Sharon and I both had difficulty sleeping as our bodies were still adjusting to the jet lag and the lack of sleep. I woke up at 3:30 wide awake and stayed up for about 45 minutes. Being up on the 15th floor of Mahani's apartment gave us a good view of the boats moored in the harbour, the city lights (or rather the part of the city we could see), and the hills and mountains beyond. I managed to get back to sleep for a bit but was up again at 6:00 am. The sky is overcast and raining but extremely warm and humid. By 9:00 the sun had burned off the fog, dried up the rain and left the day very humid with a temperature of about 28C.
Mahani picked us up around 10:30 am and off we went for a tour of the city. We started back at the Pan Pacific Sutera and the Magellan Sutera Hotels. This was part of the Sutera Harbour development where over 4,000 hectares ofland had been reclaimed from the sea and were being developed into a very exclusive area. Sutera is Malay for silk. Lots for residential development start around RM2,OOO,OOO(Ringits) with the cost of the houses starting around RM5,000,000. (The exchange rate is about $1.00 Cdn = 3 Ringits.) From Sutera Bay, we cruised along the waterfront of downtown KK. During Mahani's terms in the state legislature, this part of the waterfront had been redeveloped so that the coastline was now occupied by very wide boulevards which held small restaurants, markets, and small stores. The harbour front is very much uncluttered with a very good view of the sea. Park benches and wide promenades lined the shoreline. The seas obviously blows into this part of the city as there is lots of sand as seen by the bbrownish colour of the water as you look out onto the sea.
The original houses on wooden stilts had been replaced by modem development. Throughout the city you could see small pockets of these stilted houses that had been left high and dry by the reclamation and redevelopment of the land from the sea. One could imagine how the coastline of KK looked with these stilted houses lining the shore. It would look very much like a Hong Kong movie with fishing and houseboats anchored in front of these large conclaves of houses on stilts. The cluttering of the shoreline with these houses would have blocked all kinds of development and made the downtown of the city resemble one very large slum. Looking out across the harbour, we could see a small cove on Gayas Island and a cluster of stilted houses along the shore line. Fishing boats were moored in front of these houses. It looked very much like a scene out of the late 19th century. We traveled out of the downtown core along the 4-lane low speed Coastal Highway which had been built across the mouth of another shallow bay. This land was slowly being reclaimed from the sea for development. We traveled past a large number of state buildings to the state legislature. This was a very imposing building of grey polished granite in the shape of a very wide 3-D letter "A" to resemble Mount Kinabalu. The legislature was perched on the top of a hill surrounded by trees and vegetation with a view out to the sea. There were no other buildings in the area. This gave the legislature a very grand, majestic but modern scenic look about the place.
From the legislature building we went on to the University of Malaysia at Sabah. This very modem campus on 4,000 plus hectares of land was built on top of and all around a very large hill overlooking the ocean. Nothing had been spared to make this a premier campus in the world. The university even had its own institute of oceanography with a fish hatchery, a key, and its own boats. The sports facilities included tennis courts galore, a track and field complex, soccer field, stadia, and a whole lot more. Set amid the vast expanse of landscaped and natural lands, the campus was very impressive.
We carried on along the coastal highway, only it had now moved inland, the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park complex. The park was extremely vast and covered quite a large number of square kilometers. It was sectioned off into districts, depending on the type of industry that the business was engaged in. Factories were in an area separate from warehouses, which in turn, were separate from small assembly plants, etc. Down in the harbour were the docks for unloading refined petroleum products and cement. The streets along the petroleum farms and the cement silos were lined with lorries waiting to pick up loads of bagged Portland cement. We then traveled some backroads that hugged the edge of the hill along the shore line to the newly built naval base. A new road from the harbour to the base was under construction along the shoreline. Along the way, we passed a large number of fishing villages built along the shore line and out into the shallow waters of the bay. These houses were built on stilts and used construction materials with narrow 2-plank boardwalks perched in the air out to the houses. Fishing boats were moored out in the water.
