We knew our time in Sabah would be during Ramadan but not sure how much that would affect us. Our first evening we landed at Kota Kinabalu airport and collected our hire car. Back to driving on the left and upon our first fuelling stop discovered how cheap petrol is in Malaysia. It cost just £10 to fill our tank from empty to absolutely full!
We tried to find an ATM and Google Maps showed us to a drive through ATM. Very handy except it was no longer operational and in the car park of a very busy mosque. Oops! We decided to eat at Burger King (knew they’d take card payment and left the ATM quest to the next morning. As it was already dark, we could see locals eating at night markets but thought we’d need cash for that.
The next morning I (Janet) went for a swim at Tanjung Aru or White Beach. It was a lovely sandy beach and from a resort further along people were kayaking, on SUPs or trying to master the motorised foil surfboard things.
We found an Indian place open for lunch and quickly remembered how much we enjoyed Malaysian food when we backpacked overland through Asia in 1999. We thoroughly enjoyed some murtabaks and roti chanai. The chef even brought us some free garlic/chilli/onion pakora type dish for us to try – his own recipe – not for sale.
Next we set off driving towards Mount Kinabalu. We stopped at a lookout but clouds at the top didn’t make for the best views. We decided not to hike on the trails but instead return on way back, hopefully a clearer day.
We drove on to Poring and found our jungle lodge accommodation which was very peaceful with the constant sound of running water for their fish and water wheel. The super friendly host who’d spent 5 years in Birmingham, said they don’t serve food so headed back into the sleepy village for some dinner. A huge Nasi Goreng and a huge Mee Goreng which we went halves on. Back at the lodge and the heavens opened. The rain was bouncing down which sounded amazing on the tin roof.
After a peaceful night’s sleep (once our neighbours had finished their card game on the other side of the paper thin walls) we made a pot noodle for breakfast and headed to the hot springs. We decided first to walk and do the jungle canopy. We had the idea that you’d see lots of wildlife but we were both so busy concentrating on the swaying, wobbly boards 40m in the air at some points, that there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to look around. I did see a black squirrel but that was all.
Next we walked to Kipungit waterfall (the nearest and smallest). We were sweating by the time we got there, so decided upon a dip in the cool shallow pool to cool off. I was swimming about and Pete was up to his thighs It was all very nice until Pete thought leeches where trying to attach to his feet. I wasn’t sure if they weren’t small black fish but also saw them on my feet so we made for a quick exit from the pool. We had planned to take a hot spring bath too but read that it took maybe 45 minutes to fill a bath plus time to soak and we didn’t have too much time if we didn’t want to drive in the dark. Instead we looked at the botanical gardens and the butterfly area, which was beatiful and then started our drive East to Sepilok.
Having just sent friends a message to say the roads are great and they may want to consider renting a car on their upcoming trip, we suddenly got to a terrible road. The main highway was a massive road reconstruction site for 100s of kilometres. It wasn’t like they’d finished 10 km and had moved onto the next section – every part was being worked on with either drainage being laid, bridges being prepared, tonnes of stone going down, etc etc but not one new bit of tarmac. We weaved among potholes as deep as your wheels, we were on the wrong side of the road with people undertaking and overtaking.
I take it back – driving here is not for the feint hearted!!!! ( Pete says it’s fun 🙈 )
