Is
there anyone reading this is very fond of travelling? And no matter what, you
will always find a way to mark your spot in the map?
That's how I got roped into a Sabah trip in which I only know two people from my workplace and four strangers-turn-friends because that's how travelling works, ladies and gentlemen. You make friends along the way.
That's how I got roped into a Sabah trip in which I only know two people from my workplace and four strangers-turn-friends because that's how travelling works, ladies and gentlemen. You make friends along the way.
This post will be a post on my adventure to Sabah, Malaysia.
Be warned, this is not a luxury trip. We try to be as stingy
as possible as well as making sure we have fun and be frivolous.
Our Sabah Trip Team consists of 7 people (4 ladies and 3
gentlemen), but on the first day, we only have 6 people since the 7th
member is a friend who lives in Kota Kinabalu and will only be joining us on
the second day due to work.
Two months before the trip, we already booked our flight to
KKIA because of the AirAsia promotion sale. Of course, it’s an opportunity to
pay lesser for the flight (which is usually the most hindrance part of any
travels because let’s be honest, flight ticket costs a lot for average-salary
people like us) and also we wanted to make sure that all of the members won’t
back out at the last minute (lol).
Flight Ticket KLIA2-KKIA = RM 109.00 / person GST not included.
1st Day - 17th August 2017 (Thursday)
Location: Kota Kinabalu
The flight to KKIA from KLIA2 is at 8.00am, but the six of us
is already at the airport a few hours before the departure (don’t worry about
going to the airport in the middle of the night; we were there at 4 am and it’s
already packed with people going for early flights. Also, morning flights are
easily one of the cheapest). It easily took 2 hours to reach KKIA.
Uber XL from Damansara - KLIA2 = RM 180.00
P/s: Half of the flight trip was accompanied by a screaming baby who sat exactly behind us. I was glad I packed an earphone.
When you enter Kota Kinabalu, for local Malaysians you have
to show your MyKad to the immigration and keep the boarding paper that they
gave you. You will have to make a report to the police station if you lost it
and it will be very bothersome and time-consuming, so make sure you keep the paper properly
because you need to show it back to the immigration officer before you board the
flight to go home. If you have a passport, just show your passport and you got
a stamp instead of the paper, so it’s much easier.
Through GRAB apps (you can download from Google Play or iTunes) we ordered a six person car to our hotel.
Grab from KKIA Gate A7– Hii-5 hotel = RM 8.00
Upon arriving, we countered a misfortune.
The rooms we booked was not in the reservations.
Zie and I tried to show them the reservation code as well as
the email for our booking that we got from booking.com, but the management of
the hotel still couldn’t find our reservations. The rest of the members were dumbfounded, and Zie and I tried to stay calm even though I was getting
confused and frustrated. We confirmed our booking a month before the trip, it
shouldn’t be a problem.
I managed to ask if there is any empty room and Alhamdulillah,
at least they still have a few rooms available and we don’t have to waste our time
searching for more hotel options. The ladies got one room with two queen beds,
and the boys got a room with a queen bed for two nights in Kota Kinabalu.
After we refresh ourselves and did our jamak prayer, we went
down to the lobby only to be informed by the management that they got a
cancellation for our rooms from booking.com. It seems that booking.com
cancelled our reservations without our consent and without giving us any
notification emails. After further discussion, the management told us that
there were a few cases in the past, that their guests’ reservations were
cancelled after a month of booking by the booking.com itself; but they were
given a notification. We didn’t get any.
Of course, this made me wary of using booking.com anymore.
The hotel is decent and quite comfortable albeit small, affordable and clean. Not much to review on the hotel, but the management is quite helpful when we were facing the reservation problem. We borrowed an iron and the ironing board from the staffs for free. They do try to give the hotel a hipster environment with the unique chairs in the lobby and a few inspirational quote frames along the hallway. We are quite satisfied with the hotel.
2 nights / 1 double queen & 1 single queen = RM 460.00 / GST not included
For reservation: +6088252521
For reservation: +6088252521
After the hotel fiasco settled, we went for a quick lunch at
the nearest food stall. The hotel is very near to a variety of restaurants and
food stalls and of course, we have no problem choosing a clean, cheap food
stall for our lunch (I had roasted chicken rice with ice syrup). It's nothing fancy and we were too hungry to care lol.
Lunch = RM 7.00
Using google maps, we walked from the hotel to Filipino Market (also known as Pasar Sinsuran), which only took like 10 minutes walk. It’s quite windy and honestly I love
walking when I go travel, since I’m not usually the jogging and walking type
back home, this is one of the opportunity for a light exercise haha.
