Published on Saturday, March 22 2008
A huge post. A weektrip through Sabah. I did roughly 2000km in one week time, mainly over land and sea. Kinda needed the thrill after many weeks of hard work. It’s very tough to write my experiences in a short post (I know long stories frighten people to read), so…yeah, here we go again, picture time!
Let’s start with Mabul, the island close to worldfamous divespot Sipadan (which was unfortunatly fully booked…only 120 people are allowed on that island).
MABUL
An old oilrig transformed into a hotel…superb for divers, they can go by a tube straight into the water.
locals building a new jetty
kids…everywhere you go on Mabul, they are around you.
lifestyle on Mabul. The island hosts many illegal immigrants from the nearby Philippines.
And some of my first underwater tryouts. I’m fairly happy with my underwatercam, although I don’t expect to take killershots with it. I better bought an underwater case for my Canon…ah well…
selfportrait under water, always wanted to do this, hehe.
After Mabul I headed to SANDAKAN, stayed one day & night there. Nothing special, besides its wonderful view on the many islands in the bay. The city was booming in the early 19’s, but WWII made the town one big ruïne. Today it’s a busy businesstown that didn’t leave a great impression on me.
view from the roof of my guesthouse. I had many coffee’s there.
every guestroom in Malaysia has this ‘Kiblat’ sign. It shows the direction to pray (Mekka) for muslims. 
SUKAU
I looked forward to visit this place. It’s a quiet small village located at the Kinabatang river, the longest in Sabah.
The jungle at the edges of the river hosts an abundant amount of wildlife. My main goal was to spot a wild orang utang (I refused to go to the sanctuary in Sepilok, where most tourist go…those orang utangs are only half wild) and the pygmee elephants. I was darn lucky to see them within one river trip of about 2 hours. Some people can’t see both in weeks…
Monitor lizard
here he is, my first wild orang utang! enjoying some fresh fruits. He was high up in the trees, so pretty hard to take a close shot, unless you have those bazookas of lenzes.
And of course our lovely proboscis are present too.
the wild pygmee elephants, the smallest elephant in the world (still big though)
here you see a female.
Sue, the son of the family I stayed with, was so kind to take some extra gasoline with, to be able find them. We had to return in the dark on the river.
a male. In total there were around 20 to 30 elephants
nightfall over the Kinabatang river
some of the visitors in my lodge.
frog hiding for me
a civet
a huge gecko. He was just about to run away. Watch his left ‘foot’. 
the family B&B, where I stayed. I was the only guest!
morning view, 6am.
Another resident of the Sukau B&B.
After Sukau I had a very tiring journey to KOTA MARUDU. From minibus, to aircon bus, to taxi, to minibus, to etc etc. However, it went pretty smooth and I arrived 10 hours later. It’s a very infamous place. It’s not even mentioned in my guidebook. Around there is Pitas, Kudat, the tip of Borneo and a lot of longhouses. The poorest region of Sabah.
I was the only white man there. Some people even ran away from me, haha. I was clearly not a common sight.
How did I end up there? Well, In Peninsular Malaysia I met Ain, a malay English teacher. She’s placed in a school in Sabah, Pitas and told me about the very rural life up there. I was charmed by reading her stories & was eager to visit the place.
view from my hotelroom in Kota Marudu.
selfportrait after a tough day of traveling.
domestic animals live here on the street. They don’t bother too much about cars. Probably are used to the idea they will stop or avoid them anyway.
mount Kinabalu on the way to Kota Marudu
crabs become artists here. A very nice attempt of one to sculpt a palmtree.
I love searching for the smallest life. Here a macroshot of a coralstone on the shores, with very very tiny snails in its holes. The shot covers about 2 square cm
100% fresh & pure sugarcane! yummie!
Pitas
views from the restaurant (Torong Soko) where I had ’sunset’ dinner with Ain & friends.
A simply wow. The pic below show our table.
The end (for this week ; )
