Welcome back to my two part series on my most recent trip to Malaysia! If you are new here, welcome, I’m happy to have you. I just wanted to let you know that there’s a part one to this whole adventure that you may want to stop, go back, & take a gander at before we continue on. Totally up to you if you’d like to do that, there’s probably some set ups & introductions in there that will be continued on here, but either way, I’m happy you’re here! I’ll link part one in a big ole button below this introductory paragraph before we get that big, bold “part two” title & continue on. If you read part one & are here for part two, you honor me with your commitment! Thanks to you as well! Alright, enough of my jabbering, let’s get back to it shall we?
PART TWO:
Day Five
Our morning dive time reset. The previous day, with our trip to Sipadan, we’d had to be up & at the boat by 6 AM. Today we weren’t required on the jetty until 8 AM. That didn’t stop the call to prayer from waking us up, though I think Evan & I pushed through until around 6/6:30 at which point we gave up & went down to breakfast.
Following the day prior, Evan had resigned himself to ‘possibility.’ He would go down to the jetty for each perspective dive, sit through the briefing, & decide, based on the brief, whether the dive was for him or not. We call that growth folks. Snaps for the growth.
Evan didn’t end up going, but this morning we were heading over to the neighboring island of Kapalai to dive the house reef of Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort, called “Mandarin Gardens.” The house reef featured a number of man made structures that acted both as wave breakers & as artificial reefs & they were full to the gills with macro life!
Ornate Ghost Pipefish
Nudibranch
Chocolate Chip Starfish
Although we were all fairly on top of one another this dive & the visibility was only about 30 feet, the sight was exceptional. There was a lot of “look at this, no wait, look at that, ooo, look what I found!” going around. Right off the bat, in the water Roy found an black Ornate Ghost Pipefish. We found a number of Mantis Shrimp, a Crocodile Fish, tons of Rabbitfish & Angels, Nudibranchs on nubibranchs on nudibranchs, Coral Shrimp, Chocolate Chip Starfish, Coral Catfish, more Batfish, another Flamboyant Cuttlefish, & finally something I never thought I’d see again in my life, much less all the way up here off the coast of Borneo. The Lembeh Sea Dragon.
I’m going to stop here & geek out over a fish for a second. This is my blog, I can do that if I want. The Lembeh Sea Dragon is a fish that most divers go their entire lives without seeing, in part because it is so very difficult to see. It looks like a piece of hair or a little bit of algae that’s come loose from the reef & is hanging on by a thread as it sways in the current, & I guess that’s the point. The dragon is only around 1mm in width & is only about 3-4 cm in length, that is about the thickness of a fingernail & the length of your average table grape. Tiny. The crazy part is, the guy that spotted it did so from a good 10 feet above it. It was unfortunately too small for my videos to pick up & focus on.
Flamboyant Cuttlefish
Mantis Shrimp
I first saw a Lembeh Sea Dragon when I was diving the Lembeh Strait back in October of 2022. You can read about that here. The Lembeh Strait is a 10 mile long stretch of ocean that sits between the islands of North Sulawesi & Lembeh in Indonesia. It is also one of the premiere dive spots in the world because of the muck diving here & the specialized creatures that live here, like the Lembeh Sea Dragon. It is also around 825 miles from Sipadan as the crow flies. You can then imagine my surprise at finding this tiny little special speck that far north of its typical habitat. I was geeking out then, just as I am now.
After out dive had concluded we went back to Mabul for our surface interval. The food & beverage offerings were once again coffee, tea, juice, cake, & toast. I leaned into the toast & had my entire first slice crumple in the toaster. The tending resort workers & I spent the next ten minutes or so getting it out of the toaster bit by little bit. & yes, it was unplugged. The pineapple jam on slice #2 made the struggle all worth it though.
