Previously on Two Up and Overloaded -
Marisa: These guys look really vicious.
We had some pretty close encounters with monkeys.
No, no, no, no, not my helmet.
No, no.
Both some very naughty macaques, and some big-nosed proboscis monkeys. But now we are back on the motorcycle and continuing our journey across the island of Borneo on our KTM 250 Adventure.
[Sandakan - Malaysia]
So that morning, we woke up in Sandakan, which is a really pretty city. But unfortunately, there was a lot of cloud cover that morning.
[Southeast Asia Journey - Day 129]
Good morning, everyone. We are going to have another long day today, but it should be very enjoyable because we are going along the coast here from Sandakan to Semporna, which is kind of known as one of the premier destinations of the entire island of Borneo. Even here in Sandakan, we have seen tons of tourists. I mean, this is the area that everyone flocks to. And then in Semporna, it is on the fourth sea that we will go to. We started in the Java Sea over in Java, then we saw the South China Sea. Just recently, we were on the Sulu Sea, and this one is the Celebes Sea. Celebes? I don't know if I'm saying that right.
Tim: Succubus.
Marisa: But it's supposed to be like the Caribbean, crystal clear with some of the best snorkeling on the planet and views that are out of this world. So we are super thrilled to be headed that way. We're getting packed up now. Yep. And then we're going to go.
Tim: So I went down early in the morning to try to fix the mirror because at that point it just kept on being like a dead limb, which is quite frustrating when you're trying to see behind you and pass through cars. And it's just a comfortable feeling knowing what's behind you as well as ahead.
Tim: I think I fixed the mirror.
Marisa: Really?
Tim: Yeah.
Marisa: How'd you fix it?
Tim: I tightened it with a screwdriver.
Marisa: Oh, good job.
Tim: And so, I took a screwdriver and I tightened as hard as I could on that little ball joint, and I think I may have solved it. So that definitely tightens it up.
Marisa: Oh nice.
Now, this is a rental KTM. Normally, we have our own motorcycle, and we put our own mirrors on it, Doubletake Mirrors. And so, we've never really had this problem before.
Tim: No, not at all. I mean, the first time on my first motorcycle when I dropped the bike and the mirror snapped off, I had replaced it with Doubletake Mirrors and have had no mirror issues. I've never looked back, you could say.
Marisa: You never had to take a double take.
Tim: All right. Hopefully on the road, I can find where it goes and forget about it.
Marisa: Good. Still not as good as Doubletake Mirrors, though. Those are the best.
A lot of people say when they get to Southeast Asia, they take their mirrors off entirely.
Tim: Yeah, there's a lot of things that... Because the theory is that you only have to pay attention to what's in front of you because what's behind you will take care of itself. But also, that's very common in Southeast Asia not to wear full gear all the time. And so, there's not, you know, not everything monkey see, monkey do. Safety is definitely key. We've been on the road six years now. We've had a couple drops, and every time we've had those drops, we've had our gear on. And so, yeah, I want to see what's behind me. It's just kind of a natural instinct.
Marisa: Definitely. And also, here in Malaysia, I mean, it's not the chaos of Indonesia. It has a lot of rules of the road, that's look in your mirrors, put your turn signal on. People obey these rules. And so, I don't think it's quite the same mentality of just trying to zigzag through traffic and only focus on what's ahead of you. So, this mirror is important.
Tim: The mirrors are important, and when it is broken, you know, it's just like a flag in the wind, just kind of flopping around. A broken mirror they say is seven years of bad luck, and we need good luck going through all this traffic in foreign countries.
So I tried to mend the wound.
Marisa: Yeah, and I thought that you'd done a great job of fixing this mirror.
Tim: Every time I touch the motorcycle, I'm like, "Probably, maybe, possibly..."
Marisa: Probably not.
Tim: Probably not.
Marisa: Once we got on the motorcycle and started heading out from Sandakan to Semporna was our destination that day, the clouds cleared up, and it was gorgeous, absolutely beautiful.
But the road conditions were still not very good because we had taken that road into the city of Sandakan, and so we remembered that it was not the greatest road coming in. And you have to take the same road to get out.
Tim: They didn't fix it overnight.
Marisa: No.
Tim: My letter to the mayor didn't reach him in time.
But when we were on the road, I saw this giant monitor lizard.
Marisa: Yeah!
Tim: King Kong or Godzilla. Godzilla.
Marisa: Godzilla!
Those things are huge! Obviously, Komodo dragons are the most famous large lizard dragon-like creatures, and they are from an island of Komodo in Indonesia that is not that far away from here.
Tim: And some of their nieces and nephews have swam to Borneo and started their own little sub-community.
Marisa: Yes.
Tim: They're not Komodo dragons, but there's huge. I mean, I've seen them on the side of the roads a couple of times, and then when they run across the road, it's like, "Ah!"
