An island with pristine waters, so crystal clear that you can’t tell where the sky stops and the ocean begins. A marine protected area, with schools of fish, harmless reef sharks, rays, and clusters of coral visible from the shore. Spending the entire day relaxing outside your wooden chalet, either on a hammock, deck chair or on a towel atop the soft, souffle-like white sand.
Sound like paradise? It is – and Mike and I spent three glorious days swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving or simply strolling around the jewel-like tiny island of Lankayan, a couple of hours’ boat ride away from Sandakan, on mainland Malaysian Borneo.
Declared to be part of an immense Marine Protected Area, Lankayan Island is situated within the Sea Turtle Corridor which means that it is a perfect spot to watch turtles nesting or see new hatchlings of baby turtles sent out to the ocean.
We arrived in the morning to be greeted by the staff who work on the island. After gaping at our beautiful surroundings as we ambled down the jetty, we walked into the dining area where we were told that there are three main activities on the island – snorkeling/scuba diving, kayaking, and checking out the turtles.
With the turtles, it is really a case of good luck and timing – if you are keen to see either nesting or hatchlings, you can put a placard on your front door so that they can call you that night. Unfortunately, we didn’t see this, but you can check out where the eggs are in a couple of little pens, as well as see more about these creatures in a little conservation museum on the island.
The island is so minuscule that it takes just 30 minutes to walk around the whole perimeter. All meals are provided for – breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. The food was absolutely delicious – buffet, all-you-can-eat dishes that are a mix of Malay and Western cuisine.
One day you could be munching on lyonnaise potatoes, roast lamb, and stir-fried spicy prawns, the next day could be a mix of pizza, potato fries, and sauteed squid. All this could be washed down with wine, beer and topped off with slices of fresh tropical fruits including pineapple, papaya, and red or yellow watermelon.
Our first day was spent exploring and relaxing around the island and in our chalet – there are apparently 24 chalets (although we were given the ‘secret’ number 25). The chalets were huge inside – made out of wood, each had high ceilings and a comfortable bed (or beds) with a mosquito net draped above it (trust me, you’ll need more than a net though to keep the mosquitoes at bay each night – wearing repellent and spraying your surroundings are a must).
With Mike losing his sunglasses in Sandakan and the sun’s rays blinding us, I managed to borrow a pair from a staff’s husband (interestingly, all staff except the diving crew are Filipino, leading to me dusting off my Tagalog skills).
Lankayan is fast becoming a popular destination for diving, with wrecks and amazing sea life just minutes away from the shore. I went on a couple of dives and managed to see a massive leopard shark lying on the ocean floor, a jewfish poking its head out of its hiding spot, a couple of rays wandering around, as well as scores of different types and sizes of coral.
You can hire all the diving and snorkeling gear on the island – each dive amounts to US$30 including all gear hire (snorkel, wetsuit, flippers, regulator, air).
While we woke up to an overcast day on Day 2, the sun was quick to poke out by mid-morning, allowing us to have yet another lazy day swimming, sunbathing, and being fed to our heart’s content. Too hot? Walk a meter and have a dip in the ocean. Too cold? Go back to your deck chair and warm yourself up under the sun.
The schools of fish were amazing – they swam right at the water’s edge, where we had box seat views to these being attacked by either bigger schools of fish, whale sharks or capitalizing birds. The fish jumped right out of the water when this happen, with many flip-flopping on the sand until they were captured again by the next wave.
Our last day was spent snorkeling – unfortunately, I hadn’t sealed my waterproof casing for my camera properly and it was completed damaged once I got into the ocean. Secondly, I totally underestimated the depth of the water – not wearing flippers and kicking a bit too wildly, I wind up puncturing my left foot with some coral.
You know it’s a good wound when the diving crew thinks it looks like a jellyfish attack and when you say it’s coral instead, they cringe, wince and make a “ooh…” sound! Otherwise, the experience was amazing – Mike and I spotted more reef sharks, rays, a moral eel, and of course some more breathtaking coral.
If you’re up for some rest and relaxation in an exclusive tropical paradise, this is certainly it!
For most of us travel is a great way to see the world, grow as a person, and experience new customs, people, food, and drink.
Travel is also good because it helps provide local people with jobs, contributes economically to help the local community improve its standard of living, and increased revenue and investment can be spent to improve infrastructure, roads, schools, maintain environmental and historical areas, etc. In addition, local communities can feel pride in sharing their culture with us, while we break down language barriers and learn from each other.
