Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

  Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Thursday, October 2, 2008

We got to Kota Kinabalu (KK) for our second stint late on Monday evening. We had reserved accommodation for the Tuesday and Wednesday night but had no way of contacting the guesthouse from the Jungle Safari to tell them we'd be a day early. As it was the eve of the Hari Raya celebrations (the muslim celebrations that mark the end of Ramadan and the beginning of three days feasting) we were not sure if we'd get a room. It would be like turning up to a hotel in Ireland at 10pm on Christmas Eve. Anyway, our luck was in and they had one room left, unfortunately for us it was a family room for four people so we had to pay a bit over the odds but we didn't care, we were wrecked from the jungle and just wanted a nice bed and a hot shower.
The next morning we had what we now call "practical days". First we changed rooms to a double room, did a bit of shopping for bits and pieces, toiletries, books etc. I got two watches fixed for RM7 (1.40 Euro) and a haircut too. We did three updates for the blog, uploaded photos, phoned our parents, got laundry done, replied to emails - get the picture?

1-Tunku Abdul Rahmen National Park

2-Loads of Fish

The next day we got up early feeling fully refreshed and made our way to the Jesselton Jetty where we took a speedboat to Manukan Island, one of the islands that makes up the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park. We had a lovely day, sitting on the beach, snorkeling and swimming and just chilling out reading our books. It was such a difference from the hectic jungle safari! We saw loads of fish, the amount of them was ridiculous. Loads of asian tourists were doing this thing where they get a piece of bread, break it into pieces, stick the pieces between their toes, stick their toes into the water and literally hundreds of fish come and nibble away at your toes!!!
We checked out of the hotel the next morning and went out to a new shopping mall called 1Borneo for the afternoon. It will be a magnificent shopping centre when its finished but only about a third of the shops were open, the rest are coming soon, or opening next month or something. One thing I have to mention that a trip to the toilet in the shopping centre reminded me to put on the blog - western style toilets are relatively new to Malaysia and since I've been in the country I've noticed footprints from peoples shoes on all the toilet seats in shopping centres, restaurants etc. The Malaysian's, it seems, don't get the concept of sitting on the toilet, they still prefer to stand on the toilet bowl and squat!!!!
So flying to Indonesia tonight, not too disappointed to be leaving Malaysia, there were some really good memories here, for me, snorkeling in the Perhentians, trekking in Tamul Negara, seeing Kuala Lumpur (especially the Petronas Towers), climbing Mt Kinabalu, seeing Orang Utans in Sepilok and seeing so much wildlife on the jungle safari. I know Lydia would agree with everything on the above list and add diving in Sipidan to it. We'll miss the friendliness of the people too. I'd go so far as to say they were even friendlier than the Laos people, which we didn't think was possible. There were downsides to Malaysia too however, by far the biggest disappointment was the food, always fatty, little or no vegetables, grizzly meat - not good at all. Another downside was the cost of things, it was easily the most expensive country we've been to so far, mainly because independent travel is not catered for. You've to book tours in advance to get to the majority of places and they're expensive.