Last Days in Sabah

The lady at the Scuba Junkies Lodge in Semporna, who had done our laundry so well, was also able to get us our bus tickets back to KK.  She even got us a deal apparently.  She got 65 RM from us to get the tickets, but the tickets she got clearly stated that they were 75 each.  Not really sure how she did this.  In any event, we had our last breakfast at the lodge and headed to the bus stop around 7 AM.  On the way an enterprising young boy pushing a wheel barrow said, "Teksi, ser?"  It made us smile.


The bus (or bas as they say in Bahasa Malayu) was pretty crowded, but we were soon settled and seated in the proper seats.  There were a lot of solemn and emotional farewells exchanged between some of the other (younger) passengers and their families.  They were off to the big city to start a new life I suppose.
The bus got driving at 8am and a movie came on the tv screens.  It was a movie called The Immortals it was full of Greek legendary fighting (and even a crude understanding of what Greek legends might actually mean, though I'm sure the legendary figure of Theseus didn't do many of the things the movie has him do).  About half an hour into the ride the bus stopped and the crew (their were 3 of them) ran outside and started playing with what may have been the engine.  Not an auspicious start to a 9 hour bus ride.  After a bit we did get underway again and we were bussing along smoothly until we ran into a police check point.  The police officers came on the bus and checked everyones ID (you can't travel around Malaysia without ID).  Behind him came an old lady selling sweets and such.  We bought some banana chips from her, which were yummy.  For the rest of the trip we contented ourselves with looking out the window and listening to Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones (which was hilarious; review forthcoming). At long last we arrived at KK at 7Pm (2 hours later than expected).

After eating a big meal at Devi's cafe (it was a long bus ride after all) we went to the Step In Lodge as it was a place we knew to be good and we really didn't want to search for another place to stay.  We ended up with two Dutch roommates who had just finished two months of volunteering in the communities.  They were on their real vacation now, they said, and were starting their PADI diving course the next.  They had what can only be described as rippling muscle and wandered around our dorm room with out any shirts on (which was a little intimidating, but it was viscously hot even with the fan).  


We awoke early the next day and tried to decide what to do while we ate breakfast (roti happily).   It looked windy and cloudy out so we decided that a trip to the islands of Tunku Abdul Rahman national park (as we had tentatively thought to do) was perhaps for tomorrow.  FYI: Tunku Abdul Rahman was the first Prime Minister of Malaysia.  Unfortunately, we had pretty much explored KK on our last visit.  The one thing in the lonely planet that we had not done (that was not outrageously expensive) was visit some cool mosques.  So we set off with our very well laid out KK map and the lonely planet as reference and made to the KK city Mosque in about an hour (by foot), with a short detour to buy me a very cool hat and eat more roti at Devi's cafe.  The really cool one was apparently the state mosque but it was far too far away.  The KK city Mosque had to do.  It was pretty neat from the outside, very modern, yet traditional (it also seemed to me that if you put the pieces back together differently it would resemble a space ship).  Hordes of children were getting out of school as we walked towards the mosque and we drew some attention (mostly unwanted): the girls that past mostly giggled and few said "hello" or "how are you?", then giggled.  A lot of the boys said hello, though one asked me for money and another asked Nancy for a kiss on the cheek.  We made it to the mosque unscathed and asked if we could enter.  The security guard said we could, asked us to remove our sandals and gave us some long covering robes.  "No photo please," he said as we started wandering around.  The main courtyard was mostly taken up by a symmetrical little pond; at the centre of the pond there was the large spire that you can see stretching up beside the main dome.  The courtyard also seemed to able to catch every bit of wind that came remotely near it, making quite cool despite the heat of the day.  Up the stairs was the main prayer room under the big dome (we did not enter it).  The whole place had a quiet tranquil feel to it and we found ourselves whispering so as not to disturb the atmosphere.  One of the more interesting features, I thought, was the sign in Malay and English reminding people to watch their belonging, in case of theft.  Evidently not all of the patrons were trustworthy.

We could take pictures from the outside though...

We left the mosque and wandered some more around KK.  There was  a beach near by (and near the airport too) according to the map and we went there only to find what appeared to be a sewer pouring into the sea beside the beach and very over priced food.

There was a beautiful beach that this ran into.

