A tale of two cities

Semporna & Sipadan, Eastern Sabah, Borneo

Part I : The Diving Mecca

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"Life is too important to be taken seriously"
- Oscar Wilde

I love Southeast Asia, and I mean really love it. Sometimes it is great, oftentimes it is awful, bit it is always interesting. Our stay in the town of Semporna was a great example of this. After arriving in Tawau on the east coast of Sabah, the northernmost state of Malaysian Borneo, we took a couple of minibuses to Semporna, the nearest point on the mainland to the diving paradise of Sipadan Island. We realised we were finally back in Asia when we had to share our minibus with a gaggle of staring children, chain-smoking old men, and several large buckets of dead fish. We even laughed about it when one chain-smoking old man lit up another smoke as he filled our petrol tank in a service station.

When we arrived in Semporna, we had a bit of a bind finding a room. Malaysian independence day was approaching and a lot of the places were booked up. We finally bagged a small, windowless room in the centre of the town, at a place called Lee's Resthouse. It wasn't great, especially after our luxurious suite in Kuala Lumpur, but it did at least have air conditioning and the price was right. Under normal circumstances we would have avoided the place, as it was listed in our guidebook and this normally brings disappointment, but we were strapped for choice so it would have to do. We booked ourselves in for some diving with an operator we'd had recommended to us by Dave & Lisa, our Canadian friends who had been here recently, then took a wander around the town. Everybody was very smiley and all the kids would shout out hellos in English as we passed by. Cara was always chirpy back, but my misanthropic side began to tire after the 647th hello and from then on the kids had to make do with flick of the head and a neutral grunt.

For your average budget backpacker, diving here requires a significant investment. After doing the sums, we decided to book ourselves in with the dive centre on an adhoc basis, and make a decision after the end of each day. The next morning we were up early and made our way down to the dive centre. We sorted out our dive kit and set off towards Sipadan. There were only two other divers on the boat, besides the dive guide, so we could stretch out on the benches and have a snooze for the fifty minutes or so it took to get there.

I was lucky enough to dive Sipadan a few years ago. Back then, I was travelling on business and stayed at the expensive Kapalai Dive Resort, diving four times a day around Sipadan, Mabul and Kapalai. This time around the accommodation was somewhat less salubrious, but the diving was as good as ever. Within a few seconds of dropping into the water on the first dive, I remembered why this place is so special. The diving here really is incredible, the best in the world in my opinion (and let's face it, that practically makes it a fact). It is not just what you see, but how much of it there is. The sheer volume of marine life on show baffles the brain and strains the eyeballs. But let's start with the island itself. Sipadan is a true oceanic island, Malaysia's only one in fact. This means that the island sits off the edge of the continental shelf on which all the other local islands reside. Step off the reef edge and it is six hundred metres straight down to the seabed and a very bad headache.

The best way to describe the variety of marine life on show is to talk you through a typical dive we took at Barracuda Point dive site (despite having the greatest diving in the world, the locals still insist on giving the dive sites fairly mundane titles. If I had been draughted in to name these things, it would have been called "The Mind Boggling Shitload of Fish Vista in the Flying Current Coral Theatre and Turtle Emporium". Their loss). As soon as we plopped into the water at the edge of the reef, we were immediately surrounded by thousands of fish. Huge schools of trigger fish and longtail banner fish filled the water and large barracuda hung motionless in the current, pretending to be invisible in a way that only razor-toothed fish six feet long can get away with. A quick glance around showed a large turtle with attendant bat fish, heading to the surface for air, while another turtle swam beneath us and yet more sat dozily on the reef wall, looking at us with no more interest than a tramp has for his toejam*. We drifted along the reef and through the enormous schools of fish, with turtles constantly flapping into view before drifting back into the blue murk. The current was fairly strong, so we were all happy to be carried along by it without any need for exertion on our part. Grey and whitetip reef sharks circled beneath us, trying their best to look intimidating, but soon gave up and cleared off when they realised we were not novices who could be frightened by cheap theatrics and the opening chords of the Jaws theme tune.

