Braving Borneo

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei:  Palm Garden Hotel

First and foremost, this hotel is kind of out on it’s own.  It’s not in the city center, it’s not next to the Gadong market (although the walk is only about 10-15 minutes and they’ll drive you there for $5 Brunei).  I was a bit disappointed as we drove up, I checked in and went up to my room.  It is pretty basic, and seems a little run down.  That said, I was just at Le Meridien in Paris a couple night before, so maybe it was just shock of the change.  The staff was very friendly and helpful, I paid $88 brunei including breakfast (about 45€), there is air conditioning, a small pool, and a very nice fitness club on site.  Major drawback for me was the very hard bed.  Overall in summary: decent value for money, location a bit of a challenge, bed not comfortable for “soft mattress” lovers, but otherwise okay.

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia:

Eden 54

I liked this hotel.  The lady at check in was very friendly and helpful, offering luggage storage if I needed, pointing me towards a restaurant for dinner and supermarket to buy a few snacks.  My room was a bit small but very nicely decorated with dark wood floors, nice colors and furnishings, bed was a bit on the hard side but not too bad.  Free Wifi available in the rooms, I think I paid about 35€. Location is good, in a bustling part of the city with shopping and restaurants right outside, waterfront not too far away.  I would stay there again.

Palace Hotel

This was my favorite hotel.  I had a beautiful, spacious room with wood floors,modern and comfortable furnishings and decorating, a nice bathroom and two relatively comfortable super-twin sized beds.   The entire hotel is very stylish and inviting, with a lovely pool area, nice fitness room, and on-site spa.  My massage therapist was great, and a 60 minute aromatherapy massage only cost about 18€.  Free Wifi in the lobby, air conditioning in the rooms, price including breakfast &tax was about 45€.  The only drawback is location, as the Palace hotel sits on the outskirts of town and really too inconvenient to walk.  A taxi costs 15 MYR (about 4.5€) into town. Still a nice place to stay and I would definitely go here again, especially if you’re looking for relaxation and not intent on the bustling city life.

Hotel Sixty3

Modern, comfortable hotel in a good location.  Since I was miserably sick, I got the most out of the comfortable bed: wasn’t really able to enjoy anything else!   It is farther from the airport than the Palace Hotel, so unless you want proximity to town, I personally preferred the Palace (with on-site spa, pool, etc).  But this one is also nice, similar cost and directly in town with shopping / restaurants just outside.

Mt. Kinabalu, Pendant Hut:

Small hut with dorm rooms.  Bed comfortable enough, sleeping bag, inner sleeping bed and pillow provided (so you don’t have to carry them up the mountain!).  Bring a small towel.  Very friendly staff, tea and coffee available all day.  Not heated, sitting around requires warm clothes.  Breakfast served at the hut (basic food), dinner served a few meters down the hill at Laban Rata (nice buffet).

Nature Lodge Kinabatangan

Good cost/benefit ratio.  Basic accommodation surrounded by jungle, my 1 night package included a bed in a 5-bed dorm room, dinner and breakfast, 2 river safaris and one night jungle walk for 370 MYR (about 100€).  The dorms are built in raised huts, limiting the number of non-human visitors inside, although I did have a friendly gecko perched on the wall next to my bed.  We had shared bathrooms and the showers looked a little scary but were fine.  Overall very natural, I would stay there again despite a not-so-comfortable bed (I could feel the lattice through the mattress).  Our jungle guide was great – very knowledgeable, superb English, entertaining stories and examples about the animals.  There are probably nicer places to stay, but this was good and budget-friendly.