We left and wandered back, getting very hot in the process.  To get out of the heat we went to an internet cafe and wrote on the blog, though there seemed to be renovations going on upstairs, which was kind of distracting ( either a hammer or drill was constantly in use).  After 3 hours we wandered back to The Step In Lodge  and did some reading and went to bed, determined to wake up early and go to the islands.

We did just that, we awoke, ate a wholesome breakfast of bananas and roti (and of course coffee) and departed.  Along the way we had to say "No thank you." to several teksi (taxi) drivers, pretty much like every other time we set foot on the streets of any city or town in Malaysia.  I'm sure that "No thank you."  is probably one of the most commonly uttered phases by travellers in Malaysia.  At least they let you alone when you say it.

We settled on going to Manukan island this time and the guy at the counter told us that our boat would pick us up from the island at 5.  Manukan was a bit bigger than Mamutik and we were able to claim a spot that was on the beach but would be perpetually shaded.  We proceeded to swim.  After swimming for 5 minutes or so we couldn't help remarking on the plastic and other garbage on the sea floor (which was about all we could see besides a few fish).  Nancy grabbed a large plastic bag and put it on the beach.  I did the same and then we had a race on our hands.  We grabbed garbage off the sea floor and put on the beach in a big pile.  After a while two young boys with bleach blonde hair (German I think, they didn't speak English at any rate) began helping us.  One boy couldn't swim but I saw him grabbing things from the beach and piling it on our pile.  The other was an adept swimmer and he was diving around near us for the next hour or so.  When we tried to talk to him he would shy away and continue diving for garbage.  At one point the boys' mother came over and said its was too bad more people didn't do such things.  Eventually the boys had to head back (I think they were staying on the island) and we, satisfied with the large pile we had amassed, proceeded to lay on the beach and read.  Not long after a maintenance crew came by raked the beach and efficiently put our pile into a large bag.  

Doesn't look so dirty from here mind you.

Around 4 the boat man came to find us and insisted it was time leave (apparently what the man at the counter meant was that we would be back before 5).  It was fine really, we had just realized that our one layer of sunscreen had not been enough, despite being in the shade and were more or less ready to leave.  The ride was nice and cooly windy but we were happy to be back on land.

Nancy saw this old phone booth just as we got back on land and decided that we had to take a picture with her in it.

We were feeling the affects of our burns by the time we got back to the Step In Lodge and it did not take us long to sleep that night.

We got up early again and made preparations to go to the airport.  We had a scary moment at the bank, when my card didn't seem to work, but it turned our that my bank had lowered the amount I could take out of my account after my last withdrawal.  Still it had us worried for a bit.  It has since been rectified.

KK airport was not very organized that day and our flight ended up being delayed for quite some time.  No one knew exactly where to go to board their plane despite there only being 4 gates.  At gate the sign indicated there should be  a line up for an Air Asia flight to Singapore but when we compared flight numbers to the departure board, this flight had apparently already left.  We did eventually get on our plane to Kuala Lumpur (KL), which was was rather turbulent (Nancy did not appreciate this very much).  Surprisingly (to some) we arrived safe and sound at the low cost carrier terminal (LCCT) in KL.  

Unfortunately when I picked our backpack up I immediately noticed a distinct fishy odour that had not been there before we put it on the plane.  When we put it down to examine, sure enough we found some fishy smelling wet spots on the back of the bag.  Why someone was transporting fish in the checked baggage area I don't know, but we were really annoyed with whoever it was.  We cleaned it the best we could and headed to the bus.  


The bus from the LCCT to KL Sentral took about 45 minutes, due to lack of seats we ended up being separated in our seating.  I sat beside kindly older Malay lady who told me that she had been living in Melbourne, Australia for the past 20 years but she came back fairly regularly to visit friends and family.  When I told her that I was from Canada she said her son was doing a premed degree at the U of T and asked if there were many Malay people in Vancouver (I honestly have no idea, but I told her there were enough to open a few Malay restaurants).  Oddly (compared to other things I've heard and experienced) she told me that Australia has a decent cost of living and Malaysia was getting pricier and pricier.

It was a short LRT ride from Sentral to Chinatown (where our accommodations were).  We got our room with a bathroom (for 40 RM) at Wheelers guest house and immediately set about washing our bag thoroughly.  Wheeler's has probably seen better days and the room was pretty sparse, but relatively clean.  It also had a strange odour to it, like boiled vegetables as Nancy put it.  The bed was comfy though and after a wander through the night market (and some delicious garlic fried rice) we fell asleep pretty quickly.