It sounds like we can’t make up our mind.  Is this a jungle holiday to Borneo or is it a water holiday to Borneo?  Back and forth we go, trying to take in all the good stuff this huge island has to offer.  Our next stop is Semporna where we snorkel amongst the world famous diving reefs in the Semporna Islands Park and then we make the trip to Mulu National Park in Sarawak.

Semporna is really a place for divers.  We don’t dive and we didn’t know much about the whole diving community but we learned a lot on this day out on the reef because we were the only snorkelers amongst dozens and dozens of divers who have obviously made it their life passion to dive.  And if diving is your thing you have to come to Semporna to dive the reefs off Mabul, Kapalai and most famous of them all Sipadan Islands.

The side of Mabul Island where the locals live

We got on our dive boat in the morning, twice the age of most of our companions, sitting amongst the dive gear listening to diving stories (especially the whale shark they swam with yesterday).  We had been worried we would just be a complication to the organisers and treated like second class (snorkel) citizens; this concern was both proven and dismissed at different times during the day.

We headed out to the island of Mabul where our dive company had their dive centre, lodging and restaurant.  We enjoy our snorkeling, not expert at it by any means but we’ve snorkeled in quite a few places around the world now (Red Sea, anyone?) and get quite a buzz out of it.  They had planned three ‘dives’ for our group today and the first one was off the island of Kapalai, not far from our Mabul base. 

Local kids playing in their backyard

The dive spot they chose for us was near the shore, shallow and beautiful.  The divers all disappear under water (as divers do) and the boat follows them while we are left to our own devices.  But we loved the peace and beauty of the place, snorkeling for a while, stopping to talk about what we’ve seen, usually emptying the mask and adjusting equipment.  We try to snorkel side by side so we can see the same things, touch each other’s arm to point something out and support each other if someone needs help.

I can’t tell you all the fish or coral we saw but there was good variety of both.  The coral came in many shapes and colours, including a bright purple that stood out, and the fish ranged from Nemo-like cute things to kinda strange don’t-touch-me spiky or long and slithering things.  The boat luckily came back to get us and we all returned to Mabul for a rest buffet lunch and quick look at this island.

We picked up a new friend who travelled with us everywhere

From what we could tell, Mabul was divided into two halves – the half on the right side of the pier where the dive operator had built a backpackers lodge, set up deck chairs, had a beautiful long clean and empty beach.  A very resorty feel, all good.  On the left side of the pier was where the locals lived in tightly packed run down timber homes right down to the sand, kids running and swimming everywhere, small fishing boats, old equipment, discarded junk and a lot of rubbish.  The place looked very unkempt with no local pride or conscious.  The two halves of Mabul.

Okay, this snorkeling is hard work and sometimes you just have to rest

The second dive was to what they called Eel Garden which was a reef on the back side of Mabul.  Again, they dropped us off and the divers immediately disappeared.  But this was different to Kapalai, now we were much further from any land and there was a strong current that carried us away from the dive boat.  After snorkeling for a few minutes we realised the reefs and the fish here weren’t nearly as good as at Kapalai, in fact it really wasn’t much of a snorkeling place at all (and not just because of our high standards in snorkeling !). 

We did get that second class citizen feel out here by ourselves and you couldn’t help but remember the Australian story of the divers being left behind by their dive boat.  Of course that didn’t happen and eventually we were picked up and returned to Mabul for the mandatory rest before our final dive.

Julie talked to the Dive Coordinator about our disappointment with our last dive and the girl immediately swung into action.  They assigned a young charismatic Danish guy, who was normally a dive master, to snorkel with us for the final dive and they took us to a beautiful spot with outstanding coral and fish.   

It was easy to explore the rainforest in Mulu

Timmy (good Danish name) also pointed out various fish to us and gave us their names (which we immediately forgot).  The big prize of the day was that we saw a turtle swimming lazily below us (which Timmy later reported was a hawkesbill turtle.  It was larger than a toilet seat and allowed us to follow it for a short while until it got bored with playing with us and swam off quickly. 

One of the few cave photos that didn't come out looking like a finger painting

The next day we got up early and drove to the Tawau, the last town on the southern Malaysian side just before the Indonesian border.  Here we left the mighty Proton at the airport carpark to catch the flight back to KK.  The Proton Saga 1.3l carried us almost exactly 1,000 kilometres, top speed around 90kph (usually downhill), but it did the trick and we were a little sad to say good bye.

From KK we caught another flight to the Mulu National Park.  Mulu is in the Malaysian state of Sarawak (oddly, we got stamped out of Sabah and into Sarawak even though it is all part of Malaysia) and the flight down there was on a twin prop plane with only about 12 passengers.  Mulu is right in the middle of the deep jungle, there are no roads to it so we have to fly in and fly out.  Mulu is also a World Heritage site and despite its remoteness the infrastructure was quite good.

The skinniest stalactites and stalagmites I've ever seen

Mulu is famous for its caves – big caves with millions of bats.  So our first guided walk (almost all walks must be guided) was to Lang Cave sand Deer Cave, both about 3.8 km from the park headquarters along a well-built boardwalk through the deep jungle. 

Lang Cave is famous for its shawls, stalactites and stalagmites.  This is probably the most classic of the limestone caves here, very cool.  Deer Cave is known for having the largest opening of any cave in the world (yeah, it was big) and featured huge open caverns, massive open areas where you could build a four story suburb.  If you want big, this is big.

We waited outside at dusk for the millions of bats to emerge but it had started to rain which means the insects that double as bat food stay sheltered and there’s no reason for the bats to come out.  Some did anyway which was very cool how they swarmed out in dark masses through the sky, but it wasn’t as spectacular as it could have been.

That evening at the hotel the big event was a cultural show after dinner, the highlight of which was my success at popping a balloon from across the room with the warrior’s blow pipe.  Headhunters were only outlawed in Borneo in 1959 so the whole hunting thing is still alive in the culture of the local tribes.

On our balcony after a tough day of caving

What a day – a two hour drive, two flights, 8 km walking, two caves, bats, blow darts.  The worst part was the pain from our bad sunburn and Julie’s 200 sea lice bites (she counted them!) which were driving her crazy.