Semporna - Gateway to Sipadan

Trip Start Feb 04, 2008

105

Trip End Jan 19, 2009

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

The Seafest Hotel

(Semporna hotels)

Flag of Malaysia Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia
Monday, May 12, 2008

After our last breakfast at Uncle Tans we hopped on the boat for the last time and headed off to Semporna. We got a minibus with Leigh & Matt (from South Africa and Zimbabwe) and Matej & Yvana (from the Czech Republic) as they were headed the same way. After a few hours drive we arrived hot, sweaty and in desperate need of a shower. We didn't know anything about the place we were booked into - all we knew was that it was called the Seafest Hotel. When the minibus pulled up outside the biggest and fanciest looking hotel in the whole town we thought it must be a mistake but no, that was where we were staying!

The immaculately dressed doormen took our rucksacks and (not for the first time on this trip!) we felt very very scruffy and underdressed, not to mention covered in 3 days worth of river mud stuck on our skin and clothes! Our room was nothing more than a decent 3* but to us it was HEAVEN! A real bed (you could have slept 6 people in it) in a huge room with a tv, aircon, hot showers, a kettle for making tea and coffee - the works! We were so excited then spent the next hour or so trying to get the mud off! Leigh and Matt were staying in the same hotel as us and we all went to meet up with Matej and Yvana for dinner. After an hour or so of the others trying to sort out diving/snorkeling trips for the following days we had dinner at a nice enough place with a very enthusiastic chef who kept coming over every 5 minutes to see if we liked it! We headed off our separate ways and got an early night ready for our trip to Mabul Island the next morning.