Fimbriated Moray Eel
Orangutan Crabs
Giant Green Moray Eel
Dive two was back on Mabul as well, this time at a site called “Coral Reef Gardens.” It was a wall dive that also had its fair share of fun little inhabitants to observe. We found a number of Orangutan Crabs in Bubble Coral (the gesture for which I got to demonstrate on land to several people after the fact), a Yellow Boxfish, lots of eels (one of which was a Fimbriated Moray & one Green Moray that was truly massive), a teeny black Frogfish, some Sexy Shrimp (another fun one to try & give hand signals for), &, of course, a number of Nudis, Turtles, & some impressive schools of Anthias! By the way, the dive signal that I gave for “Orangutan Crab” was arms scratching up my sides from hip to arm pit followed by a pincer motion. Tonny replied back to me with the pincer motion & mimed pulling at long hairs on his forearm. I liked mine better.
Lunch was the usual fanfare & was followed in the early afternoon by our afternoon dive.
This dive was only Erica, Jennifer, Roy, Tonny, & me. At least from our boat. The site was just off the resort, but wasn’t Paradise 1 or 2. Instead it was the Seaventures Dive Rig just off shore from us.
Sexy Shrimp
Flower Urchin
Day Octopus
The Seaventures Dive Rig is an old oil rig turned dive hotel & dive site. The rig is mounted into the ocean floor below it at a depth of only around 30-40 feet & features an abundance of man made reefs, all of which are host to a plethora of marine life. Once again, specifically macro. It’s only about a minute & a half-two minute boat ride from the jetty of our dive resort.
The visibility when we got down was pretty low, maybe 20-30 feet max. Additionally, once you got out from under the rig the current was blasting. That’s not to say it wasn’t a great dive with lots to see. There were mantis shrimp, lots of nudis, crocodile fish, eels (including a male Ribbon Eel), Lionfish, Stonefish, Cherry Grouper, big ole Jellyfish, tons of beautiful corals, a type of urchin I had never seen before called a Flower Urchin, a little orange frogfish, Scorpionfish, & we rounded out our dive with a Day Octopus cradled in the rock, completely white.
Clownfish In Anemone
I ended the dive with a little less air than I would’ve liked. I remember slowly ascending up the line that we used to have our safety stop in the midst of the rushing current, just watching my breath drop 10 psi with each methodic one I took, making sure Roy & his spare was in reach if needed. It’s not that I wasn’t checking my air, it was the current kick up & fighting it that caused me to burn through my supply on our way back to our entry point. Evan was less than pleased at the number I told him when I was done. Again, we recognized the problem, & went about ending the dive once it happened & had steps in place in case my air went too far down.
The rest of our evening was spent at the bar with the group. I sat there editing video, Evan edited photos, we had fries, samosas, rum & cokes, & went off to dinner when we were informed of its readiness. It was another early evening though as our 6 AM call to Sipadan awaited us in the morning.
Sipadan Shore by Evan Buddenbohn
End Of Day Five
Day Six
Back to Sipadan which once again meant back to that 5 AM wake up. We’d planned in advanced this time & ended up getting some cookies from the souvenir shop to have as breakfast so there was at least something on the stomach for dives & medications. We’d snagged a Thai brand of Oreos called Cream-O’s (yes, that’s their real name) & honestly, they were pretty solid! We’ll get more into Cream-O’s later on in this blog, I’m sure!
Sunrise On The Way To Sipadan
The protocol for this morning was the same as our first trip to Sipadan; 6 AM departure with everything loaded onto the boat, 45 minute crossing to Sipadan, check-in at the park office, dive briefing, dive. This morning’s first dive was at “Barracuda Point” just around the bend from where we’d been two days prior. Evan naturally opted out because of the current & instead chose to stay on Sipadan to read & sit on the beach.
Barracuda Point was actually a really solid dive! The visibility was way better than the days prior & while we didn’t run into any schools of Barracuda or Bumphead Parrotfish, we did at least see some, amongst a lot of other things.
