The three-hour flight from Chiang Mai, Thailand back to
Singapore went by in a flash and before I knew it, I was punching in the door
code to Jeff’s apartment. A quick random
fact: I have been on a ton of airplanes
over the course of my trip, normally, I don’t pick my own seats as that option
costs additional money, however, for whatever reason, I keep randomly getting
assigned the exit row. Literally, on
over 90% of the flights I’ve taken, I walk on the plane and there I am again,
not sure if they for some reason see that I’m a young, American male and assume
I’m a big guy or what but it keeps happening, no complaints though.
I walked into Jeff’s only to find him taking a nap at
8:00PM. I quickly got him moving and we
headed off to a nice little restaurant near his place for dinner. It had been over six weeks since the last
time we’d seen each other and we had much to catch up on. We finished dinner and made our way to a small
whisky bar Jeff had been inkling to try and sipped the night away on a variety
of single malt scotches pretending to be older than we really were. It was so great to see him again!
The layover in Singapore was a short one and in the blink of
an eye, I was boarding yet another plane destined for Borneo. Borneo is the 3rd largest island
in the world, roughly the size of Texas.
It is divided up amongst three countries, Malaysia, Indonesia, and
Brunei. It’s been long known for it’s
incredible raw nature and expansive rainforests, one of the largest in the
world. I’d heard of a place throughout
my travels called Sipadan Island, supposedly one of, if not the top (depending
on what website/magazine your reading) place on the planet to dive below the
ocean’s surface. A few days prior, I’d
booked a flight to Kota Kinabalu, a seaside city with a population of 450,000
that contains one of Borneo’s main airports.
I arrived after a two and half hour flight and snagged a taxi to a hotel
I’d found on Trip Advisor right near the beach for three nights. After checking in, I made my way down to the
waterfront to grab dinner just as the sun was setting.
The next morning I chatted with the concierge to see if
there was a place in town I could rent a motorcycle for a few days. Going off their recommendation, I took a cab
to GG Rentals and decided on a new 150cc Kawasaki dirt bike. The staff members at the shop were
exceedingly helpful and gave me a map of the best places to check out over the
next couple days. After putting together
a small day pack, I proceeded to ride about an hour north along the shoreline
to a fancy 5-star resort where an orangutan sanctuary was apparently run. Twice a day was feeding time where one could,
for a small fee, watch them carry on in a natural, open environment. The ride up was exceptional through some lush
jungle, over some amazing looking rivers and through some interesting fishing
villages. I arrived to the resort just
in the nick of time and was quickly ushered by a golf cart to the
sanctuary. After watching an educational
video about how the sanctuary came to be and the great purpose it served, a
small group of people and I made the fifteen-minute hike up to the feeding
area.
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| View overlooking one of the rivers of a bridge. |
Once there, we waited while the workers yelled out the names
of the various orangutans. Within about
ten minutes, we could see limbs shaking in the distance atop the tall trees. Two different orangutans slowly came into view
and down to the feeding area to indulge on a plethora of different foods such
as coconuts. I stood amazed at how human
like their features and movements were.
After twenty minutes, I’d snapped enough photos and headed back to the
motorcycle. What an amazing experience!
The next morning, I woke up rather early as I had decided
the night before where I was going to head that day. Roughly 130 miles north was the very tip of
Borneo, a place still rumored to be virtually untouched but having incredible
beaches and scenery. I filled up the gas
tank on the dirt bike and opened up the throttle to a mind blowing top speed of
58 MPH. I had assumed along the way
there would be plenty of gas stations, but as sure as a bear shits in the
woods, there wasn’t. I found one elderly
lady about 75 miles into the ride selling gas by the liter in plastic coke
bottles. I was running low on fuel so I
pulled in. She seemed happy to see me
and I had attributed it to my charming good looks but after she told me the
prices, I realized why she was smiled. I
soon learned I only had enough cash for one liter of fuel, about a quarter of a
gallon, mind you once again I had assumed I’d be able to pull more out of an
ATM, poor thought process.
At about 20-miles before my destination in the middle of
fields of palm oil trees, the motor started to sputter. Before I knew it the motor quit and I was
coasting to the side of the road, wonderful!
As I was coming to a stop, I had notice a hundred or so yards to my
right a small hut with a couple of gentlemen working on cars. I pulled the bike over and walked back down a
path to these two guys place and said hello.
Surprisingly, they both spoke enough English for me to get the point
across. I asked them if they had any gas
they could spare and that I wouldn’t be able to pay them for it. I quickly understood asking an impoverished
family in a poverty-stricken section of the world was not an argument I’d most
likely be winning, as persuasive as I think I am. He offered to drive me 20 minutes to the
nearest gas station where I could fill up one of his fuel cans, a little in his
truck and I’d be on my way. Satisfied
with my only option, I accepted.
