South-East of Sabah / Borneo - Semporna, stepping stone to Sipadan

In Lahad Datu, the Minibus dropped Lance, Gale, Ksenia and me right next to the next minibus, heading to Semporna.


The picture above spotted the more natural hutts for the inhabitants of Semporna. For tourists, you have the more organised water resort - the Semporna Ocean Tourism Centre (SOTC) - whereby the aussis went to the Dragon Inn, which is part of this, and as Ksenia and I had an appointment to get picked up in the lobby of the seafest hotel right opposite to the jetty next morning, we checked in here. Next time we'll get to the SOTC by ourself as well, it really looked pretty, cheap and we came to that place later again. But also our accomodation had been fine, and Ksenia really desired a warm shower and an A/C after our jungle adventure.

Right after this shower, we went back to the SOTC to meet with our friends and have a good (early) dinner. The restaurant inside promised to have freshly catched seafood, and after I had my mandatory tiger and Ksenia her fresh pressed pineapple / orange juice, their waitress brought a case of flouncing fish to doublecheck the weight and lookalike of our choice. We confirmed and soon had a delicous dish - ye, I agree with you vegetarians and WWF'ers outthere, nothing is more cruel to see your living dish before it get's fried, but thats the asian way, and to be in asia without having good seafood, I rather stay in germany with my schnitzel then at all.

We walked for some more beer to town with Lance and Gale again, checked out the darker corners, but the city seemed very friendly and we had fun with the locals. But all of us have been pretty tired again, so at 10 we aimed back to our hotel to get some hours of sleep, before our paradise heaven of diving adventure on Mabul / Sipadan was supposed to start next morning 9am. The aussis had a diving appointment for 3 days later, but as they decided to stay with us, they had a chat with their agency Uncle Chan, and made a successful rebooking for 2 days earlier. Their resort is right near to our ones, so we scheduled to see us on the 15th and left them with a good bye - may visit them also once in australia. But we'll see us earlier - on Drop Off!