Semporna , Mabul and Sipadan

After almost 40 years I was visiting Semporna again.From Tawau, the road to Semporna was totally different. The jungle that lined the road had all been replaced by palm oil plantation. It was no more the gravel road and it was possible to zoom at 120km per hour reaching Semporna in a matter of two hours.

The Semporna town itself had changed. There were no longer wooden shop houses. The shophouses are now concrete bricks and the houses that lined the road are brick houses. Kampung Bogaya where I stayed for a month doing a social project, was now seen a suburb in the munacipility of the town.There were so many changes in the waterfront, with more motorboats and vessals plying between the market and the islands aroung Semporna.

I checked into Semporna Water Village, a hotel built on stilt in the water that dominated the sea front. Here visitors came to stay and to enjoy fresh sea food that was scooped from the sea underneath. That night I had a good dinner at the sea resort.

The next morning I took a boat to Pulau Mabul on a one hour speedboat journey from the Semporna waterfront. The island now has about 70 houses, some on water and some onshore. I was greeted by an Italian couple who had made the island their home and running a lodging house on water meant for foreign backpeckers who normally stayed for two weeks on the island. The couple also arranged diving excursion and diving equipments to visitors who comes from all over the world particularly Europe.

As this is a frontier island, the island community was made up of Suluk, Badjau, Illanun and other ethnics of southern Phillipines and Indonesia. They understood Malay, indeed I saw an UMNO sign board , affirming that they must be members of that party and well represented. I met an islander originally from Perak who had made the island his home and married a women from the island. The island community was a close community, at ease with outsiders that just after a few hours you felt at home in their midst.

The next day I took a boat to Sipadan, which was another hour from Mabul by speed boat.In the horizon I could see Ligatan, another island that brought Malaysia and Indonesia into dispute. Sipadan was a very beautiful coral island attracting many visitors, mostly for diving, snorkelling or lazying about on its sandy white shore. It is a security zone and visitors must leave the island by 300 PM. With such a short time at my disposal I used the time to explore the beautiful underwater garden of the island.

I had been to Perhentian, Redang, Gaya and Sapi before, but the beauty of Sipadan surpass them all by many times. The reef was healthy and the underwater life plenty. The fish were much bigger and they swim along in huge schoal ,very close and around me and never seemed to be away. The turtles that swam along side me were of a bigger species. The corals were vibrant with multiple colour . I felt I was in a beatiful garden. The coral clung close to the shore and after a few meters plunged deep into the dark sea. I must had been swimming, diving and snorkelling close to 4 hours without realising that time was up for me to leave the curfew island.

I rushed back to Semporna, took a car to Tawau and home to KL on the last flight.Although it was a short tiring trip of only two nights it was a memorable one which I would like to repeat, this time spending more days doing nothing at Mabul.