Greg and Kat's blog

Our only stop in Malaysia was Kota Kinabalu. This was a slightly unusual choice: if someone visits one city in Malaysia, it’s usually the capital Kuala Lumpur. KK is in Sabah, a province in eastern Malaysia, on the island of Borneo.

We went really for three reasons: everybody said KL is really just another big city and that if we had been to Singapore, it wouldn’t be different enough to spend the time; somebody Kat was talking to one day said KK was nice; a friend of ours grew up in KK so that was a nice connection.

On our first day there, we had booked a tour to take us up to Kinabalu Park. It was a nice day so we had good views of the mountain.

The tour took us up to canopy walk near the Poring Hot Springs. We opted to do the walk but skipped the hot springs themselves. That involved a bit of a hike up to the base of the walkway, so we got to see the mid-altitude jungle up close.

After lunch, we headed up to the botanical gardens in the park. That was another walk through the jungle. This was at higher altitude, and the jungle looked pretty different. It actually looked exactly how I imagined jungles should look.

For the last night in KK, we went out to the Gayana Eco Resort so we could sleep in huts over water. They were actually much nicer than I was imagining. I think I was kind of hoping for something a little more rustic, but if it had been, I’d probably be complaining about that. There were little geckos everywhere, so that made it feel a little rustic.

Mostly, it was a night of the resort lifestyle.

After that, off to Manilla…