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Sabah Stories and Tips

Pulau Manukan

Hill Chalets on The Island Photo - Sabah, Malaysia

It is a beautiful island resort located not far from the mainland (about 30 - 40 minutes ) by speed boat. In fact, getting there by boat is the only method to get there. There are no air fields there.

On the island, that resort is the one and only one resort. There are no other shops or anything. The sea water there is crystal clear and there are plenty of fishes swimming around the jetty area waiting for bits of food from the hotel guests.

A good tip would be bringing some bread along to feed the fishes. If you don't have any bread, you can buy some from the people at the jetty. A short walk from the jetty will bring you to the reception. Only thing is, there is no reception. All payments are made in advance.

Just get there and collect your keys. There are two types of rooms there. Sea view and Hill View. We stayed in the Hill view rooms. The Sea View rooms are next to the beach (thus it costs more). The Hill View rooms are little further away and it takes a few minutes and leg muscle as you need to walk up a slope and onto bridge ways. The whole complex of rooms are connected with bridges and staircases.

The rooms are connected. Two rooms in one small apartment. Each apartment has a living room with satellite TV, one single bathroom with hot water, one small pantry with a fridge. That's all. The rooms are very simple. A cupboard, a dressing table, the bed (of course) and the air-conditioning. Personally, I found the bed pretty hard and uncomfortable. My friend's bed was OK.

There are plenty of activities to be enjoyed there. Swimming, snorkeling, jet skies...mostly water activities. There's a restaurant there which caters to the guests. Food there is not bad. RM 20 - RM 40 can get you a decent meal. After dinner we went to the jetty. The weather is windy which makes it very nice to sit there and enjoy the nice fresh ocean air and feed the fishes.

In the morning, one can go down to the sea and have a swim/snorkeling. The water is warm and nice. Other than spending all your time on this island, one can travel to the nearby islands like Pulau Mamutik or Pulau Sapi. Pulau Sapi is very popular for snorkeling and scuba diving. Of the three islands, Pulau Sapi has the best snorkeling sites and it is a very popular tourist spot.

One last thing, "Pulau" means Island in Malay (a local language here).

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