Yellowfin Tangs
Six-banded Angelfish
Clown Triggerfish
For starters, the coral here was outstanding. All different shades & expressions as far as the eye could see. The top reef was only about 10-20 feet below the surface & then the entirety of the rest of it slopped off gradually on either side of the point to about 60 feet. Like I said, we did see the two target species here. We ended up running into about four or five different bumpheads & managed one barracuda as it swam along the drop off. Nemo’s parents beware.
Bumphead Parrotfish
In addition we ran into a school of Yellowfin Tangs, a couple of Clown Triggerfish, a rather large set of fish bones, a Six-Banded Angelfish, another huge green moray, a Whitetip Reef Shark, tons of Bubble-Tip Anemones with Clownfish, schools on schools of Green Chromis, & a big ole Napoleon Wrasse! The other half of our group saw an Indo-Pacific Leopard Shark & the FOMO there hit hard.
Our surface interval was also a similar set up as the two days before. Fried noodles, hard boiled eggs, fruit, toast, tea, coffee, & little sausages followed by a briefing for dive number two of the day.
Dive two was also at a dive site close to one from the first trip to Sipadan, this one was on the other side of the island from Barracuda Point at a wall dive called “Staghorn Crest,” so named because of the abundance of Staghorn Coral on the reef here. This site had been requested by Erica because she wanted to get better photos of the schools of Jacks that populate the area. Her request was “get me in the middle of a jack tornado.” So we went jack hunting.
You can see the schools of jacks from the surface of the water, they appear like ever morphing shadows under the surface. We pulled right up to one & Jennifer, Tonny, & Erica were off before the propeller could die down. I was the first in of my group of Darin, his daughter, Deb, & Roy & as soon as I was in the school of jacks came thundering beneath me just about 15 feet below. They swept through followed by Erica with her camera rig finning after them.
The vis on this dive was less than stellar, but I experienced something I’d never experienced in the ocean before here. It swept over the reef almost like a cloud cascading over a mountain top.
Anthias
We were down at around 40 feet after moseying around the wall. Our visibility was already only around 20-30 feet when all of a sudden this cloud of silt & sediment descended upon us. It cut our already fairly low visibility down to around 5 feet on average. At one point the sediment was so thick that I could barely see my hand when I stretched it all the way out in front of me. The craziest part was that it was temporary. We pushed through, continuing on the direction we had been, & eventually came out the other side of it, instantly gaining 10s of feet of visibility.
Other than the jacks, the cloud, & the sheer abundance of Turtles, the dive was less than stellar. Not mad at it though, it was a pretty relaxing one with the current sweeping us sheepishly along.
Smaller “Dinosaur”
Back at the resort we checked off our daily game of “spot the dinosaur” only this time it was a different Asian Water Monitor Lizard than before, this one was much smaller than the one we’d been spotting around the island.
Before departing from the rest of our boat for lunch & the afternoon we were asked by Jennifer if we wanted to join her, her family, Darin’s family, & Erica on an excursion into the village in search of alternative food. They’d been told there were several markets in the village where we could purchase food, though all of the little restaurants on the island were closed for the ongoing observation of the final week of Ramadan. The six of us gathered down by the jetty & began our walk around the island.
One of the main paths on Mabul cuts between the entrance to the resort & the jetty. It then goes all the way across the broad side of the island, curves & meanders through the local village, before looping you back around to the front entrance of the resort once again. We struck out at the first stall which then led us to push farther into the village.
I was clearly at a height disadvantage here as most of the electrical for the homes & businesses, weaving the street, sat about eye level. Any time I needed to cross from one side of the path to the other I had to duck down to avoid the lines.
We eventually found a shop that had some of the items the others were after, picking out chips, some toiletries that were needed, some other different snack foods, & a few local or sought after beverages that were missing from the resort.
Village Laundry by Evan Buddenbohn
The whole time we were wandering the village we had the local children coming up to us so they could offer up any English phrases they knew along with a smile & a laugh. We’d reply back accordingly, but it was typically already at the length of the conversation’s capability. They do much better than me though, I could hardly offer up even the most basic of greetings in Malay, even after spending a week there.
