Finally got myself out of the Sydney craziness. It's been just over2 years ever since I last travelled overseas pre-pandemic. The backpacking trip where I went for 6 months - that was my last time visiting Malaysia. Never had I imagined I will be back this soon to this beautiful country. Sipadan island was one of the world’s best dive sites that I've known about for a couple of years. This was why Malaysia lured me as my travel destination for June 2022. To add on that, who wouldn't want to escape the ridiculous rainy weather in Sydney?!
Day 1: 2nd of June (Thursday)
Off we start my journey to Malaysia nice and early in the morning at 7am in my fresh Birks. Luckily I’ve worn them for a couple of days that the sandals have already moulded to my shape of feet. Great investment.
My first obstacle was to get myself checked in at the counter with the MySejahtera app. Not the most efficient app I’ve encountered
Couldn’t pass through the gates until I got a couple of flight attendees helping me for a good 10minutes. Already got teary thinking that perhaps this trip was not meant to happen...! Fortunately, from this point onwards, all went smooth with the transport until I reached Mabul island.
Usually on my overseas trip, I would purchase a SIM card to get access to the internet, but not for this trip. I assumed that staying at a resort that I would have free access. Of course, I did! Although very limited.
I was informed that there will be a pick up organised by the resort at Tawau airport - this is the airport that I landed from KL, an East part of Malaysia. According to the people in the East (from Kota Kinabalu), you cannot trust the West Malaysians? Whatever that meant, I did feel the difference in the warmth of people. Upon arrival at Tawau airport around 9am, they (Borneo Divers Resort crew) immediately found me. Yes, I was probably the one and only single, lost Asian girl with a Japanese name with an Australian passport
From the airport, I was taken to Semporna via a shuttle bus which could’ve crashed into car at any moment from the opposing lane! This took about 1.5hours to the Sempora port followed by a short jetty (boat) ride to Mabul Island that only had myself and a small group of family. At one point during this journey to Mabul, it was bucketing rain! "Was I going to experience more rain here when it is already so wet in Sydney?" Fortunately the rain stopped and the sunshine decided to say hello. So did my favourite Burberry sunnies!
Prior to the trip I didn’t have any time to research much on the island. Seriously was being chased by deadlines that I made myself with my business. Many of my clients were asking me what was so special about this place that I’m travelling to? The only piece of information I had of this place was that it had a dive site called,Barracuda point. In my free time waiting for the jetty to pick me up, I started asking myself: "What was the hype about this resort?" My dive instructor friend from KL recommended me to this dive resort.
Little did I know that this short 5D4N trip was going to turn out to be one of the most memorable, healing, beautiful solo journey