After a short while, our guide pointed up ahead at a vague, flickering mass in the water. We all finned toward it and as we approached, the mass turned into an enormous column of barracuda (or is that barracudas?), swimming slowly against the current and generally having a sociable time of it. Our guide found a patch of sand on the top of the reef and we all settled on the bottom as the column first approached, then enveloped us. For a good few minutes we all just sat there and watched the giant swirl of fish swim around us. I can only assume they were having a group discussion on whether they should bite one of us for a laugh. Eventually, they seemed to reach the same conclusion as the sharks and began to move on. I looked up at Cara and she was clinging to a piece of rock, watching the twenty two and a half trillion barracuda sitting in the current around us. I noticed a whitetip reef shark trying to get some shuteye on the sandy patch in the reef, not more than two feet from the end of Cara's fins. I waited for her to look in my direction and pointed to the shark. Cara took a brief glance behind her, nodded at me to acknowledge she'd seen it, then went back to looking at the barracuda(s). It was at that exact moment that I realised what a pair of spoilt little shits we have turned into. When you can look down at a shark sleeping at your feet and not give it a second glance, you know you are one seriously lucky sod.

But that just sums up Sipadan. A casual glance around you takes in so much, yet you move on and moments later the current brings something even more spectacular into your field of vision. If there was one place on this planet I would happily dive for the remainder of my years, then this is the place (with the possible exception of Wraysbury quarry. I've heard you can see a shopping trolley and several used condoms on the same dive!). After about thirty minutes on the reef wall, we swam into a wide channel where the current whipped us along rapidly. Beneath us, scores of whitetip reef sharks slept on the sandy bottom with yet more swimming over and around us. The last ten minutes of the dive was spent looking at the amazing hard and soft corals in the shallows, before hopping back onto the boat and onto Sipadan Island for lunch.
Until a few years ago, there were a handful of dive resorts actually on the island, but the government closed them down and now the only permanent residents are a handful of army soldiers who can't believe their luck and the occasional monitor lizard (to monitor the soldiers, perhaps?). The divers are permitted to land on the island, but only in between dives, and everybody has to bugger off before nightfall.

In total, we did six dives off Sipadan, over two days. The second day saw only Cara and myself on the boat, so we had our own personal guide for the day. On the way over to the island, the rains came in and we were treated to a chilly tropical downpour that reduced visibility to less than ten metres in front of the boat and all sight of land vanished. It didn't overly thrill us when the boat driver ran over a piece of driftwood and we spent the next ten minutes drifting in the storm while he inspected his propeller. All was fine and with the special ninja powers that all dive boat drivers seem to have, he found the island without even having to stop and ask for directions from a passing turtle.

Over the course of those two days we were treated to some spectacular sights. One of the reasons we came here was because Cara loves turtles. We had seen the odd one on previous dives, but I had promised her she would see hundreds here, and for once I wasn't talking bollocks. We saw dozens on every dive. Big ones, small ones, zippy ones and sleepy ones. Every few minutes on a dive we would se another turtle sleeping on the coral wall. Some would find little ledges to wedge themselves into, while others just seemed to hang precariously from a large coral fan. We spotted a few amorous turtles and even a stack of them, five high, where the top males desperately tried to unlodge the bottom fellow from his mate. Or they were just confused, or kinky, or both. We saw sharks aplenty and too many varieties of reef fish to name (mainly because I've waffled on too much already). Even the coral here is incredible. The nearby islands of Kapalai and Mabul are more famous for the rare, tiny creatures that reside there, but we chose to stay diving Sipadan. A few more days would have been appreciated, but funds dictated otherwise and as you will read below, staying in town soon lost it's appeal.

We would have moved on the next day, but I decided to come down with one of my regular jungle colds, so we decided to stick it out in Semporna for another day. More's the pity.
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Part II; The Den of Thieves

"Honesty is, for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty"
- Plato

Sipadan is everything a beautiful tropical island should be, with white sand beaches, swaying palm trees and diving you'd kick your granny for. Semporna, on the other hand, is a shithole, and I'm not just saying that to be cruel. If you look it up in any encyclopaedia, it will either say shithole, festering shithole or two steps down from your average shithole (population:2000). Their words, not mine. Most people who come here stay around the seafront, and to be fair, that is not bad. We, however, were staying in the centre of town and it was ugly in a way that only Stalinist Russia and Burnley can comprehend. On our first day diving, another chap had mentioned that quite a few people, staying in the main tourist joint on the seafront that we had been turned away from, had had cash pilfered from their rooms while they were out diving, and that kind of made us feel a bit better about staying in town. That was until we made it back to our room at the end of the first day to find some light fingered little shitbrick had taken his/her turn with us.