At one point a woman who on a video call got very excited at our passing, turned the camera on us, & informed the person on the other end of the line to “look!” Exclaiming, “we have guests!” We all smiled & waves before moving on through the village.
Once we returned to the resort it was lunch time. Most of us were satisfied with our gatherings from the excursion, but we went by anyway just to fill in any gaps we felt we were missing in our afternoon meal. Towards the end of lunch it started to rain. At first is was just a sprinkle, which we used to return to our room before the downpour came, & boy did it.
We were just about back to our room when the storm unleashed. Massive rain drops hit like meteors in the dry dirt, the trees roared with the wind & the smattering of the droplets. We ran the rest of the way back & quickly pulled our drying gear from off the rack on the balcony.
Not three minutes into the storm the waterfall started.
Remember in part one when I talked about waking up in the middle of the night unable to breathe? This was around night #2 at the resort. I remember distinctly telling Evan that what I was feeling was similar to when there is an abundance of mold present in a room. I am very allergic to mold. Well, we now know the source.
Indoor Water Feature #1
Yes, the waterfall started. Down the wall between my bed & the air conditioning unit was about a three foot wide cascade of water streaming down the side of the wall & dripping from the ceiling. I quickly got up, moved my laptop that was charging on the outlet right under the leak & scooted out the bed from the wall. As soon as we had done that we noticed the trickle of water that was starting to emerge from under the baseboards on the opposite side of the room. It began to pool & puddle pretty quickly. I gathered my shoes & an umbrella & made my way back to the dining hall which also housed the reception desk for the resort.
Indoor Water Feature #2
Once there the woman at the desk call for housekeeping. She then asked me to return to our room & wait. About five minutes later a man from housekeeping showed up, took some pictures, & told us to wait here. Then we heard nothing for about an hour & a half.
By the hour & a half mark I decided that I would need to return to guest services to see what the plan was. Once I got there I was informed they had moved us rooms & had apparently already prepared it for us about an hour earlier, the only problem was that the room was directly below the one we were in. It shared the same walls, the same ceiling/floor, everything. So I expressed that.
The woman working the desk, to her credit, had very good English. Again, far exceeding any grasp I could possibly have on Malay, but we weren’t bridging the gap of language barrier. I was trying to explain that due to my severe mold allergy I would need to be away from that room as much as possible. Nothing sharing walls, ceilings, floors, etc.. She just kept saying that she understood before saying they moved us to the room downstairs. Eventually I did the annoying tourist thing that I try to avoid, pulled out google translate, & illustrated the problem in Malay. That made it click. She then informed housekeeping one more time & they tidied a room & moved us down to another building, not connected to the first.
After The Rain by Evan Buddenbohn
We’d skipped out on doing an afternoon dive in favor of a night/sunset dive. Those of us who were invested in the night dive (Erica, Jennifer, Roy, & myself) all met down at the docks around 6 PM. We also ended up diving with another guide that evening, but I unfortunately never got his name. At this point the rain had been over with for about two hours, but it had unfortunately left all of our gear from the morning pretty soaked. At least they were now cleaner than before, though that wetsuit was absolutely freezing to put on.
Our dive started around 6:30. At this point the sun had almost entirely set & night was rapidly upon us. We just dove right off the end of the jetty, technically doing a shallower redo of “Paradise 2” in the dark, only maxing out at about 40 feet. It was actually a wonderful night dive spot, mixing a bit of muck diving with reef. There were lots of things out & about for the evening & lots of things that had come in to the reef or nestled down in the sand for shelter during the night ahead.
The craziest thing was the amount of urchins that had come out for the night. They were literally everywhere covering most of the rocks, decking, sand, or anything else. Long Spined Urchins literally everywhere. I always wonder where they go during the day & how they manage to navigate the crags & cubbies they hide in with spines that are around a foot long.