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| Narrow road all the way up to the point |
Just before we hopped in his vehicle, he asked to take a
look at the bike. He popped open the
fuel tank and to my utter embarrassment, I still had a decent amount of fuel
left. He looked to the side of the bike,
and moved the switch on the fuel line from “On” to “Reserve”! As a man who’s owned and ridden motorcycles
for nearly a decade, I felt very emasculated and regrettably issued my thanks
and scurried away down the road….
All was soon forgotten when I finally reached my destination
at the Tip of Borneo. The place was damn
near empty, which was truly astonishing.
I know I’ve said this multiple times before but by God, this water, this
sand, this everything, was the BEST I’ve ever seen. I spent nearly an hour splashing around on
this perfect beach, on a perfect sunny day all by myself and it was SO
INCREDIBLY NICE! Loved it! After playing around for a while and getting
a little too much sun, I headed to the nearby town of Kudat for a well needed
meal and a fuel top off. It took me
another nearly three hours to make it back to my hotel, just in time to miss an
impressive thunderstorm, which would’ve made my ride even more enjoyable. I spent the remainder of the evening chatting
with some Australians from my hotel in the lobby about their experience in the
location I was headed to the following day, Sipadan Island!
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| Approaching the tip! |
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| At the tip! |
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| More tip action! |
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| View overlooking the amazing beach and bay! |
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| Crystal clear water! |
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| Trying to beat the storm! |
In the days previous, I’d called a variety of dive operations
on the other side of Borneo where the island was located to try and find a
place that could guarantee me access there.
The Malaysian government only issues 120 dive permits a day to the place
in order to try and reduce the human impact on the environment there. While that may seem like a fair amount, when
it’s consistently ranked as the top place in the world to dive, the prestige
brings with it a hefty crowd. After reading
a ton of reviews and speaking over the phone with the company, I settled on an
outfit called SeaVentures. SeaVentures
had been in business for a little over ten years and it operated a former
Singaporean oil rig that the owner had turned into a functioning dive resort
and had it towed to its current destination, 20-miles off of Semporna, a city
on the Eastern coast of Malaysian Borneo.
I jumped on a 45-minute mid-day flight from Kota Kinabulu in the West to
Tawau in the East. Once there, I took a
taxi for the 90-minute ride to the seaside community of Semporna. The city really had nothing to offer other
than a few restaurants and shops supporting those passing through on their way
to the islands. I was forced to spend the night in a shady motel called the
Travelers Inn before catching a boat to the SeaVentures oilrig the following
morning.
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| Gotta love the red lighting and paint peeling off the walls! |
After the 45 minute speedboat
ride, we arrived at the rig. It was
colossal. It had over 30 spacious rooms
and sat 40 feet above the waters surface on 6 massive steel pilings. As I exited the boat onto a hydraulic lift
that brought me up to the main deck, I was greeted with an ice cold cocktail
and a bunch of friendly smiles from both the staff and clients already staying
aboard. I was quickly escorted to my
room where I dropped off my belongings before coming downstairs for orientation. The staff had already learned my name
(probably because I was one of three white people out of forty) and their level
of customer service in making you feel right at home was on point. Within an hour of stepping foot on the rig, I
was 60 feet below the surface doing a check dive. The check dive was in place to assure the
dive masters you had sufficient enough competence to dive out at Sipadan where
the currents can be incredibly strong, thus making the risk for injury
higher.
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| My chariot awaits! |
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| SeaVentures Dive Rig |
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| Bar and common area |
I made a total of three dives the first day including one
dive after dark all around the rig itself.
The one I was waiting for would be the following day on Sipadan Island
though. I had to be downstairs ready to
go the following morning at 5:30 AM for the 30-minute boat ride out to the
island. Seven others and myself made the
trek as the sun was coming up and it couldn’t have been more spectacular. The air was warm, the water clear and the sea
relatively calm for open ocean. At just
past 6:00 AM, I plunged beneath the waters surface a few hundred yards off the
shore of the island. The island itself
has an interesting story to it.
Beginning in the 1980’s , a few resorts sprang up on the small 13 acre
island. Jacque Cousteau, the famous
ocean explorer and dive pioneer, had said in 1989 it was the most incredible
place in the world, which garnered the place global attention. One used to be able to stay on the island and
have unlimited diving, there was no regulation.
