Malaysian Escape

While most of the catholic nations were celebrating Easter, in Taiwan we celebrated the Tomb Sweeping Day, so April 5th was a national holiday. We took an extra day off for an extended weekend at Borneo, a peculiar island in south-east Asia that belongs to 3 different countries: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

The destination was chosen almost randomly. We discovered a “low cost” Asian airline (you can compare it to RyanAir or Vueling): AirAsia. With the only sine qua non condition to depart from Taipei we ended up landing at Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia). We quickly escaped from the city to reach a little paradise.

Around 50 minutes drive from KK (this is the name that locals use for Kota Kinabalu), we found our own little ressort. We will keep the location secret so it does not get spoiled, but if you plan any trip to Malaysia let us know and we will be happy to provide you the details. Just to give an idea, to reach the beach we had to take a small boat (10 min) from a really small fishermen village where nobody cared about the lapse of time. Yan, the owner, bought a small beach and with the help of people from the village built 4 bungalows and a shared space to relax while watching the sea.

… we had the paradise for ourselves! (the first night there were no other customers, the second night a girl that works in a nearby ressort joined us)

So, in short, an ideal place to relax, wake up in the morning and just see the sea (really different from Taipei!) and discover the corals and fishes with diving mask. As in any coast front line, we had to share the space with jelly fish (or sea jelly) from all sizes (locals eat them in soups but we did not try). The sun was really strong and even we used sun-blocking cream we ended up a little bit burnt :-/

As A picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at the gallery below … and be jealous! :)

If you have problems with the gallery, use this direct link to Picasa

One of the “culture shock” differences we have already experienced is that most of the Taiwanese girls, or Asian in general, do not like to sun bath. As soon as the sun is a little bit strong they use caps and umbrellas to cover themselves. They do not like to be tanned (white skin is more beautiful for them). It was even difficult to buy a sun-blocking cream that did not contain skin whitening elements too!!

Kota Kinabalu is not a very attractive city. The city is mainly used as a base to reach 5 islands just in front that are sold as “paradise islands” to the huge amounts of tourists that go there daily. We spent one night at KK in a 5 star hotel (around 80€ per night). When we arrived they did not have our room ready, so we were upgraded to a superior room for the same price :)

We wandered around the city where the principal attraction is the “Filipino Market”. Here you have a small gallery.

If you have problems to see the gallery, use this direct link to Picasa

And back to Taipei!