Family Trip to Sabah (2nd Day)

On our second day here in the land below the wind, we woke up to a very breathtaking scenery in the morning. From our balcony we have a direct unobstructed view of Mount Kinabalu. It was magnificent! When we looked out from our room, there were many colourful insects on the exterior wall and floor. I think they were attracted to the lights at our balcony that we switched on the whole night. We have to be extra careful not to step on those insects.

This was taken from inside our room

Look at the time stamp of this photo... 6.54 am and it is already so bright. It gets dark very early here and it also gets bright very early. 

Some of the colourful insects at our balcony wall and floor:

We couldn't resist to enjoy a cup of tea at our balcony overlooking the mountains with the children looking with awe at the beautiful insects on the background. It was such a pleasure to be able to do this. The air was so fresh and unpolluted and the view was so majestic.

We went to the Bunga Raya Cafe to have our breakfast shortly after the morning tea at our private balcony. We chose the table nearest to the windows. When we looked out of the windows, we could see clear sky and many swiflets flying around. It was so serene. The tranquility of the place was suddenly broken by a swiflet which accidentally entered the cafe from the windows but was unable to get out on its own. We helped to release the trapped swiflet.

After our breakfast, we walked around, relaxing our mind and body and feasting our eyes with the peaceful surrounding; the mountains and valleys.

After checked-out, we have to again travel on the long unpaved road full of stones till we reached the main road. Our first destination on this wonderful day full of sunshine was a place famously known as the New Zealand of Malaysia; Desa Dairy Farm. We did not stay for the milking time as it would be too late for us. We just walked around and had some gelato before leaving for our next stop. Other than the gelato, we also bought a carton of chocolate milk from the farm.

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Chocolate, Chocolate-Vanilla & Durian Gelato

Our next stop was the Kundasang War Memorial, which is located about 1km away from Desa Dairy Farm. This Memorial is made up of four beautiful gardens; the Australian Garden, English Garden, Borneo Garden and the Contemplation Garden and Pool. The entrance fee into the War Memorial is RM2/pax for MyKad holder.

Then we continued with our journey to Kinabalu Park. We spent quite some time there. At one point, we tried to drive up to Timpohon Gate from the base with our humble rented car. Half way up, we, I mean I was quite concerned with the ability of the car as it seems like the car was working extremely hard going up the steep road. I kept urging hubby to turn back. We made a U-turn back once we passed by the Kiau Gap View. I felt so relieved as my heart was beating so fast when we were climbing with our car. On our way up, we saw quite a handful of westerners hiking up. I am not a very adventurous person, so I can't envision myself doing such activity.

After Kinabalu Park, we drove to Pekan Nabalu Market. The girls were taking their nap when we reached there. With me holding Chloe who was asleep and the scorching hot weather, we have no intention to take any more picture of the scenic view overlooking the great Mount Kinabalu. We were extremely tired. So, we just made a quick stop to pick up some souvenirs. We bought some t-shirts, key-chains and fridge magnets and quickly got back into the car. 

We then had our lunch at Tamparuli. This place is famous for its Tamparuli Fried Noodles. We wanted to go to Wun Chiap Restaurant which is the creator of this noodles but when we reached there, it was closed. We saw another restaurant at the vicinity but I can't remember the name of the restaurant. It was a corner lot, located at the same row as Wun Chiap. We decided to have our lunch there. Since we do not know what is this restaurant's specialties, we asked the waitress to make recommendations. She recommended us to try the the Tamparuli Fried Noodles and their steamed chicken.

While waiting for our food to be served, something else caught our interest. They were deep-frying some kind of fruit, that have been cut into slices and dipped in batter. It looked a bit like fried sweet potatoes or yam from where we sits. So, we asked the waitress, what are those things. The waitress doesn't know and she asked us to direct the question to the proprietor. He told us it is called breadfruit and recommended us to try few pieces. We then ordered 3 pieces of the fried breadfruit fritters. From near, it really does look like bread. Apparently, this is one of the few fruits which are native to this part of the country.

While we were having our lunch, we noticed that they started to fry banana fritters. There were so many people queuing up for their banana fritters. Most of them bought what looks like 20 pieces or more. These fritters were sold out as soon as they came out from the wok. They have to keep frying new batches. It must be very delicious for it to be sold out so fast. We decided to also join the queue to try how special the banana fritters are. I am so happy that we got to try these fritters. They were very sweet, just like those banana fritters that mum fried for us when we were young. The other plus point is that they are very crispy even after they were kept for a while. 

After having our lunch, we continued to drive to Kota Kinabalu. We went straight to our hotel, Shangri-La, where we stayed for 3 nights. We were so exhausted from the long drive and rested a while before preparing ourselves for seafood dinner at New Luyang Restaurant.

We made some changes to our itinerary. Based on our original plan, we would only go to Filipino market on the next day. Since it was still early after our dinner, we went to Filipino Market to buy some dried seafood to be brought back home. We bought packets of dried seafood like dried sea cucumber, dried shrimps, dried cuttlefish and anchovies. Some are for own consumption and some were meant as gifts. After we were done with the shopping, we went back to our hotel to recharge ourselves for tomorrow's activities.