Kuching

This city was a wonderful surprise. As a rule I don't have very high expectations of cities, but.... Kuching was quite charming. I'm still glad we didn't stay in town because you just couldn't top staying at Permai Rainforest retreat.
We spent the afternoon here on our last day, doing some last minute shopping & crossing the river on a local ferry. We had dinner on the water front, yummy chicken satay & the kids played with the restaurant cat. There was a spectacular lightning storm moving across the far mountains. Bailey was very happy that the storm had passed by the time we flew out to Kota Kinabalu.

Kota Kinabalu

This was our luxury stop over. We stayed at Le Meridien on the Harbour, looking straight out over the South China Sea. We had a mind blowing view from the 10th floor & they had up graded us to this beautiful room. There was a beautiful buffet breakfast & we all ate till we nearly exploded. I was awake at about 5am so I sat at our window & watched all the fishing boats come in. Ebony & I snuck out so I could get some pictures with the morning light.
After breakfast we ventured out to the fish markets with the kids, incredibly smelly & slippery. Very please to say no one fell in the slime. We did get out of there quite quickly though, it really did stink!
Right in front of our Hotel were the Filipino Markets as well as the night market that we visited later in the evening. We were planning to do a lot of shopping but as Air Asia had a weight limit of 15kg per person, we were already traveling at our limit. Ebony got a little monkey & Bailey got a ukulele. I bought a sarong as I had forgotten to pack one, can you believe that!
The Night Markets were great, more like a fish market but I found some food that the kids could eat, noodles & donuts. Pierre & I had a huge tiger prawn cook fresh for us & some squid. Both delicious & without any consequences. Thank god! We even managed to get to the airport on time to catch out flight to Tawau, short flight only 45 minutes.
The kids slept the whole way on the plane, in the van, in the foyer, up to the room where there was only one bed for the 4 of us...

Night Markets Kota Kinabalu

Diving Sipadan

Sipadan Drop Off
5m to 600m

This is a short film of the diving we did on Sipadan. Hope you enjoy!

PLAY ME

SEMPORNA
MABUL
SIPADAN
SMART DIVE RESORT

Flying from Kota Kinabalu we landed at Tawau Airport in the early evening. Our transfer was there to meet us. We traveled overland through 1000's of Palm oil trees, as far as the eye could see. Into the night & through the rain. We got to our hotel in Semporna only to find our room only had one bed, it took a bit of working but they finally bought another bed up for us after midnight. Waking early the next morning we could see a very busy port from our hotel window.

Later that morning we got our ferry from Semporna to Mabul Island, I had booked to stay at SMART Dive Resort & didn't know what to expect. WOW everything was so much better than I could have ever hoped for. Welcome drinks & then whisked straight off to Sipadan. All of us had permits for Sipadan that day, so Pierre went for 3 boat dives & the kids and I snorkeled. Again WOW turtles everywhere. school's of Bumphead fish, lion fish, whitetip reef sharks, cuttle fish & school's of Barracuda just to name a few. We could snorkel in the direction that the divers had taken & the boat would come & pick us up. Perfect!

SMART Dive Resort itself was picture perfect. The diving was very well organised. I had no idea it would be this good. The staff were really lovely & always helpful & the food in the dinning hall was always delicious, even the kids loved it. Our room were much better than the web site had shown. White sand beach, palm trees & crystal clear water right at our door step. We even had two bungalows.

I had been worried about pirates but there was a very strong military presents & you can see the surveillance plane in one of my photos. Also armed guards all over the island in the day & night.

On the 2nd day,I had time to walk around the island & the people there were really warm & friendly, I had a great opportunity to take some photos, which had been what I'd hoped for.

Semporna

Mabul
SMART Dive Resort

Fishing Village
On Mabul

Fare well Mabul