Marisa: They are huge. I mean, they really do remind me of what a dragon would look like, much more so than a crocodile or anything. These things are really freaky, especially because they have that forked tongue that they stick out just like a snake. It is bizarre.
Tim: Yeah.
And as we are riding, my mirror, my fix it, failed me. Just I think in the books now it's when Tim fixes stuff, it's a 1% success rate.
Marisa: No, you are really good with zip ties.
Tim: I am.
Marisa: And duct tape. And you have fixed some things like that before. Not permanently
though.
Tim: Not permanently. And this, yeah, I just, it's just frustrating. But I'm trying to enjoy nature and look around, and then I got my flappy mirror back again. Just like a flat tire in the mirror.
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Marisa: And the weird thing is the whole mirror kind of
shifted inwards.
Tim: This time it wasn't the ball joint because that I did well. This was the entire arm now was just like a weather vane. It's spinning around. And you need two wrenches to tighten it. There's the counter-tightness and then the tightness again, getting a little advanced here.
Marisa: The counter tightness and the tightness, I see.
Tim: The top nut that needs to be unscrewed so I can turn the whole thing so I can screw it back. But like, I don't have that wrench. I don't want to break anything. But I have no idea how that came loose.
Marisa: At least you were able to bend it around so many times that it kind of...
Tim: Well, I screwed it in is what that's called.
Marisa: Oh. That's what you did.
Tim: I screwed it in. And I gave it an extra oomph. But then I had tightened the ball joint so much that I couldn't put it back.
Marisa: Oh no!
Tim: I was just like, "This is just a dead mirror. I miss my Doubletake mirrors. I just want my Doubletake mirrors back.
[Music]
Marisa: So the road was not great, the traffic was not awesome, and it was time for lunch. Definitely time for a break.
Okay. So the road has been very, very bumpy, not paved in the past whatever many years. So
there's lots of potholes that we have to dodge. So that has made it a little bit slow going. We knew this because coming into Sandakan, part of that way is just this one-way road that goes into the city, and we had to take it coming back out. So I was like, well, I know that road is not very good, hopefully it'll be better after that road. But we've been going on the road after it for a while now, and it is...
Tim: Eroded.
Marisa: It is e-roaded!
Tim: This pun is brought to you by Temple of Moto.
It looks like we're about to hit the coast though.
Marisa: Oh, nice. That should be nice, hopefully be a little bit cooler. So we're here right now.
Yeah. And we, yeah, once we hit the coast maybe we'll get a breeze. Because it is hot today. I'm going to have to wet my shirt, wet my hair wrap thing. Yeah, it's a little overcast which is nice, but it's legitimately hot today. Hotter than usual, I would say.
You got noodles at this place.
Tim: It's a safe bet.
Marisa: Yeah, it's pretty good. But I got something that is kind of like a specialty of Malaysia I've found, and I love it, Roti. It's a South Indian bread, and because there are a lot of people from India here in Malaysia, they make this awesome, awesome bread. And it's not just like normal bread, it's flaky, it's got layers, they smoosh it all together, and it comes with this awesome curry sauce. So delicious.
I love Roti. Roti Kosong, this is the empty bread.
Tim: I just want food without fish, that's like my only goal in life. I'm like, just food without fish or bones, please.
Marisa: That's a challenge sometimes.
Tim: It is. Roti, very few bones. No fish in the roti. I wouldn't put it past some places though.
Marisa: Yeah, they probably put fish on that bread.
Tim: This is true.
Marisa: I also got a wonderful soup that they have here called Soto Ayam, which is like a chicken soup, usually it comes with some noodles, bean sprouts on top. And it's just delicious, good hearty food.
[Music]
Tim: So the road and the traffic started to get much better after our little lunch break. The sky was brightening and so were our moods.
One thing though that we do run across in some of these more populated towns, when the school gets out, everybody picks up their kid. If they have two children, there's two cars to pick up each kid because it's just they triple park into the highway. Because the school where you pick your children up leads right to the road, and it's just three blocks worth of people triple parking with one lane that you can try to sneak by. Thank goodness we're on a motorcycle because we can squeeze through. But I'm like, "There got to be a better system here to pick up your children than just clogging the entire highway."
Marisa: As we went along, the road got more and more beautiful.
[Music]
All that traffic and construction and potholes from the beginning of the day smoothed out and opened up. It looked like some jungle dinosaur landscape with those two mountains.
What are you looking at?
Tim: I'm wondering if I just ride the bike over there and pay this kid 6 Ringgit to wash it.
Marisa: Yeah! I was thinking the same thing.
This was a long day.
Tim: The heat will get to you and you just need to stay hydrated. And so, I wanted to stop somewhere and get something more to drink.
Marisa: And then right across the way, we saw that there was a little bike wash place for motorcycles.
Tim: It was a car wash / bike wash. And we hadn't washed our bike since we rode through that river. Ever since we rented the motorcycle. It was due.
