Back from 5 days of diving in the Sipidan! The sharks didn't kill me but the 10 hour overnight bus ride last night almost did. The diving was great, enough to make me stay for an extra day (despite the very primitive accommodation's). I ended up doing 14 dives overall there! Saw sharks, turtles, barracuda, sea snakes, morey eels, cuddlefish, and a billion other things. It really was an amazing place. I think I need to stop diving forever now because I'm pretty sure everything else will be a let down.Today is a recovery day: from the diving and from the bus ride. I'm actually staying in the Hyatt in Kota Kinabula today - the most expensive place I've stayed so far by a factor of 2. I'm splurging partly because I've been sharing a room with a mouse that has no private bathroom at a "resort" that has no hot water and only a few hours of electricity a day... And partly because I couldn't find anything else. Anyway, its very nice! Tomorrow I head back out to the sticks: a small village in the middle of nowhere for a 4-5 day homestay. I expect some pretty basic accommodation's again. But that's OK, it is part of getting away.
I actually really liked the place I stayed in the Sipidan. It wasn't actually on Sipidan; you can't stay there anymore ever since terrorist/pirates from the Philippines abducted a group of tourists from there and held them hostage for over a month. The terrorist were from a group called the Muntando Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF. Look it up. On second thought, you might not want to google that...My "resort" was on Mabul Island, which had a sizable local population. Actually it just seemed to have a sizable child population. I think the number of humans on the island under 10 was probably 3-4 times more than those over 10. I really don't think I'm exaggerating. I think that it wasn't because there were locals were especially, uh, frisky, but because many of these adults work in other areas and leave the kids with relatives. Or, seemingly, alone. There were roaming bands of kids everywhere all the time. Luckily the kids were ridiculously cute and friendly. And all the stereotypes about poor kids being happy to play with what little they have certainly applied. I saw so many little made-up games with sticks and plastic bottles and rocks. Anyway, I took a billion pictures of the kids and put it on my picasa site:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/erki666/SoliDudeBorneo
OK, now here are a few random notes:
- Malaysians think that we eat hot dogs and beans for breakfast. When you order and "American Breakfast" that is the only difference from the standard egg breakfast. Strange.
- Aside from the Liberian flag (which is a blatant rip off...) show me a flag that is more like the stars and stripes than the Malaysian flag. You can't.
- Almost ever local will ask me if I'm traveling alone, and when I say that I am, there always respond, "What? No friends?" I now respond, "No, I don't have any friends. No body likes me." Starting to hurt my self esteem a little.
- Locals also tell me that Americans do not travel here much. Except for a travel spike that happened a few years back after Survivor: Borneo. Perfect.
- I learned to count to 10 in Thai on my last day in Thailand.
- I've become a "one language translator" on several occasions. Trying to help Europeans with poor English understand Malays with poor English.
- The Olympic coverage here is super if you are a fan of badmitten or ping pong. I can not believe that I actually am starting to know who's who in the world of badmitten...
-erik
6 comments:
EP,
Good to hear from you again. Nice pictures of the kids--I think that at least one of the little boys was flashing the "Family First" sign to you! Who knew?!?
Awww. The cuddlefish sound so darn cute. Have you been cuddling much?
Great pictures! I'm stealing the lizard one.
I'm not sure whatthe family first sign is, but I did here an "infomercial" on the radio when i was in a supermarket by James Dobson or Focus on Family (it was sponsored by KFC. ?!...) (As an aside, Kota Kinabula has a 2-story KFC that is open 24-hr/day. Who knew!) stressing the importance of talking to your kids about the dangers of sex and drugs. So maybe that makes some sense...
Great tale. We are planning a trip to Sipidan but the way the dive people are making it sound, we may not be able to get a pass to dive there. I was wondering if you have any insight into how these day passes are divied up.
Dear Anonymous: I think if you plan ahead enough, you should not have a problem locking in a Sipidan spot (unless things have changed since I've been there...) I was there in August, which was definitely high season, and was able to get a place on Mabul with 4 diving days that included 2 Sipidan days guaranteed. (I booked about 2 weeks ahead of time). I ended up staying an extra day with a Sipidan trip, plus I was able to convert one of my non-Sipidan dive days to a Sipidan day (for a fee, of course...) once I was there. So i dove 5 days, and 4 were at Sipidan. Not bad... Good Luck! Wish I was there...
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