Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia – 23-25 November 2018

My weekend away starts with me just missing the train to the airport (by 30 seconds) on Friday 23 November - if only people moved in a speed faster than a snail going backwards I would have made it. Shortly after the train departs an announcement is made saying the next train is in 8 minutes.....WTF! For now I’ll get some more steps for my Fitbit weekly challenge.

The purpose of this weekend away is to scuba dive tomorrow. The last time I dived was over CNY (back in February); instead of doing a refresher course next year (if I don’t dive in 12 months) I decided a weekend away diving is the better option.  And yes you can dive in Hong Kong but it’s got too cold to do so (plus you don’t see a huge amount).

Thankfully when the train arrives I have a seat. You would think it’s a long weekend or something as there are so many people on the train.

It’s a quick 20 minute ride to the airport. I head straight to terminal 2 on arrival. I’m informed by the not so friendly Air Asia check in staff member that he can’t move my seat and if he could he would have to charge me. Seriously?! When I checked in online I was randomly given a middle seat. No thank you! He advises the flight isn’t full so I’ll be able to move seats when I’m on board. Thanks but I’ll be trying at the gate to move seats. For now it’s off to terminal 1 I head.

With no lounge access I decide Pizza Express will be where I’ll go for dinner. 

Getting through passport check, security and immigration is easy even though there are people everywhere. Will be interesting to see how the airport will be for Christmas (4 weeks to go).

I make a bee line for Pizza Express once I’m through to the passenger only side. Mainly to get me away from the Qantas lounge sign.

I had forgotten to bring my external battery so ask for a seat near a power plug. iPhone charging, wine ordered - queue relax.



I get chatting to two people heading back to Auckland who have been in China for work. Makes me want to get on the plane to Auckland.....thankfully 4 weeks to go and I will be (well via Sydney).

Due to my charging I leave it to the last minute to leave Pizza Express. It’s then a quick walk to the train and an even quicker walk to the gate. The final boarding sign is a bit of a hoax.....

The boarding pass / passport check staff are beyond unhelpful with the seat change - I’m told “cannot”. I mean seriously!! I’m asked for my return ticket; no idea why. A little odd as I’ve never been asked before. Thankfully I have it printed out.

As soon as the doors close I move to the window seat - ye ha no longer in the middle. Thank you 11 F for not turning up.

Finally there is movement. We reverse from the gate at 8.16pm, 4 minutes ahead of schedule. Let’s hope the 3 hours and 4 minutes flight passes quickly.

We are finally up up and away 30 minutes after we depart from the gate. Fingers crossed we aren’t delayed getting into KK.

I manage to get a bit of shut eye before watching a movie I’d downloaded on Netflix.

We land right on our scheduled arrival time of 11.25pm in the pouring rain. Let’s hope we have a bay to disembark and not a bus and even more fingers crossed it’s not raining tomorrow!

It’s a short drive to the gate. Once I’m off the plane the pace is picked up - even though I have an APEC card I remember immigration last time I was here so I don’t want to be mucking around.

There are 3 people on front of me, again thank goodness for my APEC card. The foreigner lines are all sooooo long.

The friendly bag check security man informs me where the ATM’s and taxis are.

Hmmmm 3 ATM’s later and no money. My card has been declined each time. Very very odd. HSBC you will be hearing from me on Sunday night.

Right oh now to find the currency exchange. I typically don’t carry much cash when I travel; luck was on my side today though. RM 100 is requested; my trusty xe.com website informs me it should be around HKD 186. The invoice chit reflects HKD 204.06....hey ho. I hand over HKD 200 then a HKD 5 coin. The man informs me they don’t take coins. Sorry wrong answer. And if I had a HKD 10 note how would you give me change??! A few seconds later I’m given two RM 50 notes (which he needs to put through a note counter machine.....why you ask, absolutely NO idea).

Taxi chit sorted - I’m off to find the taxi line. The airport, while smallish, isn’t great with its signage. Someone notices me looking a tad lost so points me in the right direction.

Le Meridien here I come!

It’s a quick 12 minute journey to the hotel, one of the positives of arriving late at night - next to no traffic.

Check-in is nowhere near as good as it was at the Le Meriden in Bangkok. I’m informed my card declined at the ATM machines due to it being close to midnight, they apparently do something at midnight. Note to self for next time. After a false start with the lifts I’m finally on my way to my room.

On entering my room it’s WOW. It’s massive!!



I finally get into bed at 12.40am - it’s going to be a short night with the alarm going at 7.15am.

Saturday 24 I wake at 6am - a bloody car alarm had been going on and off all night. Let’s hope I don’t have a repeat of this tonight!! I manage to go back to sleep too just after 7am.

A cold shower helps to wake me up.....must get hot water for later on.

I’m on the real go slow this morning but seriously need to pick up the pace so that I can eat breakfast before I leave. I need to be
at the pier at 8.45am which in Jordan language means between 8.35am and 8.40am. I do not want to miss the boat!

It’s a wonderful sight to see vegemite on the bread / toast / spread table. I was thinking in the lift down that I should have brought my travel one.

I somehow manage to eat breakfast, pack up the rest of my things and get downstairs for a taxi.

The door men are super friendly and helpful! As the taxi pulls up they ask if I have a beach towel......hmmm aaahhhh hmmmm what to answer. In a quiet voice I inform them I have taken one from the room. They laugh at me and take me inside to get a beach towel. The blue (towel) goes better with my blue bag anyway :)

Before I know it we are pulling up at the jetty. As I put one leg out of the taxi the heat hits me - this is heaven!

The jetty is a hive of activity; for now I’m enjoying wandering with the sun on my back.

