Having enjoyed the sea breeze, and the cooler morning air, we were in no rush to leave our homestay on Tanjung Simpang Menhayau Beach. We spent our last morning on our gorgeous shaded balcony, listening to the sea lapping against the sand, and then headed South towards Kota Kinabalu (otherwise known as KK).
Every evening we had smelled our homestay burning plastic rubbish – they don’t know what else to do with it. So rather than add to their problem, we had collected all our plastic bottles in the car and I (Janet) started looking for a recycling scheme in the city. We found one not far off our route which took plastic (0.3MYR per kg) and, as we pulled in, the staff were intrigued what Westerners were doing there. I approached with our collection of about 16 plastic bottles and asked a lady would she take them. She was very happy to, so they were handed over and we left happy that we hadn’t added to the plastic problem.
For me, that is what responsible tourism is all about – trying to not make a negative impact on the area. For example, by everyone not buying the coral and shells that were on sale at the Tip of Borneo hopefully stops the locals gathering them for sale in the future etc.
We had booked a posh hotel (The Pacific Sutera Hotel) for our last night in KK and were looking forward to a swim and watching sunset over the sea. Unfortunately the booking we made with Agoda apparently required us to pay an extra 250 MYR of activities at the check-in (no mention at all in the t&cs) and, after an hour and a half of just trying to get the hotel to honour the room rate and with calls to Agoda etc. we decided to cancel our booking. There were at least two other parties at the checkin desk having similar conversations about bookings made via Agoda. We left realistic reviews on Agoda and Trip Advisor and found alternative accommodation. Happily we found a beautiful 2 bedroom apartment in thr (Aru Suites) with a rooftop pool – although by then too dark to use it that night. We had a slight panic when asked to do a bank transfer for a 300MYR room deposit (alarm bells!!!!) but it was agreed they would send someone at 12pm the next day to check the apartment and return the money in cash which happened smoothly. The apartment had a car park where you parked inside like a car wash, scanned your door fob, and the car went off to another level. In our apartment the next morning, we could here what sounded like cars being moved around above us (floor 7). It was a pretty surreal experience just tapping the door room key by the garage door and 5 mins later the car reappearing !!!
I had an amazing swim in the rooftop pool while Pete took photos of planes taking off from the nearby airport.
Then we checked out and bought a picnic lunch, replaced the damaged flip flops for Pete (same shop we’d got his in 2 weeks before) and headed to Tangung Aru beach. What a beautiful public beach with shelters and trees for shade, a lifeguard station, vinegar for jellyfish stings and alligator warnings. Luckily we just enjoyed the beach and only saw lizards and birds.
We drove to a lovely Che Sui Khor Memorial Shrine, a nine story pagoda built by the president for democracy.
Then onto a City Mosque in a moat. We weren’t allowed to enter the mosque (Ramadan) and strangly, you had to pay to get close to the walls to be allowed to take photos.
Then we drove back into KK for a nice Mediterranean meal and a quick visit to the beach to look at the stars (good but nothing like the Tip of Borneo where the sky was just full of stars that felt so close to us).
And then it was time to head to the airport to return our hire car and catch our midnight flight to Manila.
Things I will miss about Sabah:
Amazing wildlife
Roti chanai (said Pete)
Lovely Indian/Malay food
Amazing cheap seafood
Stunning white beaches
Things I won’t miss about Sabah:
Call to prayer at sunrise
Ramadan closures of restaurants (total respect for those fasting though – I couldn’t do it)
The rubbish problem (plastic)
For our third time we made our way to the apartments we got to know well very near Manila airport. We caught up on sleep, had a day in the Newport area (Janet did some travel agency work) and swam in the pool. We left the next morning to fly to Tokyo where we would spend 3 nights and catch up with Janet’s neice and some of our instructor buddies. We were quite looking forward to leaving 39 degrees and such humidity.
Things I will miss about the Phillipines:
The bakeries
The lovely, polite people
Being called Sir / Ma’am
Things I won’t miss:
The humidity
The toilets
The rubbish problem (plastic)
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