Labuan aka Pulau Maida Ep 2

Since this was the free and easy, leisure lepak trip, there was (supposed) no itinerary, basically we didn't know what to do until the very last minute... Though, friend developed a detailed one, but did we ever follow except for the flight schedule?? Haha! That's my style and somehow it turned out to be joyful and fun! We have been planning in work and life all the times, c'mmon, leave some space for some unexpected and surprises...

So the day 1 in Labuan was nothing but an "round-the-island introductory tour" by my friend for the first-time visitor like me. We started somewhere called i Center or Tourist Information Center. I had been to such i Center once in West Malaysia, what I got out of the door was further confusion from the staff. You'd know, the attitude towards work and behavior of majority of the government servant we have in this BullehLand. But, there's always exception, Labuan's i Center was really helpful and tourist oriented: we were greeted with smiles; we were given accurate guidance and direction for what we inquired; we were provided with all much needed brochures and travel guidebooks (left); we were even welcomed with gifts, a stack of nice postcards (middle and right), though it was dated Visit Malaysia Year 2007!

To my personal belief, East Malaysia is always much better than West Malaysia, in term of muhibbah, people, culture and most important, less or no corruption. Sad to say that but I am from West Coast.

We started to "round" the island from the Museum since it was just opposite the i Center. Nay, I am not a tour guide plus this ain't my interest, so I am not gonna story-telling the history, but I think I should know why Labuan was also named Pulau Maida. You can read about it here, in Malay, English, Mandarin and Japanese! One question I had when I found the Mandarin version, could I find Mandarin explanation at tourist spots in West Coast? Do tell me if you found one.

I spent 15 minutes in the museum and commercial time before I left...

I printed my blog site on the guest book before left for dive center. Hehe...

Need not say more, enjoy the underwater photos I took...

As usual, I saw nemo...

I saw some unknown fishes...

I saw lobsters!!

I saw leopard eels!!

Wow!! Nice underwater huh? :) So divers, regret not to join me for the trip??

Did I say dive center??!! Opps! My bad, it's typo error. I took these underwater photos from aquariums in Labuan Marine Museum in Labuan International Sea Sports Complex, not directly from underwater in Labuan. LoL. :P

Although Labuan has only few main streets that you could round the island one lap from north to south, east to west, top to down, left to right and head to tail in less than a total of an hour time, there are not only 2 tourist spots that I covered above, but several tourist spots such as WWII Memorial Park should be quite interesting for first time tourist. Such visit is just not for me, and I was eagerly wanted to go to the beach for a lazy rest and day dreaming session. So pay a visit to the i Center located at Jalan Dewan to get more info from the helpful staff if you ever visit Labuan.

p/s: click thumbnail to view the large photo.