Once again, I had to wake up very early. I swear that I spend less time to sleep during holidays than while working. Isn’t holidays supposed to be like recharging the batteries and make our tiredness to go away?
For breakfast, we walked to a shop nearby and had “pan mee”. It’s sort of a long and flat type of noodles made from flour. Sabah “pan mee” is no different from West Malaysia, except this shop offers a chicken meat “pan mee” as an additional selection which again, is seldom available in West Malaysia (at least I think so). Apart from the “pan mee”, I also ordered an additional meat dumpling. The “pan mee” itself was of acceptable standard, though it’s nothing to shout about. “Pan mee” has always been too light for my taste. I once tasted a “pan mee” which has a lot of meat sauce in the soup, thus making the soup brown coloured and it was the best “pan mee” I ever had, hands down. Unfortunately, the owner of the shop retired and I have avoided “pan mee” ever since. Okay, back to our topic, while the “pan mee” was okay, the dumpling was terrible. If I remembered correctly, I think it was RM1.50 per piece and there were not much meat in it. Just vegetables, carrots and other unidentifiable stuff. And oh, by the way, the “pan mee” costs me a freaking RM4.50 per bowl!!! This is even worse than KL! And no, it’s not this particular shop that’s selling at extremely high prices. The whole of Sabah sells their food at an exaggerated marked-up price.
Meat dumplings...
Fried mee?
Pan mee...
After the breakfast, we began our next activity… island hopping. We took a van to Jesselton Point which was arranged by the lodge owner. In the van, the driver was talking about the trend of Sabah having low wages and high prices of everything in Sabah and I couldn’t agree more. He was talking to himself, asking why would such an abnormality occur and I had to bit back a retort that the prices of everything were at such absurd level was mostly due to us loh… toursists!
Anyway, we reached Jesselton Point shortly and we were attacked by a group of people trying to make us to go to their counters to buy boat tickets from them. Puduraya KL pales in comparison to their level of persuasion. However, since we had already booked our tickets, we practically had to force our way to our counter. Once we got our tickets, we went to a shop next door. Well, it cannot really be called a shop, since it is located outside along the pavements with just a table. This is the place that we rented our snorkeling equipments. I think it was RM15 for a set of snorkeling mask and a life jacket. We were told that this is the only place that one can rent the equipments but we were really skeptical about that.
Don't be snared by them as you walk in...
However, we all agreed that we should not take the risk, and thus we all rented all out equipments there. For me, I had to rent a power goggle which cost an additional RM5 compared to the normal ones which cost me a total of RM20! Pretty soon, we were on onboard a really suspicious looking boat and we were on our way to our first island… Manukan Island. I was told… repeatedly told actually, that the Manukan Island is the most beautiful island of all… and I was pretty disappointed.
This is not to say that the island itself is not beautiful… it is in fact, quite beautiful, but since this is supposedly the most beautiful island of all, then it is not really THAT beautiful. Compared to Redang Island, it is like Summit USJ compared to Mid-Valley Megamall, with Redang Island being the Mid-Valley Megamall. The waters of Redang Island was light, transparent blue while the waters near Manukan Island was deep blue with a slight green tinge. However, as I said, Manukan Island is still considered acceptable… from the outside anyway. When we reached the jetty, there were actually several school of fishes swimming underneath it. There were also a group of China tourists who were feeding the fishes with bread. I still remembered my experience while snorkeling in Redang Island… we were each given a piece of bread so that the fishes would swam near us.
Of course, we were not allowed to snorkel under the jetty… though those with no regards to rules still do so. Being a bunch of lawful and educated people, we continued straight to the beach. Before we can actually reach the beach, we have to pay to enter it… I don’t recall how much because we paid for the whole package and thus we already had the tickets when we entered… at least I think so :P… I never trouble myself with these flimsy stuff.
Leaving civilazation...
Here we are... Manukan Island...
Half naked men and almost naked ladies... everywhere!!!
Apparently, people do not understand the words "Do not snorkel"
Beautiful? That's your call...
Anyway, one of the guides was already waiting for us there. I don’t know how the system works in their ranks, but I think they have some sort of predetermined arrangement to decide who will take on which group. He sort of stuck a huge price list to me and explained to me about the various water activities available… at a price of course. Those activities like diving which requires skill doesn’t interest me at all. From what I see, there are only two activity that does not require any skill at all… banana boat and parasailing. Being someone who is afraid of heights (who doesn’t?), and no, it’s not a phobia thingy, I discarded parasailing right away. So, that only left banana boat. Actually, I wasn’t really sure what it was, but it sounded fun. Oh yeah, a word of advice, don’t trust the price list. We were able to get a way cheaper price for a much longer duration without even haggling. The guide advised us to take on this activity after we change into suitable clothes since the weather might change suddenly… and only then I realized that I was the only one who is already fully geared and ready to go… sigh… why on earth would they not wear those swim wear first? That is just pure waste of time.
