Trip to Sabah- Tawau, Semporna, Mabul Island

Mabul Island

We started of our 12 days journey in Sabah on 20th by taking the early flight to Tawau-our first destination 3 of us arrived roughly near noon time due to the delay, we changed our plan by staying a night at Tawau town. We planned to visit the Tawau Hill Park, but ended up getting lost nowhere in the kampung. The villagers that directed us there had mistaken Bukit Gemok with Kampung Bukit Gemok, we can just laugh at ourselves,haha....So we ended up going nowhere in Tawau. Tawau was once a small coastal fishing village under the Sultan of Sulu until it was ceded to the North Borneo Company. Now it is a bustling town for the cocoa and palm oil plantations industry. Due to sesak jalan, we didn't manage to visit the Cocoa musuem also.
After my friend arrived in the evening, we had our 1st seafood dinner , a nice and cheap one, should have ordered more like Lobsters etc if we knew that Tawau's seafood is far more cheaper than in Kota Kinabalu.At night, we just played cards and having our nice supper-durian.

The next day, we headed to Semporna, a small town an hour away from Tawau and also the gateway to world's best dive sites,Sipadan, Kapalai etc islands. Initially we just planned for a day hoop on one of the island, but it started to rain when we reached there, and due to others cirsumstances we decided to stay a night at Mabul island. Sipadan island is too expensive for us, rm4xx, so we just chose Mabul island, opposite to Sipadan which is far more cheaper, RM160 for 4 meals, a night stay and snorkelling trip.Next time I must visit Sipadan and Mataking island after I learn diving,haha...

Oh ya, forget to mention about our back luck on the car rented. The stupid car made a large noise when we nearly reached Semporna, after checking we realized that the exzon pipe had broken ( actually there are a few broken and mending scar there, so it was not totally our fault to break it, perhaps it was rusted and already in a nearly-to-break condition when we rent the car). So what to do, we can just get some rubber tape to glue it,haha...

Pictures taken before we went to Mabul Island at Dragon Inn.
On the boat to Mabul Island
Clear crystal water of Mabul island. We can see the bottom of the sea from afar from the island, really amazing.

this is the place we stayed. There are all Bajau's etnic groups staying on the islands, so all the houses behind are Bajaus one.If you could stay longer in the island, one would get to know better of the culture of their group. From what other tourists told us, we have to watch out wen walking on the island as many of them still pass their motion in this land of nature. Some of them even got the chance to witness the wedding of Bajau etnic. The children there own their small little boat since they are small, you can see them fishing in the sea or join them in playing al those traditional games that seldom known by the city youngsters nowadays. We could get free fish from the boatman too if you see them passing by before they passed it to those sellers.

At first I thought it is some kind of chicken, later did I know that it can fly . It's bird.






Some of the budget accomodation that our agent supplied.

Actually Mabul , Kapalai and Sipadan do not really have nice beaches like West Peninsular Malaysia, but there are great for the underwater view. We did not have any waterproof casing, so can't show you guys how amazing and beautiful it is under the water. I bet that's the most beautiful underwater scene I have seen compared it in many islands in West Peninsular, even the islands on the other side of Sabah( Kota Kinabalu side, the West China Sea) is not as beautiful as the Celebras Sea side here. So if you are an avid fans of diving, or sea lovers, it is a must to visit here once in a life time, you will know how beauty it is the living creatures under the sea.