Semporna, Scuba Junkie Dive Lodge

First, please note that a number of establishments run under the Scuba Junkie name: the dive lodge (backpackers lodge) in Semporna, a Bar / restaurant next to the lodge, the dive shop, and the Mabul Beach resort out on mabul island.  It’s important to keep them apart in your thinking, because I rate them quite differently.  I was not impressed with the Lodge in Semporna.  Very dark, dank, musty dorm room, toilets and showers in integrated cabins (3 of them on our floor, not sure if there were more elsewhere) meaning wet toilets all the time, check in staff didn’t seem very helpful or knowledgeable.  The plus: ease (across the street from dive shop), free Wifi, and cheap.  If you dive with Scuba Junkie, a dorm bed including breakfast only costs 25MYR (about 7€).  I can’t say I would stay there again, mainly because of the dark, dank room.  Felt a bit like sleeping in a dungeon.  But maybe there are some better rooms.

Mabul Beach Resort

Love it.   For a few days, maybe up to a week.  Right off the beach sits a collection of little beach huts, main  building with restaurant and bar, and a large building housing some dorm rooms.  The resort jetty is also right there at the beach, with the dive shop at the end of the jetty right next to where you board the dive boats.  My first night, I was in a 10-bed dorm room which was a bit hot and the air felt stale during the night (too many people breathing the same air).  The room itself was nice, all wood floored and paneled, nice looking and relatively comfortable beds, toilets and showers  en suite (4 of them, same strange integrated idea as at the lodge, albeit a bit bigger so water doesn’t get everywhere quite as much).   On my second night, I moved to one of the individual huts and it is great.  One double and one twin bed, ensuite bathroom that is quite roomy, nice porch with table and chairs out front.  All wood paneled and floored, ceiling and standing fan and some huts have airconditioning (you pay more). All rooming options here include 3 meals a day and a small snack at the end of the dive day, around 16:00.  Water, tea and coffee available in the restaurant, pretty much whenever you want it in my experience.  The food is good albeit somewhat monotonous – hence my note that a few days and up to a week is great.  I paid 95 MYR (about 25 €) for the dorm bed and all meals, and 170 MYR (45€) for the beach hut (single supplement, normal price is 115 MYR pp double occupancy).  The huts with air conditioning run about 60 MYR more per day.

The staff is great, especially the guys in the dive shop and the dive staff.  Although also reception and dining room staff are friendly and helpful.   I can definitely recommend this as a good, laid-back place to visit.  Very down to earth, mix of western and asian travelers (mainly western), both long-term travelers/backpackers and regular vacationers.  A bunch of like minded people intent on diving – early to bed, early to rise, conversation centers around diving and travel.  Nice experience overall!

Today was my allotted day to dive Sipadan.  It’s a big deal.  Only 120 people per day are allowed to dive the island, and you have to get permits early.  So most of the backpackers I’ve met who just kind of turn up have virtually no chance of going to Sipadan, unless someone cancels and a space frees up.   What makes Sipadan so special?  A lot of it has to do with topography.  Most of the islands around here sit on the continental plate, so that the maximum depth is only about 70m.  Then shortly beyond Mabul, the plate drops off into about 600m depth.  And out beyond that is Sipadan, standing alone and surrounded by these deeps waters.  So there are lots of interesting currents, bringing lots of interesting marine life, and (for me most importantly) also bringing lots of big fish.  In addition, it is a beautiful island – a small piece of paradise out in the Celebes sea.

The history of Sipadan is not all pretty.  Ownership of the island has been fought over between Indonesia and Malaysia for a long time, with finally the International Court of Justice awarding it conclusively to Malaysia.  There used to be resorts on the island, until a number of years ago, when a group of tourists and staff (21 people in total) was kidnapped by a Filipino Islamic terror group and held captive for a few months.  After that incident, Malaysia decided it is too difficult to guarantee safety and that it is more appropriate to preserver the natural state of Sipadan, thereby instructing the dismantling of all resorts, and turning it into a protected wildlife sanctuary.

And today was my day to go visit and more importantly, to dive the mysterious Sipadan.  First the good news: we were not abducted by pirates.  The bad news, I woke up this morning congested and generally not feeling very well – repercussions of my very cold day yesterday.  For those of you who are not divers: this is a serious dilemma. The standard rule is: congestion = no diving.  If your nose and/or sinuses are stuffy, you can’t equalize the pressure in your ears and you risk serious damage.  But on my Sipadan day?  Like I’m going to cancel that?

