Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah, which is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Amy and I have both been to peninsular Malaysia on prior trips and we were eager to dive back in to some of the local cuisine. The food in Malaysia in an interesting mix of Chinese, Indian and Malay creations. KK has a lively night market along the waterfront where a few dozen vendors setup restaurants under tents. Most of these are serving up freshly caught seafood. We indulged in the night market at least three times during our stay.
One of the oddities of Malaysian cuisine is the ABC or Ais Kacang that you can get from just about any drink vendor. It’s somewhere between a drink and snack and consists of shaved ice, corn kernels, sweet beans and grass jelly all dowsed with a sugary pink syrup and condensed milk. It sounds strange and they certainly look weird but they make for a refreshing snack in the hot weather. Amy discovered a local variant that includes avocado that she quickly took a liking to.
Just off the coast from KK is Tunku Abdul Rahman park which is comprised of a handful of jungle-covered islands. The regular ferry service to these islands makes them a popular day-trip for locals and tourists alike. We went to Pulau Sapi (Pulau means “island” in Malay and many of the other languages in this area) for an afternoon of snorkeling.
The island’s popularity was evident when we arrived. In contrast to the Cooks where we commonly had a couple hundred yards of beach to ourselves, here on Sapi we had about a hundred yards of beach to share with maybe 500 other people! As afternoon wore on it quieted down as people returned to town.
Amy went snorkeling and was reminded of how warm water is in this part of the world – “like bath water” as she puts it. There was a nice variety of fish but seeing them was hard because of the poor visibility. I entertained myself with some reading and a short hike across the island. I was hoping to see some birds but in the end all I spotted was a monitor lizard looking for food scraps behind the island restaurants.