28 January 2014

Huddled together off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, the group of five islands, which makes up the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park, serves as a popular tourist zone for those visiting Sabah’s capital city.  There are hundreds of boat operators to choose from that offer standard or special tours, as well as diving or snorkelling.  It is a wonderful place to go if you need a day at the beach where the only thing to do is enjoy the scenery and breathe in the fresh sea air (once you’ve dodged the busy tourist gatherings).

The five islands – Gaya Island (big), Sulug Island (Sulu people), Manukan Island (fish), Mamutik Island (shell collection) and Sapi Island (mowing buffalo), lie about three kilometers off shore.  The Park was founded in 1974 as a national reserve to protect the marine life in the area.

After reading reviews on TripAdvisor, we decided to visit Manukan and Mamutik on one day trip, with snorkelling.  The islands were pretty much the same in terms of natural scenery except that Mamutik had amazing shells (as it name suggests) and was a lot quieter without the groups of Chinese tourists that thronged the open spaces on Manukan’s beaches and park areas.

Manukan

Manukan Island was our afternoon destination and we spent a lot of time eating lunch in the shade of the trees, sun-tanning and resting.  We saw a lot of monitor lizards here but were feeling too lazy to do the jungle walks where you can explore the rest of the island. There are a few places to eat here but not enough to keep prices competitive. We also saw a couple of people camping here (tents) and barbecuing, which looked like it might be a fun thing to do; especially since most of the tourists go home after 4 pm.  This leaves you ample time to enjoy the sunset and then the sunrise too, without the hoards of foreigners blocking the view.

Mamutik

Mamutik Island was our first stop and we spent the morning here snorkelling, sun-tanning, reading and admiring the birdlife around the island. It was a lot of quieter than Manukan and had good snorkelling around the far end of the beach (furthest from where the pier is) which was less damaged and had a quiet part of the beach to enjoy.  There are also lockers available for a day at the Borneo Divers offices (on the far side of the beach) if you need to lock up your things, for a small fee.

Getting here:

We found a boatman somewhere along the way to the Jessleton Point (just after the market, but before the main piers) who hustled us into buying a trip from him for MYR 100 (for two people, snorkelling equipment, boat trip return).   We then also had to pay a further MYR 10 for a conservation fee when we arrived at the island.  Based on some of the other tour packages we’d looked at this didn’t seem like a bad deal.

A few days afterwards, we did see a flyer somewhere for a package deal, including the above, plus KFC lunch and INCLUDING conservation fee, for only MYR 50 per person.  So I guess we could have saved about MYR 20 plus lunch costs had we found a deal like this earlier.  But it was not too much difference considering our busy schedule.

*Some information was taken from Sabah Parks website.*