A fast growing city because of tourism and industries
Kota Kinabalu, abbreviated KK, is the capital of the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo. The population is almost 450,000. Mount Kinabalu, which gave the city its name, is located to its east. Kota Kinabalu is one of the major industrial and commercial centres of East Malaysia. This Malaysian city is also a growing resort destination due to its proximity to tropical islands. It attracts many Chinese and Korean tourists.
Huge palm oil plantations
My bus ride to Kota Kinabalu took about 9 hours and I reached the Cozy Hostel. On the way there I spotted huge areas full of palm oil plantations, for which the rainforest is cut down. For the use of palm oil companies (like Nutella) are criticized.
Bad luck in a great hostel
The owner of my hostel had sent me all instructions by electronic message so that I could check in by myself. The hostel was super clean and new, had a kitchen and Netflix. I extended the next morning for one night.
When I noticed several bedbug bites while taking a shower, I immediately cancelled the extension and then I also discovered the large number of bedbugs that had made themselves comfortable in the wooden frame of the bed. The hostel has almost a perfect score of 9,7/10. I seem to be the only one who had bad luck there. I moved to the Bed&Breakfast@21, there I was welcomed by nice Malaysians and I even got a room for myself.
Few tourist attractions in Kota Kinabalu
There is not much to see in Kota Kinabalu, most attractions are outside of it. Most tourists visit a group of islands off the coast for swimming, but my hostel owner advised me against it. The city is also the starting point for climbing Mount Kinabalu, one of the easiest mountains over 4000 meters in the world to climb. Unfortunately a tour agency has the monopoly for the ascent of the mountain, which takes at least 2 days and as a result they push up the price. It costs about 300 €.
This was out of question for me, so I just walked around in the city. I looked a little bit at a historical clock, the Atkinson Clock Tower, the the oldest standing structure in Kota Kinabalu. I continued my walk to the lookout point Signal Hill Observatory Tower.
The local CouchSurfing community
I was baffled by the many requests from guys I got on CouchSurfing from which it was clear they had bad intentions. It was a complete mystery to me how the LGBT communinty in Muslim countries like Malaysia and later also in Indonesia seems to be quite big. In places where homosexual activies bring with a heavy punishment. The strict Muslim society is very hypocritical after all. The sole punishment cannot just repress or change their sexual behavior.
The next morning I left Malaysia by boat for Brunei for a few days until I returned back to Malaysia.
