Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia – 7-8 September 2019

We land into Kota Kinabalu (from Tawau) 23 minutes early on Saturday 7 September. A late night for us, the past week it’s been lights out by this stage (9.02pm). Diving has tired as out!

As expected it’s a circus leaving the plane - some people have no idea!!

Our bags are coming around the luggage carousel when we arrive, talk about timing!!

Laur orders a grab car; more than half the price of a taxi. Amazing!

Check in is nice and easy and within a few minutes we are in our room. A much later night than usual for us (10pm.....).

Sunday 8 September I wake just after 7.30am - I’m in no rush so remain where I am. This is what I love about the weekends!

Laur heads out for a run.....I know I should be too but can’t be dealing with the sweaty clothes in my bag for so long. Next weekend.

Breakfast is a chilled affair.

We have a couple of hours relaxing at the pool reading - this is the life!

As we leave I think to myself I need to find a pool to sit by for next Sunday.

Laur heads out for a massage; I need to go and shower and get rid of the sun screen in the my eyes – far from comfortable!

We meet at the restaurant for lunch. There is some confusion with the wait staff; they want to send Laur’s food up to the room. Ummm no. She’s just gone to get her bag and coming back down again. Let’s see what happens.

In between courses (not sure why we couldn’t get everything in one go.....) I go and check out.

Laur orders a grab car and within minutes it’s here. Super easy and this time a third of the price of a taxi - crazy!!!

It’s a completely different sight at the boarding pass / luggage tag printing area than it was last Saturday - absolutely amazing we could just walk up and straight to the kiosk.

As we had both already checked in on line we go to the counter to see if we can move our seats together. Yes we can but it will cost us a whole MYR 2 each (~NZD 75 cents; ~USD 47 cents). The kind lady is going to try to keep the seat next to us free too. Let’s hope that happens.

Given the debacle getting into the country last Friday I need to ensure I get my exit stamp today.

Security is easy.....until Laur’s coffee spills everywhere. Thankfully it’s only the outside of her laptop bag and a couple of her passport pages that get wet. The security man advises we need to go and reprint the boarding pass. While she goes and does that I find out exactly where we need to go. Right oh, that’s where I went wrong last time!

As soon as we are through immigration (absolutely no lines at all) our gate is right in front of us. We have about 20 minutes to boarding so decide to head down to the gate to wait. Being the first ones we have the pick of the seats.

We push back from the gate 12 minutes late; unlike the promptness of last night’s flight. Let’s hope we make up some time in the air.

Laur and I do have a row to ourselves which is great! The lady at the check-in counter kept her world.

Goodbye for now Malaysia - it’s been an amazing week! I will be back.

The flight passes by quickly. Helps to have downloaded some shows on Netflix. We land back into HK 3 minutes ahead of schedule - good work pilots! With absolutely no trips booked I wonder where I’ll head next………