Mabul Island

The tiny island of Mabul is an hours speed boat journey from main land Borneo. There are no cars and it takes less than 15 minutes to walk around the whole thing. Half the island - the cheap half, our half - is covered in a warren of stilt village over the water, offering cheap accommodation and diving. Below the rotten planks making up the 'paths' between huts patches of sea are visible amongst the floating rubbish. If anything its authentic - there are chickens everywhere, groups of children gambling and smoking, little shops selling coke and crips and music blaring out of huge speakers which are probably worth more than the huts which house them. Apart from the rubbish, I love it.

It is very expensive to stay on the island - we (me, Alex and our friends Hannah and Henry from Kinabalu) book into the cheapest dive school/hostel we can find at 70RM (£14) a night (on the main land we tend to pay 30RM/night). Now, were used to basic but this is beyond basic. No showers (bucket job), no electricity, no windows or mosquito nets, cats and rats everywhere. At night the entire structure sways and creaks with the waves. We can see the sea through our floorboards and the sky through the roof. Breakfast is 'Mee Goreng' - noodles with a fried egg on top - lunch and dinner are always rice, cabbage and fish. Admittedly breakfast is improved when a turtle swims past the dock, munching on sea grass, but that is the only thing 'Scuba Jeff's' has going for it.

 Everyone comes to Mabul for diving. Those who don't dive here and admit it get disbelieving and dirty looks. However when we arrive at SCUBA Jeff's we are informed that there is no dive equiptment and the one Dive Master they have is about to quit. We trawl the island, braving the treacherous board walks, looking for spaces with another dive schools but everyone is out diving. Those who have stayed behind are no help; "Diving? Scuba diving? Oh I don't know about that...'

So we give up and head to the OTHER side of the island, home to three luxury resorts - beach huts, swimming pools and white sandy beaches. It love this side of the island too, particualy the fact that no one questions our presence in the pools or at the buffets. After a relaxing afternoon we manage to book three dives for the next day with what seems to be a very organised dive school (at least in comparison to Scuba Jeff's).

We spend the evening looking for rum on a dry, Muslim island and actually find some (although its spelt 'Rhum'). We eat our rice and cabbage in the dark and watch the stars, helping us actually appreciate the lack of electricity.

 In the morning we cross to the nice side of the island and have three amazing dives. I see more than I have seen on all my Koh Tao dives put together - crocodile fish, frog fish, eels, lobster, harlequin sweet lips, an attacking trigger fish (not attacking me thankfully), cuttle fish, puffer fish and three HUGE tutles. The turtles swim right past us as if we're not even there. They seem to say "We're turles, who are you? Get out of our way you insignificant human".

The dive sites are all only 10 minutes from the island, so between the dives we come back to the resort for tea and coffee, then lunch, then more coffee and cake. I'm not sure if this was actually included in our dive package, but again no one questions us. I make sure to eat as much as possible to make up for the poor food at our hostel and half way through our final dive I realise that it would have been a good idea to put on an extra weight to stop me from floating to the surface.

I decide that excellent dives make up for our awful accommodation, but nearly change my mind when there is a storm in the middle of the night. Our stuff gets soaked, we get soaked, and I'm genuinely concerned that the whole of Mabul stilt village will float/blow away. Everything looks better in the morning when the sky is blue, the water is flat calm and we spot turtles off the dock - each time running for our snorkels and jumping in, only for them to disappear again.