All seemed well when we first got back to the room, but when I took a rummage in Cara's bag for the small digital camera, it was not to be found. Our first thought, obviously, was to hurl abuse at each other with accusations of leaving it in our room back in Kuala Lumpur, but closer inspection revealed that cash was also missing from Cara's bag, which had definitely been there earlier in the day. Now, you might be thinking that we are idiots for leaving these things lying around, but the room was locked and the bag from which the stuff had walked was also locked. Somebody had let themselves into the room, spent a good while working their way through the combinations on Cara's lock (probably knowing full well that we would be out of the room for the whole day diving), and helped themselves to our goodies. We were both fuming. The door had not been forced and the only way to get to our room from the outside was past the reception desk. It would seem that somebody in the hotel considered tourist's belongings a nice supplementary income. We went down to the reception desk to have a rant, and they couldn't have cared less. We at the hotel are not responsible for the loss of personal effects from the rooms, was the seemingly well rehearsed reply.

"Not exactly true," I said, "somebody at the hotel is responsible. Whoever did this had a key to our room and knew we'd be gone for the day. Somebody who works here is responsible for this, you are just not taking responsibility for it."

This clarification of their misrepresentation of the English language had the same effect as a belch in a frog farm, namely, none whatsoever. I continued to bounce up and down and throw accusations liberally about the room, but it did no good. Their expressions never wavered from "couldn't give a shit", with the exception of one girl who adopted a look of "is this going to take long?" for the duration. When I realised this would get us nowhere, I thought bollocks to it, and ranted some more. Cara gave them the obligatory notification that we would leave notice of their lousy security record on every website from here to Wigan, and we made our dramatic exit. Meaning Cara went back to the room to make sure our bags were still there and I went outside for a cigarette.

Whilst out there, a young chap who turned out to be Belgian (don't meet many of those on the road) came outside and joined me for a quick smoke. After a few minutes, he leaned over and in the best conspiratorial whisper his Inspector Clusseau accent would permit, he said I should be very careful of my things here, because he and his friends had had many hundreds of euros stolen from their room while they were out diving. They had been to the police, but they were no more interested than the people at the hotel. I thanked him for the advice and told him of our situation. He then said something that might have questioned their parentage, but I couldn't penetrate his accent so am unsure. It turns out that others staying at LEE'S RESTHOUSE IN SEMPORNA lost things from locked bags in locked rooms, so it would appear quite a lucrative sideline has been added to their main hospitality trade. Before we left we heard news of other thefts from other hotels, so perhaps the trend encompasses the whole town. In the fifteen months we have been on the road, this is the only time we have had things stolen from our room, and we have stayed in some dodgy towns.

We made our trip to the police station and filed the necessary report, and just as my Belgian friend told me, they showed neither the least surprise nor interest in our story. In fact, before they released the report to Cara, they asked her to confirm that she only required the report for insurance purposes, and didn't expect any investigation to take place. Nice one, boys. The missing cash was no big deal, but the loss of the camera, and even more importantly, the loss of the photos on the camera, was a major kick in the arse. This explains why you will not see any images on this or any other recent posts.

The diving in Sipadan is out of this world and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anybody, but if you plan on staying Semporna, it might be wise to invest in some sturdy padlocks.
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Mik

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*To all the tramps that may happen to read this who have a deep, rewarding relationship with their toejam, I apologise. My analogy was in no way intended to mock or belittle the importance of your own toejam or any other bodily secretions borne of limited personal hygiene.

**All photos courtesy of Chad & Kori Crow, who still own a camera

City living

Singapore

We were both really excited about getting back to Asia as it was still our favourite continent. We were looking forward to being warm again, the food, and the fact that everything would be so much cheaper than in NZ and Oz.

