Simon at Sepilok

We were met at the Kota Kinabalu airport by Albert, who is the local contact here for Travellers. I got the impression we wouldn't be seeing too much of him this weekend as people were gradually arriving in Kota Kinabalu and we'd have our formal meeting on Monday at Rasa Ria.
Until then we would be staying at the Tang Dynasty hotel for 2 nights to settle in and get to know each other.

After the 3 of us checked in we soon met up with 3 more of our fellow Travellers volunteers who had arrived the previous day. Determined to beat the jet lag we headed for a beach to do some swimming and snorkelling. A short taxi ride away was the main KK jetty and a fast boat out to one of the islands. The Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park consists of five islands only a few minutes out from the jetty. We were advised to try Pulau Mamutik.


A recurring theme here in Sabah is the number of individual payments you have make to get anywhere. Today for example we paid for the speedboat ferry, then we paid a port tax to allow the boat to leave, then we paid a park fee to set foot on the island. We'll get used to it!

By the time we got there it was late in the day and the water was pretty churned up, so although there were plenty of fish to see the water was pretty murky.

I'm sure we'll have better luck another time.