Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo, Malaysia

16th May – 19th May 2018

Once the plane arrived in Singapore, we seemed to be boarding within the next twenty minutes, which was about thirty-five minutes before taking off. We had been seated across the aisle from each other, again, despite the fact that most of the plane was empty!

Just before we set off, as the air hostess passed us, I asked if we were able to move seats. Luckily she said yes, so we got a row to ourselves, making it much more comfortable. During the flight, I did more blog work, while Joe sorted out some photos and had a little nap.

When we landed in Kota Kinabalu, we were early, but the pilot didn’t quite line the plane up with the bridge, so we took a while to get off. Once we were off, it didn’t take long to get through security, or to collect our bags, so we were through, waiting for a taxi in no time. Once my bag came through, I did a thorough check of patches, and even though my fragile sticker was no longer on the bag, the remaining patches were all still in place! We got our taxi from departures rather than arrivals as it works out cheaper.

Once the taxi arrived, it was only a short drive to the hostel. Finding the hostel was a struggle though, as it was the third floor of a row of shops. The taxi driver was nice enough to not just abandon us though, he kept driving round in circles until we spotted it.

After Joe had paid the driver, we went to the door of the hostel but it was locked. I rang the doorbell and nothing happened, so I rang it again a few more times. What I didn’t realise, was that the woman was coming down the stairs to let us in, and it wasn’t a buzzer system, I must have sounded so impatient!

After carrying our bags upstairs, we checked in, although we couldn’t pay on card, so we had to wait to pay, until we had the chance to get cash out. We sat in the communal area, as our room was full, and did some research of what to do in KK. As part of the research, we booked day flights up to Sandaken for the Friday, to see some orangutan.

We got tired pretty quickly, but as we were carried away with the planning and organising, it was about 11.30 before we went in to bed.

The next morning we woke up around 8ish. We wanted to make the most of our day in KK city, as it seemed like there were a few things to see, so we got up and got ready. As breakfast was included in the hostel, we got some cereal, before we made a quick day plan.

As we had to go and buy more sun cream, as security took our last one, we didn’t actually end up setting off until nearly 11 o’clock. We wanted to explore the city and see what it had to offer, but we soon realised that that wasn’t a lot.

Our first stop, was to see the Atkinson Clock Tower, which is one of the oldest buildings in Kota Kinabalu. It was a nice looking clock tower, but it wasn’t the original design, as that supposedly had two clock faces, while this one only had one. The tower was built to commemorate the city’s first district officer, Francis Gorge Atkinson, who died at the age of 28 to ‘Borneo Fever’ (malaria).

From the clock tower, we made our way to the Signal Hill Observatory, which was used during the war. The views overlooked the city, but they weren’t anything special. I imagine it looked a lot better and a lot clearer during the war, as there wouldn’t have been the high rises blocking the beautiful coastline.

After Signal Hill, we wanted to go to the city mosque, which has been built with a moat around it, and from the photos on the internet, it looked very beautiful. As it was still 3.5km from where we were, and we were melting in the humidity, we decided to get a Grab instead, as it was only 6 MYR (about £1.20).

When we arrived at the mosque, it was beautiful, but not quite as good as I expected it to be. We took some photos and walked around the grounds, but we couldn’t go in without being suitably dressed, and I had read reviews that there wasn’t much to show inside, so we gave that a miss.

Once we were done with photos, we decided to get a local bus back to the city centre. It was quite a different experience, and we were stared at when we got on a bus full of locals. We sat down anyway, as we were told to, and I just wished the journey away. When the bus wasn’t moving, it was so hot and disgusting, as the only breeze came through the windows. The journey did only cost us 1 MYR (20p) each though, so we couldn’t complain.

When we arrived back in the city, the bus pulled over and everyone stared at us, so we assumed that this was our stop, so we got off. If it wasn’t our stop, we got kicked off the bus for no reason.