I’m not able to locate the red phone boxes so ask someone where to go. One of the men walking by asks if I’m going with Borneo
Dream. Hmmmm let me refer to my email. Bingo I am. He’s from Borneo Dream. I’m told to follow him, that I can do.

We locate a spare table and sit down. I’m given some paperwork to review and sign.

There are two other couples that join (this means I’ll get back the single supplement I’ve already paid). We hang about for a good 20 minutes before wandering to the boat. You definitely don’t walk fast here.

3 of us are divers and 2 are snorkelling.

I definitely remember 2 out of the 3 staff from last year. When I get my dive book out it confirms I did dive with the 3rd one.

We had two dives in the morning. Both I had issues going down with my left ear. I wonder how you could survive with just one ear??! The first dive we see a turtle which is swimming around eating. I could have spent the whole dive watching it!

In between dive one and two we drop off the snorkelers to go parasailing and zip lining.

 

In the second dive we saw a lot more colourful fish of all sizes.



Once we are de-kitted we head off to the small island, where we dropped the snorkelers earlier, for lunch. It’s the same place we went last year :)

 

Our third and final dive today is at Magic Point. As we are preparing Jason (our dive master) advises we may see black tip sharks if we are lucky. Wholly smoke - I hope not!!

The visibility was definitely the worse (but not as bad as HK) on the third dive - around 4-6 meters. Similar to the first two my left ear didn’t like it when I went down. Once down I was ok.

We pull into the jetty at 3.15pm - it’s been a great day both above and below the water.

I purchase a taxi chit, annoying they don’t work on meters and wander off to find a driver. They of course spot me before I spot them.

I have no luck again with the hot water so call housekeeping. A staff member comes up shortly after. He kindly informs me I’ve been turning it the wrong way. Hmmm seems odd as I know I tried both ways both this morning and now. Hey ho I have hot water now which is all that matters.

Feeling clean and have hair that I can move my fingers through without getting stuck I chill listening to some music.

I’m starting to fade around 5pm. Nope I cannot go to bed yet - it’s too early!

I manage to wait another hour before deciding to head down to the bar. I remembered from previous visits to KK the sunsets were impressive and as I’ll be on a plane tomorrow when sunset occurs I want to see if tonight.

WOW! I know my photos won’t do it justice.

    

I ummm and aaah over whether or not to have a drink. It’s really not that complicated. Ideally I would like to be going to bed but that’s a cannot lah given the time of day. In the end I decide a drink will delay eating which will delay bed time.



It’s so peaceful sitting here watching the sun disappear and the clouds change from orange and pink to black. The day light hours for today have finished.

I decide to go to the Italian restaurant (in the hotel) for dinner - thankfully no reservation was needed. Dinner is tasty, Italian with an Asian take.

 

Sunday 25 November (wow one month to Christmas….) I wake just after 8am. The bloody alarm outside had woken me a couple of times in the night but nowhere near as bad as the night before.

Today is all about relaxing so I’m in no rush to head down to breakfast.

Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be as many people at breakfast as there were yesterday morning. Coming down later seems the trick.

I have a couple of hours at the pool which was heavenly!

Early afternoon I head back to the room to shower and pack (takes all of 6 seconds....).

I decide to have lunch before I head to the airport - from memory there is limited options available there so better to be in comfort eating something I want.

The trip to the airport takes no more than 15 minutes - so glad I didn’t leave the hotel any earlier.

I had already checked in and got my boarding pass last week so it’s straight to security and immigration.

Once I’m through I decide I’ll fill in time by looking at the shops. The first ones I see are more local food shops - hmmm something seems a tad off.

As I walk around the corner all I can see if signs for gates A - hmmm something definitely isn’t right here. I’m leaving from gate B. I continue wandering hoping I might come across a sign that says Gates B; alas no. So I ask someone and I’m told I need to go upstairs. Right oh.

First hurdle is going through immigration again - I explain myself to the officer who couldn’t answer that I’m not transiting. Finally he gets it gives me instructions on where I need to go.

The man at security gives me a much harder time. He informs me I’m in the wrong place - yes thank you I am aware of that. In the end he turns on the scanner for me to put my bags through.....it’s going the opposite direction which makes that tricky. Within seconds it’s switched to the correct direction. I’m told again that I shouldn’t be there. Yes thank you I am aware; you can blame some of your other airport staff who pointed me this way.

Now that I’m where I need to be I waste a few minutes looking in a duty free store. The staff seem more interested in chatting amongst themselves than helping customers - not that I want to buy anything. It’s just odd to me.

Boarding seems a lot more straight forward than it was in Hong Kong. This time I have a window seat thank goodness.

The seat next to me is free for much for boarding then a family arrives.....they seem to be all spilt up. The lady on the aisle trades places so that at least the two children are seated together.....with me. I offer to move so that the mother can sit with them but it’s a middle seat between two big men. Sorry but I’m staying put. Time for my noise cancelling headphones.

We pull back from the gate 11 minutes ahead of schedule - Air Asia I’m impressed! Even better is the announcement the pilot makes before we pull back, the flight will be 30 minutes quicker than expected. Excellent.

   

I had downloaded two movies this morning so pass the time watching them.

At 6.41pm the pilot announces we are being put into a holding pattern before starting our descend - wow we really did make good time. He then informs us its 17 degrees and light rain in Hong Kong. Ummmm what??! I’m going to freeze.

We land about 10 minutes earlier than scheduled and onto a satellite gate.....not entirely sure what that means others than it’s raining and we are going to get wet. Of course there are no buses either. Joy.

Finally we can disembark the plane; as it’s raining I wait to the people in front of me are basically at the bottom of the stairs. No point standing out in the rain. Take me back to hot and sunny Kota Kinabalu! Fingers crossed NZ will be war