I've found him, I've found Nemo! (4th March 2010)

Mamutik Island

Allana wanted to get to the islands early as she was leaving on a plane back to KL in the evening, that sounded good to me cause that way we would hopefully get there before it gets too hot however when it got to 10.30 and we still hadn’t left I was beginning to wonder who’s version of early we were talking about!

We finally got to the island of Mamutik around 12 midday and to get there we had to pay and hire everything on offer it seemed. We had to first get the boat ticket for RM12, then you have to pay a national park departure fee of RM6, then I hired a snorkel and mask for RM15 and a towel for RM10, then we had to pay another RM10 to actually enter the island. Finally after all of that we just had to wait 10 mins before more tourists turned up so we could head out. Mamutik is one of five islands that make up the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park off the coast of Kota Kinabalu. Mamutik is a nice little island but quite restricted on where you could snorkel. They do a lot of PADI courses (scuba diving certificate) in the area and like to keep certain areas free for them. I know it’s certainly not the best place around Borneo for diving and it was nice snorkelling but that’s all really. I saw some very vicious looking black spiky things, I have no idea what they were but I’m don’t doubt for one minute that they’re gonna hurt if you get too close! I also saw some Nemos and at one point they certainly saw me, I think actually I might have got too close to their home cause the big chap was definitely seeing me off. I managed to get a few decent pics though of the fish I did see although I do wish they wouldn’t move when I’m trying to get award winning shots! You would have thought they would have got used to it by now huh?! Perhaps it was the lack of food for them that put them off, seems to be the thing to do there :-(

Back on the island and I realised I had burnt the whole rear side of me! I think I was too eager to get in the water that I forgot the sun screen. As I was swimming around I did think about it but by then of course it was too late. How I manage it every time I really don’t know, you would have thought that by now I would have learnt that my skin just doesn’t do sun! Obviously not! And why does it always hurt so much and why do I always do it when I’m somewhere where cooling down is never an option?? Oh well onwards and upwards.

Fish

Once back at the hostel I attempted a cool shower to cool down a little and then headed out to the night market for dinner, now beat this, a can of coke and a plate heaped high of fried noodles for 95p, in some shops at home I don’t think you can get a can of coke for less than that, let alone as much as you can eat plate of noodles. I even got some company thrown in, a group of Malay girls had come for dinner as well and the stall I choose was their favourite so they joined me and we chatted a little before the food arrived. I think having a decent meal in Borneo is going to be the last thing to worry about, the food is yum!

Finding Nemo

Tomorrow after a lot of working out I’m going to head off to Kinabalu National Park. Now I really want to climb the mountain but I’m also pretty realistic about the possibility of making it! We’ll see.

Spiky things