From the bus stop, we walked to the front, where there were some markets. As we walked through the markets, we weren’t impressed at all: they were smelly and not very busy, which didn’t seem like a good thing, so we decided to make that a quick stop.

As we were both pretty hungry, but nothing looked appealing or edible, we thought it would be best to go to the shopping centre instead. They only had fast food places in there, but it seemed like our best bet. We looked at some bakeries, but ended up in Pizza Hut, getting ourselves a lunchtime deal. As it was a deal, we had to get it to takeaway, which seemed silly, as it was empty, so we just ate outside the restaurant in the food court.

After filling ourselves up with nice pizza, we thought it would be best to spend the rest of the afternoon in the hostel, as KK had nothing else to offer. We went back via a 7/11, where we bought some pasta sauce for tea – we really didn’t want to have to leave the hostel again.

The afternoon was spent productively: we did planning and blog work and got ourselves organised for the next part of the trip. As Joe’s old work has offices in the Philippines (our next stop), he got in touch with them for some advice and they offered to pick us up from the airport and advised the best way to get around the island, was to fly, so we looked into that.

Trying to get ahead of ourselves, I asked Joe to book our Cambodia visas, as we needed them processed before we got there and I was finishing up other jobs. It was a big job and I didn’t give him much guidance, meaning he ended up spending over £50 more than he needed to, for just one visa, as he went through an agency website, instead of straight through the governments. It was a learning curve for him, and he was very annoyed at himself but it’s only money at the end of the day (he’ll just have to miss out on food for a week or two). After this mistake, I decided to sort my own visa out and he doesn’t want to be trusted with any more big jobs.

As we were still full, from our big lunch, neither of us wanted dinner, even though we had already bought the pasta sauce. We both had showers and packed our bags, and I decided to cook the pasta anyway, so we could eat it cold the next day, as we had a very long day ahead of us!

Although we had planned an early night, we didn’t end up getting to bed until after 11, giving us only a few hours sleep.

When the alarm went off at 4am, it was tough to get up. Luckily there was no one else in our dorm, so we didn’t have to creep about, making it a little easier. We got ready and finished packing, before ordering a Grab to the airport.

When we got to the airport, we went to luggage storage to put our bags in for the day, as our flight to the Philippines was early morning the next day and there wasn’t any point in us staying anywhere. I had done some research and found out that it was 15MYR per bag for the day, which we thought was good. However, when we got there, the lady said it was 25MYR each. I tried to explain the situation, and that the website said otherwise but she was having none of it, and we needed to leave our bags somewhere, so had to pay. It was annoying that the website was wrong though, as it would have been cheaper for us to leave our bags in the hostel and get a taxi there and back again to collect them, when we got back from Sandaken.

After leaving our bags, we made our way through security, and to the gate. We sat there and waited, until we were called to board.

Once we were on the plane, we both tried to get some sleep as we had a long day ahead of us. Joe had no problem with this, but I struggled as usual. I got little bits of naps in, but nothing to make a big difference to how tired I was.

When we landed in Sandaken, it was only just after 7, and as the sanctuary didn’t open until 9, we decided to wait a bit until we got our Grab. We went to the shop to get a very nutritional breakfast of crisps and applied our sun cream and insect repellent before setting off.

The Grab was ordered just after 8. Our driver was lovely and although he didn’t speak a lot of English, he got us to the sanctuary and agreed to come back to pick us up at 4, as we didn’t think we would have wifi to order a new one. The conversation was a bit broken so we weren’t sure if he would return for us, but we had tried.

When we got out of the car, we were still a little early, so we waited in the café for ten minutes until the ticket office opened. Fortunately, we had to check our bags in, which was great for us, as we didn’t have to carry them round all day. Once we had sorted all of that, the door was about to open, so we could enter.

Although it didn’t look like there was much to do on the map, we were entertained for the whole time we were there. We started off in the nursery area, where there were loads of orangutans playing about on the equipment, swinging from rope to rope, eating fruit and fighting with each other.

