With a population of ~300,000, Kota Kinabalu (or KK as it is more commonly known) is very much a modern Asian city, with shopping malls, big hotels and office blocks. There is a bustling Waterfront Esplanade with Western-style pubs and fine restaurants, with prices to match. KK is backed by Mount Kinabalu, all 4,000m of it, and this is a popular climb for tourists (not me!). The mountain is set in Kota Kinabalu National Park.
Monday 28 Feb
My 3.20pm Malaysian Airlines flight from Mulu to KK arrived at KK at ~5.30pm, via a 50 minute stopover at Miri. I then got a shared taxi with Richard and Sunisa, a couple I had met in Mulu, to my hotel the Cititel Express. This was a modern high rise 3 star hotel and a bit of luxury compared to what I had been used to so far in Borneo. Although slightly cramped, my room was en-suite, had a/c, free WiFi and an LCD TV, and was pretty clean, all for the reasonable rate of RM88 (~£18) a night (if pre-booked). I had an evening meal with Richard and Sunisa, who also decided to stay at the hotel, and after my two days of constant beef rendang at Mulu (very pleasant though!), we decided to go to Pizza Hut in the CentrePoint mall down the road where I pigged out on a 13" mega-laden "Supreme" pizza, ~RM37 with a drink.
Tuesday 1 Mar
There weren't a whole load of sights I was busting a gut to see in KK proper (there was the odd museum and some mosques, but nothing too interesting), so I decided to pay a visit to the KK Wetland Centre, an area of preserved mangrove swampland on the outskirts of the city, to do some birdwatching. However, shortly after I ventured out in the morning, it started chucking it down with rain, and the same thing happened after lunch. Eventually, it stopped raining an hour or so later and I caught a taxi to the Centre for a few hours birdwatching till it closed at 6pm (needless to say, it rained again for an hour or so while I was there). The area is traversed by a wooden boardwalk and also has a bird hide and tower which affords a view high over the whole area. It was ok, nothing spectacular, I saw about 10-15 species of bird, although getting decent photos of them was very difficult most of the time. There were also small mudskippers, and a monitor lizard which I wasn't expecting so it dashed off into the water when I startled it before I could even turn my camera on. The Centre is located about 10-15 minutes outside the centre of KK by taxi, I'm not sure it would be too pleasant walking it in the heat and humidity.
I had an evening meal at a seafront restaurant, lemon chicken which wasn't too great, and a couple of bottles of Heineken which added up to RM30.
Wednesday 2 Mar
I found out that breakfast wasn't included in my room rate when they asked me to pay for it this morning - RM17.50 for a self-service buffet so not too bad. At least I managed to blag a free one yesterday morning.
Today, I decided to pay a visit to KK National Park to walk some forest trails and check out if it was any good. Management of the NP had been contracted out to a private company and I'd read some not very good reports on how they were running the park, particularly with regards to arranging accommodation during the climb of Mt Kinabalu. Also, an overnight dorm bed with shared facilities in the NP cost a ludicrous RM160, which is double what I was paying for my single hotel room in KK, so there was no way I was going to do an overnight stay. Also, the NP was about 90km outside KK and there was no public transport to it. Visitors either came in private organised tour buses (very expensive), taxi (also very expensive), or by public minivan which plied the route KK-Ranau and would stop at the NP on request. I decided on the latter and headed off to the bus station in the morning. Minivans would only depart the bus station when full; fortunately, I was the one they were waiting for and the minivan duly left when I got on. It was RM20 for the trip. During the trip, I kept on hearing a bird call, like a seagull, and thought it was coming from outside the van from time to time. However, a bit later, the local woman on the end of my row opened a rucksack a little bit and there appeared to be a bird in it and that was where the noise was coming from! It was maybe a bird of prey but I couldn't be sure as there wasn't enough of a gap to see in the bag - the bird seemed to be in a lot of distress and I had to restrain myself from grabbing the bag and releasing the bird out of the van! Also, her daughter who was sitting between me and her spent most of the trip throwing up in a black bin bag. I was pretty glad when I got off the van 2 hours later at the NP because the bag was getting fuller by the minute. The scenery on the way was pretty spectacular though, the journey took you through mountains blanketed by rainforest and enveloped in low-lying mist.
