We arrived in Tawau at nearly 6pm
on 10th December 2012. It was getting dark. It gets dark rather
early in Sabah. Tawau airport was arather small regional airport catering to domestic
flight needs and apparently ours was the last flight in. As is customary, I had
to take a dump upon reaching Tawau. Unbeknownst to me, the guards actually
locked the main door of the airport while I was taking a shit! WTF??!!?! I’ve
never in my life heard of an airport locking its gate before 7pm before.
While waiting for the guard to
arrive to open the doors (I was later chastised for not informing him that I
was going to take a shit. What kind of airport requires you to tell the guard
that you needed the toilet? What was I supposed to say? “Excuse me, I need to
crap myself so please don’t lock the main gate while I smear your bowl with
diarrhoea”?) I was told by the lady at the office that I now had two options of
getting to Semporna. Since Tawau Airport is somewhere between Tawau and
Semporna, we could either take a direct taxi there for RM100+ or so, or we can
go to Tawau town by taxi for around RM40 and take a bus the next day for around
RM14 to Semporna. Since it was getting late and we thought that it would be
nice to also visit Tawau, we chose the latter. In retrospect though, if we had
had a larger party, we probably should have gone straight to Semporna as the
taxi fare can be spread cheaper between us.
I also gave Song a ring when I
arrived in Tawau (yes, apparently Song JR now resides in Tawau, a fact I only
remembered that upon reaching there). Unfortnately
he was in Lahad Datu so we couldn’t meet up.
It took about 1 hour or so to
reach Tawau town where we spent the night at LA Hotel which I thought was great
value for money. In the end though, I was too tired to actually go out and
about in Tawau, though from what I’ve seen, it was a somewhat bigger and nicer
town compared to Sibu. Cleaner too.
The bus station in Tawau
I know it says RM14.30 on the ticket but in reality we were charged only RM10 for the trip to Semporna. Apparently 'talun' meant jungle
The next morning we left the
hotel at about 8am to get a bus to Semporna. The bus station was within walking
distance from LA Hotel and apparently the earliest bus to Semporna was at
9.30am. There wasn’t much to see along the road from Tawau to Semporna but for
some oil palm plantations and a few little villages. The road quality was
rather good for some far off place. I slept for most of the journey.
The bus was actually pretty comfortable though I wouldn't recommend using the toilet
We reached Semporna in the
afternoon where a friend’s friend who works as an AMO in Semporna Hospital
picked us up to the jetty. Near the jetty area there were a lot of tour
operators. Small businesses that offered cheap travel packages to the islands
off Semporna. We went to Billabong Scuba which offered a package trip Mabul
Island with day trips to Sipadan for RM350+. I thought that was a good deal
since what I could find on the internet cost nearly RM2000 for such packages.
Unfortunately since I was not a PADI licensed diver and I didn’t have a permit I
couldn’t actually go to Sipadan. Mabul however, was more than amazing.
The bus stop in Semporna. You can try walking to the jetty from here but I didn't fancy it in this weather
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