However, in 2000, a group of 21 people were kidnapped and held hostage
by a Filipino Islamic Terrorist group for ransom, resulting in one death. After that, the Malaysian government had all
the resorts torn down and removed entirely before imposing new rules saying
staying on the island was forbidden and only 120 permits would be issued daily
as well as diving only being allowed between the hours of 6:00AM-4:00PM, rules
that were still strictly enforced. The
island itself sat atop a vast extinct volcano and just a few hundred yards
offshore, the depth drops right off a cliff to nearly 2,000 feet, a sheer
wall. Over 3,000 species of fish and
marine life call the small Sipadan area home making it one of the richest
marine habitats in the world.
The three dives my group did there that day were absolutely incredible. I saw countless turtles the size of cars
growing to over 9-feet in length. At
first, when I saw them, I was completely shocked thinking they didn’t grow that
large, it was insane. We saw an abundant
amount of sharks, barracuda, octopus and species of fish that looked straight
up like aliens, things I could’ve never imagined in my wildest dreams. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an underwater
camera but a girl in my group did and was happy to share a few of her photos
with me before I left.
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| Look at all those barracuda! |
After returning to the rig and doing another dive right
around it, I got cleaned up and had dinner with my group and a bunch of others
staying there as well. The live band
started around 8:00 PM and I sat and listened to my Malaysian born dive
instructor give a valiant effort in absolutely butchering the vocals to songs
by Eric Clapton, Led Zepplin, and even some CCR. My prayers were answered by luckily not
having him have to destroy any Eagles songs.
Everyone drank the night away to great laughs, entertaining music, and
some amazing conversations. The
following morning, I got a few more dives in before having to snag an afternoon
boat back to the mainland. I said my
goodbyes to a wonderful group of people and brought with me some memories that
will last forever, what a truly, truly special place!
I ended up taking a shuttle back towards the town a few
hours away where the airport was with a couple from the dive rig. They weren’t a part of the dive group that I
was with but had been staying during the same time. On the ride to the city, I was informed that
they’d actually just got engaged the day before! They looked to be in their early thirties and
were from Kuala Lumpur. Apparently, the
girl had been wanting to go diving at Sipadan for some time and the guy finally
surprised her with a trip. During one of
their dives, with the help of some of the dive instructors, the guy managed to
propose with a sign nearly 100 feet underwater to which she replied with two
big thumbs up!
The three of us figured out we were all on the same flight
the following day back to Kota Kinabulu and we decided to meet up for dinner
once we settled into our hotel. We
headed to a gigantic outdoor seafood market on the recommendation from our
front desk and had a nice little stroll at sunset on the way their. Once we were seated, I told the couple I
needed to run to an ATM. I discreetly
snuck into the back, grabbed our waiter and instructing him to put everything
on my card as it was a celebration of their recent engagement. While that may seem generous, keep in mind,
the food in SE Asia is CHEEEEAAAP!
Before I left, I’d instructed the couple to order whatever type of
seafood and to just make sure to get enough for all three of us. I came back about 10 minutes later as the ATM
was a little ways away and I wanted to make it seem like I’d actually gone
there. A few minutes after returning,
the courses started coming out. Then
they kept coming, and coming, and coming aaaaaand COMING. Here were these two small Asian people who
maybe weighed a combined 250 pounds and apparently the must’ve not been fed in
three months with the amount of lobster, multiple species of crab, shrimp,
oysters and other assorted side dishes.
I soon learned that the guy wanted to celebrate big since it was their
first nice meal as an engaged couple and they were all too happy to have me
apart of it. The drinks kept flowing as
I slowly started weeping at the undoubtedly growing tab. The guy, bless his heart, finished the meal
off by ordering a bottle of champagne to make a toast! I couldn’t help but laugh and enjoy the moment.
The server waited till the girl had left to use the restroom
before bringing me the bill. I quickly
signed it without looking at the total as I didn’t even want to think about it
and soon, the guy had a look of “Ahh shit” on his face. I assured him it was fine and that I was just
so thankful they included me on such a momentous occasion. As much as I wanted to take the handful of
cash he was desperately trying to hand over, I couldn’t in good faith accept
it. Good things always have a way of
coming back around to you!
The next morning, the three of us shared a cab (he paid for
it!) to the airport and boarded our flight back to Kota Kinabulu. Once there, we said our goodbyes and went our
separate ways. The two of them were
headed back to work in Hong Kong and I was once again heading back to the
beautiful country of Singapore! Borneo
had proven to be a marvelous experience.
It is truly a magical place that is so raw and untouched in many
aspects, it almost doesn’t seem real.
There are many places that I’ve seen in the last three months that I’m
sure I’ll probably never see again, however, Borneo is most definitely not
amongst those on that list!
