Fun in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

 

 

Fun in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah 

 

By Karen Dorrell

 

When my good friend Claudia asked me to write a blog for her site about travel, I wondered what I should write about. Then I thought about our most recent trip to Malaysia at Easter. Perhaps I can share a few useful tips about planning for a family holiday and some of our experiences during that trip.

I have had the good fortune to live in Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Stockholm and Auckland. We have travelled to parts of Europe, North America, South Asia, Scandinavia, Australasia and some parts of the Pacific during our travels.

However these days our family trips mainly alternate between visiting family in Malaysia and Cyprus while we are based in Auckland, New Zealand. We try to see our family as much as we can. For instance when we visit my parents-in-law in Cyprus, we would travel via London where my sister and her family live and spend a few days there both directions.

When the opportunity arose last Easter to go on holiday with my sister's family to Sabah which is part of Borneo in the Eastern part of Malaysia, we jumped at the opportunity. This is my big sister from London whose family includes her English husband and 19 year old daughter.

My immediate family is made up of my husband who like my brother in law, is also English and my 7 year old daughter.

My sister and her family are very well travelled. Both work in IT and make the best of long weekends or bank holidays for quick holidays. It is best not to visit them during those periods as they are most likely to be off on a trip somewhere – Milan for shopping, skiing in Aspen, sight seeing in New York etc. My brother-in-law Harry is particularly good at planning their holidays.

For this trip, both families have flights to Sabah as an extension of our tickets to Malaysia. We decided to look up the Malaysia Airlines website to find suitable times and chose an early morning flight. That gave us the best part of the day in Kota Kinabalu also known as KK when we got to Sabah. The flight took approximately 2.5 hours.

For accommodation my sister's family was going to be with us in Kota Kinabalu for a day before going to Sandakan, another town about one hour flight away where they were going to visit an Orang Utan wildlife sanctuary followed by an overnight river jungle ecotour to see wildlife close up.

We would love to go but as our daughter was only six, we did not want to subject her to malaria medications which do not seem suitable for small children. . There seems to be quite a few types of malaria medications which you can start quite close to when you plan to arrive at the destination and finish taking soon afterwards and other types that you have follow through the course long time afterwards. My advice is to consult your doctor. We made a decision not to go on the jungle trip. Instead, we would spend 5 nights in KK.

Accommodation preferences require compromise when you have a group. They wanted to stay at a resort and chill out while we prefer to be centrally based to get around to everything. Budget is a consideration for us but less for them as the pound sterling gets more in exchange to Malaysian ringgits than NZ dollars.

Through emails and phone calls, we were able to agree on the accommodation. We both did internet searches. It is quite useful to find blogs by people who describe their experiences down to the minute details. Hotel reviews like those in tripadvisor.com helps guide which ones to avoid.

We decided to stay at the Gaya Centre Hotel, a fairly new 3 star hotel by the waterfront facing the South China Sea, for 3 nights. This location is very convenient and is near shopping malls and the waterfront esplanade.

For the last 2 nights when my sister’s family return from their jungle tour, we would move to the 5 star Magellan Sutera, part of the luxurious Sutera Harbour Resort which advertises a 27-hole golf course, Olympic-sized pools, 14 dining options and 2 pampering spas. This resort is a short distance from city centre. We discovered afterwards that the resort offers a regular bus service to town which was great.

Using the Agoda.com search, I found that we could get a garden room discounted by 50% when booked via the internet. Cancellation fee at Magellan Sutera was 1 day if cancelled within14 days of arrival.

 

My brother-in-law found the same hotel through Booking.com with different cancellation rules. If cancelled up to 2 days before date of arrival, no fee will be charged. Moral of the story is that it pays to search through different booking sites, review the rules and what is included before booking.

Enough about tips, what about the trip itself? What did we see and do while we were in Kota Kinabalu? The waterfront has a number of dedicated buildings specialising in different things. There is a market selling cheap shoes and clothes, a market selling fresh vegetables, dried spices and cooking ingredients, another building dedicated to selling dried fish and shrimps next to a building with shops selling local handicraft.

What tickled us was outside the handicraft building. There was a group of men, (yes only men) all with sewing machines offering a clothes repairing service. It was a really strange sight to behold!

When we came through the other side of the building, we found ourselves by the sea encountering a mass of open air seafood stalls and wonderful smells of cooking. Beyond that was a night market selling the freshest of fish. There are a number of permanent restaurants and pubs still further up. In the middle of those restaurants were some beds where a reflexology and massage service was offered.

My sister, niece and I all decided to enjoy a massage. This was while watching a music video of Beyonce overhead on the projected screen and the most amazing magical sunset outside, that goes on for ages. The husbands enjoyed drinks on the deck by the water while waiting for us.

Over the next few days, we rented a car and came close up to Orang Utans at a sanctuary which is associated to the one in Sandakan. We visited various places including Lok Kawi – a lovely local zoo with Proboscis monkeys, a crocodile farm, a head-hunter’s house where prize skulls were proudly displayed, tried ethnic cultural dancing and went snorkelling off Pulau Tiga island where one of the Survivor series was filmed.

We found the local people friendly and charming. Good food is an integral part of any holiday for us. If you like seafood you will love KK. We found a seafood location in town which houses a group of restaurants, all offering live seafood in tanks. You choose your meal before it is cooked. We really enjoyed the resort too!

 

All up, we had a fantastic holiday. Months later, we were still reminiscing over it. Kota Kinabalu certainly got the thumbs up from our family!

Like this article? Do you have an experience to share? Please leave your comment below.

 

Guest Writer:

Karen Dorrell resides in Auckland, New Zealand with her husband Mark and daughter. She is a Senior Business Analyst for Air New Zealand. Prior to working with Air New Zealand,Karen was with Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner (NZ) as a System Accountant and also with Reuter (Sweden) as their Business Analyst. She graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from University of New South Wales, Sydney,Australia and a Masters of Commerce in Management Science and Information Systems from Auckland University, New Zealand.

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