Splendous Sabah Trip (Last Part)

Gah...finally, here comes the final part of this trip. Yeah...have to admit the fact that this whole idea of story-telling the adventure is being repetitive and mundane. Whatever it is...I mean to write every details in words so that when I get old, I have something to flashback about and telling my kids - I have been there before. Aforementioned statement early in the days that this post is going to elucidate all details about things we do in Kota Kinabalu is true. So bear with it! That has come to end, enjoy the pics. 

Seafood Eldorado. 2 words to describe - Affordable and of course, scrumptious. Location: Around Handicraft Market. Every Night.

Up for the island challenge? 

Manukan island. So stuffy as being the focal point of the tourist. Hardly seen any fish at the shallow water. The water is a bit murky.

Island adventure - Manukan, Mamutik and Sapi. Undecipherable feeling when you get to see little or big creatures of crustacean swimming freely underneath that you feel the corals are waving "hello" to you.

What a ride! Water splashes all over the body. Winds shove our hairs and it feels so great. 

Shopping spree! time to shop till you drop. Can't take my eyes off almost everything. Heaven much? Indeed! Shopping tips: Buy merchandise or whatever souvenirs you want at Night markets (Sinsuran NM or Kampung Air NM) instead of Handicraft market (Filipino market) due to the price difference. 

Cam-whore inside of the Handicraft Market.

We bought a zoo! HA3

Anxiety and nervousness strikes upon seeing elephant passing by. I want to hop on it! 

Trying to act cool! Just finished with the animals performance at the amphitheater. 

Going hysterically historical for a while. Good place to know Sabah's culture. Huge place that it needs a day to complete the whole tour.

Well...we all have an immense thrill of fun. The last day, MH2613 flies 5 of us away to Kuala Lumpur and MasWings takes Jay home to Sibu and Alau to Tawau. Get to be in the brand new fleet of Boeing 737-800, complete with in-flight entertainment.

Memories are made here. This place means so much to us. It has witnessed our ukhwah strengthened. I have faith that this place has touched us as much as we touch them. I believe that titanic couldn't even sink our friendship and dudeship. Looking very most forward to the next trip in the coming years. Singapore? Bandung? Let's save some money now! 

Splendous Sabah Trip (Part 3)

Waking up in the morning and hit the shower to wash face. Get out of the room and stroll around the cabin as this is going to be the last moment we are here before we return to Kota Kinabalu for the rest of the trip. Snap lots of picture possible as we are going to cherish our moments here a lot. Sweet or bad, that makes our day here enjoyable and memorable.

One of the cabins at Kiram's Village. How I wish I could have a house in an area like this where the weather is so calm that you could feel the time moves at snail's pace.

Farewell is finally bidden to Kiram's Village. We are surely goin' to miss this place a lot as it has witnessed a lot of twists and turns through out the journey we undertake. But one thing for sure is that we miss its beauty that beyond compared.

A crowd of friesian holstein cows greets us upon entering the farm. Look at the view, Subhanallah, incredible, isn't it?

Before returning to KK, seize a moment at Desa Cattle as we didn't venture the farm the day before. Everyone is so keyed up to start the discovery or hunting the cows in the field. LOL

Sip a cup of fresh milk, what a bliss! and then we head home. A must place to take pictures at the farm. 

Couldn't help myself to take a bit of memory with the cows. Ironic how I am so passionate about this cow when they are a lot of them just by the roadside back at my hometown.

First place to visit in KK is Karambunai Lagoon Park, situated inside of Karambunai Resort. Great place to try water sports. Providing myriad of water activities. 

Decide just to have a swim and relax. Great place to let off the steams during weekend.