After the OTHERS finally changed into their swimwear we waited at the jetty and we board another boat with a large banana on top of it. For those who do not know what is a banana boat, well… it’s a boat that looks like a banana loh :P. It’s long, thin and rounded, shaped like a banana, made from plastic, pvc or those poly stuff lah. When we reached a certain point out in the sea, the boatman dropped the banana boat onto the sea and we were told to sit on the boat. There were coincidentally 5 seats… well, actually there were 5 handles lah. Anyway, each one of us were seated in a straight row, with our hands firmly gripped onto the again, suspiciously looking handles… and it started.
The boat is connected to our banana boat by a long rope. So, basically, the motorboat will be pulling the banana boat along, crashing into the waves created by the motorboat. At first, it was still okay, as with everything… but when the boat started to speed up, it pretty soon became a matter of life and death! Worse, before we started, someone actually told the boatman to topple us! So, I was really dreading the moment, not knowing when we will be overturned… and the motor boat started to run in rounds and that’s when I realized the moment has come. Well, if anything, we really made it our money’s worth. While the boatman was obviously trying to topple the banana boat, we counter his efforts. We were pretty smug ourselves when after a really long while passed by and we were still on the boat. I can see the motorboat itself almost toppled in an attempt to overturn us. However, as time passed by, my muscles soon turned into water, but I dared not release an ounce of energy. I was still worrying about my already tingling arms when I found myself underwater.
One of the hazards of banana boat is, if you grasp the handle tight enough, and your body was suddenly unbalanced, you will pull the whole group down with you… of course I did not do that! Anyhow, being toppled here is at the same time better and worse than yesterday’s event (overturned while water rafting). Better because nothing would prevent you from resurfacing. Worse because if you inadvertently screamed while falling into the water, you would take a big gulp of salt water. Yes, the water while we did our water rafting was unclean, but it was nothing compared to the sea water. Strangely though, I did not remember hearing any screaming… and when we resurfaced, we were a group of pretty calm people floating in the sea. Well, the boatman swung by to pick us up. Once again, I was faced with gender discrimination. I have no problem with letting women to go up first, but they are the only ones who would receive help to reach the boat. I tried to wade, claw, float and splash at the water to guide myself towards the boat, but I just kept on drifting further away from the boat! Noticing this, the boatman drove the boat nearer to me and it kept on coming at me! I was just several inches away from the motor! That guy was trying to kill me!
I still don’t remember how I manage to get back onto the boat, but somehow I did grab onto something and I just guided myself back onto the ladder. Since our time was not up yet, we boarded back onto the banana boat again. This time, the girls instructed… pleaded actually at the boatman to not topple the boat. Well, you should know that customer demands are not entertained here. The girls were practically screaming at the boatman to stop when they realize that the motorboat was running in circles again. Pretty soon, we found ourselves floating in the sea again. A word of advice though, try not to sit at the last seat. It was all pretty noisy and I am pretty sure that if you fall into the water, it would take some time before someone realize you are gone… if they will realize it at all. All the time while I was sitting on the banana boat, I was really worried to be the only one who fall into the water while the others were still on the boat… so, keep your grip onto the boat so that when you fall, the others will definitely fall!!! Muah… hah… hah… hah… of course, once you really hit the water, you must let go of your death grip.
A huge banana...
The Stupendous Five...
After the pretty exciting banana boating, we were back on the beach to do some mild snorkeling. I initially thought that our package would include snorkeling out in the sea, but apparently the only snorkeling that we do is near the beach only. If this were the Marina Bay (Redang Island) then I would have no complaints. But I saw just a few tiny unappetizing fish while snorkeling at the beach. So, next time if you want to snorkel, go out into the middle of the sea. The sands were also very coarse too… filled with dead sea shells… a really huge difference compared to Redang Island. I was able to walk barefooted along the coastline in Redang Island while here, I had to clamp my mouth shut to prevent the unearthly scream from escaping from my throat.
Honey, we are surrounded by floating corpses!!!
Hmmm... is that a piece of log?
The fabled sirens of the sea?... I don't think so...
