Day Two: Kota Kinabalu

Day two, our first full day.  Bar a couple of ideas of what we wanted to do, we really were winging it and, well, I was already win during if not having preplanned more we had set ourselves up for a fall. Kota Kinabalu is a working city, it's not pretty, it's busy and hot. It's actually very claustrophobic when you don't know where you are.

Being the brave soldiers we are though, we got the free shuttle bus provided by the hotel and went looking for travel agents who could get us on our way at a reasonable price.  This is where it because apparent that neither of us had anything idea what we wanted to spend, or how we would keep ourselves entertained and fed in between all the excitement.  All that we were really sure of was that we didn't want to spend much time in KK, and we wanted to see everything and then sit in a 5* hotel for a few days R & R.

Working on an exchange rate of 2.8 ringgots to the pound, things were going to get expensive.  Very expensive.  We spent an hour sitting in a coffee shop discussing what our plan was.  Some, might say should have done this before.  Some right have a point, but then again, some can keep their point to themselves.  Hurrumph!

There seems to be three main areas we'd like to see.

• Kinabalu
• Matching
• Sarawak

Around Kinabalu is the mountain, some pretty wetlands with Probiscus Monkeys and fireflies and white water rafting.

We booked white water rafting for tomorrow and a dusk trip up a river to see the monkeys and fireflies on Thursday.

The treks up Kinabalu come three flavours or the D.I.Y. option. The D.I.Y. option is not an option, whilst possible, it requires permits and rooms booking and then tour agents have all the rooms booked up for months.

The one day option isn't much fun, a very early start with a quick match up the mountain, reaching the summit just in time for the clouds to arrive before rushing back down in order to escape before night fall.

We decided to keep looking and, after yet more meandering and yet more travel agents we booked two trips, more out of desperation than need, I think.  We are white water rafting tomorrow and going to see some monkeys and fireflies on Thursday.

The travel agent was convinced that we were rich because of our surnames and, as she pointed out, we'd under estimated the exchange rate by a half, we felt pretty bloody rich too.

We asked the travel agent where was good to eat and they recommended the fish market.  They're exact words were "It is very expensive for us, but not for you."

The fish market was exactly what I had imagined an Asian fish market to me like. Row after row of tanks with live fish for you. Not just fish, horseshoe crabs, crabs, sharks, snails and other mollusks and crustaceans too.

After being accosted by a very friendly, but determined waitress who In think would have chased us down the street, had we tried to leave without buying something, we decided to have a couple of tiger prawns and a grouper.

The tiger prawns were massive, ours were only medium sizes too! It was served with some shredding stuff that was also really good.

The grouper was also lovely, cooked quite plainly but served in a very slightly spiced sauce that didn't overpower the fish.  Presentation isn't a strong point but the food was good, even if it was served on plastic picnic plates.

As you can see, we are both smiling, that might be because of the GIANT bottles of Tiger beer served with it though.