
the tourist information centre since we had no map but followed random
signs and eventually found the correct area after about 30min but never
did find any tourist information centre and stopped looking after we
located some dive shops.Chat with Scuba Junkies a Western run dive
company who had accommodation on Mabul island and ran regular
dive/snorkelling trips around the variouss islands.We
couldn't get permits to snorkel on the reef at sipidan island until the
23rd May and at 470MYR each we weren´t overly hearbroken or surprised
by this so after talking to a couple of other companies we returned to
Scuba Junkie and book our trip to Mabul . Found
accommodation near scuba junkies office called Semporna inn (72 MYR)
and a great little Mum and Dad family restaurant that cooked delicious
Malaysian Chinese food.
Unfortunately ice cream is too readily available in the supermarkets in Malaysia and from what we are seeing in the mirror we must be being a little too eager in replenishing our calcium stocks or the mirrors are distorting us.....
That's all, folks!
Bye
David and Vanessa
