Kota Kinabalu – saskatoonie.com

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023

Touring Borneo

Our Borneo Expedition

Our tour guide Albert picked us up at 8 am. We had a good sleep that night with a warmer and quieter room. We put on our green Borneo Expedition t-shirts which we had received from our guide Albert the night before.

We were riding in a 1998 series 100 Toyota Land Cruiser, it was in mint condition, totally restored. Our second guide John was in the second vehicle ahead. We headed to a hill overlooking Kota Kinabalu where we took a few shots of the city far below.

We continued our trip into the local wilderness. A four wheel drive vehicle out on these roads is a good idea but we did see a few low riding cars, like a sporty Toyota that made us wonder how they navigate the gravel and potholes. We stopped by a rice paddy that had bird scare clappers throughout the field to keep the birds from eating the rice. The clappers were all connected by a string to a central location where someone was pulling the string when a bird arrived. Manual labour.

We stopped for a sampling of fruit in Kundasang at a local market. We tried Tarap a tropical fruit only found in Borneo, it was excellent. We also sampled the infamous Durian which Gary likes, but Linda not so much. We also tried the Lansat fruit, a small tan coloured ball smaller than a golf ball. Once you peel the Lansat skin there is a sweet juicy fruit inside. We were soon full of fruit so we went for a light lunch. We probable could have skipped lunch but we forced ourselves. We enjoyed the satay including chicken, chicken liver and lamb. As soon as we finished eating we went to the Kundasang War Memorial.

The Kundasang war memorial honours a total of 2428 POWs that did the the death march from Sandakan to Kundasang about 236 km through he Borneo jungle. There were 1787 Australians, 641 British, 1047 died on the march, 1381 died at Sandakan. There was a total of 2434 POWs that started in Sandakan and 2428 that perished at the hands of the Japanese. There was only 6 survivors. The Japanese soldiers didn’t fair really well either because of the lack of food and medical supplies. There were reports of starvation and even cannibalism.

We got to our camp spot at Kisakot Campsite, Kota Belud, before sunset where we had the fortune of watching the sun light the clouds on fire over and around Mount Kinabalu.

We set up camp and prayed for the clouds to clear. As the sun set Mt Kinabalu really came shining through.

Albert and John treated to a gourmet meal of Angus steak, deep fried soft-shell crab, lettuce salad and all the fixings including mushrooms, beer and wine. Of course we were so hungry we didn’t get a single picture of the food in the dark.

John got us this amazing shot of Mount Kinabalu from on the river as the sun was setting.

November 13, 2022November 14, 2022

Mari Mari

Borneo Head Hunters

Today we were up in good time. We have been trying to book a flight back to Kuala Lumpur for the past day and we keep running into issues. We even called the credit card company to see if the issue was with our card which, thankfully, it was not. We tried again this morning before breakfast and still had some issues so we finally left it and headed down for breakfast. It wasn’t as busy today but there was less selection and things were extremely slow getting replenished.

We have a tour to the Mari Mari Cultural Village today. Our guide, Albert Lai, picked us up in front of the hotel at 8:45 am. The Cultural Village is located in the countryside outside Kota Kinabalu about a half hour drive. Along the way we asked about a post office as we had some postcards we wanted to mail. We had bought stamps in Labuan but didn’t find postcards until we were in Kota Kinabalu. There was a post office nearby and we parked while Gary ran into the post office. What was supposed to be a simple errand ended up taking 15 minutes or longer as Gary found out the postage the other place sold us wasn’t sufficient. The gal was forever figuring out what stamps she had and then there was going to be an issue that the stamp might cover some of the writing!! Good grief. He finally left the cards with her after she assured him she’d get the stamps on and mail them. In the end it cost us 7.75 MYR or $2.25 CAD per card to mail them. Obviously no one mails post cards anymore!! We can only hope they arrive. In 2019 while in Penang, Linda spent ages writing up 12 cards and adding the stamps the post office sold us. We left them with the front desk and they promised to mail them – to this day not one card has ever arrived. We now suspect the postage amount may not have been correct!

After the post office fiasco, it was a short drive to the Mari Mari Cultural Village. The Village offers a glimpse into the lives of Sabah’s rich culture with its distinctive houses, costumes and traditional skills of five major ethnic groups in Sabah. It was interesting to see the homes, costumes, food and drink for the Dusun (farmers), the Rungus (traders) the Lundayeh (hunters) and the Bajau (cowboys and sea gypsies) and the famously feared warrior tribe Murut. We heard all about the various tribes, who were the farmers, the feared head hunters, who had stingless honeybees and how they lived and celebrated in their community. I think we all remember hearing about the Borneo head hunters. These are the guys, they are no longer quite so scary! But we were told, back in the head hunting days the groom had to provide a head as a dowry.

We visited each of the 5 homes. At each home they had demonstrations related to each tribe. Some it was making rice wine, distilling the rice wine, cooking a tasty dish in a bamboo stick, making cookies and pancakes from rice flour or sampling the honey. At one home, they demonstrated how they started a fire with some bamboo shavings and their bamboo “starter” sticks. It was amazing how quickly they had a fire going! Following the tour and demonstrations we went to the performance area where they put on a show highlighting their music and traditional dances. It was really interesting and entertaining. At the end we made our way through the forest up a staircase to a dining area where they had a buffet lunch for us. The weather cooperated until we were ready to leave and it started spitting rain.

Check out our video below on Youtube.

Once back to the hotel we finally managed to book our November 15th flight back to Kuala Lumpur. Keep in mind it is November 11 as we write this. With that task finally out of the way we headed out to the Maybank just down the street and across the bridge from our hotel. We had only got part way and it started spitting again! Last time we used a Maybank ATM we were able to get 3,000 MYR in one transaction. This ATM informed us it’s limit was only 1500 MYR. We decided we’d check out another bank’s ATM and see what we could find. There was a Bank of Islam a block away so we walked over there and found their ATM machines don’t support any of our card types. There was also a BSN building in between the Islam Bank and the Maybank. Linda googled BSN and found that it was also a bank. We tried there. The security guard told us you could take out a maximum of 5,000 MYR in one day but it had to be in transactions of only 1500 each and one for 500. We threw caution to the wind and immediately tried for 3,000 MYR on one transaction. The ATM surprised both us and the security guard by spitting out our cash! “Just like Las Vegas” said Gary to the astonished security guard! We managed to get back to the hotel without getting soaked. After we returned it really got down to business with lot of thunder, lightning and pouring rain.

Our recent lesson learned on financing in a foreign country. 3000 MYR cost us exactly $888.70 CAD which means $1CAD buys 3.375 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit) through BMO at an ATM. Believe it or not, with our Home Trust VISA card, $1CAD buys 3.45 MYR. On our 3000 MYR cash we received 66 MYR less than if we had used our credit card for tap purchases through Apple Pay. Approximately $19. CAD. It would be ideal to use our VISA card everywhere but some places only accept cash. The real appeal of using our VISA is that it’s the funding source for our Apple Pay and it is 100% secure. We are not sure what the limit on the Apple Pay tap is but so far we have had no problems up to 150 MYR.

November 10, 2022November 10, 2022

Leaving Labuan

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.