First stop Singapore. As this isn't one of the cheaper cities in Asia we were very lucky to be able to stay with Mik's friend Rob again who has now been living here for 5 years, and who we stayed with last year. It was great to see more friends and we celebrated with some cheap food from the local food courts (about a pound for a plate of roast duck, rice and veg.) and some hideously expensive beers - paying 5 quid a pint hurt.

We stayed for the weekend and spent most of the time eating all the lovely food we had been missing and tagging along with Rob and enjoying his expat party lifestyle. We went to a birthday party which was fancy dress - back to school - I'm sorry to say we didn't make the effort but enjoyed the entertainment and the jelly shots! We also spent a Friday night in the pub with his work colleagues. It was quite strange to remember what the end of the working week must feel like.

In order to help counteract all this drinking we agreed to go with Rob to his dragon boat racing training on the Saturday afternoon. We were both a little nervous having not done a lot of exercise in the last 15 months and Mik was determined to get out of it one way or another. He didn't and once in the boat he took to it really quickly. It was hard work but great fun being out on the river and seeing the city from a different angle. It is also very sociable with a keg of beer being provided at the end by the sponsors. It is a hugely popular activity and there are loads of different teams. We were actually training with the Aussies as apparently the British team is crap! We really enjoyed it but I was glad they took it easy on us. Despite the beer I knew I would be aching the next day.

In Asia, warm weather also means high humidity. Thus a return to being sweaty on a regular basis. Mik found that his girl's hair wasn't helping the situation and after a few (lots) of encouraging words from me he finally got his hair cut. Thank the lord. I no longer have to walk 5 paces behind him down the street. This was of course not as simple as it should have been. For starters the girl had to lower the chair as far as it would go, and then still ask Mik to slouch down in his seat, as she couldn't reach thevtop of his head. Then came the description of what he wanted done. Quite straight forward really, just cut it so that is 3 inches long all over. She got it eventually, or so we had thought! You can see the results in future photos. Personally I was delighted.

Our last evening was spent up on the 70th floor of the Swissôtel where not only do you have a great view over the city, but they also have a happy hour every evening with half price drinks. As this was the case I thought I'd hit the cocktails which would have been fine had I, a) not had to return a couple of them after the first few sips as the glass was cracked, b) not had to return a couple after the first few sips as they didn't taste right (turned out there wasn't enough alcohol in them) or c) had more than a snack to eat all day. As a result the lads, who had been drinking one beer to my one and a half peachy loves, were fine as we left whereas I couldn't stop giggling and was rather worse for wear. Still, we hit a local chinese restaurant and all was right with the world. Until the following morning that is!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Yep, of course we had an early start to catch a bus to Kuala Lumpur, we were back in Asia afterall, where all things start before dawn. Ouch. Luckily we had booked ourselves on the luxury coach. We had had trouble finding a room on the internet and so Rob kindly offered to get us a deal at the hotel he usually stays at when on business in KL. A huge expense for us but an amazing hotel, and a we got a suite to boot. The hotel complex is massive it houses not only the usual rooftop swimming pool and spa etc but also a massive shopping centre, restaurants and a theme park complete with indoor rollercoaster. Madness. Oh and I nearly forgot the cinema and Imax screen which we visited as they had a film on about sharks. Guess who's choice that was.
When we were in KL last year we had seen the sights but had not managed to get up the Petronas Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world. This time we got up early and queued for an hour to get a free ticket for our slot 3 hours later that day. You are taken up to the skybridge which connects the two towers. They only allow around 20 people on the bridge at one time. I don't think I want to know why. Unfortunately it was a hazy day so we couldn't see too far but the building itself is very impressive.

We spent two nights there enjoying the luxury as we were then catching a flight to Tawau in Malaysian Borneo and there the luxury had to end or we would be coming home before the end of September! We were flying with Air Asia, the low-cost airline, and unbeknown to us they had relocated to the cargo terminal. Luckily our taxi driver (Mr Nairdu) had collected us super early and the 20 minute detour to get to the right place didn't mean us missing our flight. We checked in with baited breath as baggage allowance was only 15kg. We had left a few bits with Rob in Singapore to collect on our way out of Asia but would still probably be over the limit. We were, but only by a couple of kilos and they let us off - phew. Don't know what I'm going to do about all the things I plan to buy while here though! And we were off, gone were the trappings of modern cities, we were on the road again, and thoroughly looking forward to it.