We passed some boat builders who had their boats hauled up on shore and were carrying out repairs and maintenance work. The hull of a new boat was under construction. The wood looked as if it had been soaked in a deep chocolate-brown stain for several weeks. In fact, this was the natural colour of the wood. We had seen several lorries when we were traveling the highways loaded with this timber as it was being delivered to mills for finishing or to construction sites. This side trip was quite an adventure in contrasts.
By this time, it was approaching 2:00 pm and we were just around the comer from one of the most fabulous resorts in all of the Pacific Rim. The Nexus Karambunai Resort is situated on over 12,000 hectares ofland. It was a 5-minute drive from the entrance just offthe highway to the industrial park to the resort village. This land was owned by the offspring of the Sultan of Brunei but situated in the heart of Sabah along the coast. It had been developed into a 500 room resort with an extremely large central reception and dining area, a tall 4-6 storey hotel with a large number of two-storey 4-plex "cottages". Average prices started at RM400 a night. Tourists came from allover Asia and Australia for their holidays. To say that it resembled Orlando's Disney World would insult the complex. This made Disney World look like a run-down dive. Everything was in its place. The roofs were wooden shingles made from local woods and cut into very small pieces no wider than 4" and meticulously put into place over the vast expanses of the roof areas. The grounds and the golf courses were well groomed. Staff were extremely courteous.
We arrived at the main reception area where we were met by Justin. Justin knew Mahani very well as she had promoted the hotel in her many travels. Nothing was spared in giving us service. Justin arranged to give us a tour ofthe premises on one ofthe electric buggies as we made our way down to the lower level restaurant. The tables were made of local woods and were very rich in their colours. The ceilings were finished in wood carvings. The rattan chairs were extremely comfortable. Overlooking the patio of the restaurant were 5 swimming pools of varying depths. The place was full oftourists who were extremely relaxed and enjoying their holiday in the sun. A short distance from the pools was the ocean and the breakers crashing on the shore. Lounge chairs lined the ocean front with sun bathers soaking up the sun. We finished lunch around 2:45 pm and headed back to the city. We were planning to take in the sunset at 5:30 but we were all tired. We agreed that we would get together for supper around 8:30 pm.
Supper was quite the adventure! Completely unexpected! Mahani picked us up with Putri and her amah around 8:30 pm. We traveled through the city past the hotel complex and into an area that bordered the sea. This was an open market complex that was full of small stalls and shops that sold different types of prepared food. It was as if the wheels had been taken off all of the BBQ carts that we see in downtown Ottawa and placed under the large roofs of the market. The market was open on all four sides and the smells of cooking foods wafted through the market place. In between the rows of vendors were a whole bunch of picnic tables with families eating their supper. We stopped at one vendor selling steamed com and boiled peanuts. Sharon and Mahani tried the peanuts. As the peanuts were too dry (indicating they had been prepared some time ago), we only bought the corn. We then went off to another vendor where we bought some satay chicken, lamb, and beef (small shish-kebobs of meat skewered on a stick). At another stall we bought some fried fish sticks that resembled chicken strips cooked in batter. At another stall we bought boiled peanuts.
We made our way to the south east comer of the market place and went outside to sit at a picnic table. A bunch of young men gathered around us to take our orders for drinks. We first wandered over to another stall where the vendors were preparing fish for cooking. One vendor took the lid off of his cooler loaded with ice to show us the fish he had. Here were fish weighing about 5 - 7 pounds that had been freshly caught. Mahani picked out a piece of sting ray weighing at least 6 lbs. The vendor took the fish and started cooking it on a small wood-fired BBQ that was welded out of steeL We sat down to eat. We had carried the steamed com, boiled peanuts and deep fried fish with us. The vendors brought us the meat, fried noodles and our drinks to us. We dug in. Here we were sitting outside in this busy market place right next to the shore with the breakers crashing into the sea shore under the moonlight with the smells of cooking food all around us and eating our supper. What a sensation! We dug in! The sting ray was brought to us nicely cooked in a BBQ sauce.
We got back home around 10:30 pm.
