Ravin' all the way to KK
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2008
1
22
31
Trip End
Jun 05, 2008
Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah,
Malaysia
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Thankfully the lads in Scuba Junkies (who'd proved pretty useless at organising Discover Scuba dives) came up trumps with a cash advance. So we had the money, but just couldn't find a bus outta town. Everyone is on the make over here, so people constantly come over to you offering "advice". We just didn't trust any of these helpful souls. But we had no other choice. Eventually we bought tickets that would be delivered to the dive centre we were near. We gave him the money and fully expected never to see it again, or never even to see civilisation again.
But he was one of the good ones, and the following morning, at an ungodly hour, we got on our comfy bus (after much confusion and pointing) and sat back to relax for the 10 hour ride to KK on the far side of Sabah.
Thankfully, once we got north of Sandikan (see previous blog) the depressing palm plantations began to disappear and were replaced by proper jungle and fine mountainous scenery. At least I think that's what we saw through the fogged window of our freezing bus. In these parts of the world, it seems to be sign of a classy and expensive bus company service to have the air con slapped on full blast at about -5.
Good name for a restaurant
The colder, the more prestigeous the company. Clearly we were on the mother of all classy buses cos it was baltic. Lisa, at least, had the sense to bring a top on board and a hat but was still likely to lose a finger two. My pulse was fading when I remembered that I'd inexplicably packed a huge mozzie net in my onboard bag. I may have looked like some sort of spastic mummy but at least I was passably warm.It may have been these freezing temperatures that slowed our brains, because for some reason we decided to jump the bus a good few hours short of our destination and take a look around the small town of Ranau. We didn't really need to be in KK until tomorrow and this place was at the foot of Mount Kinabalu, the soaring volcano of Sabah, and not far from some hotsprings.
The first warning signs came when we met a brit going the other way who had just got to Ranau too, took a look around and decided that a further 14 hours on a bus was preferrable to staying in this one horse town. He was fairly right. We took a look around and there was nothing there to delay anyone. It wasn't a bad town. Just a nothing town. Plus Mount Kinabalu was clouded over pretty ominously and we'd heard stories that for the last few days, folks trying to hike it were turned back due to horrific weather conditions. A quick about turn and we decided that if we could get a decent taxi price (no more buses till the next day) to KK, a good 2 and a half hours away, and we'd jump at it.
Thank God for David Hong.
Mt Kinabalu - it's under there somewhere
The extremely friendly taximan gave us a good price and we hoped in. He was good fun, telling us about how often he'd climbed Kinabalu recently (he must have been 70), laughing at my bad jokes and, rather surprisingly, blaring Ministry of Sound heavy dance music before throwing on some awful Cha Cha Cha keyboard music at full volume. Very random.A few hours and a heavy thunderstorm later we hit KK. A few hours more and many hotels later we still had no accomodation. We must have tried everywhere in town, all the upmarket places were full (actually, we think one of them might not be, but neither of us had shaved and we smelled pretty bad, so he just ushered us out the front door) and everywhere else was grim beyond belief. KK needs a serious hotel upgrade. Eventually we opted for the Full Hua and just closed our eyes. See no grime, feel no grime.
KK is a fairly blah town too. Infact, all the towns we've been in in Sabah have been blah. The people, with the exception of Mr. Hong the Techno Fiend, our exceptionally gay and friendly hotel man in Sandikan and the guides at Uncle Tan's, have been fairly blah too. If there wasn't so much wonderfull wildlife you really wouldn't bother with the place at all. So we killed time in an internet cafe and did a little shopping in a blah shopping mall. Blah.
Right, next stop Bali - or is that Blah-li?
