Honeymoon

Our Sabah Sarawak Adventure

Day One - 27 May 2006

We started our adventure the night before by departing from Boon Lay Shopping Centre in a super cool and super fast bus ride to KL Pudu Raya. Having learnt my lesson from my previous LCCT brouhaha, we arrived at KLIA LCCT at the disgustingly early time of 5am. hello...our flight's at 9.30am. *grr*....we landed in Kota Kinabalu at 12.30pm, officially missing the jetty to Gayana Island and had to wait some more till 3.30pm when the next ferry departed.

The journey was well worth it. The ferry ride was very scenic. It being a Saturday and all, i was very surprised to see that there was hardly anybody around.





The 20-min ride brought us to Gayana Island Ecoresort. The view from out chalet was simply breathtaking...



Awak and i were dead tired from all that travelling from the night before, so we had an early dinner at the resort's seafood restaurant.



bathed by the approaching rain, we spent dinner reminiscing about our past, his BH 90210 hair days and my naughty years at CCKSS.

Day Two - 28 May 2006

Awak saved a life today! We were on our way to snorkelling just after breakfast when i spied a lil black bird swimming in the water.

Me: "Eh awak! See! That bird swimming!"
Awak: "Swimming ker haper. Dia jatuhlah."
Me: "HA?! Then he drowning? Dear YOU MUST SAVE HIM!"

so my dearest heroic awak, ever the lifesaver, took off his sandals right there along the boardwalk and jumped into the water to rescue Bird Bird


that little speck of black is Bird Bird struggling in the water.


awak to the rescue!


so brave, right? the water's filled with sea urchins y'know...


getting rid of the salt water on Bird Bird


then drying Bird Bird


hey the tissue didn't work...

So only after we made sure Bird Bird was safe and dry, we went to Hornbill Beach. The ferry driver left us all by ourselves at the jetty and said, "I'll be back in 2 hours."

The sun was out and the waters were clear. Awak had bought 3 packs of stale Gardenia bread to feed the fish. As soon as one piece hit the water, it was a free game feeding frenzy! Once, awak even saw a bigger fish eat up a smaller fish who was distracted in trying to get a bite of the bread.

As i held the bread in my fingers, fishes would swim up and take a bite. i guess they could not tell bread from hand; they kept biting me instead. and my toes weren't spared either. i kept swallowing salt water and i'd go "ouch!" "oww!" underwater.


fed fish from my feet

we made our way back to our room to wash up after the boatman fetched us back. it was only about 1.30pm and we thought we had plenty of time for lunch. RIGHT. the moment we finished our prayers, it started raining. and it poured. and it rained. it rained cats and dogs and bears and lions. so in the end we couldn't go out for lunch.

so awak and i stayed in, curled up on the sofa watching the lightning streak across the skies and the rain coming from all directions (yeah, even upwards from the water). cocooned in that uber-comfy state, i dozed off.

my stomach growled me out of sleep. having missed lunch, we were terribly hungry. so imagine the shock at looking at the clock to see that it was nearly midnight! wah lau we slept till so late! and there was no food...save for two packs of Mamee Cup Noodles we sneaked in from the mainland. so we had to make do with that and a packed of haw flakes.

Day 3 - 29 May 2006

I could kill awak. he tickled me out of bed today to make sure we got up before the sun did.


the boardwalk outside our room





We packed up and left Gayana Island Ecoresort feeling good about what lies ahead.


bubbyes Gayana!



We took the ferry back to Kota Kinabalu town and checked in our hotel for the night, the Kinabalu Daya Hotel. We dropped by a cybercafé to download pics into awak's thumbdrive and after lunch, we explored the pasar for gifts. The pasar was hot and stuffy but it sold a billion and ten items from knick-knacks to household items to sun-dried fish.

That night, we walked along Jln Haji Saman for dinner and we came across this huge field of food stalls! there must have been at least 100 different stalls selling local fare...*yum*...there was even this makcik selling sea grapes! awak got a whole BBQed fish for himself and i got my BBQ chicken wings. with steaming fried rice to go with that and hot teh tarik to wash it down with, we returned to our room for dinner.


awak eating sea grapes. (anggur laut, the makcik called it.)