We didn’t stay in there for very long, as at 10 o’clock there was a feeding session in another area, so we made our way there early, to try and get a good spot. This didn’t seem like an awfully great idea when we got there, as the heat and humidity were unbearable and we were dripping with sweat just standing still, waiting.

When it was 10, the workers came out with buckets of fruit, and the orangutans started appearing. They were so big, some of them, and would grab fruit from the platform and run up the trees with it, so that they didn’t have to share. Apparently, they are fed the same fruit every day, to make it boring for them, to encourage them to go and hunt for their own food in the wild. We were pretty lucky to see them, I think, as there are signs saying that there is no guarantee, and if they don’t come, it’s a good sign that they are finding their own food source.

After the orangutans left the feeding platform, we made our way back to the nursery. It was only open until 11, as the sanctuary shut between 11 and 2 for the workers to pray, on a Friday. We sat in the nursery watching them play and I became fascinated by them. I couldn’t stop watching their humanlike moves and interactions. Apparently, orangutans DNA is 96.4% the same as human’s, so their actions made sense. Watching them grab the food with their hands and peel the bananas to eat them, was amazing.

The nursery was mainly full of the younger orangutans, which were still dependent on help. Apparently, orangutans have the longest childhood dependence of all wild animals, meaning that they need support until they are six or seven years old.

Just before 11, the keepers took the orangutans back into their houses. It was so cute to see them go, as they would hold hands with their keeper and walk back to where they should be – it was so cute!

When the orangutan sanctuary shut, we made our way over to the sun bear sanctuary, across the road. Sun bears are another endangered species of animal, as they are hunted for their meats and used as pets, making them unsuitable for the wild. They are the second rarest species of bear, behind the panda.

We had a walk around the sun bear sanctuary, stopping at the lookouts to see the bears in their pens. They weren’t as active or as entertaining as the orangutans but they were still cute. Apparently, each sun bear has its own unique marking on its chest, which is like a fingerprint, so is how their keepers distinguish between them. They get their name from these marks, as it supposedly looks like an eclipse – we didn’t see any, so I couldn’t comment on that.

The sun bears arrive into the sanctuary as individuals that have been rescued. At first, they spend one month in quarantine, before moving to the bear house where they learn how to avoid electric fences. They stay there for a few months, before being moved into the outdoor fenced enclosure. The bears are let out into the enclosure every day between 8am and 4pm. They usually bring themselves back at 4, and when they don’t, it is  because they are independent and ready to go back into the wild.

After watching the bears, we went back to the reception area, where we watched some videos about the sun bears that are in the sanctuary. It was really interesting to see their journey: one of the videos showed one bear being released back into the wild after eight years in the sanctuary.

We stayed in the sun bear sanctuary for a little bit, and got ourselves an ice cream. After sitting in the shade for a while, we walked back to the café by the orangutan sanctuary to get a drink. We sat and waited there, until the orangutan sanctuary reopened its doors. While we were sat waiting, one orangutan made its way out of the sanctuary and was climbing up on the roof and around the reception area. This was cool to see but we didn’t get too close.

When 2 o’clock finally came around, we went back inside and went straight back to the nursery. The orangutans weren’t back out straight away, so we sat and waited. All of a sudden some appeared behind the viewing area, climbing over the back of the building, drinking the rain water from the bars.

After about twenty minutes, the keepers started to bring the orangutans back out of their houses. They came out holding hands, which was cute, and there was one who really didn’t want to go back out to play. He came out holding his keeper’s hand, but had also wrapped his other three limbs around the keeper’s leg. When they got to the platform, another keeper peeled the other arm off the first keeper and a third keeper was needed to get his legs off! He really didn’t want to stay out though, as he would just cling to whichever keeper he could, even when he was put onto the platform, he would jump back onto them. In the end, they took him back inside – it was very cute to see!

