Friday, 28 May 2010
We woke up after a restless sleep, the night didn’t quieten down much after the local shops closed – there were young children playing in the streets well after midnight. The breakfast offered was tea and coffee, roti canai with curry, and some fruit. We had our coffee over a chat with a young British couple; he had been diving for some time, she had completed her Open Water qualification h ere in Borneo earlier during their trip.
We intended going out to one of islands just off the coast of KK, so headed down to Jesselton Wharf (aka “the jetty”) to make arrangements. You pay to get a seat on a boat to take you to whatever island(s) you desire and arrange the pickup time; you then have to join another queue to pay the jetty fees. Why you cannot complete the entire transaction in one payment is beyond me; I think it is done like this to confuse tourists and amuse the locals. Armed with our tickets and the crappiest rental fins you have ever seen, we waited for our boat. For the amount of people going to the islands each day, the entire system seemed completely disorganised and haphazard. We were escorted onto one boat, only to be taken off that boat and escorted onto a different boat. Eventually, some Swedish travellers joined us and we departed the jetty for Mamutik Island.
The short boat ride was uneventful, so we sat and watched the Swedes taking it in turn to solve a small Rubik’s cube. Each of the three girls could do it in just a few minutes, the two guys travelling with them spent most of their time comparing sunglasses! When we arrived at the island, it was already swarming with several large groups and many, many smaller groups; they had set up their marquees and staff were making arrangements for buffets and barbeques. On arrival at the island, we had to pay (yet again) and then followed the notes in the Lonely Planet to get off the main beach and find a more secluded spot. We walked up a relatively steep track and then down the other side, Havaianas are NOT designed for this sort of work.
We found the spot mentioned in LP and headed down to the water’s edge to go snorkelling, when, there in the middle of the narrow track was a large-ish monitor lizard. One bite from these things can spell bad news, so there was a brief Mexican standoff as it didn’t want to move out our way, so Scott pitched a small rock near it and it eventually got the hint and slowly moved off back into the jungle.
It was nice to get back into the water, but unfortunately even the best coral gardens in KK are pale (literally) in comparison to the spectacular underwater scenes at Mabul, Kapalai and Sipadan. The corals all seemed quite beige in their appearance and even the colour in the parrotfish seemed to be quite subdued. Still, we had a nice time snorkelling around by ourselves for over an hour, spotted a few clown fish, some neons(?) and very-baby squid, but these were really the only highlights. Point Peron can be more interesting than here.
We exited the water and walked back up the track to the main beach and the crowds. The main beach was keeping a lot of people amused so we decided to go and see what everyone was looking at. What we saw was disgusting; just about all of the corals in the main area were smashed, there was litter everywhere, the fish were so used to being fed that if you weren’t feeding them they would nibble your fingers and arms as you swam. The monies paid on arrival at the island were supposed to be for conservation and regeneration, but we could not see where any of those funds were being spent.
Our boat arrived on time to take us back to the jetty, but only after stopping to pick up a group from another island. One of the other passengers on the boat engaged Tracy in conversation; she turned out to be from KL and was taking a short holiday in KK because it is quite a cheap holiday for them (it also is a long weekend in Malaysia this weekend?)
We arrived back at the jetty and thankfully were not asked to pay any more taxes or fees. We stopped off at a local hole-in-the-wall for some lunch on the way back to the hotel for the now obligatory siesta.
As I am writing this (16:30) the sky has gone dark(er) and there are loud rumbles of thunder, but no rain, yet. From our window we can see some of the shopkeepers across the road moving some of their wares off the sidewalk, so maybe they know something more about the impending weather?
(Ten minutes later – it’s raining!)
(Thirty minutes later still – it’s stopped raining and now is just humid!)
As there is no free Wi-Fi in the hotel and getting on the one internet machine in the lobby can be a bit of a challenge we decided to take the laptop down to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafe for some of their free Wi-Fi. Other than us, there was only one other customer there, and I don’t think he was there for the coffee either? The connection was pretty fast, the chai latte was OK too.
Dinner tonight was taken at the night market. Tracy had some corn and mixed veges, including some weird seaweed that had a strange texture to it and even stranger taste; Scott chose the barbequed squid. Tracy’s dinner arrived in quick time, but the surprise came when Scott’s squid arrived many minutes later; it was some goliath monster from the deep! It was huge! It was overcooked and tough, but the sauce was tasty. Did we mention how big it was?! Scott couldn’t finish all of it, which was no surprise, but what was a surprise was the bill at the end of the meal, RM49. The night markets in Sandakan were considerably cheaper, so we felt full, but a little ripped off.
We went for a wander through of the shops adjacent the waterfront precinct in an effort to find a particular outdoors shop. The shop was listed in Block A of a particular shopping centre; when we entered we found ourselves in Block B, so of course we had to pass through Block C to get to Block A?? Anyway, the store had moved to Jessleton jetty so we continued meandering through the out-of-sequence shopping blocks. We stumbled across a cigar lounge with a massive array of Australian red wines ($$$) and some fine cigars (and some not so fine cigars). We might have to pop in tomorrow night for a nightcap?