We almost immediately found another day octopus (though I guess it would then have been a night octopus…………….) upon our descent into the darkness. It clearly didn’t want anything to do with us & kept attempting to use a shell to cover up the entrance to the cave it had found to hunker down in. After that the dive was a veritable blend of invertebrates & predatory fish.
We saw a large handful of hermit crabs ranging from size from fingernail to soccer ball. We found several black Forskal’s Slugs, a cluster of rabbitfish attempting to appear as a rock on the ocean floor, Tube Anemones, Hancock’s Flatworms, some sleeping sea turtles, Tile Starfish, a Papal Miltre, a small school of Antennata Lionfish, a Zebra Eel, lots of different Pufferfish, a Banded Pipefish, a Velutin Snail, lots of nudibranchs, a big ole Horned Helmet Snail buried in the sand bed, a Bearded Fireworm, some Shrimpfish hiding amongst the spines of the urchins, & two juvenile Harlequin Sweetlips wiggling about.
By the time we’d finished the dive the tide was up so high that we could just float up onto the dock to get out. We quickly dried, stored our gear, & made our way down to dinner which was on the verge of closing out. After that we were all fairly beat & called it a night.
Washed Up Trees On Sipadan by Evan Buddenbohn
End Of Day Six
Day Seven
This was to be our last day of diving. If you’re unfamiliar with dive protocol you’re not supposed to dive within 24 hours prior to a flight. So, typically dive resorts keep your last day with them clear so that you can keep that window of time clear. Since we weren’t out at Sipadan we got to sleep in a bit AND have breakfast.
We were back out at Kapalai this morning. Our dive site was “Little Okinawa.” Not entirely sure why the site was called that, but it featured a sloped reef that led to a sandy bottom with another smaller reef on the other side. Erica & Jennifer went off with Tonny & Darin, his daughter, Deb, & I went down with Roy, as per the usual arrangement.
I’d been having a bit of trouble with my ear the previous day or so, I could feel the eustachian tubes getting sore from all of the equalizing, & I had a bit of trouble off & on throughout the week with a reverse squeeze in my left ear. Some of you may remember that I actually perforated my left ear drum back in March of 2024 in the Philippines. You can read about that here. Well… It reopened…
After years of healing that included diving along the way, my left ear decided it wanted to go ahead & perforate again.
It was entirely unexpected & happened in only about 30 feet of water. I remember clearing my ear upon decent, which did so without issue, then having a horrible reverse squeeze when I happened back up a foot or so with passing current. When I went back down to try & relieve the reverse squeeze I was met with severe pain. My dive group was gathered around a decent sized Broadclub Cuttlefish at the time just under out entry point & I almost called the dive then & there. The pain was so bad that I started tearing up but then like nothing, it went away. So before I could even attempt to convey the “I’m out” message, it had dissipated. I thought I was in the clear until we started to ascend at the end of the dive & I could feel it/hear it. The little tiny bubbles slipping out of the tiny hole in my ear drum as the gas within expanded from the decrease in ambient pressure. Luckily I wear a diver’s earplug in that ear, so minimal saltwater got in, but it’s still incredibly uncomfortable.
The literal hole in my head aside, the dive was actually pretty good! I mentioned the Cuttlefish, we ended up also seeing a Dwarf Cuttlefish towards the end of the dive. The front half of the dive was actually a little light on things to see & Darin & his daughter ended up calling the dive about halfway through & left Deb & Roy & me to continue on. Once they’d left we found all of the good stuff of course. Clear Cleaner Shrimp, Sexy Shrimp, heaps of different kinds of nudibranchs, some doing fun things. A group of around 10 black lionfish, some of which were free swimming in the current. Itty bitty baby clownfish, a field of Garden Eels, a white stonefish, a juvenile black ribbon eel, & of course more turtles & the aforementioned bobtail cuttlefish. Deb also put it perfectly when she came up & said “wow, absolutely just drunk on coral” & she was correct, the colors on the coral at Little Okinawa were magnificent.