Day 4 - 30 May 2006
After breakfast we headed to the airport to catch our MAS shuttle to Kuching. The plane transited at Bintulu and an hour later, we arrived in Kuching. At the airport, we caught a taxi to Holiday Inn Damai Lagoon Resort. Awak had chosen this place and according to him, it was so secluded that the resort was self-sufficient and had their own in-house activities.

The 50 mins taxi ride was the most bumpiest and rough ride i've ever been on. seeing everyone pass by in their 4WDs and large stable MPV suddenly made a lot of sense on the Kuching-Damai terrain. the only soothing part of the ride was having awak holding the barf bag to my mouth and rubbing my back. oh yes...that and of course the breathtaking views of Putri Santubong and Putri Sejinjang helped with the motion-sickness too.





I LOVE OUR ROOM! we had a chalet that faced the vast beauty of the South China sea to the right and the heights of Mount Santubong to the left.











Awak and i spent the afternoon exploring the grounds and making a stop at the cyber station. It started drizzling after maghrib, so we ordered room service and stayed in for the night.

Day 5 - 31 May 2006

After breakfast awak and i rented bicycles to explore the neighbouring resorts and Damai village.

Remember the uber-rough taxi ride getting into the resort? Well, if a four-wheeled vehicle was akin to a roller coaster ride, imagine how it was like on a flimsy 8-speed piece of metal disguised as a mountain bike. *groan*

The trailed we covered along the foot of Mt Santubong was roughly (and i do mean that literally) 3 kilometres.







Exhausted, we returned to the resort for a quick shower and lunch before heading to the beach.

Awak's bright idea: to rotate 15 mins each at the jacuzzi-steambath-sauna stations routine. TWICE! the jacuzzi was good for soothing my tired body from the rough ride back and the sauna was relaxing for my sweaty body. but for some reason, i could not take the steam bath. the head went straight to my head, u felt woozy and dizzy all at the same time and at one point, awak had to help me out of the pool. i then insisted that we go to the beach like normal people and swam till sunset.


Day 6 - 1 June 2006

After breakfast awak and i took the shuttle to Kuching town and we were dropped off at Holiday Inn Kuching. After depositing our luggage, we set off to explore Kuching town.

We walked along Sungai Kuching and bought a gazillion things along the way. Tired and ready to be declared bankrupts, we headed to the airport, wondering what Kuala Lumpur will bring.

Hotel Malaya's main door opens right smack into Petaling Street! When we arrived that night, we had dinner at the nearby "kedai mamak" as they called it there.
Awak has his mee goreng pedas while i wanted some murtabak. when it came, i was pleasantly surprised!



the crust was tissue-paper thin! it was soooooo yummy and i've never come across murtabak with crust this thin and delicious. but check out the onions...



Day 7 - 2 June 2006

We didn't have much time today, coz awak had Friday prayers, so we headed out after breakfast to see KL early in the morning.





I met awak at the LRT station after zuhr and we headed down to KLCC to catch X-Men.

I've always wanted to eat at Nando's. The peri-peri chicken is reputed to be excellent so we had lunch there. Mistakenly ordered the platter.


the ever-ready fireman preparing for the fire...


as the waitress put it, "wow...boleh kenduri!"


the aftermath...

I only noticed that it was for 3-4 persons after the meal. the hot is HOT man! my eyes and nose watered, and if my ears produced liquid, they would have watered too.

That night we went into Shah Alam to meet mak usu, pak usu, mak lang, mak itam and the kids. Hee hee...lost our way but found a good makan place that served our food within 10 mins! not bad for a seafood restaurant. Awak tucked into the fish with vigour...poor baby...tak best eat seafood alone, so awak has had to abstain from seafood when we eat. i keep telling him, "eat lah whatever ever u want. very easy. chicken for me."

Day 8 - 3 June 2006

Awak and i started packing after breakfast and we checked out, heading towards the Ancasa Hotel where we were going to catch our coach back to Singapore. I saw an A&W across Pudu and immediately determined that we were going to have our last meal in KL at A&W.










And so our Sabah & Sarawak adventure ends. That's it. : )

For the full photographic account, please click on the Multiplying Omnichups link and view the four albums.