Our recent trip on a whim to Kota Kinabalu has been nothing short of phenomenal! To think, such an amazing place and just in our backyard! Kota Kinabalu (KK) is ranking as one of our top most favourite holidays and now that we are back, we are sorely missing our wonderful week there! Our 7 days gave us such a rich experience across the spectrum, from culture to nature and gastronomic delights.
We loved the little we saw of Sabah so much we’re going to go into a lot more detail than our usual trip summary. First off, we know you finance heads would want to see our cost breakdown. As mentioned in our last post, we wanted to wrap this up nice and neat within $1,500. As we aren’t very strict with spending since we’re frugal but not to extremes (i.e. we only spend on what we really want and feel isn’t excessive), we were not dead set at keeping our spend within $1,500. We tallied up our total the day after we returned and we have gone over the budget by a wee bit, spending a total of $1,633. More details at 8 Amazing Days in Sabah Cost Us $1,600.
Now, on to our trip! We’ll do this in 2 parts as the post is getting a wee bit lengthy!
Day 1
Flight day! Our departure was at 1:40pm so that gave us sufficient time to go a little earlier and have some grub at the SATS Premium Lounge at Terminal 2. Coco#1 is beginning to think that’s how all our trips will be now and I spent some time explaining that he has some smart folks who score free vouchers to enjoy this perk and we totally wouldn’t be shelling out money for lounge access!
Our entrance to the Lounge was courtesy of my Krisflyer Ascend card which gives me 4 Lounges per year. We had used up 3 on the last trip to KL so I was left with the 1 Krisflyer Ascend voucher and Mr.C and my Diners Card respectively gives us 1 lounge access a year. I love Terminal 2’s Lounge, Mr.C had taken some pics to do a brief review (coming soon!).
We reached KK eventually at 7pm and our buddy from college was there to greet us and bring us over to her house for a home-cooked meal! Oh my, what a treat and it was one of the best experiences ever to be invited to a local’s house to see how they live. They live in a kampung house which was huge and 3 generations occupied the place. Kids were running wild everywhere which Coco#1 quickly decided : Yep, I want in!
This was an experience that I would like to say money can’t buy, but then there’s AirBnB experiences these days so money can buy this soon, however money can’t buy the warmth and sincerity that was just oozing from our friend and her lovely family. Truly the best experience ever.
Day 2
Living the life by heading over to a private island to spend the day. The usual island hopping trail which is part of Tunku Abdul Rahman marine park (Pulau Manukan, Pulau Mamutik, Pulau Sulug and Pulau Sapi) had rather negative reviews on Tripadvisor and it didn’t spark excitement for us. Mr.C went down a rabbit hole in his online research based on a throwaway comment he made and voila, we ended up booking a tour to Pulau Dinawan. Worth every cent!
More details on our Pulau Dinawan trip here!
We were sent back to our hotel by 530pm and a good hot shower later, we were ready for the meal that everyone typically has in KK – seafood! We went to Sembulan Lobster Restaurant which was a quick ride away, costing us RM4 only using Grab. By the way, Grab worked amazing in KK. Our rides arrived within 1-3 minutes of requesting for a ride and the drivers were never lost nor did we have a issue with any cancellations. In comparison, Grab in Singapore is frustrating and painful and eye-watering and blood boiling and…you get what I mean 🙂
We didn’t have a lobster meal though, we have ‘been there, done that’ with lobsters back when we went to Tawau en route to Sipadan years ago and also in Newport, United States when we went 3 years ago. Undoubtedly, we would have enjoyed it but we didn’t think it was priced right. The food itself was exceptional and we absolutely loved that we managed to get the local vegetable Paku Pakis. Our meal came up to SGD47 (RM140) for 4 dishes and drinks included.
Day 3
Breakfast of champions at the mamak behind the hotel!
We decided to head over to Mari Mari Cultural Village, something we would not have ever done in the past. We have come to realize in recent times that it is worth paying for a guided cultural tour to give our presence more depth and Mari Mari over-delivers. We have never been on a more well run and immensely enjoyable tour than Mari Mari and that too in Malaysia! Once we got over our amazement, our heart swelled with pride for it was truly world class.
Mari Mari definitely deserves a full write up on it’s own! (Coming soon)
That night we decided to go for a walk along the waterfront on our way to a famous Italian joint in KK that came highly recommended by many of our friends and Tripadvisor as well, Little Italy. The waterfront was so crowded with tourists, mostly from Korea! We got a view of the gorgeous sunset as we walked towards our dinner destination. Along the way, we stopped by the Dried Fish Market and a local Tamu (night market) as well as a local seafood market along the water. We were not feeling too adventurous with the food since we’re travelling with the young ‘uns. So Little Italy we went and we’ll let the pictures do the talking here.
Little Italy was the the most expensive meal we have in Sabah coming up to $70 (RM210). Having said that, we had 3 mains and 3 desserts along with drinks. Excessive? Yes.
With that, we’ll take a bit of a break! All these food pictures makes my tummy rumble 🙂 Stay tuned for part 2 of the Amazing Borneo post for more of our shenanigans in Sabah!
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