Kinabatangan river > mabul island (212km, 3h30 by bus + 70km, 1h50 by car + 16km, 1h by boat) Few!

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Today we are travelling from the Kinabatangan river to Mabul island. Stephane wants to go to Semporna because he knows there is one of the bests spots on this planet for diving and snorkeling. We share our thoughts with Mr. Aji who said that we should go to Mabul island which is very beautiful and a good base from where water activities start. Okay, sounds good, let’s do that :-)

Map.

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Stephane woke up at 5am this morning to catch to sunrise. Personally I was very happy to sleep 45 minutes more. We are going to have breakfast and then will drive to the place where we will do a short trek, the last one on this tour.

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The first lights of the day are nice and soft.

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I cannot see!

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That’s the warung where we ate yesterday night and where we are going to have breakfast this morning. Actually, Malaysians call this place a “Mamak” but I’ve seen “Warong” too which is closer to the Indonesian name “Warung”.

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That’s the place where we stayed last night. That was very basic but far good enough for us. There is hot water and two beds. What is better than this :-)

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We expected to do a track in the jungle but because we asked to Mr. Aji to drop us off at the bus station along the way we don’t have that much time. So Mr. Aji decided to come back to that same place.

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Unfortunately, for now, there is no sign of animal this morning.

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We keep looking but still nothing.

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There is actually a trunk behind this bunch of mixed plants.

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Sometimes we can perceive some darker shapes high in the trees. Apparently they could be Proboscis monkey‘s nest but at this time there is nothing around.

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Nope, we were not as lucky as yesterday so we are driving back to the main road.

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This is the kind of landscape we have along the road.

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Some house seems to be composed with different bits and pieces.

The sound of the video is awful but it gives an idea of the scenery in the area. Palm oil and palm oil and palm oil…

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Mr. Aji drop us off at restaurant where the bus is supposed to stop. He did not have the time to ask if that was the right place that the bus arrived. Lucky us, we are just on time and even have 15 minutes to have something to eat :-)


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After something like 4 hours drive (I’m not sure, I was sleeping), we finally arrived in Semporna. The sun is biting hard now… Some taxi drivers popped up front of us straight away, trying to extract some money from our pockets. “Where do you go?” “We don’t know yet, sorry guys”. We walked around to have a sense of the place where we just arrived. The first thing to do was to reach the water but we ended in a poor district. Where is the beach?

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Every house here appears like it’s going to collapse very soon. They all live next to each other. Surprisingly they can even drive small cars on those platform. If there is a beach here, it’s underneath those houses where all the rubbish are accumulating.

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We came back to the city centre and had some lunch at an indian place. We try to find a place where to sleep tonight. The best would be to be able to go now in Mabul but nothing is sure. Mr. Aji recommended us to sleep at the “dragon Inn” homestay which is cheap and just above the water. After a look at the map we are on our way.

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The “Dragon Inn” is somewhere there. It’s 20 Ringgit for one night, one person. That’s a correct price. We did not walk 10 metres on this kind of bridge that some guys asked us where we were looking to go. We said “Mabul, can we go now?”. Their answer started with a “no” but few minutes later it became a “yes”. A woman came around, asked us if we still wanted to get to Mabul tonight. “Yes, that would be nice. How much is that?” “150Ringgit for the boat trip plus one night there, food is included. You will leave Mabul at 4pm” she said. Well, sounds good.

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The office being just over there, we followed the woman.

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That’s a kind of restaurant there.


We payed for everything and soon after we followed a guy who leaded us to a car. Actually the driver was already on his way to the boat ramp but came back for us. We are lucky :-) 30 minutes later, we arrived at our destination from where we would catch a boat. By bus, by car, by walk, by plane, I’ve never swap that much from one transportation to another. Cycling is much simplier! :-)


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The boat is not here yet. We have some time to rest and take pictures :-)

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We are going to see the sunset from the boat. It could be nice, very nice.

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Come on, wait for us, please!

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The island where we are going is barely visible from here. It’s situated between those two islands, slightly on the right side of the end of this wooden pier. Can you see?

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The boat finally came. In few minutes we should be on board.

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Let’s go!

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Just on time for the sunset.


The boat trip was supposed to last 30 to 40 minutes but we had a problem with one of the engine. At a certain time, both of the engines stopped, oups… Where are the paddles? The trip last longer than we expected but we finally reached Mabul at night time without any major trouble. From what we have seen tonight, the place looks wonderful and it’s going to be even better tomorrow! Cheers :-)

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