Bougainvillea By Evan Buddenbohn
Naturally, with my bum drum, I didn’t go on anymore dives, though the rest of the folks did. I ended up spending the rest of the day oscillating reading poolside & editing video down on the jetty. At some point Evan got a massage & I made the incredibly stupid decision to try & get the water out of my ear with a bit of “Swimmer’s Ear” solution. Which, is you’re not aware, is a mixture of glycerin & alcohol. Oh, & I made the really stupid decision to equalize my ear while doing it so that the solution would get into the inner ear. I felt like someone was manually ripping my ear off of my head. You’re welcome for that macabre diversion by the way.
From there we eventually found our way down to the shop where we purchased the Blueberry varietal of Cream-O’s before heading to the bar for further editing, drinks, fries, & samosas.
Y’all. The Blueberry Cream-O’s. Exceptional. I know back in day six I said we’d talk about Cream-O’s further. Well the time has come.
The blueberry flavor is not like an Oreo. It maintains that shape & vibe, but it is a vanilla cookie with vanilla cream in the center & a nice little dollop of blueberry jam on the top. They are pang as the British say! I liked them so much that I ate an entire pack of them in one night. I then had to go back before we left & buy four sleeves of them to take home. Cannot recommend enough & some of the rest of our group was well on board with them also by the time we left.
As the evening let on more & more people filtered into the bar. At a certain point, so did the dive crew. They had the next day off for Eid, the end of Ramadan, & were celebrating a successful week of work with a bottle of scotch that Roy had procured.
When dinner was called we all drifted down & had our fill. Afterwards I told Evan that I wasn’t yet tired & we made our way back across the resort onto the jetty & returned to the bar.
I could tell we spoiled their fun a little bit. That wasn’t my intention at all & I understand that at the resort bar the guests’ wants & comforts come first. But as we walked down the jetty towards the bar we could hear it, karaoke.
We strolled in & sat down on the outer edge. We ordered our typical rum & coke & sat there. As soon as we were sat the staff stopped doing karaoke & resorted to doomscrolling or eating the food they’d had delivered. Ev & I felt bad so we got up to leave after finishing our drink so that they could get back to enjoying their night off. It was here, while we were waiting for the bartender to return to cash out, that we were met at the counter by Roy & his bottle of scotch. He graciously asked us to have a drink with him, which we agreed to, then before we could order our own drinks so as not to subtract from his hard earned scotch, he poured us two very large glasses filled with the brown liquid. He proceeded to shoot his while Evan & I sipped gingerly. It was here that I think the levity was able to creep back in & Karaoke resumed.
The guides kept apologizing profusely to us about the lower than average visibility we’d had over the week. They explained that the rainy season had lasted longer than it usually did & that they had gotten about twice as much rain as they typically do in a year, so all of the rivers were still washing out the silt from the mainland that had yet to settle in the ocean. We just kept reassuring them that it was okay & also, definitely wasn’t their fault or the resorts fault, that we still had a great time filled with great dives. We’d just need to come back a little later in the season next time.
Another tall rocks glass of scotch later for each of us & we were being propositioned to sing. I knew Evan wouldn’t do it so I accepted. The Malaysians then chose “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton as my song to sing because we were from Tennessee.
How is it that I always end up singing on dive trips? I’m not mad at it & am happy to have fun with it & all that jazz, it just always seems to happen.
After I finished Tennessee Whiskey I was asked to perform another before we left. Evan was sat at the bar getting drunker & drunker & the bottle of scotch just kept extending our way. He eventually looked at me & said “if you don’t sing so we can leave I’m going to pass out.” So I sang “Feeling Good” & we stumbled back down the jetty to our room to fall quickly asleep.
