Sabah trip 2010- Day 5

Day 05- 20/05/2010

第五天了...


Breakfast was french toast and milo prepared by chef chin! :> i love french toast!

Itinerary for the day was going to the volcano mud area and snorkeling!




While walking to our destination, we met a tourist who went to the volcano mud earlier than us. Remembered he used the word "magnificent" to describe...


I actually thought it would be a big and spacious mud pool, warm and bubbling... But it wasn't as big as i imagined it to be... Probably about half the size of a basketball court? (correct me if i'm wrong!) Nevertheless, it was really a great experience swimming in the volcano mud (hmm, not exactly swimming, because we were actually floating!) because some areas were indeed a bit warm, and bubbling!~~ :>


Some background info of Pulau Tiga taken off the web:

Pulau Tiga means "Island of Three" in English as three islands actually make up Pulau Tiga Marine Park. They are Pulau Tiga itself, and two adjacent uninhabited islands of Pulau Kalampunian Damit or better known nowadays as Snake Island and Pulau Kalampunian Besar. Pulau Tiga is one of the more popular islands in Borneo courtesy of the CBS Reality Show "Survivor I", which was conducted and filmed there in 2000.

Pulau Tiga was formed on September 21, 1897 when a large earthquake on the Philippine island of Mindanao triggered a volcanic eruption just north of Borneo. The eruption of mud and rock formed a new island 66 feet (20 meters) wide. Over the next four decades, subsequent eruptions of the volcano and the development and eruptions of two additional adjacent mud volcanoes expanded, coalesced, and formed the island in its current state. The last eruption of the mud volcanoes on the island was in 1941 but warm mud continues to ooze from these geothermal vents on the island.

There is no significant eruptions since then. The only volcanoes the current generation knows about at Pulau Tiga is the loosely-termed "mud volcanoes". Not the eruptive kind but a pool of bubbling mud from deep inside the earth. The mud volcano was made famous by the TV show where one Survivor tribe had a volcano mud bath. For visitors, many think that a soak in the pool of volcanic mud will cleanse and beautify the skin.

So we applied the mud GAO GAO on our face...


After dont-know-how-long, we left the volcano mud area and walked back to the sea to wash the mud off, hoping to see a smoother and more radiant skin~~

Snorkeling was next on the itinerary, but as the snorkeling equipments were only allowed to be rented to registered visitors, we didn't manage to snorkel... POOR DAVID DUMB! Didn't get to snorkel at all in this trip! hahaha~ No wonder he looked so bu shuang!


So it was another round of slacking/photo-taking/放空 at the beach...

The guys went back to the staff hostel for washing up while kiwi and i explored other parts of the beach~~

Swings banyak banyak along the beach!




寄居蟹 banyak banyak along the beach toooo~~ :>


Highlight of the day!

After some HTHT & photo-taking, kiwi and i walked back to the staff hostel... Saw a few monkeys walking across the field in front of the staff hostel and we decided to follow them to take photos...


Very cute, hor? :S

After taking a few photos, the monkeys began making some weird sounds... Some 敌意 sensed, but we didn't walk away immediately... Then, after a few seconds, these bloody monkeys began chasing us! WTH?! I only remembered kiwi and i ran super fast back to the staff hostel at that moment... I even dropped both of my slippers along the way but couldn't be bothered to pick them up! KNS. 两个女生被几只猴子追到狂跑... 什么屁. 糗爆了! RAH! >.<

We ran and reached the hostel safely, sat at the steps, 喘气 and... 狂笑! 虽然超狼狈，不过还蛮好笑的... 真的~~~ 活到二十三岁，还真的是第一次被猴子追... Quite memorable, but still... FREAKING MONKEYS. 气死人了! So it's now Maimouphobia (fear of monkeys), to add on to my Lepidopterophobia (fear of butterflies)... :(

After washing up, it was then lunch time- maggie mee by the beach~

放空/napping/feeding sandflies on the bench were the activities for the afternoon... Relaxing~~

We needed to buy some canned food and drinking water, so we went to this 杂货店 beside the hostel whereby customers need to pull the handle outside the shop that links to a bell in the shop owner's house. Upon hearing the bell, the shop owner will ride a bicycle to the shop and open the shop for you! Cooool~

Couldn't remember how we slacked the whole afternoon away, only remembered poor david dumb being harassed by swarm of flies everywhere he went. hahaha~

After dont-know-how-long, I went out to 吹海风, and kiwi found me so it was another MK (meiqi-kewei) HTHT again~

这里没有人也没有时间 不用思考 (lyrics from S.H.E's song- 两个人的荒岛)

Other than the 俊男美女 honeymoon couple, a belgium man and a few caucasians whom we saw yesterday, it seemed that we were the only tourists on the island because i dont remember seeing other tourist on the 2nd day (other than the man who described the volcano mud as magnificent...)

Anyway, something that i liked about this trip was that it was really very "rest and relax"... Very unlike previous trips, in which everyday was just 赶赶赶...

The sun set after dont-know-long (again)... We wanted to walk to the cafe to check out if there's beer, but it was dark and we were afraid that the monkeys would 埋伏 and chase us again (paranoia~), so we walked back to staff hostel, hoping to see dinner prepared for us already (hahaha)......


But dinner wasn't prepared so chef chin ke wei cooked again!


Pardon my poor memory, because i really can't recall what we did after dinner before the surprise of the day... oh, remembered ah lian lost his specs that day and was searching everywhere for it...

Surprise of the day!

The original plan: meiqi to talk to kiwi and keep kiwi occupied while the guys prepare the surprise...

What happened that night:


Yihao wasn't feeling well so he slept early~

Kiwi slept super early that night too. hahaha perfect~~~ so ah lian, david dumb and i did some art outside the staff hostel using the lightsticks that ah lian 千里迢迢 brought from Singapore... Julian, louis dan kawan kawan came to help too! niceeee~~~:>

Everything went on smoothly because the 懒猪 (opssss~) didnt wake up (we were worried that kiwi might come out and look for me so louis' friends sat at the door to "把风"... hahaha~~

The masterpiece! :D


After everything was done, ah lian went to wake kiwi up, blindfolded her and brought her to the field... David dumb the guitarist played the birthday song~~


It was then photo-taking and tiger beer session~~ :>


:D

Our last night at Pulau Tiga ended after the birthday surprise...

to be continued- Day 6- Back to KK city!

photo credits: ah lian & kiwi

"旅行中最大的幸福 就是找回自己"- 喜碧