Cara

Australia without seeing a single kanagaroo or koala

Sydney, Australia

''Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time"
- Bertrand Russell

After being relieved of $50 each at Christchurch airport, for departure taxes and an Australian visa, we finally left New Zealand and flew off to sunny Sydney. My mate Jenny, her fella Simon and her daughter Charlotte, moved to Sydney last Christmas and we would be staying with them in the fancy northshore suburb of Mosman. A train ride from the airport and a brief taxi journey later and we were at their house, a swanky looking place on a quiet road just a few minutes away from Sydney bridge. It was great to see them again, and not just because they gave us food and wine and pretended to be interested in our endless travel stories. We hadn't seen anybody we knew since Mum&Mum© left Mexico three months previously, and we hadn't seen these guys since last October. It was a great novelty being able to have a normal conversation again with people we knew. Quite frankly, neither Cara nor I have a single story or anecdote that the other hasn't heard already, and the other is always there for every new experience we have. It is getting so bad, I've resorted to talking Cara through my list of Most Impressive Pimples As A Teenager. Riveting stuff, I am sure you will agree.

Our first week in Australia was spent hanging out with Jen, Simon and Charlotte, taking in the sights of Sydney and catching up on what has been happening in the last year. We visited the aquarium in Darling Harbour and watched Deep Sea 3D at the Imax. During the week, when everybody was either at work or school, we would slouch on the sofa watching DVDs or wander around the city, looking for good noodle houses. Cara and I were missing Thai food so much, that we went to an Asian supermarket, bought a wok and a bucket of ingredients, and cooked up a few recipes we had learned in cookery school at Chiang Mai (this will surely have to go down as the most shameless name dropping of any blog entry).

After a week, Simon had to fly off to Mumbai, in India, on business and Cara and I settled down into a fairly lazy routine of not doing very much. After all this time away, it felt good to be staying in a real home environment, and although we didn't really do anything, we certainly enjoyed not doing it. The house was just a few minutes walk away from Balmoral beach, which is one of north Sydney's most pleasant little suburban beaches. A few times, Cara and I would take a walk down to the beach, buy fish 'n' chips from the place across the road and sit on the sand to eat it (sorry Oz, but you seem to be afflicted by the fresh fish/frozen chips debacle that scuppered New Zealand). The various commuter ferries cruised by in the distance, and seemingly every toddler in the southern hemisphere rode passed in a pram. It is worth noting that a small portion of Balmoral beach is sectioned off with a shark net that has in front of it a big sign saying the net is not shark proof. Almost as ludicrous as the warning found on the back of a bag of peanuts stating bag may contain nuts. Next thing you know we'll have warnings on the side of aeroplanes stating plane not impervious to gravity. Is it a shark net or is it not? Balmoral beach also has a resident flock of reasonably tame cockatoos, and one day we tried to get a couple of photos of them as they were feeding on the park across from the beach. As I was crouching down to get a photo of one bird that was getting quite close, it jumped up onto my hand and tried to stare me down. Annoyingly, it was the hand that was holding the camera and the strap was around my wrist, so I couldn't transfer it to my other hand. I tried to nudge the bird up my arm so I could switch hands with the camera, but after much squawking and pecking at my fingers, it jumped down again so I missed the shot. Thinking it was a great Kodak moment not to be missed, I tried to encourage the noisy little bag of feathers back onto my free hand to get another chance at a shot, but as I put my hand down in front of it, the bastard clamped down on my thumb and bit as hard as he could. In a vain hope of getting him off me, if only because it really bloody hurt, I lifted my hand up and away from him, but he just hung on and I spent the next half a minute jumping up and down and waving my arm about with a big cockatoo hanging off the end of it. I was not very impressed, but the 200 other people in the vicinity thought it was hilarious. Eventually, after realising I wasn't a really big peanut, he let go and trundled off to join his friends. I was a bit wary of them after that, but Cara, who is always impressed by the sight of a cockatoo, insisted I go back and take a picture of her with them around her. No further attacks occurred.

