Back in KK

We flew back to Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of the state of Sabah, which is in the Malaysian part of Borneo. This is where my apartment is located. We arrived late and Paul found a restaurant open late enough for us to eat. Mexican. It was okay - and they played a trivia game that was fun. Got home and crashed pretty quickly. It had been a long day and a pretty busy and physically demanding six days of travel around Borneo. Now we had another week of Paul’s visit—some days with booked tours, some days more casual. Plenty of walking over to the mall, lots of watching the World Cup… way too much eating and beer drinking. :)

American Thanksgiving

We purposefully made no holiday plans. I think this was the morning we got a massage. Over to Asia City for lunch. At dinner time we sought the most Americanized restaurant we could find. Shoney’s. It was absolutely nothing like Shoney’s in the US, but we had American food (shrimp po boy for me and a burger for Paul,) for Thanksgiving. With beer, of course—Carlsburg I think. It’s usually Tiger or Carlsburg on offer. Sometimes Heineken. Occasionally fake-Guinness. No one here has ever heard of an IPA.

Seeing the other side.

There are lots of western style toilets here, but not every place has them and many places will have several of the squat style ones and ONE of “my kind.” So I'm always hoping when I go into a ladies' room.

I never thought how it must be for women who are used to the other kind and are hoping the other way--until I saw this sign in a restaurant bathroom.

Black Friday

A term that means absolutely nothing to Paul and I and even less to anyone here in Borneo—but the Friday after we-didn’t-have-Turkey day we booked an afternoon/evening activity. They were to pick us up at 1:30p so we had an early lunch over at the mall at Madam Kwan’s, then off on this tour: “Discover the unbeatable beauty of the Kota Belud wetlands on an 8-hour group tour. After transfer from your hotel, enjoy a cruise along the Tempasuk River with views of Mount Kinabalu and proboscis monkeys sightings. Once the sun sets, disembark and enjoy a buffet dinner. Then take a nighttime firefly watching cruise along the Nanamun River as you are surrounded by thousands of the luminous creatures.” Strangely, Paul had never seen fireflies before. Los Angeles boy, you know. So he was pretty thrilled.

Pictures: lunch at Madam Kwan’s, the river cruise on the Tempasuk and the fireflies on the Nanamun Rivers.
[Jetty falling apart from disuse during Covid, a strange palm, several pictures of birds in the bush, monkeys on a suspension bridge (both of which can be found in abundance, here.)]

Paul in the thrall of the fireflies.

Saturday, 11/26/2022 Mari Mari Cultural Center

Honestly one of the best days, so interesting. Don’t miss the video below.

The jumping contest. We got to try it, too!

Api Api Night Market

After the day trip to the cultural center we rested a bit then walked over to the big night food market. Deciding against eating anything from there (mainly because very little was vegetarian and almost everything was fried,) we moseyed over to a Mexican restaurant we noticed on the night we flew back—on the same street as the Mexican restaurant we went to that night. I guess I didn’t take any pictures of the food booths as in “eat now” fried stuff.

Gaya Sunday Market

Walked over to the Gaya market, then found ourselves near that street with the Mexican restaurant and … yep, back again. I had a salad. They are really stingy with lettuce here. Don’t use beans of any kind, no onions or tomatoes, either. But it felt better than another rice noodle or heavy-greasy meal.

Monday 11/29/2022 Hanging around

We fell into this practice of alternating between two bar/restaurants that played the world cup and live music. This night we went back over to the one at the beach. Really a repeatable place. Wandered through the food market just to look but we knew we were going straight back to the beach bar.

Tuesday 11/28/22

Poring Hot Springs & Kinabalu Park

This was the last “tour” on my list. Full day, but in a bigger more comfortable bus and with clever stops along the way to break it up. Pictures of view of Mt. Kinabalu (the cloudless one snagged from someone who was there on a clearer day.) Dogs are everywhere—they are tolerated, fed for the most part. Never petted. Most seem happy. This guy chose the darndest place to take a nap. The next pictures are of the botanical garden at Kinabalu park. Wild orchids and other Borneo-specific plant life. Note the “pinhead orchids” in the first plant pic. So tiny! They don’t get any bigger. The famous pitcher plant which also is a carnivore (eating bugs and even reptiles.) The orchids with the dangling legs are not surprisingly called jelly-fish orchids.

Below the plant pictures is the scary, long, and high, ‘canopy walk.,’ followed by time with the hot springs tubs. Oh and a weird desert served with lunch.

Wednesday, 11/30/2022 Paul’s last day

We decided to walk over to the Sabah State Museum. Grabbed a bowl of Tom Yam soup along the way. Walked all around the grounds, took some pictures.

Then back for one last visit to our favorite close by place. Nachos, some beers and lemon tea for me. Then back to the apartment in time to wave Paul off in his Grab Taxi to (barely) get to the airport and fly away to Manila. I’m here another week. Try the veal.