Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Island of Borneo March 15-18, 2007

Our first trip to East Malaysia (two states, Sabah and Sarawak are located on the northern half of the island of Borneo) was in mid-March when we left KL after a Felda Board Meeting and flew to Kota Kinabalu. Since Sabah is semi-autonomous, it has its own immigration controls and a passport is needed to enter, even though we were still technically in Malaysia. We had obtained a voucher to stay at Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort after successfully bidding on it at the Canadian Association of Malaysia’s Annual Thanksgiving Dinner Dance and Silent Auction back in October 2006. You can check out the resort on their website: http://www.shangri-la.com/en/property/kotakinabalu/tanjungaruresort


Pat lucked in to a sale at the Jim Thompson silk shop there-linen shirts were discounted to RM99 (about $33CAD) and cotton ones to RM75 (about $24CAD)! As it turned out, they were all XL size and too big for most Malaysians, but his tailor altered them all for him at no charge! What a deal!

The resort is located on the South China Sea, with several islands in the distance, good for snorkeling and diving. It was bigger than most we have enjoyed and quite crowded, but service was attentive and meals were good. On one evening (the only one it didn’t pour with rain) we took a taxi into Kota Kinabalu to check out the night market and have a wonderful seafood dinner downtown, Port View Seafood Restaurant. Pat picked out our dinner right from the tanks! At the market we bought some long sticks of cinnamon, very long sticks, in fact…about 2-3 feet long! We had to break off long sections in order to bring them back in our suitcase! We also bought a typical woven basket tray as used by the tradesmen at the market to hold veggies and fruit. It's probably two feet in diameter!

On our first morning there, we awoke to the sun rising from behind Mt. Kinabalu, the highest point in SE Asia at 4095m. It was short-lived , however, as clouds covered the mountain for the rest of the weekend, thus no pictures, sorry! Jen’s boyfriend, Ben, and his brother, Luke, climbed the mountain in early May before returning to Canada! They said sunrise from the summit was pretty awesome!

Check out this cool

table in our room-

it has a pull-out drawer

underneath the top

which can hold a place

setting!