One evening, Cara and Charlotte wanted to watch the cinematic train wreck that is Moulin Rouge, so Jen and I took the opportunity to go off into the bars of Sydney and get smashed. We drank far too much and talked the hindlegs off a donkey that I had brought along for effect, just like the old days (the drunken ramblings that is, not the donkey). Ah, nostalgia, it's not what it used to be.

Our original plan was to spend a week or so in Sydney, then move on and spend another few weeks travelling around the east coast of Oz, but that plan was terminated and buried in an unmarked grave fairly quickly. That we were enjoying staying with friends so much, coupled with the fact that Australia turned out to be only slightly less expensive than Monte Carlo on grand prix weekend, had persuaded us to essentially write off Oz as a travel destination and just hang out in Sydney for a few weeks. As Australia is even easier to get to from London than Watford is, we didn't feel too guilty about summarily executing Australia's part in what is probably the most fascinating and heroic travel story since my mate Steve's suitcase got sent to Malaga by accident. We could always come back in the future, and it will probably be quite an attractive option the older and more intolerant I become. So it was settled, we would spend the entire three weeks vegetating on Jen and Simon's sofa, wearing out our welcome and stoutly avoiding absolutely everything of the remotest cultural significance. That last part is not actually true. One afternoon we made the slog over to East Sydney to visit the "World Famous" Bondi Beach, as the kiwis probably refer to it. And what a thrilling experience it was too! Some chaps, who looked like orange schoolboys with goatees, were sitting on surfboards, calling each other dude and making token gestures at riding little waves, a seriously scary looking old geezer, who looked like he spent twenty five hours a day pumping weights, was jogging up and down the beach in a pair of speedos that would make a Patpong Ping-Pong girl blush and an assorted assembly of underwhelmed tourists, including us, trying to whip off the odd photograph when the sun peaked out behind the clouds. And it is much smaller than you imagine. To be fair, it was the middle of winter and we were not seeing the beach under the best circumstances. In summer, I'm sure it is, well, busier. We were soon back on the bus into the city, where we caught the ferry to Manly to check out Sydney's second world famous beach. Considering I come from a part of the world where the sea is so disgusting even the fish are scared to swim in it, I should probably stop poking fun now and just say that Sydney's beaches are quite pretty.

Whilst in Sydney, we were also able to catch up with a few people we met earlier in our travels. Andy and Claire are an English couple we met on a boat travelling up the Mekong river between Vietnam and Cambodia over a year ago, and they have since settled in Australia, living in Manly on the northshore. We had dinner at their apartment one evening to catch up, although we didn't hit the booze too hard as Claire was just a few months away from giving birth to her own little Australian. We also had a chance to meet up with Dave and Lisa, the Canadians we first met in Iguazu in Argentina. They were travelling the world in the opposite direction to us, and our paths finally crossed again in Oz. They are both a great laugh and Dave is the only human being I know with a more ridiculous haircut than me (excluding the pasty folk with the dreadlock extensions, obviously). We met up with them in town one afternoon and drank a few beers in Sydney's oldest pub, which apparently is older than me.

Just before we had to leave Australia, Charlotte celebrated her thirteenth birthday, so we all went out to a new Thai restaurant up the road and had an excellent dinner. It was probably one of the best Thai meals I have had outside of Thailand, and we had a great old time. Fear not, newly fledged teenager Charlotte was having her real birthday party the following weekend with all her friends, but as it was a school night, she had to spend her actual birthday with us boring grown ups.

That pretty much sums up our stay in Australia. Three weeks and I didn't even manage to see one kangaroo, koala, spider or snake, although on one afternoon in a park, we did stumble into a group of large fruit bats, and as you can see from the photo, they seemed very happy to see us too. Oh well, next stop Singapore, again.

Mik

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Pointless aside No. 237
"Because you'll win bugger all on the lottery"- Quote from an advert for ING Direct seen on the side of a Sydney bus, featuring Billy Connelly. The same Billy Connelly who's advert FOR the UK National Lottery was voted the most irritating advert of 2002. Funny old world.

p.p.s. I've just realised that I rather rudely failed to thank Jen, Simon and Charlotte for very kindly allowing us to plant roots in their home for three weeks and making us feel so welcome that we struggled to leave. So, thank you all very much and we look forward to returning soon, maybe when it's a bit warmer.