Marisa: It was definitely due. We're going to get at a bike wash.
Tim: I went over there and I thought it'd be a 10-minute process and we'd be out. But this kid was just going at it, cleaning everything. And then I finally thought he was done so I walked over and I'm like, "Thanks." And then he started spraying it again. And I was like, "All right buddy, take your time, but we got somewhere to be".
Marisa: He did such a thorough job. That motorcycle was so covered in soap, I don't think I've ever seen a bike so soapy in my life.
Tim: But then we got our clean KTM back. I know it's a sin in some regions of the world to clean your motorcycle, your adventure motorcycle.
Marisa: All right I think our bike is ready.
Tim: Where are we going? Yeah, what's the name of the town?
Marisa: Semporna.
Man: You know speaking Malay?
Tim: Just a little. Tidak bagus [not good].
Man: I speaking English is little, little.
Tim: Yeah, sama sama [same]. Thank you.
Man: Ok, enjoy. Thank you!
Tim: We are loving Sabah, it's very beautiful.
Man: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Tim: All right. Thank you, mister. Thank you, brother. All right, you have a good day.
Marisa: Shiny.
So finally we get to the city of Semporna, which is famous in the region for being this tourist hotspot where everybody goes to see the islands all around the city of Semporna that are well known to be some of the best diving and snorkeling spots on the planet. It had a very cool vibe to it. I will say, there was definitely an energy to the city.
Tim: Thank you, ma'am.
Marisa: All right, so here is the plan. We are in the city of Semporna right now, which people don't come here normally just to explore the city of Semporna. They come here to go to the islands that are all around with some of the best diving and snorkeling on Earth. And that's of course what we want to do as well. Unfortunately, you can't get to islands on a motorcycle. There are no public ferries that go to these islands. And so we are going to have to hire a boat. And how much is that going to cost? Probably a lot. We're trying to scope out prices, find the best boat possibly to take, and where to go exactly. And in order to do that, we are going to walk to the public jetty, and that's what we're going to do right now.
We wanted to see what these boat trips to the islands would cost. So we decided we can just walk over to the jetty where they have the boats and see if we can bargain something.
When we got to the jetty, it was the time of day when all the boats had come in and all the tourists were getting off of the boats, and it was pretty much closing down. But everybody from all over are coming here to dive and to see the marine life.
Okay, so most of the places are closed, it's almost 5:00, so that makes sense. We did get here a little late, but it seems to be the same price as through the hotel. So we might just go through them. If not, we've got some Whatsapp numbers, and we'll be back here to take our little boat trip. Island hopping!
Tim: Take a trip, take a trip, take a t-t-trip with me.
Marisa: Look at this boat.
So this car here has a very special surprise. Oh, you can't see from here.
Tim: I noticed a mom dog bringing puppies. To get out of the sun, she put them underneath cars. And then when cars would move or start their engine, she'd grab puppies one by one and move them underneath yet another car.
Marisa: Puppies!
And you could hear the puppies that would be left behind like, "Ar, ar!" And she'd come, but she could only carry one by one.
Tim: This is true.
Marisa: And there were quite a few puppies. One of the cars that the puppies had been under had moved. I mean this is like people are parking and leaving, and the puppies were just left out. And another car wanted to come and park in that spot, and I thought, "Oh no, there's puppies! I hope they see that there's puppies in the road." So we went out there and we're like, "All right, we're going to save the day!" We're going to take these puppies to their mother. And we did.
Tim: We did. Marisa did. Marisa saved a little puppy and put it next to the mom underneath another car. And to be fair, there were some guardians of the puppies as well. There were lovely ladies that were sitting there. These puppies were not in immediate harm because people were watching and being careful. But when this car was trying to pull in and there was a puppy there, no one sprung into action except for Marisa, the superhero.
Marisa: Yeah, I mean it's always a good day when you get to save puppies.
Tim: Yeah.
There you go. Everybody's happy.
Marisa: Yay! I saved the puppies, yay.
Next time, we dive into the city of Semporna, as well as the beautiful ocean.
Oh my goodness, look at this!
But we realize that Semporna is different from the previous Malaysian cities we've visited. Dirtier, more polluted, and with travel advisory warnings not to come here. But is it really so dangerous?
But that will all be in the next episode. So I hope you like this video. If you did, please give us a big thumbs up and hit the subscribe button below. And if Patreon is your thing, please check out our link in the description below. For as little as a dollar a month, you can get early access to our videos, all ad free, some exclusive little clips, and a postcard sent to you from wherever we are in the world.
Tim: This is true. And we do want to thank each and every one of you who follow us along on YouTube here, to all of our Patrons that currently subscribe and thanks for riding along with us.
Marisa: We'll see you next time.
Tim: Stay safe everybody.
Marisa: Bye.
Tim: Peace.
I noticed that there was this mother puppy that was…
Mother puppy...?
Marisa: I just nodded like, “Oh, that makes sense.”
