Due to pure disorganisation we usually end up looking for somewhere to sleep seconds before we check in. Mostly this is fine, as we are not travelling in peak season. God help us, when it is peak season, whenever that might be.
One time, we thought we would try out something new and actually organise our accomodation beforehand. So when we arrived in the seaside city of Semporna, Borneo, we had a screwed up piece of paper, with the name of our accomodation ‘Singamata’ scrawled across it.
We spent awhile wandering the streets trying to find the damn place. When we reached the waters edge, we had to admit defeat with our navigation skills and ask someone where Singamata actually was. The man we asked pointed out in the one direction where there wasn’t any land.
‘Singamata is in that direction’. He told us.
We looked at him, thinking he was slightly mad. ‘But that’s the ocean’, we told him.
“Yes, yes, but Singamata is out there.
We looked again to where he was pointing, readjusted our eyes and yes, we did manage to make out some kind of building, on stilts, out in the middle of the ocean in the distance and then realised that that was indeed where we were suppossed to be staying. Being out in the middle of the ocean was a feature about the accomodation that they neglected to tell us as we made the booking on the phone. ‘How the hell are we going to get out there?’.
The man kindly pointed to an office nearby which managed the resort. Great, we checked in, ended up in a little boat, and we were off. The resort awaited. It did feel like we going to be a bit isolated but we were assured that we could get food and drinks out there.
Within two minutes of arriving at the resort, it became pretty apparent that were the only people staying there. The extensive table settings, deck chairs and other outdoor furniture arrangements were completely empty. We dumped out bags and thought ‘Let’s get a drink’. But as we looked at the drink fridge, we realised it was completley stocked with soy bean milk. We asked them if they had anything else, and they replied ‘No’, but then told us there was some lemonade coming’. However, after 4 days of staying there we never saw any lemonade or any other drink besides bloody soy bean milk.
Regardless, it was interesting place to stay and chill out overlooking the water, sipping illegally imported drinks from the mainland, snorkelling, swimming, catching up on reading and perfecting our tans so that we look more like the locals.
On the second night we were there we woke up in the middle of the night to a loud bang, and it became apparent, pretty quickly, that we were right in the middle of a massive storm. Of course, everyone knows that the safest place to be in the middle of a storm is out is in the middle of an ocean, on a wooden building on stilts. You could feel the whole place shaking in the winds. The rain was pelting down at such an angle, that it was coming through the gap between the walls and the roof. We shoved all our stuff into the driest part of the room we could find to stop it getting wet. The power had gone out so we were rummaging around with our head torches. Luckily, we had sleeping bags, and used these to protect us from the rain coming in. As I lay in my bed listening to the storm, getting sprayed with water, rocking along with the entire building, I remember thinking ‘Luckily, I’ve done my swimming training’.
In the morning, we wandered out of the room, somewhat delusional and glad the storm had passed. We walked into dining area and after a few mintures (I’m very slow in the morning) we noticed that the roof had blown off. The staff asked as if we still wanted to stay, and as we were impressed by the shear novelty of the situation we said yes and stayed two more nights. With the improved weather, we chilled out on deck chair, with good books and a can of soy bean milk and thought ‘What a life’.
