By Callum Taylor
Since leaving home in Australia a bit over a month ago, Marta and I had generally tried to avoid urban destinations. The only real cities we had passed through were Surabaya and Makassar in Indonesia, and we would rather bathe in durian juice than visit them again. Our first week in Malaysia had seen us stay in a couple of small cities, but we had still tried to stick to the natural attractions. Kota Kinabalu (KK) would be the first city to break this trend.
We woke up with another long bus ride on our minds. The trip to KK was scheduled to take roughly 7 hours, so we aimed to make it for the 11am service. After stocking up on oreos, twisties, and other foods essential for a balanced diet, we headed off to the bus station.
Not just roast chicken, roast chicken *dance*. Photo: Callum Taylor
When we arrived we were unfortunately made to wait an extra hour as the 11am bus was full. The dining options at the station ranged from convenience store to food poisoning express, so we opted to avoid uncontrollably emptying our bowels on the bus and waited out the hour with a bottle of coke.
Eventually it was time to leave and we discovered that we had just squeezed on with the last two tickets. This meant though we were on the back seat right next to the onboard toilet. Hopefully nobody else on the bus ate at the station before leaving.
Kota Kinabalu
For the next 7 hours it rained heavily on and off outside so there wasn’t much in the way of scenery to see from the bus. Marta slept anyway, except for when she woke up and needed to be fed. We arrived just as the sun had gone down and were greeted unsurprisingly with endless offers for taxis and places to stay. After weaving our way through the crowd we ordered a Grab and 20 minutes later we were at our accommodation.
Strangely enough, our room for our stay in KK was located inside a seemingly half empty shopping mall. It was an AirBnB room where I think the owner, who we never met, was also the owner of one of the stores in the mall. After some initial problems checking in, we were shown to our room which turned out to be very nice considering the dirt cheap price we paid. A walk outside for dinner followed before we called it a night.
The neighbourhood. Photo: Marta Pascual Juanola
For most people who have heard of or been to Kota Kinabalu, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is the nearby Kinabalu Park and Mt Kinabalu. We passed through this area on the way from Sandakan, but poor weather meant we couldn’t see much of it. The 2-3 day hike up the mountain is meant to be quite spectacular and we would have loved to have done it. To our shock though, due to its popularity you need to reserve a day to hike nearly six months in advance. It is also super expensive, so not on this trip and not in the foreseeable future for Marta and I.
With no real plans for our time in KK we started the next day by simply walking through the city. To be honest, in the centre there were not really any amazingly unique sights or attractions. What it did have though, was cleanliness and a western-ish kind of vibe. For the first time since leaving home it felt like a city that would not be so out of place in developed countries.
After about an hour of walking and 59 minutes of Marta saying she was hungry for breakfast, we finally found a place which served breakfast that wasn’t McDonalds. One thing you do realise in these countries is that if your hotel doesn’t serve breakfast, don’t expect to find smashed avocado or a $20 deconstructed piece of toast easily. We filled up on bread rolls and kept on walking.
Thank god there was some shade. Photo: Marta Pascual Juanola
Around an hour later in what felt like 60°C and 200% humidity, we arrived at the KK city mosque. Surrounded by its own personal moat and glowing white and blue in colour, it was an impressive building. Tourists were taking selfies from every angle, although it was mainly a lot of Chinese girls forcing their boyfriends to realise their duty of taking instaworthy photos. Fortunately for me Marta gets angry when I’m within 10 metres of her frame, so I just let her do her own thing.
The Kota Kinabalu City Mosque. Photo: Marta Pascual Juanola
We continued walking and realised there was nothing of interest up ahead. By now I think third degree sunburn was kicking in as well so we backtracked until we found a small cafe to stop for lunch. Two serves of fried rice later and we were too full to move so we took a Grab back to our room.
For a few hours we enjoyed the comforts of air conditioning and wifi. Eventually though we realised aloe vera and sunscreen were necessary so we walked to a nearby high end shopping mall in search of a pharmacy. As we walked in there was a live Filipino bamboo dancing show which was actually very impressive. As we walked out we were a live oily lobster show as we tried to soothe our sunburn pain with aloe vera gel.