Rainbow: See? I'm jumping
LK: You're crazy
Next stop, we went to the Sapi Island. After the not really that nice, supposed to be most beautiful island in Sabah, I did not expect much from Sapi Island... and I was right. If I think that the sands of Manukan Island were coarse, it was no match for the rocky beaches of Sapi Island. Apart from that, the waters were a horror. You can actually see hundreds... no... thousands of small jellyfishes floating near the beach!!! The waters were murky and so, I spend my time learning how to swim from my friend. Of course I am still unable to swim, but at least now, I believe I can direct myself in a general direction of where I wanted to be even if it means splashing in the water like I was being dragged by a shark.
Although I was pretty disappointed with the island, at least I could spend some time to learn some skills and sleep on the water and let the waves carry me. I was just getting ready to change my clothes when the lifeguards blew their whistles. No... no one is drowning. As I looked at my surroundings, I saw that the waves were getting bigger and bigger. A sudden gust of wind blew and I find myself being pelted by sand. Yes! Sand! It was even more paiful than if someone were to throw a rock at me. Pretty soon, we found ourselves facing a storm I've never seen before. I think it was some luck that it did not rain, but the wind itself was scary enough. We were standing on the jetty waiting for our boat to come and a child could really be blown into the sea. We called for the boat to take us back to mainland even though we still have an hour left on the island because we were afraind it would rain, thus preventing us to go back to the mainland.
However, the boat arrived at the time it was initially scheduled to come becuase the boats were grounded due to the strong wind. By the time we boarded onto the boat, the wind had died. Just as I thought that the day could not go any worse, we were then told that the van that was supposed to pick us up back to the lodge broke down! So, now we had to walk all the way back to the lodge. Although it was not very far, it is still quite a distance.
Just at that moment, someone suggested that we might as well have our dinner... and another crazy one suggested that we eat near the Filipino market. So, I had to drag my feet all rhe way to the Filipino market which was almost 30 minutes walk away!!!
Run for your lives!!! Tarmon Gai'don is here!!!
We settled down at a Malay stall that was serving very aromatic fried mee. We order beehoon soto, fired rice, fried mee, cendol and ABC. The food were surprisingly good and cheap. However,t he cendol and ABC needed some improvements. I snoop around the market and bought some tid-bits to eat. Unfortunately, I was too enthusiastic in my purchase and I ended up buying so much that we could not even finish half of it. Of course, it would be a different story if the things were actually nice to eat. However, the murtablak, fried bananas and some other stuff that I don't know the names were unappetizing.
Fried bananas...
Cendol...
Fried rice...
ABC...
Beehoon soto...
Fried mee...
Flour made bread with kaya...
No idea what it is... :P
Murtabak...
I was dreaming of the bed when we finished our food (except for the fried bananas) when another fool suggested to have a look around the Filipino market located next to the market we had our food. Supressing a sigh, I followed them into the handicraft market. At this point, I should conffess something. By the time I left Sapi Island, my camera battery went dead... I supposed I really should not have taken so many pictures of women in bikinis. So, the pictures on the food above were supplied by Rainbow.
As such, I was unable to take pictures of the Filipino market. It looked like several big houses joined together and space was really very tight in there. The path is enough only for one person to walk through. So when you encounter someone buying stuff at the shops, you have to squeeze your way through. Although the handicrafts there were quite unique and nice, the prices were a sight to behold. Being someone who is without any guile at all, I am no expert at haggling prices and so I did not buy a single thing at the shops.
After the others finally finished checking out prices at every stall in the market and buy almost every single thing available there another idiot reminded us that since we were leaving to Mount Kinabalu the next day, we should buy water, chocolates, energy bars, etc. I was really going to cry at that point. Also, they wanted to shop for baclavas!!!. So, I ended up exploring the whole shopping complex to look for baclavas... and the girls noticed there were some sale going on in shoe shops and they included shoes in the search list as well. After a century later, I staggered out of the shopping complex with my hands full with food, but the others wore a face with grim disatisfaction. They were unable to find a baclava and buy shoes of the size they wanted.
Thus, I was not really surprised when they declared they want to go to another shopping mall. My feet were already numb and I'm pretty sure that I'll need to cut them off the next day. The others ended up buying a baclava and raincoats in that particular shopping mall and if my leg still worked, I would have jumped with joy when they declared that they were done for the day.
If only there is a masseuse waiting for me in the lodge...
2 comments:
Haha I didn't know you went to Sabah with idiots and fools! Joking! :P Indeed food prices in Sabah are steeper than West Malaysia. And I agree with you! I definitely expected more from Manukan Island!
Quote: "We scold the ones we love". So I scold them a lot :P.
Post a Comment