Day one: Arrival

After allot of hassle from the company that provide the Escape Travel Card we left Bristol at about four and flew from Heathrow at half nine.  We arrived in Kota Kinabalu at about two, very, very tired from travelling. The flights were fine, the food was acceptable without attempting to push any boundaries in quality and the film selection was so-so. I wasted two hours of my life watching "I am Number 4", which turned out to be a pile of number two.  The Avengers partially made up for it in because it monsters in it, super heroes and good special effects. So ends my Malaysian film review. We stopped over in Dubai and Brunei, both nice airports, especially Brunei, it's small, un-rushed and friendly feeling.

The airport taxis are regulated, you don't pay them directly, instead you pay at a booth inside and give the taxi driver the receipt.  We didn't realise and walked to the taxi rank and were then asked to go back inside and pay first. It's a good system though, no danger of someone just getting off then plane and feeling jet lagged getting conned.  The driver spoke English very well and drive like his taxi was about to turn into a pumpkin.

The Celyn Hotel isn't exactly luxury. It's got all the amenities you'd expect in a Travel Lodge. Dad seems happy enough.

It's hygienic, the beds appear clean. It has air conditioning. That's it, well, almost it.  The replacement for the bog brush is a small power shower attached to the side of the toilet.

Tomorrow we'll go into Kinabalu and decide where we are going next.

After passing out for a couple of hours we thought that some dinner was in order, we decided on a relatively inoffensive looking place and I got a minced chicken and rice 'thing' and Dad got a chicken drummer with some nice sauce on it, rice and some red stuff that made your head explode. a trip to the supermarket to get some liquid and snacks was in order. It was painfully hot, a sneaky little sauce too, it pretends to yummy and harmless for a few seconds before turning on you. Tuchè, evil red sauce, tuchè. It was late, and the most exciting thing we would be able to do was wonder around the supermarket. Putting on my ancient (Twenty two years old and still good) sandles was the last to,e I would. The trip in my suitcase had not been gentle to them and after five minutes the left one was in two pieces and I was walking like I needed a wee. I now have new sandles. Let's hope they will last another twenty two years. The supermarket is quite an experience. Everything is for sale, it's massive and it seems to have been organises by a sociopathic idiot. There is almost no reason to why mugs are on the shelf next to nuts, next to batteries next to bleach. We found the snacks section, which was actually the best organised part. Dried fruit is popular, so we have some Papua and 'something else' that has been dried and looked interesting, like red tree bark. Seaweed is the next popular snack, it comes in several flavours, as you can see I'm the photo below. < > Yes, the flavours are, not hot, hot and very hot. After our experience with the hot sauce we didn't risk of and went the big girl's blouse flavour one.