Just after 2.30, we left the nursery and made our way back to the feeding area for the second feed. I found it really hard to drag myself away, as they were just so beautiful! Back at the feeding area, there was a huge orangutan already sitting of the platform. Orangutans can grow so big, that they can reach 2.4m in length! Their arms are twice as long as their legs and they are the largest ape outside of Africa. While waiting for their food, the orangutans came quite close, but we had to keep our distance from them.

When feeding time came, the keeper brought out another bucket of food. There were other types of monkeys at this feed, but the big orangutan did not like this and hit the little monkey whenever it went near the bananas! Apparently, orangutan are the largest mammal to eat only fruits for their diet and this one was very protective over his. Annoyingly, as we had to pay to take cameras in, I hadn’t brought mine back in for the second session, I brought the polaroid instead, but I missed some really good shots because of it!

After feeding time, we went back to the nursery for one last look. I was completely entranced by them, they were so funny. There were lots of them in the nursery at this point and there were quite a few picking fights with each other, by pulling their hair. They had us all laughing out loud.

I could have stayed there all day watching them, they were so beautiful, but just after half 3, we had to say our goodbyes and make our way back to the entrance. We got our things out of the locker and checked the car park to see if our Grab had returned for us. He hadn’t, but it was still a little early, so we went into the reception area to ask to use the phone, as he gave us his number to call him.

Fortunately, he was by the main entrance but the gate had closed, so we had to walk down to meet him, which was fine. He took us all the way back to the airport and the round-trip cost us 30MYR (about £6)! It was so much cheaper ‘doing it on our own’, instead of in a tour group.

When we got to the airport, we had already printed our boarding passes, so went straight through security, to the gate. We were early but there wasn’t really any other choice, as the orangutan sanctuary shut at 4. We sat at the gate and I did some writing, while Joe played on his iPad.

The plane arrived a little late, meaning that we were late setting off. This didn’t bother us, as we just had a long wait on the other side anyway. When we boarded the plane, we both slept the whole way, which was very good.

Back at Kota Kinabalu airport, we collected our bags from left luggage and found ourselves somewhere to sit. On the way to departures, from arrivals, we passed a street market, outside the airport! With our hungry bellies, we got tempted, and bought some Malaysian bread things and Malaysian cake – that’s as much description as we got when we asked what they were, but we thought we would try anyway.

We had a good few hours to waste, as our flight to Manila wasn’t until 2am, and check-in didn’t open until three hours before, meaning there were around four hours until we could even check in. We ate the pasta that I had cooked the night before, but it didn’t taste too great, as I think we bought tomato sauce (a cheap ketchup), not a pasta sauce. It was edible though and kept us going!

Throughout the wait, we did blog work, photo sorting, video sorting, bits of research, playing on the iPad and watching Netflix. We basically did anything that we could, just to pass some time!

Just after 11, we were able to check in, so we dropped our bags off and went through to the departure area. We regretted this pretty quickly, as there were not many seats at all, making it difficult to get comfortable. The only seats were through in the gate area, but you couldn’t get through there, until it opened for our flight.

Eventually, we managed to find two seats, where I put my head on Joe and fell asleep. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. This passed time much more quickly, and we were soon allowed to the gate, just after 1am

I felt a little sick after waking up, which wasn’t ideal as we were about to board a plane, but after a little walk around, it luckily passed. We boarded the flight at about 1.30, and we ready to set off on time, towards a new country!

Kota Kinabalu is really nothing more than a base city for people to access the rest of Borneo. The city itself, sadly has nothing to offer, which is a shame for the locals. Our day trip to the north of Sabah to see Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary was well worth it, and I’m glad we did if on our own instead of as a tour, as we didn’t need a guide and it was much cheaper. I’ve not finished exploring Borneo yet, I feel this is just the beginning of seeing this beautiful island, and I will be back one day! For now, it’s time to head to our next country, the Philippines.

To travel is to live, Katie x