Island hopping in Sabah – Day trip to four island paradises
By Flipnomad for Yahoo! Travel
Kota Kinabalu has been very accessible to a lot of people in Southeast Asia due to the availability of low cost carriers serving this region. I was personally not that interested before maybe because of the lack of information that I know about this place. Now that I'm on a long term backpacking trip in Southeast Asia, I made sure that I included Sabah in my itinerary and I'm so happy that I did.
Island hopping was the first activity that my friends and I did on our first week in Sabah. You could either sign up with any travel agencies for the tour or DIY the whole trip. In our case, we just bought our tickets straight from Jesselton Point Ferry Terminal and paid the terminal fee.
Jesselton Point Waterfront is the terminal where you could catch a ferry to Labuan and it's also the main ferry terminal bound to Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park and Gayana Island. From Jesselton, we took a boat to explore the four nearby islands.
Pulau Mamutik
Pulau Mamutik was our first stop. As soon as we got off the boat, we immediately paid the Environmental Conservation Fee and head straight to a vacant picnic table near the beach. Pulau Mamutik is a small island with beautiful white, soft sandy shore. We were lucky that we arrived really early and the beach wasn't that crowded yet. There're no accommodations in this island but camping is permitted for those who are interested in staying for awhile.
Pulau Manukan
Pulau Manukan seems to be the most popular among the islands in Tunku Abdul Rahman Park because of the existence of some tourist facilities. There're chalets, restaurants, souvenir shops, a bar, dive shops and it even has a football field. The clear waters and abundance of medium sized fishes make Pulau Manukan a great snorkelling place.
Pulau Sapi
A smaller island compare to Mamutik and Manukan, Pulau Sapi has a nice beach with soft sand with a nice view of the southern tip of Gaya Island.
Pulau Gaya
Gaya Island is the largest island in the park and we only got a chance to spend an hour in Padang Point, which is the southern tip of the island. We were lucky that we're the only visitors at that time and gave us our private moment to enjoy watching the wildlife. We saw monitor lizards, a variety of seabirds and a macaque. Some people say that there're Proboscis Monkeys as well but not as many compare to those that are in Kinabatangan.
We weren't able to squeeze Pulau Sulug in our itinerary due to lack of time but nevertheless, we enjoyed our day trip to this park. I could definitely say that I'm going back to these islands and probably camp for awhile and spend more time.
A quick reminder to the future visitors of the park, there's a list of park rules and regulations that I suggest we follow especially on feeding animals and managing our own trash. Following these are imperative in making sure that the future generations get to enjoy the beauty of Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park.
