We could finally check in for our flight at 4am and at 9.45am, after a 12 hour airport wait and a 2.5hour flight we arrived in Kota Kinabalu. After jumping on a bus we waited for our stop and on hopping off the driver informed us that we should have got off at stop 1 instead of stop 3. Never mind we have hours to wait we replied! Hot and sweaty with aching backs from the travel and now our bags we spotted our accommodation but with not being able to check in until 2pm we went in search of food and drinks. The staff we got chatting to in Starbucks were very friendly (we haven't found this much in Malaysia so far) and they even let us borrow their phone to contact our accommodation.
At 2pm we met a local who would hand over our keys and we were finally able to climb into bed after 54 hours.
Marina Court Vacation Home is part of a holiday like complex and our apartment has 4 separate rooms to rent. It seems a great place to stay, central, own room, own bathroom and a good bed so we jumped online and booked a few more nights.
We flew to Kota Kinabalu with one thing at the top of our list of must sees....Sipalok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. On doing a little more research, we are still 5 hours away, so instead of a tour we have decided to book a flight and some accommodation on the same street. Matt's mind was made up when the hotels website stated that often the monkeys from the centre visit the gardens. Bring on next week!
Dinner time was a treat, we wandered around the food market taking in the views of the colourful fruit and vegetables for sale and the smells of the sweet fruit and bbqs blazing. Still a little weary of eating chicken that has been sat around all day we opted for veg rice and noodles, 3 bottles of water and watermelon for desert, all bought for 16RM = £1.90!
M & C xxxx