OK, the tale of what happened on the Malaysia trip. Malaysia was overall an awesome experience. But it wasn't all smooth sailing.
The night before the adventure began, I flew to from Cebu to Manila. I arrived on the last flight that night and had to fight to get a taxi (I ended up sharing a cab with a guy-- we were kindly brought downstream away from the airport by another taxi service and from there flagged down a cab. I paid 150- a little bit more than i would have paid with just the meter but I didn't put up a fight). T stayed over at the condo in Pasay City, where watched we passed the time watching unbelievably unrealistic reality shows.
The next morning, we were out the door by 9:30 am on our way to Megamall where were would catch the Philtranco bus to Clark Air Base. Satoko met up with us at Pancake House where we took our breakfast, loading up on full-on rice meals plus pancakes-- for dessert! (we planned on skipping lunch). By 12:30 pm we were on our way. The bus ride was quick. 2 hours and we were out in the middle of Pampanga flatlands. Bright and sunny. Nothing for miles. It used to be U.S. military base and the surrounding areas were mostly giant entertainment complexes (KTV, bars, restaurant buffet courts). Our flight wasn't for about 2-3 hours so we pined away at the meager waiting area. Frustratingly, Air Asia gave us a hard time with our luggage. We hadn't planned on checking anything in since we were scheduled to catch a flight as soon as we landed in Kota Kinabalu. At the check-in counter, we asked about certain carry-on items and the agent gave us the OK. Once we got to through security, we got a different story. Our bags got flagged-- we were carrying dangerous and highly explosive contact cleaning solution! It so happens that we all visually challenged and wear lenses so you can imagine the uproar we caused trying to make a pass with our gear. The rule is no containers with more than 100ml of liquid. Containers! So you could have half empty bottles, with barely any liquid left, but it won't pass. For the most part, airport security in the Philippines hadn't been so anal about this rule-- mainly because it's ridiculous. But Clark apparently didn't get the memo. We were harassed and scolded for flouting airport security. Strangely, they made no case against our water bottles. So ridiculous!
Finally on our way to KK...The 2 hour flight brought us down into a stormy and rain soaked Malaysia! The skies looked bruised and resentful, and we dodged rain puddles on the way to the terminal. We escaped immigration (I got cross-examined; was it my U.S. passport? My sour look?) and hopped inside a taxi and headed over to the domestic terminal for our flight to Tawau in the south. Arriving in Tawau, we almost missed our flight but were saved by a delay. An hour later we were in Tawau, searching for our driver-- who never arrived! We scrambled but finally made a personal arrangement with some random hotel/resort driver who agreed to make a separate stop at our budget pension house before dropping off his load of resort-bound travelers. We paid about 80 MYR for the three of us. The drive took another 2 hours or so through the pouring rain.
When we arrived in sleepy Seporna we discovered that everything was closed! It felt like a ghost town. We eyed the KFC- the only open resto on the dark streets. After checking-in and dumping our bags, we headed back out only to discover that KFC had closed already!! We were desperate and we pounded on the sealed doors. Maybe they took pity on us, wet and starving as we were. The fastfood manager opened the doors and all we could we do was mouth and sign, 'food' and 'hungry' in gestures that could have won us awards in games of Charades. She directed us to back alley areas where she said there would be small eateries. We found niche establishments still open so we headed there and found places with small kitchens, smoky with spices and flavors making our mouths water. The locals were sympathetic. We were shown a plastic table set inside a small wooden building with dirt floors . No menu existed and we had to describe what we could eat. We ended up up with a stirfried, breaded chicken and noodle dish, as well as cucumber salad. A feast nonetheless. We hadn't eaten since breakfast. We paid 15 MYR for dinner. Satiated, we bought water to go from a lady who was half Filipino and spoke Tagalog (yay!) and headed back to our rooms. The clock blinked 1am. Overflowing with food i didn't actually get to sleep until 2am or so. At this point, I was already feeling the cold and congestion in my chest start to take over....
****

SIPADAN! T signed up for diving and S and I stuck to snorkeling. We arranged the boat and service with the outfit,
Scuba Junkie, run mostly by Aussies.
Overall, the service was OK. I wasn't that impressed with the service, but it's cheap and efficient I suppose, especially if you are diving. Snorkelers get the raw deal. Luckily, S didn't dive and I wasn't left drifting alone on the surface in open waters. Later that day, I got into a little snarl with one of the dive masters....it wasn't a brawl but I didn't mince words....[to be continued]





Labels: beach, malaysia, sipadan, snorkeling, swimming, travel, vacation