Labuan Malaysia – saskatoonie.com

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.

November 3, 2022November 9, 2022

Peace at last

Breakfast at Palm Beach Resort

The Palm Beach Resort and Spa has been a good choice for us. The inclusive breakfast include in the room rate of $53 CAD per night price is perfect. The food here has been delicious. The meals that we have bought here have been super affordable. In fact, we likely could not make our own meals at home for any less. The added bonus is the staff are fantastic here. We are one of a few if not the only ones staying for more than one night. Most of the hotel business seems to be Malaysians on the weekend. We have seen a few business meetings, luncheons, and retreats here, but for the most part we have this place to ourselves. It’s great for us but not for the business of the hotel.

We were sitting at breakfast today and a man came over and asked us where we were from. Turns out he is the Manager of the Palm Beach as well as the Tiara Labuan Hotel and the Lazenda hotel in Labuan. We had a great conversation with him. He asked us for feedback and we asked him about things we wanted to know. He even mentioned that he saw us at the Tiara when we stayed there. It’s funny how we stick out here like a sore thumb. We don’t really feel like that but it seems to be. We had an interesting conversation with the grab driver one day, brown people want to be white and white people want a tan. He said many people even use skin bleaching lotions to look whiter. How sad is that, no one is happy with what they have!

After breakfast we spent a couple of hours at the pool. We snagged the only shady spot there otherwise it would have been unbearable. Since we were the only people at the pool, we had our choice of lounge chairs and social distancing. We had sunny blue skies today after the previous day of clouds and monsoon rain two days ago.

We got out of the mid day sun and spent some time in our room with a beer and a blog. Gary likes to watch a few favourite YouTube videos while Linda is looking at sewing things online.

The (non breakfast) meals we have eaten in the hotel have been really delicious at a price that is really economical. The options are the same for lunch or supper. Linda had a grilled cheese sandwich and it was good, the downside is that it was smothered in honey. Look at the plate, you can see the puddle.

Gary ordered fish and chips, we each had hot lemon tea for 38.60 MYR about $11.50 CAD. Another meal we ordered 2 Chicken Satay (chicken skewers), one plate of fries to share and 1 tiger beer each for 51.30 MYR about $14.80 CAD. Finally another meal Linda chose Sesame Honey Chicken, Gary had Curry BBQ Chicken with Rice, we each had a Tiger beer for a total of 46.40 MYR about $13.40 CAD.

October 31, 2022October 31, 2022

World War 2

Labuan War Cemetery

Today we called Gary’s mom on our Skype account. We had trouble getting Skype to work because Microsoft didn’t think we should be in Malaysia. Finally after several attempts to authenticate the Skype app on Linda’s phone we got it going. In the end we used our VPN. We ended up being quite a bit later for breakfast. No big deal but the buffet food was already cooling down.

After a huge amount of food and several coffee we headed by foot to the Labuan war cemetery. Over 3,908 soldiers from WW2 are buried in this commonwealth war cemetery. It gives you an idea how many people died in WW2 and since in other needless wars. This is actually the largest war memorial in Malaysia

The cemetery was immaculately kept as can be seen in picture at the top of this page. The size of the place is a bit overwhelming and the young age of the soldiers is heartbreaking. The nationalities of the soldiers are mostly Australian and British with some from New Zealand and India’s Signal Corp., as well as locals who fell while fighting to liberate Borneo. They were killed during the Japanese invasion of Borneo or died as prisoners of war. Many of the POW’s buried here died in the “Death March” a distance of 240 km from Sandakan to Ranau during the months of January to April 1945. You know how badly the Japanese treated allied soldiers. There were over 2,600 POW on the island and only 6 survived because they managed to escape and were hidden by some of the locals.

At the cemetery a huge cross was built and named the “Cross of Sacrifice” as a symbol of their bravery and sacrifice. A memorial service is held on Remembrance Day every year on the first Sunday of November to pay respects to the fallen heroes of WWII. Many war veterans, families of war victims from Australia and other Commonwealth countries attend the service each year.

We ordered a Grab to take us to the Labuan Bird Park. Entrance to the park was only 5 MYR each, about $1.50 CAD. Sadly the place has seen better days, likely pre-covid it would have been much better. Some of the Parrots, Cockatoos and Sun Conures (Sun Parakeet) are kept is less than ideal conditions. The cages are bare of trees or natural perches and small. The rest of the park is inside several connected huge domed net buildings. They have natural trees and a nice environment inside the domed buildings. We saw Peacocks and a Golden Crested Crane which was slightly aggressive but stunning to look at.

From the bird park it was a short walk to the Labuan Chimney. Built in the early 1900’s, this historical landmark is a remnant of Labuan’s coal mining era. The chimney measures over 32m (106 feet) in height and is made from over 23,000 pieces of unplastered red bricks imported from Britain. The chimney tower was originally thought to be a ventilation shaft for brick or iron smelting facilities or nearby underground coal mines. However, recent excavations revealed no tunnel underneath and no traces of smoke or burning to suggest its use as a chimney as popularly believed, making the tower’s existence and purpose a puzzle.

It took over half an hour to finally get a Grab to pick us up from the Chimney- it seemed much longer than that as we were in the middle of no where! We had our hopes up once that we had a ride and then the driver cancelled. Needless to say we were very thankful when we finally got a ride back to the hotel. We were hot and tired! We had a beer to cool down and then went down to the pool for a couple of hours.

Today was one of the best weather days we’ve had so far in the trip. It was sunny and hot all day. After swimming we headed back up to the room to change and it clouded over and rained briefly. By the time we were ready to head out it had cleared. For supper we went to JJ Nazar Restaurant in town. The food was amazing and we really enjoyed our meal. We had chicken malai tikka, dal makhani, channa masala, 2 garlic naan and 2 mango lassi. Total cost for our meal was 77.30 MYR or $22.30 CAD. Thankfully a Grab ride was just around the corner so we didn’t have long to wait to get back to the hotel.

We had previously tried some of these street food crepes. They are good for a light lunch coupled with ice cold lemonade with herbs or calamansi. Both drinks were good but too sweet which is typical of. It seems Malaysians like sweets!