Days 170 – 171: Kota Kinabalu

The following morning I set off for Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the Malaysian province of Sabah, on a luxury, air-conditioned bus, and never had I been so happy to get away from the "real" modes of transportation. Ironically, I was still the only foreigner on the bus-- although Malaysian Borneo is far more touristy than Kalimantan, it's still nothing compared to mainland Southeast Asia.

Like any good air-conditioned Southeast Asian bus, the on-board temperature had dropped below freezing by about fifteen minutes into the ride, so I wrapped myself in my towel and tried my best to stay warm while pondering for the ump-teenth time why Asians equate luxury with having to wrap themselves in blankets.

Still shivering, I focused my eyes on the roadside scenery and tried to forget about the ambient temperature. I was hoping for some classic Borneo rainforest landscapes, but instead I got classic Borneo palm oil plantation landscapes. It seems that the Borneo's rainforests have been torn up and replaced by palm oil plantations so vast that at one point I fell asleep for an hour, and when I woke up we were still driving past the same plantation. I am not making this up.

I arrived in Kota Kinabalu around 5pm, but the bus stopped at a bus station that wasn't on my map of the city, and I had no clue where I was (my guidebook told me that buses dropped passengers off in a terminal in the center of the city-- WRONG!). I decided to walk for a while and try to get my bearings, but half an hour later I was no closer to anything that looked like downtown Kota Kinabalu. Just then, a car slowed beside me, and a man asked me if I needed a lift into town. Instinctively I said no, that I would walk, but he laughed and told me that in that case I'd be walking for a few hours. He seemed harmless enough, so I got in the car and we set off for downtown KK.

The man, whose name was Jason, turned out to be a incredibly friendly guy who used to be involved in the tourism industry-- for that reason, he spoke perfect English. Thirty-four years old and riginally from KK, he had worked for several different companies and was now employed at a marketing firm. His wife, to whom he'd been married for six years, worked for Shell Oil. Clearly, this was one of the economically better-off families in Malaysia.

Jason dropped me off at a hostel in town and gave me his business card in case I should need anything while I was here. I thought that was the last I'd see of him, but that night, after I had wandered around the town for a bit and eaten dinner, he stopped by my hostel to see if I wanted to go out for a drink with him and two of his friends. Seeing as I had nothing else to do, I readily accepted, and we headed to a local karaoke bar to drink and sing the night away. I sang "Imagine," by John Lennon, which I thought was a good peace-loving pick to sing in a Muslim country until I got to the line "And no religion too"-- but given that these Muslims were drinking beer and singing Western songs, I don't think they're particularly observant.

I went out to a late dinner with Jason (at midnight-- and the restaurant was packed) and told him a little more about my trip; he told me more about his family, job, and life in KK. It turned out that Jason wasn't quite the angelic figure he seemed on the surface-- he had married his wife reluctantly, because she was pregnant (although he said he's glad it worked out this way, in hindsight), and he was hooked on crystal meth until a couple years ago. Cynically, I kept waiting for the moment where he would try to sell me drugs or get me involved in some other illicit scam, but it never came-- it seems he really was just a guy trying to entertain a guest in his country.

I spent most of the following day catching up on my blog and wandering around downtown KK, and though the city has nothing specific to offer the traveler (the area's main attraction is Mt. Kinabalu, 90km from the city, but it now costs $230 to climb the mountain, so I said no thanks), it was interesting just to observe the relative prosperity of the metropolis. I hadn't seen so many new SUVs since Ubud, Bali.

More than ready for a break from the Malay-Indonesian food I'd been eating for a month, I ate lunch and dinner at two of the many Chinese restaurants in town, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality RM 4 ($1.25) bought. That night, I went out with Jason and his friends again-- first to the same karaoke bar, and then to a pool hall. I didn't get home until nearly 2am, which wasn't a problem for me, but I wondered how Jason and his friends managed to work the next day after keeping these sorts of hours. I also wondered what his wife thought about him staying out until after midnight two weeknights in a row. I guess it's convenient that Islam commands her to submit to her husbands wishes....