We flew Air Asia, an inexpensive, Malaysian-run airline, from the mainland to Malaysian Borneo.
Our destination was Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah, (one of the states within Malaysian Borneo). The island of Borneo is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and tiny Brunei. The South China Sea, which traverses between mainland Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo is the key to Malaysia’s rich history and multiculturalism. It was the midway point between China and India for trade and a substantial shortcut from the alternative (going around). This gives it the ethnic makeup of mostly Chinese, Indian, and native Malay people. It also made Malaysia a target for imperialists.
We arrived, rented a car...
and took a quick trip through downtown Kota Kinabalu, where we had to take a photo outside of a very wonderfully named restaurant.
Which only got us more excited for our real meal. It was mainly a buffet of veggies for the girls and meats for the boys. What I'm not showing you is a grill loaded with every organ meat you can imagine. I'm not sure what the animal was, and I didn't want to gawk or disturb people by acting like some goofy pathologist interested in the organs, so I took a pretty quick look, but there was most definitely a huge tongue and nearly an entire heart. We stuck to the buffet.
En route to the base, we stopped for a few souveniers. Basketweaving is one of the major crafts, and we found some great woven hot plates.
We finally made it to the base, checked in, and spent the night in the peaceful quiet. They had a broad range of accommodations from hostel style to much fancier. We stayed at Hill Lodge. zzzzzzz...............
