MANTANANI

From a lush primary rainforest one week, to a tropical island paradise the next! Borneo is awesome! Charlie recently moved into a spacious new apartment in Kota Kinabalu and needed to fill it with some furniture. Being the crafty handyman that he is, he decided that he’d build his own, and started by lugging a chainsaw out to the island of Mantanani to carve up some of its bountiful driftwood. It was Charlie’s first visit to the island, but his girlfriend Jess, who is a freelance dive instructor, has spent a lot of time there for work. She also lived there for a year and helped start a backpackers lodge, so she’s quite familiar with the island. Our friend Yanti also came along. She works for an organization that runs a camp on Mantanani which puts up volunteers and organizes community projects. And our friend Anna was already there, working at Yanti’s camp to help construct new bungalows for the volunteers.

It was an hour-long boat ride to Mantanani, and the four of us sat side-by-side with our feet dangling over the front of the ferry. The ocean was glassy that morning, and as we glided in towards the island the water transformed into a dreamy turquoise-blue. It’s a tough commute if you’re a freelance dive instructor like Jess. The boat dropped us off on a white-sand beach at one of the dive camps where Jess works, and after a splash in the water, Jess’s dive buddies fed us a tasty lunch and lent us some gear for an afternoon snorkel. In between bouts of water-play, we relaxed in the array of hammocks that were strung up around the beach. On the way in Yanti warned me that Mantanani was conducive to napping, and once I started swaying to and fro in the warm ocean breeze and felt my eyelids grow heavy with content, I understood exactly what she meant. From hammock to water, back and forth. I ended up doing a lot of swimming and swinging over the next few days. And napping too.

There’s a jungly, precipitous hill on the northwestern tip of Mantanani, and if it weren’t impassable, you could probably walk around the island in less than two hours. The simple network of sandy paths are utilized only by foot and bicycle (no cars!), and if you’re feeling lazy, catching a lift around the island on a tiny fishing boat can be easily arranged. There’s a small village along the south-eastern shore, and another cluster of stilted homes a little farther west, and whoever the local housepainter is must have the most colorful work clothes around. Only a vibrant backdrop like the tropical paradise of Mantanani could host such radiant houses without appearing too gaudy. It’s very fitting. And the people are equally colorful. With an abundance of cheerful kids, and an all-around small-town courteousness, life on the island is easygoing and warm like the breeze. While I tested out different hammocks and worked on my tan, Charlie put his chainsaw to use. And after a few days we hired a fishing boat to take us back to the mainland with a bundle of carved-up driftwood that would soon be furniture. Mantanani was amazing, but it was time for me to head back to the jungle and lupa masa...