Mabul Island

(Sorry, can't check my spelling in English...)

We are just back from spending three days on an island. We are finally back to traveling in the old style, which means we spent the last three days RUSTIC!

We went to Uncle Chang's Mabul Backpackers. Our room was built on stilts out over the sea. The boat trip to the island was an eye opener. As we left Semporna and headed to Mabul, in the middle of the open sea, were houses. I don't know that I have ever seen anything like it. Now this was Borneo.

The first night on the island we felt like we had finally found our bit of heaven. We watched the sun set with a coke and a beer and the kids were playing around and all was right with the world.

That night it started blowing, and raining and the next two days were on the island with amazingly heavy rains...total monsoon action! There were no windows on our little shack room and the beds got wet. I had taken the dirty laundry to the village to have it washed but there they do it by hand and there are no dryers so the clothes never got dry. I wore no underwear for three days. In fact, I'm not sure I have been dry for three days...

That didn't stop us from snorkeling or digging the turtles and fish that swam right by our room. Vince dove each day and me and the kids hid from the rain.

When the rain would let up we would go into the village. Wow! I've never seen so many children, dirty, playing, all on houses on stilts. Many people had their houses over the water, interconnected by walkways. How no one falls off and hurts themselves is amazing. On the second night Uncle showed up so the staff got the band equipment out. Everyone had been listening to Falcom sing and so they made him take the mic and sing. Uncle Chang was so happy he gave him a tee shirt and a hat and told him that he owns Falcom now and he can't leave. Falcom wasn't sure he was joking. Marina begged Unlce not to keep him. The entire place was swinging with the band and Uncle broke out the rum and the real band took over. It was quite a night.

Mabul is a small island and directly across the island from us was a resort on pilings above the water. We were paying $20 US all meals included for each of us. Those bungalos were $250 US a night plus extra for the extra bed we would need. Luckily, because we were white we could stroll around out there. Looking down into the water we saw schools of barracuda, sardines, triggerfish, parrot fish. It was incredible. Marina just wrote to her class. One of her classmates asked if she had been to an aqurium. She said, "I was living in an aquarium!"

The village between "Uncle Chang's" where we were staying and the resorts had little stalls with candy and chips and things that the kids loved. Marina is exhausted by being pinched and poked and having her picture taken. I'm not sure they see too many white girls around there.

It is very disturbing the amount of garbage that we have found washed up on the beaches. Plastic bottles especially. Some of it is from the village, some of it is from mysterious locals. It is very disheartening. Vince thinks that they could make a handsome industry by taxing tourists and paying people by the kilo for picking up the trash. I think that's a great idea. Hopefully it won't be long before it's time comes.

One day we took a ride to a neighboring 'island' to snorkel. How they call a reef submerged under five feet of water with a luxury resort on pilings out in the middle of nowhere an island is beyond me. The fish life was incredible. The idea that these cottages were just up there, sticking up out of the sea, in the middle of know where was mind boggling. There was also an off island resort built onto an extinct oil platform, which looked cool, but you didn't get the feeling for the true island. I have no idea how much these places cost to stay but I am sure it is not $20US per person.

By the second day of all that rain I was starting to get anxious to leave there. Problem is, there is no ferry running in the morning so we had to stay another day to wait for the boat. They were definitely on tropical time. There was no rush to leave. I think Vince thought I was being a little snitty about being ready to leave until he spent the day on that micro island in the monsoon rain. They made us get all our stuff out of the room at 830 but we didn't leave until 5. I finally said, "This is so hotel California!" He agreed.

I think the thing that got me anxious is that I realized we are out of time. I have been to Borneo and I have not seen an Orangutan. I talked to this gal who spent two days in the jungle and saw orangutans in the wild and elephants and monkeys, and I realized that by choosing to go to the sea I forfeited my chance to see those things. This is a disappointment.

Word to the wise: Borneo is not a week long vacation.

Upon further reflection I realized that I may not have been to the jungle, but I have seen fabulous ocean environments and human developments that I would not have seen if I had chose to go to the jungle instead of to the ocean. Last night, sitting on the deck outside my room in the evening, a very large turtle came right up to us and took a long deep breath. It was fantastic.

Tonight we are in Semporna. We strolled around the neighborhood our discount hotel is in and saw Malaysian drive through: hawkers selling meat on a stick on the curb side where people could just drive up. We decided after being on Mabul we needed American fast food and went to KFC. It was a two story affair. The kids went upstairs to grab a spot and we got the chicken. I went up and found Marina swarmed by people, pinching her, taking her picture. Wild.

Tomorrow is up for grabs. Maybe we'll run across a monkey.