Compared to Mulu NP where I had just come from, the organisation of KK NP was pretty poor. I had to pay RM15 park entry fee at a roadside booth, then walked around a bit trying (unsuccessfully) to find a Park HQ. I stopped at an accommodation booking office where they happened to have a spare map of the walking trials, and the transport office where I got some advice of which trails would be most rewarding. The park really needed a big HQ at the entrance. I did the Kiau View Trail, which was pretty much constant uphill at the start. It had been raining a lot recently and the trail was very muddy and slippy, and also it was incredibly humid - I was pretty much drenched with sweat within minutes. There wasn't a lot of wildlife to be seen, I hardly even spotted an insect. It was so disappointing that halfway along, there was a fork to the Pandanus Trail which branched off to the main road through the park and a restaurant so off I headed. After my beef rendang delights of Mulu NP, they had the same dish at the restaurant but unfortunately, even that was a poor second to the equivalent at Mulu.
There was a Mountain Garden at the NP which contained examples of most of the flora to be found in the NP so I made a beeline for that, although it took me a good while to find the new entrance through the maze of muddy, poorly-signed trails in the area. It was RM5, mildly interesting, and I actually saw more birds there and the eventual walk back to Park HQ than I did on the walking trails through the forest, maybe due to the forest being so dense that it was hard to see deeply into it.
I decided to head back to KK. There were 2 options for getting back and they were much more difficult than getting there. Catch a public minivan heading in the reverse direction to which I had arrived (RM20, but the timing would be erratic and it might be full when passing) or a taxi for RM150! I decided I'd try and haggle for a taxi, put RM80 in my wallet, and blagged a taxi back to KK for that amount saying I only had RM80 on me and then showing them the cash in my wallet. A good bit of bargaining and a fair price for the taxi driver I thought - it was either take me back to KK for RM80 or sit on his arse earning nothing. Overall, I thought KK NP was very disappointing, especially after reading the gushing reviews on internet sites such as Trip Advisor - the administration was poor, public transport options were poor, and the walking trail was a letdown in terms of what I saw (although others might enjoy the trails for the walking experience alone). Still, you only find these things out by experiencing them yourself.
In the evening, I had arranged to meet up with another couple (Ian and Rachel) who I had met in Mulu and would be arriving in KK this evening. we went for a walk around the Night Market by the waterfront. This was stated in my Lonely Planet to be one of the best markets in the whole of SE Asia. I thought it was great - a colourful, frenetic Asian market, with stalls selling an amazing array of fruit and vegetables (many of which I'd never seen before), raw meat and fish, and food stalls serving freshly cooked meat and fish. I had a meal of chicken noodles and a coke for only RM5, then had a chicken skewer for RM1 (the chicken buttocks skewer was not very tempting), and some banana fritters (8 for RM1). We then headed to one of the waterfront bars where I noticed they sold Kilkenny in pints! I hadn't had one of those for over 15 years since when I was living in Kent - it was a pricey RM20 for a pint but I just had to have one, it went down a treat.
Thursday 3 Mar
Today, I would be leaving KK for a flight to Sandakan with AirAsia. I had a couple of McDonald sausage and egg McMuffins to tide me over till the evening since I read that KK Airport didn't have much in the way of decent food, got a taxi to the airport and my 1.15pm flight only left 45 minutes late which was pretty good for AirAsia!
Overall, I found KK to be a big letdown and I definitely wouldn't be going back there in the future. I don't think I saw the sun while I was there either which didn't help, especially since my Lonely Planet said that, in their opinion, KK had the most regular and spectacular sunsets of any city in the world! I've seen some pretty amazing sunsets during my travels over the past couple of years so that is quite some boast!
Expenses (excluding food and shopping): RM643 (~£130) £1=RM5
Flight from Mulu to KK with Malaysia Airways RM144
Taxi from KK Airport to hotel RM10 (shared between 3 of us, cost RM30)
Accommodation: 3 nights Cititel Express (single room, en-suite, a/c, RM88/night) RM264
KK Wetlands Centre RM50: RM10 entry, RM20 x 2 taxi there and back
KK NP. Entry RM15, public minivan there RM20, taxi back RM80
Internet at hotel RM30 (3 days @ RM10 for 24 hours use)
Taxi from hotel to KK Airport RM30
Links:
http://www.cititelexpress.com/KK/index.html
http://www.sabahtourism.com/en/destination/124-kinabalu-park/
KK Wetland Centre, NP and the Night Market
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
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2025-02-12