After spending a night in my tent on Sapi, the last island I visited in Tunku Abdur Rahman Park, which is full of enchanting beauties, I woke up in the morning with the crowd filling the island again.. Every table around my tent is full of mostly Chinese visitors. I must have sounded interesting to everyone because all eyes were on my tent and me. After spending the day swimming frequently, sunbathing on the white sands, reading my book and sleeping, I went to the pier at 4 pm.. Again, thousands of fish took shelter around the pier feet.
As usual, barracudas and other large fish are after them to hunt them, what a difficult life, you are always on your guard.. Otherwise, you may find yourself in the stomach of another fish within seconds.. They say big fish swallow small fish (!). This may be valid on the seas, but isn’t there anyone who adapts it to daily life!
After a 20-minute boat ride, I was at Kota Kinabalu Jesselton Point Pier. Since we didn’t like the Lucy Hostel we were staying at, my friend Farid had already found another hostel and carried our backpack there.
There were many other backpackers in the hostel called Akinabalu Youth Hostel.. I want to stay a few more days in this beautiful city. Farid, my friend did not have much time, so he moved to the town of Semporna. Semporna is the best place for transportation in Sipadan and Mabul Islands, one of the top five most beautiful diving centers in the world.. Requires reservations for required permits as they only accept limited divers. In high seasons, it is necessary to do this even a few months in advance.
I stayed 2 more days in K.Kinabalu.. I devoted this time entirely to writing and publishing what I wrote.. Don’t look, it takes 5-10 minutes to read what is written like that.. Sometimes it takes 8-10 hours to write and upload photos at these slow internet speeds. After spending these 2 days in Kota Kinabalu and watching the 28th National Chinese Cultural Festival, I decided to move on to Semporna.. The next morning, I took the bus to the terminal in the city center, and then the public bus to Inanam Bus Terminal, where buses run to other cities.. We bought my ticket for RM75 from Dyana Bus Company and set off at 8:30 am.. Although not of the quality of buses in Turkey, it was a relatively comfortable bus.. It even had a toilet even though it was very dirty.
The view was breathtaking as my bus drove past Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South Asia, 4095 meters high, about 2 hours later.. Thousands of people come to Sabah every year to climb this popular mountain of Borneo.. When we first came to Kota Kinabalu, our initial plan was to climb this extraordinary mountain.. For this, you must make a reservation in advance, obtain the necessary permits, make the payments and wait for your turn.. For climbing, you need to stay at least 1 night at Sutera Sanctuary Lodges, which is the only accommodation option in Mount Kinabalu Park.. For this reason, they sell climbing as a package and the price is quite high for us.. What an exorbitant price to pay RM680 (400 TL) per person!
However, we paid 160 TL for the 3-day all-inclusive climb to Mount Rinjani, at an altitude of 3,726 meters, on Indonesia’s Lombok Island.. Despite all this, there are many demands. During peak seasons, you need to book a few weeks or months in advance.. Considering all this, we decided not to climb.. I passed through many beautiful landscapes and palm trees such as Mount Kinabalu and arrived in Semporna 10 hours later.
We met up with my friend Farid again at Scuba Junkie Hostel.. If you dive with Scuba Junkie Diving, who also owns the hostel, it’s RM20 per night, otherwise the regular price is RM40.. He did 6 day dives and one night dive with Farid Scuba Junkie on Mabul Island and said they were very professional.. Since it was necessary to pay RM580 (350 TL) for 3 dives on Sipadan Island, he found the price too expensive and gave up.. We had sent an e-mail to reserve a place at a diving school called Uncle Chang, which offers more economical prices, but there was no response.
My next day in Semporna, I stopped by the Uncle Chang office first.. Sipadan did not have my name on the dive list, but they said I could dive 3 days later if I wanted to.. I gave up on Sipa due to the exaggerated dive prices, went to the Scuba Junkie Diving School office and bought 6 dives by paying RM630.. Each dive is RM100 (58 TL), if you buy 3 more dives, they offer a 10% discount. I also purchased accommodation at Scuba Junkie Resort for RM85 for 1 night on Mabul Island.. I actually paid more, but 6 dives instead of 3 seemed more reasonable to me.. Let me not swim among the popular corals of Sipadan, I have already seen enough corals in Bali, Gili and Tioman Islands.
In the afternoon, Farid went to Tawau town by minibus.. From there, it will fly to Kota Kinabalu first.. Tomorrow, it will pass from K.Kinabalu to Bangkok, Thailand.. When I flew from Darwin, Australia, to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, my Persian-Dutch travel companion, Farid, had landed in Jakarta from Amsterdam the same day and landed in Bali the next day.. We met at the Ombak Bagus hostel run by a Dutch couple and then traveled together for 3 months in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Borneo.. From now on, I will continue my journey solo and he will meet his girlfriend in Krabi.. Maybe we’ll get together again later, who knows…
Day 434, Borneo:22. Semporna, Wednesday, October 12, 2011
