See the picture above?
Why would we leave?
We had an amazing 8 days at Palm Beach Resort & Spa. We had some gorgeous days of sunshine and rain later in the day and a day or so of overcast rainy weather. We thoroughly enjoyed the resort, pool, and walks on the beach.
When you get to the bottom of this blog please click the link to see the last blog page you may have missed.
We did connect with Gary’s brother’s namesake and the three of us went for supper Saturday, November 5. He picked us up at the hotel and took us to a small local “authentic” Malaysian restaurant. We had Nasi Kerabu Ayam Berempah. It was blue rice covered with a curry sauce, fried chicken, fried coconut, some cabbage, green hot sauce and half a salted egg. It was pretty tasty, even better if you mixed it all together! The translation of “Nasi Kerabu Ayam Berempah” in English is “Spicy Chicken Kerabu Rice”. What is Kerabu Rice? It’s blue coloured rice. The blue colour of the rice comes from the petals of Clitoria Ternatea flowers, which are used as a natural food colouring in cooking the rice. The same natural colouring is also used in Thailand for rice and blue drinking water.
We learned a few helpful tips about eating at Malaysian roadside restaurants. When you grab your utensils, you place them in a cup of hot water to clean them. They could be dusty so this will make them clean. There is usually a sink in the restaurant area to wash your hands. A box of Kleenex serves as napkins.
David was amazed we ate all the hot sauce as he finds it too much!! We thought it was great. After supper we headed over to the Rusty Blade bar which is part of the Red Onion restaurant located at the golf course. We’d eaten in the Red Onion one night but didn’t realize there was a bar down the side of the building or along the edge of the pool. We enjoyed a few beer and good conversation! It poured rain most of the evening but it didn’t dampen our spirits and we had a great time. Thankfully by the time we headed home it had pretty much quit raining and made driving much easier.
Mr. T.K. Chai, the owner/manager of the resort sat and visited with us several mornings while we had breakfast.
It is always interesting to chat with some of the locals and learn more about their country and culture. One of our last days there we were chatting about the fruit that is available and we mentioned how we love the red fleshed dragonfruit. Turns out his brother grows it and he swears it is the best variety (Miri variety named after the town of Miri in Sarawak Malaysia just south of Brunei). He made a quick phone call and had his brother drop off 3 beautiful dragonfruit for us to enjoy.
Tuesday, Nov. 8 we packed up and caught the shuttle to the airport. Our flight to Kota Kinabalu was at 1:30 with boarding supposedly at 12:30. We got the shuttle to the airport at 10:45 and arrived at the airport. After figuring out where the check in counters were we drug our luggage over and put them thru the scanner only to have the lady tell us we couldn’t check in until after 11:40. She did mark our bags as security scanned so we didn’t have to do that part again. At 11:40 she called over to us where we were sitting waiting and said we could go thru. We got our boarding passes and then headed upstairs to the next security checkpoint and gates – only to be told they weren’t open until 12:30!! So we finally found an elevator and ended up down at a McDonalds and had some fries and a coffee. We finally got on the plane and left promptly at 1:30. It was a 35 minute flight. As soon as the seat belt light went off the 2 flight crew went into overdrive and served snacks and a drinks. Only a few minutes later they picked up all the garbage. Soon after they were seated for landing!! Better service than we get on any short haul flight at home. This flight cost us $56 CAD each for a one way fare.
We arrived at the Ming Garden hotel in Kota Kinabalu about 2:30 pm and got checked in. Our room is ok, downside is it overlooks a major freeway and is much nosier than our room in Labuan. It’s back to big city life and all the noise that comes with it. We unpacked and then caught a Grab to the El Centro Restaurant, a small Mexican restaurant. Tonight’s meal was a shared order of chicken fajitas and 2 buckets of beer (4 cans per bucket). The beer that we didn’t drink, we put in our backpack and brought them back to the hotel. Luckily there was a 7-11 right across the street from the restaurant so we picked up some large bottles of water, snacks and beer to take back to the hotel to have on hand. Sadly the bed isn’t that great as we found out when we got ready for bed. Gary felt like he had a spring stabbing him all night so he didn’t have that great a sleep. When we headed down for our breakfast this morning we asked for a different room – one with a better bed and not facing the busy street! They will move us but we have to wait for the guest to check out and the room to be made up. The breakfast buffet was ok but it is far busier. The fruit was totally gone when we got there although before we were done they finally brought out fresh watermelon and pineapple. It was some of the sweetest pineapple we’ve had so far. It’s a way different vibe here though, it is a large indoor hotel dining room compared to The Palm Beach where we sat on the outdoor patio looking at the ocean and greenery while eating! It may not be easy but we’ll adjust!
We have been in touch with a tour guide (friend of David) regarding some tour options. Gary has also been in touch with a dive centre that was recommended to see what options are available for him to dive.
We got our new room and it overlooks the river. The only traffic is motor boats. The bed seems better.
If you got to this point in our blog, thanks for reading! For some reason we got very low views recorded on the last blog post, if you missed it Please -> Click Here There is a video of breakfast buffet at the Palm Beach Resort and Spa.