P/s: It's rainy season when we went there, but alhamdulillah we were blessed that the weather was so nice during our trip aside from the small passing rain in the night. So always check the weather before you go travel and pray a lot.
Filipino Market is full with souvenirs, and you can try to
negotiate so they can give you lesser prices. Ladies, you can buy your pearls
here, as it is full with pretty pearl necklaces, rings and bracelets. There are
also Sabah traditional snacks like amplang and kuih cincin and dried anchovies (Sabah is famous for cheap anchovies)
Sabah T-shirts = RM 10.00 / piece
Pearls = RM 10.00-80.00 (the cheaper pearls might not be
real pearls, but they’re still quite pretty nonetheless. Real pearls have
different shapes and sizes, and not usually round.)
Sabah snacks = RM 10.00 / 3 packets (This is the usual
price. You can mix and match the snacks too)
Anchovies = RM 10.00-RM 30.00 / 3 packets (depends on the
sizes)
We’re supposed to go to the Sabah State Museum after this,
but we decided to go to a further place so we booked a grab car for six people
to go to the UMS (Universiti Malaysia Sabah/Malaysia Sabah University) Aquarium & Marine Museum with pick-up point at Le Meridien Hotel since Filipino Market is opposite of the hotel.
Grab from Le Meridien Hotel – UMS Aquarium & Marine
Museum = RM 14.00
UMS Aquarium & Marine Museum entrance ticket = RM 10.00 / person
My review of the museum, it’s not worth the
money. Yes, it's small, and to be honest I have no idea why they thought it's a good idea to open a very small aquarium museum with that much payment for an entrance fee. It literally has three aquariums and a small-scale museum, but if you don't mind the fee and want to bring your kids to somewhere that they will enjoy, this is the place for you. Kids will get excited to see the big fishes.
I spotted Dory! lol
The museum is inside the UMS campus. It’s quite empty though since it’s semester break.
However we were greeted by lovely sights of the ocean so we
took a lot of pictures outside the museum.
After a few hours, we waited at the Marina Café in front of
the museum and ordered a grab car and uber to go back to the hotel since we
couldn’t find any grab car that could fit 6 people together. The boys rode the
grab since they got a Perodua Myvi and we ladies rode the uber (we are 4 people
and the uber ride is a Proton Perdana)
Uber from UMS Aquarium & Marine Museum – Hii-5 hotel =
RM 12.00
The traffic was pretty bad since its rush hour and we got
back at the hotel at 6.00 pm.
After a rest and another jamak prayer, I used google map to
seek for dinner place. At first, we decided to go dinner at Welcome Seafood
Restaurant, a famous seafood restaurant in Kota Kinabalu. It doesn’t serve pork
but it does have alcohols, so after a brief discussion we search for another
dinner place and rested upon a blog about Gerai Santai Haji Manja (you can find the facebook page here). After a quick
google search location, we walked to our dinner destination which only took 10 minutes from the hotel.
Gerai Santai Haji Manja is one of the seafood food stall
along the Medan Selera Segama Waterfront (Kota Kinabalu Waterfront), near the Marlin Statue (a Todak sculpture). You can use Waze or Google Maps
to get there.
There are a variety of seafood stalls and we were so amazed and
happy with our founding; we were like children who found a new toy. With negotiation
skills by Zie and T, we got a reasonable price for each menu we ordered. Our
Sabah friend, S, arrived after we ordered the food so now our team is a
complete group of 7 people.
Menu:
Ketam nipah masak telur masin (nipah crabs fried in salted eggs)
Sotong goring tepung (flour fried cuttlefish)
Ketam goreng pedas (spicy fried crabs)
Udang goreng butter (butter fried prawn)
Ikan siakap 3 rasa (3 flavored bass)
A jug of ice syrup
7 plates of white rice
Ketam nipah masak telur masin (nipah crabs fried in salted eggs)
Sotong goring tepung (flour fried cuttlefish)
Ketam goreng pedas (spicy fried crabs)
Udang goreng butter (butter fried prawn)
Ikan siakap 3 rasa (3 flavored bass)
A jug of ice syrup
7 plates of white rice
Dinner for 7 people = RM 230.00
We separate the bills between 6 people on the first night.
With smiling faces and smiling stomachs, we went for a walk at the Signal Hill Observatory Tower to enjoy the night scene. Of course, since it's night, it's very dark and we didn’t stay for long because of the passing rain so I recommended to go
during the evening before the sunset to get a beautiful scene of the city of Kota Kinabalu.
It’s quite an adventurous first day of our trip in Sabah,
with crying baby in the flight, misinformed cancellation of our hotel booking,
to the trip to UMS and a splendid, big dinner; it sure is a Sabah trip that I
will remember for years to come.
See ya, lovelies!
Comments
Post a Comment