SabahI'm going to plunge in and blog with reckless abandon, as I know the longer I put this off, the less inclined I'd be blogging about it, but I really want to show you guys the pictures and the beautiful experiences that I had in Sabah, so here goes.
Itinerary:
Sat 22 - Reach KK at night (11:50pm), check into backpacker's hostel.
Sun 23 - Gaya market in the morning, depart for White Water Rafting by 9am, return to KK by 3pm, transfer to Weston Wetlands
Mon 24 - Weston Wetlands
Tue 25 - Weston Wetlands, island hopping after getting back.
Wed 26 - Bamboo Festival in the morning, then explore KK in the afternoon and laze around the beach in the evening and watch the sun set.
Thu 27 - Jia Ling leaves at 6am in the morning, I get robbed and depart on the 5:10pm flight back to KL.
Originally this was a solo trip, but Jia Ling decided to join me so we ended up travelling together. Which was a really good decision, since that all the places that we stayed in only had us two as guests! Meaning that if I had gone alone I would probably have been quite bored. Plus, Jia Ling and I have this good cop, bad cop thing going on with us. I'm the smiley one, socializing with the guides and hostel workers and getting extended information (I recently found out that tour guides dig me. Some attract older men, some attract rich men, but my specialty appears to be men within the hospitality industry.); and Jia Ling's the garang one, whose deadly teacher stare (she's a teacher by profession) protects us against scams and overcharging. I think we're a good combination.
Saturday
The flight was without event except for an uncle with a shaved head who cut our queue while waiting to check in (Jia Ling: "I hope he remains bald forever."). It was almost midnight when we touched down in KK, and Nex picked us up and whisked us to Travellers' Light Backpacker's Lodge, where we spent the night. (Small review: staff were very friendly, place was very clean, mattresses were a little thin though. Location is quite central. Overall quite recommendable. RM25 per pax for a dorm bed.)
Nice place to brush your teeth atSunday
Second day morning we woke at 6:30am, brushed up at the open air sink facing a tree, and went to the Gaya weekend market. The market was not that special, though I found out to my great surprise that they sell YuYu Ice here! In KK! And here I thought it was native to the new village in Jinjang... hahaha... YKent this is for you:
Yu Yu Ice StallOne thing that we noticed at the market was that it was quite clean, and every stall had a waste paper basket right beside it so that there's really no excuse to litter. In general KK is much cleaner than West Malaysia. You don't see mounds of rubbish strewn by the side of the road like you do in many roadsides in the West, and I can say that because it was a huge eyesore when Guang Hong, YKent and I took a road trip around Peninsular Malaysia. This, is one of the many things that we should learn from the East.
So at 9am we waited at our hostel and got picked up by the folks at Riverbug who brought us to Kiulu River for our Class 1-2 whitewater rafting. Class 1-2 is for kids and old folks, and truth be told was really easy, more like floating along the river which occasionally had some rapids that looked promising but turned out to be uneventful. But nonetheless I love any water-related activity, so I still enjoyed myself. Being chummy with the guides, I got thrown out of the raft twice (To which I whined plaintively: "Why....??" *glug glug glug*). There's a Class 3 in Gopeng, and Padas River in KK is Class 5. Anyone up for some good clean fun?
By the time we got back to KK, it was about 4pm, and Nex came to bring us around to Weston Wetland. I'll stop here, next post will be on Weston, which was the highlight of our trip really. Going out shopping now. BTW I'm sampling an Indonesian remedy for coughs - lemon juice + thick soy sauce + honey. Surprisingly it does not taste as disgusting as I thought. Will let you know if it works.
"But I’m still having fun and I guess that's the key, I'm a twenty something and I'll keep being me." ~ by good ol' Jamie Cullum.
