We were so tired last night, I think that we were both asleep before 9pm and didn’t wake up properly until 9am. I had my usual three trips to the toilet but managed to go back to sleep each time. The reason that our hotel is called the Kaya Resort, I guess is because the island closest to us is called Kaya Island.
We had a bit of a catch up morning arranging our final few days. Having seen a brochure advertising boat trips from here, we hesitated at the price being around 10 times the price of our last one in Langkawi. Also, the Orangoutang sanctuary is a 5 hour bus ride each way. KK is the capital of Sabah, one of the two Malaysian states of Borneo but is a little commercial and touristy for us. The Orangoutang sanctuary is close to Sandakan, still in Sabah but was the capital before the war.
We considered getting the bus to Sanderkan and staying there so we could see the sanctuary but we are running a little low on time now. Added to the fact that it is Independence day in Malaysia on Friday so most things are not running and if they are you pay treble. In the end I’ve bitten the bullet and booked a flight to Sanderkan on Friday and then our return flight from Sanderkan to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday. Although its expensive to fly to Sanderkan its cheaper to fly from Sanderkan to KL than from KK and we get to see Orangoutangs without a 10 hour bus ride.
Our experience of the service out here is not very good. Although they all try so hard and are extremely polite, they don’t seem to know what they are doing. This hotel is quite new but it can’t be the first day for all of them. Nothing seems to add up and its not as if there is a huge choice either. We sat outside booking flights and hotels at breakfast time, but nobody brought us a menu so in the end I went in and asked for two. They asked me for my voucher and I told them that I wanted to pay for breakfast. They explained that they only had the continental and English breakfast available. Its a shame, as I was going to try the Malaysian as they might make a better job of it. We ordered 2 English breakfasts. The coffee and the breakfast came out without the toast and orange juice so Claire asked for it but it didn’t come until we had finished the rest. They didn’t come back to clear the table or give us the bill and by this time my battery was running very low so I left Claire there with my credit card and headed back up to our room paying for breakfast on the way. No bill was made out but she said asked me if it was only the spaghetti Bolognese that I had. “No, two English breakfasts”. “Only one breakfast sir?” “No, two”. I could see her screen and what she was doing; she didn’t have the foggiest idea. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to get the machine to print off a bill for, two English breakfasts but only charge us for one. No time to argue, my battery needed charging.
Once all our research and booking was finished, it was off to the port to see if we could get a better price for boat trips. There are lots of little cafes and bars along the front by the port. We could, instead of 200 Ringitts for 3 islands you can get it for 37. The islands are all in Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park and you do have an additional 10 Ringitts each Park fee and a 7.20 Jetty fee. They also do a 3 hour boat trip over to Labuan Island, the duty free one for 39 Ringitts each way. Its already too late to go today but we do have tomorrow for the island trips and who needs Labuan when we have 40p a can at our hotel?
On our way back I realized its smells so bad around here; the pavements are built over the drains and sewers and have grills that are more like cattle grids all the way along them.
We also walked past several shopping malls, some market style and some western style. Anyway, we ended up going past, what I had seen on the map, “Little Italy” but it wasn’t an area of italian restaurants like in new York, but a single Italian Restaurant.
We passed a very large seafood restaurant with dozens of varieties of live seafood in tanks of running water which had the effect of putting us off rather than encouraging us. Claire always says that she loves fish and seafood but she never wants to eat it and I was put off many years ago following a very long, rocky sea fishing trip.
We eventually ended up back along the front where we had seen the sunset yesterday and had a drink at one of the others but they served us warm beer, in an ice bucket with ridiculously small glasses. Back to the Thai Orchid for us for more of the same. This time we tried the red curry with chicken and the Massaman curry with beef. The Massaman curry has potatoes in it and crushed peanuts sprinkled over the top.
We felt so hot and so full when we had walked all the way back to our hotel again that we had another little snooze; and why not?
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