Flew from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah – one part of Malaysian Borneo (the other part is Sarawak).
Kota Kinabalu seems to have two major industries: fishing and shopping. There seem to be more enormous shopping malls than can be justified by the local population. At the market, both are combined – shopping for fish.
This ray for sale resembles an F-117 stealth aircraft (see below).
Because it’s Chinese New Year, every restaurant in town is brimming with families devouring mountains of fish and shellfish. We eat seafood as well while we’re here.
Our mission is to arrange travel to Mount Kinabalu and points East.
That done, we walk the waterfront in search of a place to enjoy a cold beer with a sea view.
The town is very modern.
We visit the Sabah Museum on the outskirts, a good introduction to all things Sabah. For example, at the northern tip of Borneo is where Magellan‘s fleet, on their voyage to circumnavigate the globe, was said to have stopped for 42 days to repair their ships. Huh. Who knew?
(I can’t vouch for the truth of this. The museum also calls Magellan a Spaniard, when he was in fact Portuguese, of course.)
Sight or Insight of the Day – Kota Kinabalu
This is Oreo VII. He lives downstairs from our guesthouse.
Everywhere we go, we run into black and white cats who are mellow beyond words and love the attention that we lavish on them. We immediately dub them ‘Oreo’. This one is the seventh to wear that moniker.