Sabah Trip Part 1 - Pulau Danawan

This was last year (macam dah lama pulak kan), 21st December 2012.  We went to stay for 2 nights at a small island with no tourist attractions, no resorts, no water sport activities, no supermarkets, no restaurants, electricity depended on the generator....so why did we even go there in the first place?

We wanted to bring the kids to Sabah...and my BIL, an army officer who was put in charge of the Pos Askar Pulau Danawan for 3 months said, "singgah la sini kat pulau saya jugak, saya akan pastikan abang, akak & anak-anak akan mendapat cuti yang best!". Okay jom lah.

Pulau Danawan is a very small island, about 2 hours on speedboat from Semporna.  It's about one and half hours from there to Sipadan.  Though Sipadan is said to be a spectacular diving spot (we all tak sempat pegi sebab last minit tukar plan), I will always remember the militant attack there in year 2000.  Sejak itu lah kerajaan Malaysia adakan pos askar di Sipadan, Kapalai (resort) dan juga Pulau Danawan ni.

Kerana tugas, my BIL came back for a few days after Hari Raya itu pun sebab my sister gave birth to their third child.  Then he was off again....and only finished his posting at Pulau Danawan last week.  Bila balik sini cuti, anak baru lahir hari tu dah pun berumur 4 bulan.

Home to LCCT - by MPV

LCCT to Tawau Airport - naik kapalterbang

Tawau Airport to Semporna - naik kereta kawan BIL..yang ada sedikit masalah halfway :P

Semporna to Pulau Danawan - cute lil speedboat

Somewhere in between Tawau & Semporna...waiting for the car to be fixed.   Elok jugak budak2 merasa melepak tepi jalan.

Somewhere between Semporna & Pulau Danawan...nampak banyak penternakan rumpai laut.  Ini macam kolagen asli lah.  It's high in demand nowadays.

During the nearly 2-hour journey, all we could see was sea, sea, sea.  Sometimes we sea another island or other boats pass us.  Sometimes the water looks greenish & clear, which means tak terlalu dalam (even though we're in the middle of nowhere) and sometimes the water looks dark and slighly choppy (laut dalam eeeekk).

Pulau Danawan was featured in Majalah 3 TV3 sometime in November 2012.  It was mostly about safety & security there and of the islands nearby.  How the army was involved with the daily ongoings of the village people there, how the army is helping in order to avoid the 2000 incident from happening again in islands around this area.

Sampai!

The view that greeted us.  Never mind if this island doesn't have a resort or hotel.

My BIL and his colleague who helped us a lot during our 2-night stay there.

The jetty behind Amsyar was where we arrived at earlier that day.

Ramai VIP dah melawat pos askar ni.  Bila mereka datang melawat, mereka tanam pokok. :)
(Izzo loved the chin-up/pull-up bar at the small "diy gym" area..memang dia tengah syok buat pull-up sekarang)

My BIL organized a karaoke & tarian igal-igal competition the following day.  Ini masa rehearsal, orang kampung semua datang kat helipad bersemangat nak tengok orang praktis menyanyi / menari.  I like this photo!  

At this point, Hubby & Izzo took a walk by the beach..and suddenly they arrived at the kampung there.  Ada satu je kampung kat pulau ni kot.  Sayangnya masa tu diaorang tak bawak kamera & phone!  So no photos of how the daily life of the kampung people was like, how little kids and bare-bum toddlers play with the muddy lopak in front of their houses (macam mini swimming pool diaorang lah)...

Meanwhile back at the helipad, while rehearsal was on a break, my musically-inclined Zuleyka said, "jom Mama, atash!" while pointing to the stage.  Dah agak dah dia mesti cannot tahan listening to the music.

After a few minutes of her boogie-ing alone, she was joined by some of the orang kampung, here performing to the song Nobody But Chuu. :P

Surprisingly, these Bajau Laut folks can dance very well.  Apalagi kalau tarian igal-igal (they refer to it as "mengalai").  It seems that everyone knows how to mengalai.  Teenagers, mothers, even boys in their late teens....terpegun jugak tengok diaorang.

Performance night! It was SO windy that night, we were all praying for no rain because the stage was open & I don't think my BIL had a back-up plan hehe..!  And his boss was there as a the guest of honor, so lagi lah.  Alhamdulillah it didn't rain.  And we had fun, the kampung people had fun, too.

As usual, Zuleyka was the star attraction with the kids there.  Budak-budak kampung tu, suka stare je kat kita hehe..ye lah, dioarang jarang nampak orang selain dari orang2 kampung kat situ.
Zuleyka blended in with ease.  Yang membezakan dia dengan budak-budak lain ialah...rambut kerinting dia :P

I went to bed earlier with Armand & Zuleyka while Hubby, Amsyar & Armand stayed until the final performance.  Apparently, habis je persembahan terakhir...the sky suddenly opened up!  Everyone was scrambling for shelter (yang takde sangat pun!)..orang-orang kampung terus lari balik rumah masing-masing, and the soldiers all tried to cover & save the speakers and all other equipments.

A 'senior' among the orang kampung said that one of the mengalai performance was not done the 'correct way'.  Beliau kata, mesti ada dewa yang marah sebab itu lah tiba-tiba hujan dengan teramat lebatnya.

It rained and rained....for 13 straight hours.
Kadang-kadang lebat, kadang-kadang nampak macam nak reda (tapi tak).

We were supposed to push off to Sipadan that morning but had to wait for the rain to stop.  We were either lepak-ing at the covered small dining area watching the sea and borak-borak, or sleeping in our room.  My kids, mesti lah tak tahan nak duduk dalam bilik je kan...(especially during those few hours when the generator set was switched off, no fan and can't open window sebab hujan) so bila hujan tak berapa lebat sangat diaorang pakai cap & belasah je jalan-jalan kat dalam kawasan Pos Askar ni.

Nak berjalan-jalan tengok kampung pun tak dapat.  Which I was quite looking forward to during this trip.

The rain only stopped, completely, about 2pm.  Just before 3pm we were carrying our bags to the boat which was taking us to Kapalai.

Another 3 nights in Kapalai...we were hoping the sky would be kind to us, sebab budak-budak ni tak sabau nak snorkeling semua.

Another 45 minutes by speedboat...praying for no rain!

A humbling experience at Pulau Danawan.  Simple fun for the kids.  Glad that my kids get to see that in some part of our country, there are people who live and speak differently than us.  Even with TV and books and the internet, sometimes it's hard for the kids to grasp about the different cultures that we have in Malaysia.  Bila diaorang tengok sendiri, baru lah banyak soalan-soalan yang ditujukan ke Teacher Papa & Teacher Mama hehe...

To be continued with Part 2, at Kapalai... :)