First. the title of the blog. Right now there is a big PR push to visit Malaysia, which is focused on shopping, complete with commercials in which the man gives the woman a fancy watches. (Click here for commerciall), and the theme song "Malaysia, truly Asia." Needless to say I did not ask for or receive fine jewelry out the trip, and we still managed to have a great time.
Kuala Lumpur "KL"
We had less than 24 hours in Kuala Lumpur before heading out to the Island Resort of Pom Pom. We took an overnight flight from Delhi to Bangkok, spent a few hours in the Bangkok airport, then again to Kuala Lumpur arriving at noon and leaving at around 6am the next day. Needless to say we were exhausted and didn't see much of KL.
We walked around town, had failed attempt to find 2 restaurants before randomly going to a good one, then went to the main attraction, Petronas towers, which you will see below.
View from our hotel room,
Pom-Pom
To get to the island we went from KL to Kota Kinabu, Kota Kinabu to another tiny airport in Tawau, took a one hour bus, then a one hour boat ride to our resort. (Click here for aerial view). It was worth it. The main attraction was diving at Sipadan Island, supposedly one of the best dive spots in the world. Added benefit: relaxing beach, lots and lots of turtles. You would think we got a photo of a turtle, but I don't think so.
The bus that dropped us to pick up the boat.
Your paradise awaits...
Here is our lovely beach bungalow
With a view that is less than shabby.
And the stretch of beach right in front of the bungalow
Sunrise from our bungalow. There are no color tricks on this picture, just point and click. And I actually took this one so I am very proud.
So beautiful, I had to put it twice. This one taken slightly different time.
Outside the mail dining area
Our beach walks
Make sure your watch works when you go walking and have an afternoon plan. One day it resulted in me sprinting to find Sandip to tell him we had 5 minutes to get back to the dive shop. We made it, breathless.
A walk around the island finds this tree, pics taken on two different days.
Enjoying a moment in the sun.
These shacks are on the other side of the island. There is one more resort on the island best described as backpacker rustic, with questionable safety for its boats and buildings.
Water bungalows. These are more expensive because you can see things swimming underneath. Both Sandip and I prefer beach.
Making a splash in the water
This is at Sipadan with a lovely German lady Katherine, with whom we dove a lot. Sipadan is a protected area and you have to apply for a license to dive there. The day we got approved, it RAINED AND RAINED. Visibility was less, but we saw a school of barracuda overhead, huge turtles swimming about 5 feet away and in many cases swimming past us, and may reef sharks. Spectacular in crappy weather, so can imagine what it was like in good weather.
Really picture perfect.
Oh except sometimes there was trash.
You can't see it in this photo, but there is a lot of trash in the ocean because may islands just dump it in.
And bad fishing practices
Much reef is killed because of cyanide fishing and bomb fishing. It is pretty much what it sounds like-a bunch of poison/ bomb is dropped in ocean. One day Sandip heard the blasts underwater.
Kills the fish, and also the coral. Tragic actually, even if you aren't a vegetarian/environmentalist like me
Dive boat on the shore
Ready for our dive. Pier of the resort in the background.
Giant clam.
Starfish
Amazing coral in the back. Lots and lots of turtles hung out there. We both look so happy!