Nearly as good as shows at Mandurah Forum. Photo: Marta Pascual Juanola
The shopping mall was located half way from our room to the KK water village, so we decided to continue walking. This village was basically a collection of shabby wood and tin buildings resting upon stilts over water where hundreds of people live. Wooden walkways connect the houses which we used to walk through the community. I have no idea how they managed to make this way of life work, but well done to these people.
The sun was now setting so we decided to walk back to our room. Along the way we came across a coconut milkshake place which I think both of us can say was an iconic moment in our trip. Forget coffee, forget beer, forget banana nesquik, this was the number one drink of our lives. Just a simple coconut milkshake with small pieces of coconut jelly for only $3 made for one life-changing beverage.
With our skin on fire and our legs turned to jelly after walking 394km during the day we both collapsed straight onto bed. There were two new guests in the room next to ours who thought talking until 3am was a good idea. Marta slept through it but I couldn’t find a way to ignore it. Definitely not a peaceful sleep that’s for sure.
Waking up with the knowledge that breakfast wasn’t easy to find meant one thing, McDonalds was the way forward. Luckily for us it was only five minutes away by foot, so within 15 minutes we had a hotcake and mcmuffin feast sitting in front of us. I don’t know how we would survive this trip without fast food.
The plan for today was a visit to the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park less than 30 minutes away by boat. The park consisted of multiple islands and was a huge tourist hit for KK. We planned to visit Sapi island, one of the bigger islands. The ferry terminal was about 2km away so we decided to walk and soon enough we were out on the water.
Typical tropical island paradise. Photo: Callum Taylor
Unfortunately, along the way to Sapi the water was flooded with rubbish. Malaysian seas were clearly not too different to those in Indonesia. When we arrived to the island it was easy to see where it all came from as well. The place was saturated with tourists. You were lucky to find a grain of sand on the beach to yourself. We decided to escape the masses of people by doing a lap of the island through the jungle.
Everyone here only came for the beach so beyond the sand we had it all to ourselves. A few giant monitor lizards popped out every now and then along with surprise spider webs. It was actually a nice walk ignoring the humidity.
Dying. Photo: Marta Pascual Juanola
A couple of hours on the crowded beach followed. The underwater scenery was pretty non-existent but the water was warm. Most people there didn’t seem to have any swimming ability so once we were beyond the shallows it was just us and a few people learning how to dive.
Eventually though there was only so much lifeless water to look at and so many people to deal with that we decided to head back to the city. We waited at the jetty to be picked up for nearly an hour with no news. It seemed as if our company had forgotten us. A Malaysian man named Safwan travelling with his mother seemed to have the same problem as us, so it can’t have been a language barrier issue. Fortunately Safwan was able to talk to a boat which had docked and we were allowed onboard to head back to KK.
Our new friend Safwan. Photo: Safwan
On the way back we got to know Safwan. He was a dentist from Kuala Lumpur and he spoke very good English. We exchanged numbers and he offered to meet up with us when we made it to Kuala Lumpur later in the trip.
Upon our arrival back to the mainland we headed straight back to our accommodation to lay down and possibly nap for 3 days. We probably wouldn’t have moved for the rest of the day but the thought of another coco shake dragged us out of bed. While we were at it, we thought we may as well find some dinner, and for the first time since leaving Australia we found good pizza.
Could not have been happier to have this for dinner. Photo: Marta Pascual Juanola
God bless the pizza franchise named Pezzo. The pizza turned out to be so filling that even one shared between Marta and I left us struggling to move. The walk home was only a few hundred metres but it felt like a marathon. Hopefully for us sleeping would burn off a few calories overnight.
For the next few days Marta found some journalistic work which I won’t go into now as she will release it in due time. What it meant though is that I slobbed around eating burgers and baked goods while Marta was out in the field doing her thing. Who was having a better time? I’ll let you judge.
A restaurant in KK warning me about all the bad food I was eating.
In the end our stay in KK extended from three nights to six. It became our longest stop in one place thus far, and although there really wasn’t much to see and do, just being in a city with first world facilities was a welcome respite from the past month. It turns out there is actually a once-weekly direct flight to KK from Perth, so this was also the first place we could have flown home directly from if we needed. Knowing this, maybe one day we will return. For now though, our immediate plans were to enter our third country, Brunei.
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