Interstate travel woes
We switched allegiances from “World’s Best Cabin Crew” (Malaysia Airlines) to “World’s Best Low Cost Airline” (Air Asia) when we flew from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu (which everyone calls “KK” …. err … nearly everyone … the exception was the now defunct Australian Airlines which called it “Sabah”. That’s like calling Melbourne simply as “Victoria”).
As Sabah and Sarawak states have separate immigration controls, we had to clear immigration despite being a domestic arrival. Our timing was bad as there were people from four other aircraft. There were some issues with the management of Visitor vs Local queues and as a result, Kim took some time to clear. He wasn’t very pleased and made his gripes clear to the supervisor. All-in-all, it is still faster than Auckland airport.
Hyper in Borneo
We checked into Tune Hotel adjoining a hypermall development called “1Borneo”. There were three other hotels adjoining this mall: a Novotel, a Mercure and a Best Western. We had pre-booked the best deal through Tune’s website where rates can be as low as a few cents for the room and you add on your extras like air-con and towels. We weren’t so lucky with catching the best promo so our total came to about EUR10 per night!
According to the mall’s website, its podium has a gross area of 1.5m sq ft. Though ginormous by New Zealand standards it is a baby compared to the some malls in KL that are about 5m sq ft. Nevertheless, it is impressive with a high-rise luxury apartment blocks attached as well.
Catching up with a mate
After dinner, an old school friend David picked us up to experience some of KK’s night spots. First we went to Tanjung Aru hawker centre by the beach. It has been tidied up heaps since 2001 when he last took us there.
Next we dropped into a coffee-shop / bakery for supper. The teh tarik here was tops; rich smooth milky tea that was so rich it tasted chocolatey. Available hot or iced. Then came the soft fresh bread (or toast) smothered with butter and kaya which is a local jam made from a caramelised reduction of coconut milk, sugar and eggs (equal volumes). Very decadent!