Just got back from a week-long break in Malaysian Borneo - a tropical island filled with plenty of wildlife and adventure! When it comes to trip planning, I'm usually the one who arranges things, but this time John and I left the planning to our friend Alex.
The trip began with a short flight (around 1 hour 40 minutes) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, aka "KL." KL is the hub for the hugely popular airline Air Asia, so we had to connect through there before heading to Borneo. Unfortunately for us, Air Asia decided to change our flight times (several times!) during the weeks leading up to the trip. It was fairly annoying, but with a "no frills" type airline you can't really complain. We ended up having a flight later than we originally booked, so that did not allow us any time to go into the city overnight. We tried to stay at the nearby airport hotel but it was fully booked, so we saved our money instead and spent the night at the airport. Hundreds of other people had the same idea. The place was packed with travellers, sleeping on benches, chairs in the cafes, on the floor, etc and even making some crazy fort-like nests with luggage carts. I used my backpack as a pillow and had my silk "sleep sheet" I bought in Vietnam (a silk sleeping bag) which was way more comfortable than I expected. I slept through the night because the place was so quiet despite all the travellers spending the night there, but woke up early when they started making flight announcements - oh well! It's been a while since we spent a night sleeping in an airport. There is even a whole website devoted to maintaining "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports!" The airport we stayed at was actually rated Asia's 9th worst airport to sleep in last year, but it wasn't nearly as bad as you would think.
Anyway, the next morning we flew to a city called Tawau, on the island of Borneo (less than 3 hours away). A guy from our guesthouse picked us up in a cab and drove us about an hour to the port city of Semporna where we caught a boat to a small island off the coast of Borneo (Mabul). The speed boat ride was approximately 40 minutes, which took us to Uncle Chang's (our guesthouse for the next 4 nights). Uncle Chang's is a cluster of "chalets" built in the water on stilts, connected by a boardwalk to the restaurant area and leading to the village on Mabul.
Uncle Chang's is a popular place that offers basic accommodation with the extra perk of air con. Showers were luke warm (not bad!) but the power is often out for a good portion of the morning/afternoon. All people staying at Uncle Chang's have meals included since Mabul is not home to anything resembling a restaurant, as far as I could see. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are at scheduled times every day, and are served buffet-style in the "restaurant" area, just down the boardwalk from our chalet. Meals were pretty basic - rice (always!), some kind of vegetable, meat such as chicken or beef, and fruit like watermelon or banana. There is a water jug there, and a station where you can get hot water to make tea or coffee. Throughout the day, if you're hungry they leave out the tea/coffee station and put bread, butter, and jam out. You can also buy some extra soft drinks or beer if you want, or walk on the boardwalks down to the village to buy a snack in one of the little stores.
Besides small shops and homes, the island is home to a cute little school. As we passed through the village, people waved and yelled "hello!" and agreed to pose for some photos. Some girls from a house on stilts even called out to me yelling "photo!" and then said thank you after I took it.
The trip began with a short flight (around 1 hour 40 minutes) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, aka "KL." KL is the hub for the hugely popular airline Air Asia, so we had to connect through there before heading to Borneo. Unfortunately for us, Air Asia decided to change our flight times (several times!) during the weeks leading up to the trip. It was fairly annoying, but with a "no frills" type airline you can't really complain. We ended up having a flight later than we originally booked, so that did not allow us any time to go into the city overnight. We tried to stay at the nearby airport hotel but it was fully booked, so we saved our money instead and spent the night at the airport. Hundreds of other people had the same idea. The place was packed with travellers, sleeping on benches, chairs in the cafes, on the floor, etc and even making some crazy fort-like nests with luggage carts. I used my backpack as a pillow and had my silk "sleep sheet" I bought in Vietnam (a silk sleeping bag) which was way more comfortable than I expected. I slept through the night because the place was so quiet despite all the travellers spending the night there, but woke up early when they started making flight announcements - oh well! It's been a while since we spent a night sleeping in an airport. There is even a whole website devoted to maintaining "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports!" The airport we stayed at was actually rated Asia's 9th worst airport to sleep in last year, but it wasn't nearly as bad as you would think.
Uncle Chang's is a popular place that offers basic accommodation with the extra perk of air con. Showers were luke warm (not bad!) but the power is often out for a good portion of the morning/afternoon. All people staying at Uncle Chang's have meals included since Mabul is not home to anything resembling a restaurant, as far as I could see. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are at scheduled times every day, and are served buffet-style in the "restaurant" area, just down the boardwalk from our chalet. Meals were pretty basic - rice (always!), some kind of vegetable, meat such as chicken or beef, and fruit like watermelon or banana. There is a water jug there, and a station where you can get hot water to make tea or coffee. Throughout the day, if you're hungry they leave out the tea/coffee station and put bread, butter, and jam out. You can also buy some extra soft drinks or beer if you want, or walk on the boardwalks down to the village to buy a snack in one of the little stores.
Besides small shops and homes, the island is home to a cute little school. As we passed through the village, people waved and yelled "hello!" and agreed to pose for some photos. Some girls from a house on stilts even called out to me yelling "photo!" and then said thank you after I took it.
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| The boardwalk to the village! |
The water around Uncle Chang's was a beautiful colour of greenish-blue. During low tide, the water did not come very far up the stilts. During high tide, it came up a few metres, but we could always see the sand at the bottom - the water was so clear! There were a lot of "chocolate chip" starfish down in the water below. Unfortunately, when we took the boardwalk to the village, we could see see random pieces of garbage that people had thrown into the water down below... very sad! Inside the village, I was also very surprised to see how much garbage was just tossed on the sandy paths. Hopefully they can clean this stuff up soon and figure out a better way to dispose of waste.
The main reason why we visited Borneo was to check out the island of Sipadan (not too far from Mabul, where Uncle Chang's was). For 3 days, the Uncle Chang's diving crew brought us in their boat out diving/snorkelling. That's where we had our real adventures...
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