We woke early the next day (6:00 AM), after a good night (much better than the tent on Mamutik) on the big bunk beds, and we were the first ones to breakfast. It was our first time having curry for breakfast, which was surprisingly good. Roti is like Naan (or bings for those of you reading from Taiwan), and the only thing to spread on it was a curry sauce. Yummy (seriously).
We started walking, though I was regretting the fact that I had not brought my farmers hat from Taiwan. Even at 7 AM it was feeling like a hot day. We had a map with most of the KK sights on it (and the Lonely Planet for further reference) and we headed to the Atkinson Clock Tower, which was not that far from the Step In Lodge. On the way we came a cross a big field that seemed to be for some sort of sport, we asked a passing Malay man (by this point we were fairly sure almost everyone we might talk to from Malaysia could speak English, and this guy was no exception) what sport was played in this field. He told us that it was actually the site where it was announced to all of Sabah that Malaysia was now an independent nation. He also asked us if we needed help with directions and pointed us on a faster route to the clock tower.
Along the road we walked to the clock tower (which was mercifully shaded) everyone who went by in either direction smiled and waved at us, pretty much without excpetion. The clock tower was not really that exciting, it wasn't particularly tall or well built. Atkinson was the first British Governor of British North Borneo as it was called then. He died at age 28 of malaria. He was apparently a huge fan of clocks, which was partly why the clock tower (which was built after he died) was named for him.
Further up the road was a cool observatory from which we could see a great panoramic of KK and the South China Sea beyond it. We could also see monkeys in the tree below us. They seemed to be have great time in the trees jumping around, relaxing, eating or in one case having mating). These monkeys were called long tailed Macaques and they are pests (they are curious and like to steal or knock over shiny things), but as this was our first exposure to the wildlife of Borneo, despite being in a city, we were delighted and watched the monkeys play in the trees for quite a while.
Even further up the road is the wetland sanctuary, where we could supposedly see a lot of birds. All we saw were lots of variations of egrets (all of which we saw on the river in Chidu) and one that we couldn't identify, despite all of the signs around with bird specs. We also met some middle aged bird loving German tourists. They had books, big binoculars and extremely expensive looking cameras. They were quite freindly and offered to try and discover the name of the bird we had seen in one of their books (I do not remember whar it was, but it was in there). When they discovered that we were from Canada, one of them said, "But you have big nature in Canada, why come here?" After we explained, he fondly recalled his time in BC with his family, driving up the West coast.
We wanted to go to the museum which turned out to be on the otherside of town. We had decided to be real trekkers so we set off walking again. Fortunately the day was clouding over and we were mostly walking along shaded roads. On our way past the clock tower in the other direction we were stopped by a Malaysian woman named Catherine, who told us pretty much right away that she liked to talk to tourists. She was delighted that we were from Vancouver because she had been there once. We had a pleasant chat with her over the course of which we found out that she was almost 70 (and proud of it!), that she was proud of her country but liked to travel to other ones and that she had just met some nice Swiss ladies. She also approved of us walking ("Use your own legs whenever you can, I still do!").
We had a less pleasant encounter up the road when a man started yelling (I'm fairly sure at us) in Malay, we did not really know why, but the best response to such seemed be to just keep walking (no need to dignify such actions). He followed us for a bit yelling in Malay and we kept ignoring him. In retrospect it was rather funny, Malay is kind of a musical language, so it seemed like we had an angry bird following us. Whatever it was he eventually gave up and went away, though the whole encounter left us feeling a little grumpy and less well disposed to Malaysia from a the next portion of our walk, at least until a bus of school children came by and the entire bus waved and yelled hello and gave us the thumbs up.
The museum (or muzium) was quite a bit farther than we had expected and we extremely happy to arrive in the cool airconditioning of the place. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, wandering around museums, actually requires you to wander, which we felt not so up to. It was one of the nicest we have been in in a lont time, its too bad we had less time and optimal energy. I do remember that all of captions under the swords that they had along the wall started with the word "This sword is associated with head hunting...". Well Borneo is the land of the Head Hunters after all. The last part that we walked through was the natural history section. Big nature again. It also energized us for our walk to the Islamic Civilization museum.
The Islamic Civiliation Musem (ironically situated behind a large Anglican church) was a little disapointing, maybe we missed something, but it did not have much info. There was an interesting part about clothing and some cool swords (not for head hunting), but that's about it.
On our way home we met a friendly older Malay man named Francis. When he found out that we were Canadian he told us that apparenly one of our "countrymen" got in trouble with an Arab in a longhouse. Apparently the Canadian was making out with his Chinese girlfriend (I'm not sure that she was Chinese was important, but apparently this was how the paper that Francis read it in put it) and the Arab man knocked over their table yelling that this was a Muslim country and people should be more respectful. Francis seemed to be disapointed in the Arab man. He said that religion is not a proper reason for such action. If people are bothering you by their actions ask them to stop. He advised us to be careful about that sort of thing before we parted ways.
Before returning to the Step In Lodge we has some great Indian food, which inluded more Roti. We like the place we ate so much (Devi's Cafe was its name) that we stopped there on the way to the bus the next day.
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