However, while tourism can provide many benefits, problems can occur when too many tourists visit a destination, and the local community and the environment struggle to cope with the number of visitors.
Often it is the natural beauty of a place that makes it a tourist attraction, but sometimes the local community and the environment suffer at the expense of increased tourism; without proper planning, places get polluted, with deforestation, erosion, and often endangerment of local wildlife and animals.
Additionally, increased tourism can put a strain on the natural resources that the local community depends on to survive; water, land, food, and energy.
Lastly, increased tourism can erode traditional values, and influence foreign customs that are in conflict with the local culture and way of life.
My first taste of irresponsible tourism was at Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand. Over-developed, crowded, everybody selling useless crap that was made in China and they thought tourists would like instead of traditional Thai souvenirs, dirty and polluted beaches, more tourists meant more locals turning to scams and deceptive tactics to rip people off, tours where you could see chained up and drugged up elephants and tigers, and young people selling their bodies to wealthy foreign tourists at night.
What once was a laid-back local community, popular with the odd backpacker and surfer, had become a mass developed cesspit of a tourist attraction. I fear that many other pristine beaches and unspoiled destinations in Thailand (and throughout the developing world) will become the same in 10 to 20 years' time.
Over the past seven months in my day job I’ve had the pleasure of creating and coordinating a project called the ‘Green Hotels and Responsible Tourism Initiative‘. This initiative aims to help and educate travelers and hotel owners about the benefits of responsible travel. How being a responsible traveler is more rewarding, more authentic, and better for the environment and the local community.
Respected academics and sustainability experts, Dr Sonya Graci and Jacqueline Kuehnel, have created a responsible traveler guide to teach us how we can preserve the environment and beneficially contribute to the local community before we travel, while we are traveling, and when we come back so that tourist attractions can be enjoyed for years to come.
Some of my favorite parts of the guide include:
You can improve your travel experiences by researching the destination before you go, learning a few words of the language, and respecting the customs, religion, and culture of the place you’re visiting. By doing this you will learn more about the people and the destination and your travel experience will be more fulfilling.
Eat at local restaurants and try the fresh produce that is sourced locally in the area. Try the local beer. Use tour guides that have lived in the area all of their life, so they can show you the “real” destination that you won’t find in any guidebook. The money you spend will be directly invested back into the community, rather than to an offshore multinational corporation.
Buy souvenirs made of indigenous materials from a local, versus mass-produced souvenirs which are often imported from China and have a bigger carbon footprint due to shipping. Buying these souvenirs at a fair price, or a little bit extra may provide much-needed financial support for a local and their family.
At Backpacker Travel we believe that it’s important to be a responsible traveler.
I hope that you will be a responsible traveler too, so that we, and future generations, can get a chance to enjoy natural attractions and unspoiled destinations, rather than a once beautiful part of the world which is now an over-developed, exploited, a skeleton of what it used to be.
You may have heard of the “Running of the Bulls” festival in Pamplona and “La Tomatina” (tomato throwing festival) in Bunol. The last celebration to complete the holy trinity of wacky festivals in Spain is “El Colacho”, or more commonly known as the baby jumping festival.
Held in June each year in Castrillo de Murcia, a city – near Burgos in northern Spain, the festival sees a bunch of men dressed in bright yellow and red garb, jumping over babies lying on mattresses in the middle of the street. Before you wonder why child services haven’t been notified, the devil’s jump has been celebrated in the city since 1620. It has religious origins, with the aim of ridding the town of the devil and his companions.
Today, the baby jumping festival is part of the city’s Catholic Corpus Christi celebration, organized by members of the brotherhood of the Santisimo Sacramento de Minerva. These guys are busy on the big day – not only do they have to jump, run and prepare mass – they also have the privileged job of terrorizing everyone with whips throughout the day. The day starts innocently enough – the streets are lined with flags and flowers, a mass celebration is conducted as well a procession to and from the church. Members of the brotherhood then dress as either El Colacho or El Atabalero – the devil and his companion.
Now it’s ready for the leap of faith – the babies are placed on a row of mattresses that leads to the church. All infants are less than a year old, with four to seven babies per mattress. Several men then get to practice their hurdles skills. Jumping and running, the idea is that once they jump over all the babies, evil will be run out of town.
Looking at these guys leaping over babies can be fairly cringeworthy – I can’t help but wonder whether if, over the centuries, any of the leaping lucifers has inadvertently landed on an infant. I’m not sure if anyone I know would be so willing to lay their kids on the line (or mattress). This is one festival that ends with sighs (and gurgles) of relief.