In comes loads of Sudafed, nose spray, ear drops and wearing a hat whenever I’m not in the water.  Luckily I was in a group with a divemaster who already knows me, so I had his trust and could start descending before the group, giving me enough time for a really slow descent, with frequent stops to deal with ear problems before getting to depth.  By dive #4 today, it was painful, but just manageable – so I got my complete day although with potentially a bit less enjoyment that otherwise (especially on the last dive).

But what dives they were!  We saw two different kinds of sharks – and lots of them.  Turtles on every dive.  Twice we went into huge schools of jacks that were so big and with so many fish, we all lost each other for awhile.  This was fun – remember Finding Nemo and the jacks all swimming together and making arrows and such to show the way?  In the middle of this group, I would swim along with them as they all got aligned on the direction of travel, then I’d turn and go in the opposite direction.  The poor confused fish would be coming right at me, almost straight into my mask and you could almost see their surprise and a “whoa – where’d you come from?” look on their face and they veered around me, got confused and swam around in all directions until they could get aligned again on which way to go.

And Barracudas.  A huge school of Chevron barracuda, swirling around us like a tornado.  Later on, we also saw great barracuda hovering around by themselves around a cave entry – and they were HUGE.  I have never before seen such enormous barracuda.  The walls we dove were fascinating, dropping off into just black sea, with growth patterns from the currents and every imaginable sort of fish in all colors and patterns, not to mention to corals and other animals.  We also did a blue dive, heading straight out into the ocean and into nothingness, in the hopes of running into a hammerhead or manta.  Didn’t happen, but it was a cool feeling to be in zero gravity with just nothingness all around.

So, it was a great day.  I can’t hear anything now, but have repeated by Sudafed, nose spray, ear drops regimen and hope it will be better tomorrow.  Thankfully no diving tomorrow, but I do have a flight in the evening and really hope that doesn’t become a painful endeavor.   In any case – this is one happy diver, sick or not.

It’s been a tough couple of days.  Well, tough is relative –it’s not like I have stressful tele-conferences all day or million dollar decisions to make.  Maybe it’s more appropriate to say it’s been an exhausting couple of days.  But ... [Continue reading this entry]

My transfer was supposed to pick me up in front of the S.O.R.C between 12:30 and 12:40.  After watching a few minivans come and go (without me), I started to get nervous.  At 12:45 I tried to call the contact ... [Continue reading this entry]

after 2 days in the jungle, I am now back on line in the seaside town of semporna.  I'll catch up with my back-blogging in a bit (jungle was beautiful!), but for now let me share some first impressions of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Today started early, up at 4:30 so I could get to the airport in time to catch the first flight to Sandakan.  By the way, inter-Malaysian flights are incredibly inexpensive, usually costing between 20-30€ to get from one city to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Last night was not what I would call restful. I was staying at Pendant Hut, which sits at about 3250m on Mt. Kinabalu, in a dormitory room which luckily was not full.  So the problem was less the other people ... [Continue reading this entry]

On my way up the mountain today, I saw a body going down the other way.  Wrapped in plastic bags, on a makeshift stretcher and carried by four porters.  How is that for a wake up call? Especially when you consider ... [Continue reading this entry]

The flight from Brunei to Kota Kinabalu, in the north-east Malaysian part of Borneo, was relatively uneventful (okay, there was some heavy turbulence that had me  wondering exactly how reliable Royal Brunei Airlines is – I mean, an airline company ... [Continue reading this entry]

Brunei Darussalam, the complete name of the country I'm currently visiting, translates to the title of this post.  And in many ways, lives up to it.  Whether walking along the waterfront, watching and waving to the water taxis zipping past, ... [Continue reading this entry]