Little did we know that time hits noon already. Pack our stuff and move to the hotel where we are going to stay for the rest of the trip. AnJ Budget Hotel (Highly Recommended) for budget travellers like us who comes in group. Price is at reasonable amount. Where else could you find a room, complete with en suite bathroom, air conditioner and tv, and most important 6 beds at a rate of RM85 per night? So choose AnJ Hotel if you are on a tight budget like us. More to add, the location is very strategic, in front of Handicraft (Filipino) Market, Sinsuran Night Market is just at the back alley, bank is just downstairs, KK waterfront is 2 minutes walking. So very strategic! 

At night, have our dinner at One Borneo, the largest shopping mall in Borneo. Having a stroll inside of this huge mall, and suddenly stumbling upon this cool place. Try our luck and skills at archery. 

Didn't manage to score bull's eyes but just enough to cheer us up for the night. 

That would be all. In sha Allah, I will come up with the last part in the next post. 

Splendous Sabah Trip (Part 2)

Life couldn't be any hectic. Being commuting to and fro Putra Medical Centre, Sungai Buloh since my sis is warded there. To cut it short, voila, our family was aired with a good news yesterday. Another blessing of the year, welcoming the latest addition to Muhamad's family, Muhamad Amirul Hakimi. Another hero and beetle in the family. Be a good and pious son yeah! 

:)

Moving on to our main agenda, I've been keeping the urge of writing this post since i'm pretty caught up with my current life. But heck, I manage to spare some time to write and surely upload some pictures of our day trip to Sabah - miss those moments together. So enjoy the pictures!

Start off the day by driving ourselves to Desa Cattle Mesilau which is within few minutes from where we stay.  Wanted to watch the sunrise, but it rises earlier than we expect. Too early to enter the farm that we decide to just take a few minutes to savor the beauty of Kinabalu mountain zenith from afar before hitting the road to the next destinations. 

Grab our breakfast at Kundasang, and head to Kinabalu Park as promised. Follow the provided trail and end up at a stop which views the mountain top lost in the fog. Devour our breakfast and move to Timpohon gate, one of the entrance to hike the mountain.

Drive up to Ranau which is a bit hotter than calming Kundasang. Head to Sabah Tea. Enjoy the view and buy some souvenirs. 

Rest for a while at Tagal Sg.Moroli or Fish Spa. What an experience! Worth every penny.  When The fishes start swarming your leg, you will feel a bit itchy - that's how the fishes massage you. Feel so great to finally be able to flex the leg muscles.

Hop on the hanging bridge that exists at the Sg.Moroli Fish Spa. Heart skips a beat every time the bridge goes flimsy and shaking. 

Make our way to Poring Hot Spring - rhymed, isn't it? Ha-ha. Just so you know, if you are not a hot spring geek, you will have other option to pamper your body like having a a private time at the waterfall like this one above which one needs to do some walking to the actual spot from the entrance. 

But heck, all pain is paid off once we get to see the water flowing freely, cascading down the waterfall. Have a dive and swim or you will regret for not. 

Later, move to the hot spring part. Yeah, the water is hot, what do you expect? LOL.

Change our clothes and try our male bravado and endurance at Poring Canopy Walk which compounds us another entrance fee.  

Have an immense thrill of fun! Trying to act cool when fear hits us to the core every time we look down. 

End our day at the Rafflesia Sight Seeing. It's deep in the forest. But worth the journey we take. Finally the wish is granted. 

If I feel like writing or hitting this elfin keyboard, i'll try to come up with the third part. So, in sha Allah, there will be a continuity. Stay tuned.

Splendous Sabah Trip (Part 1)

I have long had this written in a draft, but am so lackadaisical to post it up on the blog. Let's see why this occurs. The only reason is that memories are better kept in the back of my mind so that it would be the panacea of bad moment in my life. So i'm writing this away just because I want to immortalize things that we have undergone in a form that it would be there forever that I could still remember what I have undertaken, and that is the beauty of internet. It stays with us forever.

This year end trip has come to an end. After a year of saving and planning, we finally did it. Can you believe it? I possibly cannot.

