[Mabul, Malaysian Borneo] Our first dives here are tomorrow so today was a chance to relax and enjoy the place. It’s been a ridiculously chilled out day.

V has been reading for most of it either in the hammock or in bed and I’ve been writing posts or fidgeting with our stuff and doing chores (apparently I can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes). We managed to haul ourselves to the food tables for meals but other than that didn’t do anything until late this afternoon.

We decided to go for a walk around the island. It’s probably smaller than one square kilometer with resorts all the way around it. On the far side are some fancier resorts (very fancy in fact) but what stands out most is the converted oil rig that has been plonked just offshore as a make-shift dive resort. We wandered around the ‘coastline’ as much as possible but there are a lot of fences and ‘private’ areas. Our side of island is definitely the poor cousin but we like it. Some of the resorts are huge – I can’t imagine having to fight over 50 people for dinner.

The inner part of the island was a bit of a shock. It’s a maze where the locals live and the first thing you notice is that there are way too many people in such a small space. The vast majority seem to be kids. It’s really nothing more than a shanty town but walking through everyone is friendly and most didn’t give us a second look. One of the missions of the day was to find a WiFi access point but we had no luck (that’s why nothing has been posted for ages).

After dinner V was watching the water from our deck and spotted amongst the hoards of fish and star fish, lots of pipe fish, a cuttlefish and a huge turtle. What a place. We can’t wait to get In the water tomorrow.

[Pictures: V multi-tasking, chilling and reading at the same time. The oil rig resort – got to stay there one day]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi