{"id":3404,"date":"2010-12-30T21:20:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T08:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/?p=3404"},"modified":"2011-01-12T23:24:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T10:24:19","slug":"goodbye-mabul-till-the-next-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/?p=3404","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Mabul. Till the next time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/20110112-232501.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"alignleft size-full\" \/>[Semporna, Malaysian Borneo] Our departure from the island was scheduled for 4pm so we were expecting a boring day on the deck but luckily there was a boat going when we got up. That led to a mad rush to get our gear together, copy photos from Jeroen and say our goodbyes to everyone before speeding off towards the mainland. <\/p>\n<p>Uncle Chang&#8217;s was brilliant and high above our expectations (from what we had read online). We have a few notes\/observations for anyone going there.<br \/>\n&#8211; Take snacks, fruit, cereal and long life milk. There is NOTHING to buy on the island and the food at UC&#8217;s, although good, does get boring if you are there for more than 3 days.<br \/>\n&#8211; The rooms were basic but good. We had no issues with the exception of the occasional sewerage smell.<br \/>\n&#8211; The staff, although not all English speaking, were always helpful and accommodating (reception staff in Semporna were brilliant) but you HAVE to ask for things &#8211; nothing just gets done automatically.<br \/>\n&#8211; The gear was old but worked fine and any issues were resolved quickly. Maybe take your own wet-suit &#8211; they were a bit manky.<br \/>\n&#8211; Things do seem a little disorganized (who is diving with who and where and when etc) The key is ask questions. Once on the boats everything was smooth sailing.<br \/>\n&#8211; Uncle Chang seems like a decent chap but is a little tough to warm up unless you are an experienced diver spending a lot of cash with them (He seems to have favorites).<br \/>\n&#8211; The view from the long-house is stunning and the new units under construction look like they will raise the bar substantially.<br \/>\n&#8211; We would recommend Uncle Chang&#8217;s but would not mind trying another operator next time we are there (just to compare). <\/p>\n<p>Back in Semporna we checked into the Dragon Inn (AC and HOT showers &#8211; yes please !) and headed into town for food. I could not resist a burger at the Scuba Junkie restaurant after two solid weeks of chicken and rice. It tasted great but by evening I was regretting the decision. Tomorrow we start our 36 hour long mission to get to New Zealand ! <\/p>\n<p>[Pictures: V strolling down to the Dragon Inn &#8211; larney looking]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><small>&#8211; Posted from my iPhone via 3G<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Semporna, Malaysian Borneo] Our departure from the island was scheduled for 4pm so we were expecting a boring day on the deck but luckily there was a boat going when we got up. That led to a mad rush to get our gear together, copy photos from Jeroen and say our goodbyes to everyone before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,4],"tags":[],"geo":{"latitude":4.4804659,"longitude":118.6143875,"description":"Dragon Inn (Floating Hotel), 1 Jalan Kastam, Pekan Semporna, 91308 Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3405,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}