There are a lot to tell but English just lacks requisite and appropriate words to describe our adventure, our feelings, and our experiences. Just so you know, we do not hire any tour guide to lead us throughout the journey and it gives us freedom to plan our own dream trip. We are proud to tell that we manage to survive until the end of the trip without any major hiccup, excluding losing direction which is a common thing for newcomers like us. Enjoice the pictures of day 1.

The journey begins as soon as we board MH 2604 that flies us away to Kota Kinabalu.

As this flight happens to be the first flight to Kota Kinabalu and it's still early in the morning,  MAS serves us  breakfast as we can choose to devour either Nasi Lemak or Roti Canai. Poor us. When it comes to our rows, they have ran out of Nasi Lemak and that leaves us with no choice but to just manage with Roti Canai.

The good weather warmly welcomes us to Kota Kinabalu. It's a sign that we are going to have a good time throughout  the journey. We unboard the plane at A5 gate. We dash to the custom area to make clearance, and they will issue us a receipt that acts as a pass to enter Borneo. We move to the baggage reclaim area and once we finish, we make our way to the arrival hall. Soon after we settle down at arrival hall, our rental cars arrive (viva auto and saga flx auto). We stuff our things into the car and off we go.

Here we are in Kundasang which is 2 hours drive from Kota Kinabalu. Buy our lunches and we head our ways to the place where we are going to stay for 2 nights.

Kiram's Village Cabin is the place we choose to stay. What a beautiful site! Nothing could describe the pristine and tranquil beauty of this place. And it is cold indeed. The background is just majestic with Kinabalu Mountain sets as its backdrop.

As budget travelers, we book the cheapest room that this place has. To our surprise, the room provides us with 2 beds (1 queen size and 1 single size) and they are just enough to accommodate seven of us.

Finish our lunches as fast as possible as it's still bright outside lest the fog will get heavy as darkness rises. We dash to War memorial to pay our visit.

The beautiful and amazing parks insides the memorial stun us. For a moment, with the temperature fluctuates, we feel like living abroad. HA-ha

We make our way to Kinabalu Park before we call it a day. It's already dark and foggy. We dare not to venture this place more as it's dusk already when it's just 5 pm over there, promise ourselves to revisit this place early in the morning the next day. It's not advisable not to wear thick garment as it's freaking cold. 

To be continued. In sha Allah.

Holiday mode turns on

And so I am a free and single man. I have been dumped by final exam last Sunday. What an atrocious relationship, we have! The turmoil is over. The stress that runs your life has ceased. The anxiety that exponentially escalates considering the fact that you have not covered many topics is now dwindling or perhaps vanishing. The battle is so full of rage and atrocities. The tanks and vessels that are used to be on the front line are now demobilized. What’s done cannot be undone. Let’s just hope for the best that He would give us enough courage to face the wrath of final result which is expected to be released in the end of December or around that circle. This love-hate relationship is sure going to be missed.

What have I done to occupy my free time at the campus while waiting for my departure date which is going to be on Saturday? Apart from decluttering the clutter, I go out with Faiz and two of his friends. He has long gone home but decides to come back to take his left-over things home. So he takes me out considering I am all alone here (*false). We take his friends a tour around Perlis. Instead, we go to Padang Besar.

So here begins the story. The fact is that shopping and me is inseparable. Shopping makes me alive, really. I can shop till I drop. I am on a tight budget on this shopping trip, so I decide not to shop a lot, especially shirts and garments. Being me, I couldn’t help myself but to shop shirts. I think I would just manage with one. Little did I know that I would end up with three shirts and a travelling bag. Again, cash flies away. Am now on the verge of thinking do I have enough to survive during the holiday, to be exact borneo trip. (Did I not tell you that I am going on a borneo trip with my college mates? Lame)

That would be it for this moment. Looking very most forward to Borneo Trip (Sabah). Have a lovely and wonderful holiday!

Checked-in. O'Allah...I pray that you ease our journey and keep us from harm and danger. Aaminn