House Reef From Above by Evan Buddenbohn
End Of Day Seven
Day Eight
Our last day at the resort was very casual. We slept in a bit, got down to breakfast, sat around by the pool for a while, & basically just all around relaxed. In the early afternoon, about an hour or so after lunch, I, myself, got a massage! It, much like the rest of the day was very relaxed.
At some point we went around doing our due diligence; closing out tabs, handing out tips, stocking up on Blueberry Cream-O’s, gathering & packing up our dive gear (hanging out what needed drying still to dry), packing up our clothes, & preparing for our early morning departure the next day. Naturally I also spent much of the day editing videos & piecing together different things for this blog series.
Flags On The Jetty
Just before sunset we all gathered at the end of the jetty. The Duffins (Darin & the fam) are proper fans of a sunset cruise, especially as a way of closing out a stay & in all honesty, I dig it. It’s got a sense of chill style to it. Folks ordered drinks from the bar for the excursion then we gathered in one of the dive boats & were off.
The drive around the island was truly a cruise. A slow mosey which came in high contrast to the majority of the rides we’d had in the dive boats over the week. Then it didn’t matter that we were getting splattered against the waves, we were going to get wet anyway. Now we had on nicer clothing, phones, cameras, & the like.
We were joined on board by Roy & Tonny, additionally there was another boat of tourists that were following us around, taking in the amazing views & crystal waters that the island had to offer. We rounded the island, passing by each of the resorts, interacting with the locals along the way who had come up to sell us fish, crab, or lobster, before we wrapped around to the West side of Mabul to sit & watch the sunset.
Borneo Sunset
Steven, one of the guys in our group, did something that I really enjoyed & I am definitely stealing for later trips. He brought a Polaroid Camera. He’d snap pictures, mostly of locals, then hand the photos directly to them. Each time was met with a bit of confusion, followed by an outburst of joy & it was such an endearingly human thing to see. I think we often forget how much photography used to be a physical media form. How many people, anywhere in the world, have a recent photograph of themselves that they can physically hold or display? I know we don’t have many. Most of us keep our stores of photos in digital spaces & never have something of ourselves or the people we care about that is tangible. What an amazing, yet simple, gift to offer up to the people who have welcomed you into their space & allowed you to exist & habitat their land & their waters for a week. He continued this around with the resort & dive staff as well.
The sunset over Borneo was breathtaking. The mountains of the island melted seamlessly into the thunderheads outlining the edge of them in a soft orange glow while the sty remained a soft blue. We sat there on the western edge for around thirty minutes, just taking in the sky & the village from an entirely new angle. It was such a lovely capstone to the trip.
Dinner was being served by the time that we arrived back at the dock. We made our way down as a group, had one last dinner together, then went off our separate ways to finish packing & any other preparation for the early morning & long travel day we had ahead of us.
Boat Of Mabul by Evan Buddenbohn
End Of Day Eight
Day Nine
Sunrise Fishermen
It was almost like we were headed to Sipadan again. We had been instructed to be up by 5 AM & have our bags packed & waiting outside of our rooms. Resort staff then came around with several massive wheelbarrow like carts, filled the to the brim with our belongings, & carted them down to the end of the jetty. Our time to be at the end of the jetty was 5:30 AM with an aimed departure time of 5:45, though we didn’t end up pushing off until right around 6.
Similar to how we got to the island, we were all loaded into a boat with rowed seating & all of our luggage was loaded into the back. The morning crossing was much less choppy than the week prior & we got to watch the sunrise over the Celebes Sea one last time.
Once we got back to Semporna, we were presented with a little take away breakfast. It consisted of some watermelon, a hard boiled egg, & a butter sandwich. We sat outside a closed Starbucks munching away on them until the bus was pulled around & we & our luggage were loaded up.
At this point it was just short of 7 AM & the more time we sat waiting to depart in the bus, the closer the Starbucks we’d been sat at was to opening. Finally right at 7 AM the driver got on & got ready to depart. He was halted by someone up front who asked if we had time to step back off & get a coffee from the recently unlocked Starbucks, he said that we did so we all went in & got coffees & pastries for the road. Ev & I are typically not Starbucks patrons but availability & lack of caffeination got the better of us & we indulged.
Back on the road with an Ube Muffin & an Ice Kacang Frappe we headed from Semporna back to the Tawau Airport. I read & napped along the way & we arrived at the airport just before 9 AM. We got all checked in & still had a bit of time before we needed to get through the small security station they had, so we all filed back into the line for Subway to get a bit of food for the plane ride back to Kuala Lumpur.
Once through security we found ourselves doing a lot of ‘hurry up & wait,’ moving from one seated section to another to another until finally it was time to board our 11:30 Air Asia flight back to the mainland.
Evan & I didn’t realize we had so much time between our arrival back in Kuala Lumpur & our departure to Singapore. About 2/3rds of the group were going on back to The States the evening of our arrival, another 1/3rd (minus us) was staying in Kuala Lumpur for a few more days, then we were going on to Singapore to spend a couple of days there.
We’d flirted with the idea of going to a lot of different places across Asia after finishing up our time in Borneo. I’m always of the mind that if I’m flying halfway around the world, I might as well make the most of it & see something or somewhere else while I’m over there. We’d floated the option of a full additional week in Japan or Thailand, leaning heavily into the idea of the former. We then thought well, if we’re not going to do a whole week, where would we like to spend a few days, & those options came up as Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Singapore. We did lean heavily on Japan as the choice at first, like I said, but decided against it when we realized we’d have to haul our big bags all over Japan, which it is not conducive to. We opted for the shorter time in Singapore where I had been, but Evan hadn’t.
So we bid the group goodbye, handing our hugs & good luck & made our way up to the ticketing counter to see if we could move to the earlier flight to Singapore since our flight into Malaysia had gotten in so much earlier than we’d anticipated. They were unfortunately entirely booked up, so we got to wait around for 6 hours for our evening flight out.
They went ahead & let us check our bags, which was nice, so that we didn’t have to haul them around the airport. With a ton of time to kill, we took the opportunity to hit up Din Tai Fung & get some dumplings.
The irony of us going to Din Tai Fung in one of the best food cities in the world is not lost on me. Sure, we could go to a local spot that probably blows it out of the water at a fourth of the cost, & sure, I’m sure there was probably one such stall somewhere in the airport, but Din Tai Fung holds a special place in our hearts as occasional Los Angelinos & it’s based in Taiwan anyway.
We got a number of soup dumplings, shui mai, fried rice, & a bao or two. It was interesting having it in Malaysia because they didn’t serve pork due to Malaysia being predominantly Muslim. Pork is not halal, if you didn’t know. The real star of the show at Din Tai Fung though is their chocolate dumplings which come with a vanilla cream dipping sauce. They’re incredibly rich & altogether slap so hard.
After lunch we decided to walk around the mall attached that we’d walked through several days prior in the early morning hours while being escorted by Jasmine. It was majority food, but there were also quite a few clothing shops as well. We ended up in a pretty large grocery store at one point where we witnessed the universal International traveler experience.
A man had ask one of the workers at the shop for a specific item & the language barrier was barriering. So he pulled out his phone, typed in the ask, then extended the screen out towards the face of the man he was asking for help from. & there it was, the universal International traveler experience. Runs into a language barrier. Pulls out phone. Types in what they’re after in Google or Apple translate. Fully extends arm out towards other person with screen facing them. It happens in every country I’ve ever been in. I’m of course guilty of it too at times.
After a while we found ourselves tired of walking around & returned to ticketing to then return to the coffee. for another out of this world iced hazelnut latte. We sat there a bit, charging our devices, before we decided it was time to move on & make our way through security.
There’s not much else to this tale of Malaysia other than maybe the fact that we had to go through three different security checkpoints to get to our Scoot flight to Singapore. It departed Kuala Lumpur at about 7:30 in the evening & they had us sat aboard a dreamliner for an hour long flight south.
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