Awesome Weekend in Sabah

It has been long since I blog. Blogging is a good indicator of my ‘spiritual awakeness’ as I often was being caught up and ‘buried’ by everyday routines and find no inspiration to write at all.

I just came back from a short trip in Sabah with my family during the Easter weekend. It was so awesome and it makes me feeling that my soul has coming back again. I have been missing those days in New Zealand while life is full of input and colours from travelling, university life with friends and OCF etc. Work is so boring in reality and inescapable, full of challenges, routines, and stress.

Talk about the holiday first, I went to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of state of Sabah, in northern East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. We had minimum planning beforehand so everything just happens as it goes. My first challenge was renting a car in the airport (terminal 2), and drive it to terminal 1 where my family was. I haven’t drive since last year and I was slightly unconfident but I made it safely there. In the first day we were just checking in to the hotel, sort out our plans, hanging around in the city and markets.

We watched the beautiful sunset at Tanjung Aru beach and had dinner at the seafood place in Kampung Air, where there were hundreds choices of live seafood and free Kadazan performance on stage. The clams, shellfish, bamboo chicken with rice wine, sea cucumber etc were so good you can never find them anywhere else in the peninsula or Singapore.

Second day we decided to go up to the mountains since we rented a car. Firstly we went to Monsopiad Cultural Village, where the original Kadazan village was located since hundreds years ago. The dance performance was good and I was challenged by the Kadazan-Dusun warrior to shoot the balloon on the stage with the blowpipe. He was quite scary at first but better as he starts talking. We were challenged for the bamboo dance as well which I badly failed due to my weak muscle-nerve coordination. We were showed the houses, lifestyle, history and culture of the Kadazan-Dusun there, and of course the house of skull, where the ‘trophies’ of the headhunters are. Also, they showed us the making of rice wine, sago worms, tried a few traditional games like slingshot, and welcomed with the delicious traditional rice wine.


After the visit to the cultural village, it was the beginning of an adventure of surprises ahead. Our aim was Kinabalu Park where we were hoping to see Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in South East Asia and Australia region, as well as the proboscis monkeys, an endangered monkey species which can only be found in Borneo. We roughly know how to go and how long it takes but did not know what to expect. The road trip turned out so amazing even the roads was not easy to drive on. The villages, paddy fields, stalls, ranges, vegetations, climate, rainforest… were so beautiful and my heart revives as I was praising God all the way through. The air was so cooling and refreshing, and people were so friendly. We went through a few towns, including Ranau and Kundasang, beautiful view, nice coffee too, and there located a war memorial for British soldiers during world war 2. If not mistaken on Anzac day 25 April there will be a mini service there for the remembrance of the sacrifices by Australian and New Zealand soldiers. The best part of the day was the sunset on the mountains, where the clouds intertwined between the ranges, it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen in my life. We had Filipino dinner at Kampung Api-Api, was a unique experience, nice ambience and tasty, authentic Filipino food and people.

Third day was the ‘ocean day’. We visited the Sunday market, had our breakfast, and bought some souvenirs there, then headed to the islands after returning the rented car.

We decided to go to Manukan and Sapi Island out of a few islands in Tengku Abdul Rahman Marine Park. We hired snorkelling gears and snorkelled in Sapi and Manukan Island. To my slight disappointment I did neither seen live corals nor huge marine animals nor sea turtles. However the colourful tropical fishes and sea urchins were fun to see and swim with. Clear sea water and white sandy beaches were enough for us to enjoy and relax for a whole day.

As we unable to decide we went back to Kampung Air’s eating place again and had the free flow seafood hotpot there.
This morning went for a walk at Tanjung Aru Beach again to say bye bye. Restaurants there were so nice and I started to imagine having a mini wedding there.

Really if I can I wish to marry a Sabahan or Sarawakian, so that I have excuse to go there frequently or live there! I love East Malaysia and I feel a special connection with that land as there is where I was born and grew up. Sadly, I had to leave for Singapore and back to the real world again.